5 Epiphany, Year C 2025: Luke 5:1-11

Elizabeth Ann Seton was born in New York City on August 28, 1774, and was raised as an Episcopalian. In 1795 she married William Seton, and their family came to include five children. In 1801, the family business went bankrupt. In 1803, her husband developed symptoms of tuberculosis, and they set sail for Italy in the hopes that the warm climate might cure his disease. The Italian authorities, fearing yellow fever, quarantined them in a cold stone hospital for the dying, resulting in William’s death. Elizabeth, now a young widow struggling to support five children with few resources, was befriended by Roman Catholics and, as a result, was drawn to the Catholic Church. Returning to New York with five children to support, she found herself alone and in financial straits. She turned to Catholic clergy for support and, in 1805, she formally became a member of the Catholic Church. In 1806, she met Father Louis Dubourg, who wanted to start a congregation of women religious, patterned after the French Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul. In 1809 Elizabeth took vows and became “Mother Seton” to a small community of seven women, known as the Sisters of Charity of Saint Joseph, who were dedicated to teaching. The sisters were given land in rural Maryland and, in 1810, they opened Saint Joseph’s Free School to educate needy girls. The sisters intertwined social ministry, education, and religious formation in all of their varied works. Out of the pioneering work of Elizabeth Seton, five independent communities of the Sisters of Charity now exist, offering ministry and care for the most vulnerable. Elizabeth Ann Seton remained the superior of the Sisters of Charity until her death in 1821. The legacy of the Sisters of Charity has left a lasting impact on the Episcopal Church as well as on the Catholic Church. The earliest Anglican religious orders for women used the rule of the Sisters of Charity as the basis for their own rules, and there have been Sisters of Charity in the Anglican Communion since 1869. Elizabeth was going about her life, trying to support herself and her family, and ended up called to do God’s work in a specific way.

Jesus finds us, as he found Elizabeth, where we are, just as he found these first disciples in Luke’s gospel today. The text doesn’t say, “Jesus was looking for some fishermen” or “Simon, James, and John were looking for ways to follow the Lord”. Jesus needed some help getting away from the crowds. Simon’s boat was there. Jesus’ needs and Simon’s skills were in perfect alignment. And then things got…intense. But after this big sign from Jesus, they knew they had to accept his call to fish for people. And they left everything and followed him.

This story is found in all four Gospels. Although in John it’s a post-resurrection appearance and in that version the way in which the disciples knew that it was Jesus calling to them was by the filling of their nets, all of the stories echo earlier accounts of God calling people to serve Him. In Exodus 3, Moses is called while tending sheep. In Judges 6, Gideon is called while beating wheat. And in Isaiah 6, as we read today, Isaiah is called in the temple. In all three of these earlier accounts, the person who is called pushes back on God, with all of them asking essentially the same question. Moses says, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Gideon says, “But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” And Isaiah says, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Simon’s response to Jesus’ call might seem like an overreaction. "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" But this is the second time in 15 verses that Simon has witnessed a sign, clearly demonstrating that to be in Jesus’ presence is to be in the presence of the divine. Near the end of chapter 4, Simon is mentioned for the first time in Luke when Jesus enters Simon’s house. Nobody, Simon included, is a “disciple” yet. If Simon’s story is familiar to you, it’s easy to mush it all together and get the timeline of events confused. But this isn’t keys-to-the-kingdom Simon or even fisherman Simon - we’re not told he’s a fisherman until the next chapter. This is some guy Simon with a family member who needed healing. So Simon’s first experience of Jesus was that Jesus entered his house, stood over his mother in law, rebuked the fever - the same word here as earlier in Luke when Jesus drives out an unclean spirit - and she was instantly healed. This was Simon’s first experience of Jesus, before today’s text. So Simon has already had this intense, personal experience of the divine while in Jesus’ presence, and then today he has another. Simon’s declaration of his own unworthiness following their miraculous catch indicates his sense of divine presence - a take on “who am I that the Lord presents himself to me?”

Often the reaction to being in the presence of the Lord is the professing of a profound sense of unworthiness. In our own Eucharistic celebration in the Rite I service, one of the first things we say following the fraction of the consecrated bread, which now contains the real presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, is an acknowledgement of our own unworthiness when we pray, “we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs underneath thy table.” Elizabeth’s reaction to Mary visiting her earlier in Luke is, “and why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?”

But in all of our feelings of unworthiness, we oftentimes forget that it’s not about us, it’s about God. In none of these stories does God try and convince those whom he has called of their own qualifications. There’s no checking of resumes. God’s response to Moses is, “I will be with you” The response to Gideon? “But I will be with you.” The response to Isaiah is a little murkier, but the angel still addresses Isaiah’s concerns about his own worthiness by “cleansing” his sin, a reminder that God makes us worthy, we do not do so ourselves. What made all of these people qualified, what makes all of them worthy, is that God called them.

When I began to transition from being an assistant priest where I celebrated the Eucharist once a month to being the primary celebrant, I wondered if it was going to have an impact on how I viewed the sacrament, knowing that it was just me who had blessed it. But it hasn’t. Because it’s not about me, it’s about God. I’m always reminded of theologian Fr John MacQuarrie’s words that “In any encounter with God, (God) has the initiative. He comes to us before we think of seeking Him. We can never, as it were, manipulate God or have Him at our disposal. It is unfortunately the case that sometimes the sacraments have been misunderstood as a kind of magic. We can indeed wait upon God at set times or in particular places or in such practices as prayer and eucharistic worship. But it is not our faith or our expectation or our activity, still less is it the power of the priest, that produces the encounter with God. He has always got there before us. Sacraments are not human inventions to summon God at our convenience.” (Macquarrie, 6) This reminder has always helped me when I start to feel like I’m in over my head or that everything is too much: that it isn’t about me. None of this is about me nor determined by me. It is all about God.

The actions against faith groups, particularly unfounded accusations of financial misdoings against Lutheran Family Services, that have occurred over the past couple of weeks can be partially traced back to a misunderstanding of this theology. Because Jesus didn’t say, “follow me, and while we do this work we’re going to enrich ourselves.” Nor did he say, “follow me, and we’ll take really great care of your families and then if we have time and resources maybe we’ll get to the needs of others.” As we learn from our God, we are to care for others, regardless of who they are or their connection to us, not because of who they are but because of who we are. Because we proclaim to follow Jesus Christ, we are to consider all people our neighbors, not excluding those who have nothing to offer us in return, but prioritizing them. We don’t serve our neighbors, we don’t serve “the least of these” because we hope to get something in return. We serve them because Jesus said so. We serve them because we have had it modeled to us that in order to be like a God who serves because of who He is, we are to serve because of who we are.

God tells us who to care about because of who God is. And God calls us to serve Him in the world because of who God is. And we obey because of who God is: the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. The Eucharist is the only meal which, when consumed, does not become part of us. Rather, the Eucharist makes us more like it: more like the presence of Jesus Christ. We are to go into the world as the people God calls us to be because of who God is. Amen.