Sermons - February 2025

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 9th FEBRUARY 2025, 11am
(5th SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY)

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called,
and the house filled with smoke.
And I said: ‘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!’ Isaiah 6

Careless or reverent? Expectant or underwhelmed?
How do we enter a church? Our church, any church?
Designated holy ground?
Is it time to check the socials or should we really be removing our shoes
and covering our heads?

This week, unexpectedly, the voice and stories of an old college friend.
Five years studying theology have fitted him for four decades of sports reporting –
covering Glasgow Old Firm fixtures and Masters golf tournaments in springtime Augusta.
More recently he has turned his hand to a podcast on Faith & Sport.
He is the son of a Baptist minister.
From a recent podcast, this Holy Week account from his undergraduate days:

“A boozy football club tour to Paris in mid-1980’s,
in the company of daft and funny and really brilliant team-mates,
I dragged myself away to be inside Notre Dame Cathedral that Good Friday evening, yearning to be inside a church,
to be somehow in a holy place, away from all the noise,
to have that sense again of the numinous.

That Friday evening, here was I, a Scottish Baptist –
we have bare walls; we don’t do adornments -
here I was inside this most famous, ornate cathedral,
with candles lit and an old Parisian lady sat next to me at the back –
the cathedral was packed - clutching her rosary and praying fervently.
I looked around this scene and I thought of the party and carnage
I had momentarily separated myself from,
and I caught an image of Christ on the cross high up in that cathedral transept
and this became one of the most moving experiences I’ve ever had inside a church.”

Careless or reverent? Expectant or underwhelmed?
How do we enter our church? Any church?
The poet Philip Larkin described how he entered churches –
something he obviously did regularly. In his poem Church Going:

Once I am sure there’s nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church:
Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,
He runs his hand round the font;
declares Here endeth the lesson, at the lectern.
Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,

In the remainder of the poem Larkin speculates
what these little-used churches will become,
either falling into ruin, or preserved as museum pieces.
Yet, the poem concludes:
It pleases me to stand in silence here;
A serious house on serious earth it is,
… that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
[… yearning to be inside a church,
to be somehow in a holy place, away from all the noise,
to have that sense again of the numinous.]

Careless or reverent? Expectant or underwhelmed?
How do we enter our church? Any church?

Isaiah’s vision in/from the Temple portrays a drama of the holy
way beyond the norm for 11am on a routine St Columba’s Sunday:
In the year that King Uzziah died,
I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty;
and the hem of his robe filled the temple.
Seraphs flew – calling to each other:
were in attendance above him; each had six wings:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’
The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called,
and the house filled with smoke.

The prophet contrasts a mortal earthly king (Uzziah), who has just died,
and the Lord of Hosts, whose reign is eternal,
with the divine creatures, attending and singing praises.

Isaiah sees the Lord, sitting on a throne.
Viewing the Divine in the Hebrew Bible is hazardous;
Exodus 33:20: “But,’ the LORD said, ‘you cannot see my face,
for no one shall see me and live.”
Moses was not allowed to see God’s face.
Isaiah however is given that moment.
And before this divine shock and awe, he is transformed.
Shaken and stirred.
God’s holiness/otherness leads Isaiah to a clearer awareness/perspective of his own condition,
and that of the people among whom he lives.
In a combination of awe, reverence, and humility, Isaiah confesses,
“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!”

Crucially, God entertains Isaiah’s presence,
permits his seeing, despite his stains.
The Divine then asks Who shall I send, suggesting that Isaiah is not alone.
Whoever else is addressed, it is Isaiah who volunteers –
not perhaps entirely recognising what he is being called to do.
But offering the famous: “Here I am. Send me.”

The Gospel (Luke 5) also portrays a moment of epiphany;
another ,“I am a sinful man” moment of self recognition,
in the face of God’s otherness –
another commissioning too.

By the waters of Gennesaret, the lake of the harp, Galilee, as we know it,
Jesus teaches the crowds from his boat-builder’s pulpit.
The fisher lads are sorting the nets.
Weary from a night’s long labours – not a minnow to show for it.
“Simon, put out into the deep water, let down your nets once more.”
You can almost hear the sucking of teeth:
“With respect Rabi, we have fished all night and….”
But Jesus holds his gaze – “Try once more – put out into the deep.”
“If you say so…”

Then, boiling waters, bulging nets, twisting shoals of silver.
More and more they shimmer, till the depths, a churning cauldron,
arms and timbers alike, groaning under the weight of the impossible.
“It is too much” Simon – on his knees now:
“I cannot bear this. This dazzlement. This haul of holiness.
I am not fit for this.”

What happened next?
Then Jesus said to Simon:
“Perhaps you’re right. Yes, this is a mistake.
This is not for you – you sinful man.
I can only deal with unblemished cv’s; reliable types;
a Pharisee, with a safe pair of hands.”

That of course is exactly what Jesus didn’t say;
just as the Divine did not order the seraphs-bouncers
to eject Isaiah, because his name was not smart enough for the guest list.
Just as the father did not shut the gates on the returning prodigal.
Or the Shepherd tell his sheep - you’ve had your chance.

That is why this lakeside tale becomes a story,
not in the end, about fish, but about followers.
The catch of the day
is a handful of ordinary folk,
recruited not from the synagogue, but the workplace.
A reminder that one of the Church of Scotland membership vows is:
“… to serve Christ in our daily work.”

Simon Peter faced with the epiphany,
drawn from the waters of his own life and experience,
can’t imagine that the two – the glory and the grit -
can co-exist or coincide.
To which Jesus replies:
“You are enough.
Frailty, fear, failure and inadequacy are never obstacles to God's love.
God has never asked for perfect messengers.
Wounded healers, he loves to recruit.
Do not be afraid; from now on …..”

From now on, the consequences to, putting out into the deep,
are only just beginning -
for Simon, for his companions -
perhaps for any who discover a hunger/yearning
for their more serious self.
Who see, or sense, the siren call, we sometimes sing:
Will you come and follow me, if I but call your name?
And to their surprise and lasting joy, answer:
“Here I am. Send me.”