Calling Not the Clean But the Unclean – Thoughts and Prayer for Epiphany 3
The Gospel reading for today (in the Revised Common Lectionary) centers on Jesus calling his first four disciples. It is noteworthy for several reasons that these initial disciples were fishermen. One reason will suffice for now. Early Rabbinic literature specifically mentions two professions in which it was virtually impossible to follow the Torah’s purity laws. The first was that of fishermen, because by virtue needing to sort mixed catches of aquatic creatures, they were constantly touching unclean animals. The four fishermen Jesus called were very much so, on the fringes of religious society – virtually untouchable because of the transferable impurity necessarily acquired from their subsistence occupation. In Luke’s version of the story of Peter’s calling, Jesus instructs Peter to let down his fishing nets which leads to a miraculously large catch of fish. There are three notable aspects of what follows:
1) Peter is overwhelmed at the revelation of Jesus and falls at his feet
2) Peter confesses his own sinfulness, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man”
3) Jesus commissions Peter to ministry: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” (Luke 5:8-10)
These three happenings remarkably parallel Isaiah’s prophetic commissioning when he:
1) Sees the glory of God on his throne (Isaiah 6:1-4)
2) Confesses his own sinfulness: “I am a man of unclean lips.” (Isaiah 6:5)
3) Is commissioned by God to ministry (Isaiah 6:8ff.)
Here Peter has a commissioning to prophetic ministry in which the glory of God is revealed to him, but not in a vision. Rather, it occurs right in the midst of the most banal surroundings of Peter’s life: his fishing boat. Rather than Peter being transported to another realm, the Divine has become incarnate, embodied in the very stuff of Peter’s life. It is there that he beholds the Divine Glory, has a revelation of his own inadequacy and is nevertheless told not to fear and is commissioned to the prophetic ministry. This is stunning because the recognized prophet of God, who had been confirmed already by many miracles, was choosing his followers, not from the religious elite, but amidst the unequivocally unclean, thereby extending the favor of God to them. That Jesus, the prophet, had accepted them symbolized to them and to all, that God had in fact accepted, those whom the religious elite had written off and the political and cultural elite had absolutely no concern for.
This is even more incredible by virtue of the fact that the second profession noted by Rabbinic writings as essentially unclean was carpentry, because they doubled as undertakers. Part of Jesus’ very own profession was that of regularly handling dead bodies. God incarnate was perpetually ritualistically unclean. This testifies to the depths of the humility of God. Not only does he reach out and embrace the disenfranchised and rejected, he identifies with them by living in their status of categorical rejection. He does not reach out from an untouchable pedestal, but embraces us from within our own downcast condition. He enters the world of our internalized and long forgotten reproach that we resignedly grow accustomed to. He carries within his own soul the humiliations and life-denying negations of shame and disdain which we reconcile with. He feels the sting of death in the isolation we have concluded is our portion. In doing so, he invites us to follow him, abolishing the wisdom of this age and bursting apart the categorical designations that had bound us to a cycle of despair. His acceptance liberates us into our true humanity and empowers us to leave our former unrighteousness, our previous beaten-down, bent-over posture. We abandon a playing and laying-low that abdicates the responsibility to rise into our glorious identity as divine image-bearers. In his invitation we find a way out. In his friendship we are free.
And so we pray:
It is right, and a good and joyful thing,
always and everywhere to give thanks to you,
Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,
Because your Son, our Lord the Messiah
Calls to himself not the clean but the unclean
Not the well but the sick
Not the righteous but the unrighteousness
Not the wise but the foolish,
Not the strong but the weary,
To be His disciples and friends, and to follow him in his works.
In thus, he destroys the wisdom of the powers of this age
For your foolishness is wiser than human wisdom
And your weakness is stronger than human strength.
You have chosen the foolish to confound the wise
And the weak to confound the strong.
In befriending the lowly and despised,
those accounted as nothing
he has reduced the kingdoms
and powers of this world to nothing
manifesting his glory as
one who is gentle and humble in heart
the friend of sinners and the hope of the poor.
Therefore we praise you, joining with Angels and Archangels
And with all the company of heaven
Who for ever sing this hymn to proclaim the glory of your Name:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
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