Everyone Here is Broken

Homily for Sunday, February 9, 2025
The Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
Isaiah 6:1-8, [9-13]
Luke 5:1-11

Most mornings during my sabbatical in Dublin, I walked maybe 100 yards around the corner from my apartment to attend Mass at the Whitefriars’ church, not far from St. Stephen’s Green.  The Carmelites (the “Whitefriars”) have had a church on this site for nearly 800 years.   Being “in the business,” so to speak, I always listen carefully to the homily.  As might be expected, some of the fathers were excellent preachers and others… not so much.  One day the presider was a priest I had not seen.  He was quite elderly and had difficulty making the walk from the sacristy to the altar.  And though he must have been ordained 50 or 60 years, he had trouble finding his way through the Missal (the Mass book at the altar).  His homily was meandering and incoherent, and during the course of the Mass, I found myself getting more and more angry.  I was angry at the priest:  “How long have you been doing this, and still you can’t find your way through the Missal?”  I was angry at the Carmelites:  “Let this man retire!”  I was angry at the Roman Church:  “How many capable, competent nuns are there who would make fabulous priests?”  I carried my head of steam all the way through the liturgy to the Communion, until…When the person in front of me received the bread and stepped away, I was left face to face with the priest.  I could see how frail he was.  With one hand he grasped the rail so as not to fall.  With his other he extended to me the ciborium (the bowl) with the bread.  And this hand – and the ciborium and the wafers in it – were shaking.  “The body of Christ,” he said.  I was immediately seized with remorse.  “How could I have been so judgmental?” I thought.  “How did I not remember that Jesus – ‘The body of Christ’ – is not about strength or power or eloquence or competence?”  “How did I not see that this man was offering what he had to offer, and that he had probably been asked to celebrate that day and because of his vow of obedience he did?”  And, “Who was I to pass judgment on his calling, on his willingness to say ‘Yes’ to Jesus?”

When I was in seminary, it was purely academic to me that – as the Church decided in the 4^thcentury, after the so-called Donatist heresy, in which one Bishop Donatus claimed (heretically) that the ordination of any priest who had renounced the faith during persecution was subsequently invalid – [when I was in seminary, it was purely academic that] ex opere operato, or “from the work worked,” as the Church decided:  that is, the efficacy of the sacrament derives from the rite itself and does not depend on the worthiness of the priest.  And here in 2023, I effectively had fallen into the same 4th century heresy.  I had forgotten that – even if I think the priest is incompetent – he is still a priest, and Christ has called him and can still work through him.

Both today’s Old Testament and Gospel lessons tell stories of call. In Isaiah chapter 6, God calls Isaiah to be a prophet:  

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty... Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  And I said, “Here I am; send me.”

And in Luke chapter 5, Jesus calls Peter to be his disciple:

Jesus said, “From now on, you will be catching people.”  When they had brought their boats to shore,they left everything and followed him.

Both Isaiah and Peter protest that they cannot follow because they perceive themselves to be unworthy.  “I am a man of unclean lips,” Isaiah said.  Peter said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  Both felt themselves unworthy of God’s call.

But our perceived unworthiness seems not to be an issue with God. In Isaiah, after Isaiah said that he was “a man of unclean lips,” God sent a seraph “holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.  The seraph touched[Isaiah’s] mouth with it and said, ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’”  And after Peter said, “Go away from me, Lord,for I am a sinful man,” Jesus replied, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will be catching people.”  Though we may think ourselves to be unworthy of being called by God – or though we (as I did that day in Dublin) may think others to be unworthy – yet God seems to delight to call into his service those who, from our human perspective, may seem the least fit for it.

In 1 Samuel chapter 16, the prophet Samuel went to Bethlehem to anoint one of Jesse’s sons as king.  You may recall the story.  “Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel.”  These were tall and handsome young men.  But…

…Samuelsaid to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these…. Are all your sons here?”  And [Jesse] said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him…” [Then] the Lord said,“Rise and anoint him, for this is the one…. (1 Sam 16:10-12)

“The Lord does not see as mortals see,” God then reminded Samuel. “They look on the outward appearance,but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Sam 16:7).

On that day in Dublin, I looked only on the outward appearance of the priest and saw an old man who had difficulty walking and preaching.  But the Lord looks on the heart, and the Lord had called this man to serve as a priest.  And thank God God did.  And thank God I was there that day so that I could be reminded that God calls us despite our perceived unworthiness and despite our brokenness.  Perhaps God calls us even because of our perceived unworthiness and because of our brokenness.

I will leave us with another story, one that took place here in Newton while I was away in Dublin.  It was the First Sunday after Christmas, and we were sharing the liturgy with St. John’s, Newtonville, at St. John’s.  As we are wont to do when we go to St.John’s, a group of us were sitting near to each other in the front pews.  When the gifts were brought forward for the Communion, one usher had an arm in a sling, another walked with a crutch, and the third was wheezing and walked with a cane.  As they drew near to the altar, one of us turned to the pew behind and said, “Everyone here is broken!”  Not ten seconds later, as if on cue, the priest – who was well into his eighties, if not his nineties – fell down and disappeared behind the altar and needed to be helped back up, from where he then carried on with the liturgy.

“Everyone here is broken.”  But God sends a seraph with a live coal that has been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs and touches our mouth.  “Everyone here is broken.”  But Jesus says, “Do not be afraid…  Put out into the deep…  From now on you will be catching people.”  “Everyone here is broken.”  But Paul says, “God chose what is foolish in this world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not,to reduce to nothing things that are… so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power” (I Cor 1:26-29; 1:17).

“Everyone here is broken.”  May our brokenness, or our perceived unworthiness, not keep us from hearing and following the call of the Lord.  Who looks not on outward appearances but on the heart.  And who – despite our brokenness or perceived unworthiness; or perhaps because of our brokenness or perceived unworthiness – calls each of us to follow as his disciple.