Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
February 27, 2022

Encountering Radiance
Exodus 34:29-35

When I moved to Boston for seminary, a whole world of possibilities opened up to me. Not just new and challenging academic frontiers, a new city and culture to explore – but also a wide expanse of new outdoor adventures, thanks in part to Dary: the White Mountains and Presidential range in New Hampshire; the foothills of the Catskills out in Western Mass, and of course – endless wilderness in Maine to paddle, camp, and hike through. I was used to well marked, well trodden trails in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge, with clear blazes, relatively safe ascents and gradual descents. So I was surprised to find myself clinging to metal rungs on the side of a mountain, ducking through caves, balancing on a knife’s edge, trying not to look down. New England introduced me to a different kind of hiking. I’m still shocked by how cold and windy it can be above the treeline, on top of a mountain– Dary always packs a fleece, sometimes even a hat and gloves for the summit, even in summer. I remember huddling next to him, buffeted by wind and freezing in shorts on Doubletop mountain in Baxter State Park, looking over at Katahdin, and thinking, without the right gear, this could be dangerous.

As, of course, it is. Any search and rescue team can tell you that – you all probably have a few tales of your own to tell about being caught out in the elements.

I can remember gazing out at the landscape with awe – torn between not wanting the moment to end, but feeling eager to dash back down the mountain to warm up, or at least to the safety of tree cover.

The mountaintop is often a beautiful place, with stunning views – but it is never a fully safe place to be. There’s always a risk up there – you might fall, get lost, or suffer from hypothermia, windburn, sunburn, exposure. Psychological risks, too: it changes you to actually see yourself in proper proportion to the rest of the world – tiny, and maybe even meaningless in the grand scheme of things. It’s magnificent, yes- but it isn’t safe.

Moses certainly discovered this to be true. Peter, John, and James did, too. The mountaintop proved to be a revealing place for all of them. Transformational. A little frightening. Moses met God up there, as he was pleading for guidance and mercy for his wayward people. This wasn’t Moses’ first mountaintop encounter with the deity – and this time, Moses was so changed by his time in God’s presence, he came down glowing. His face was shining with the splendor of the divine, and as you might imagine, it was terrifying. His own brother couldn’t even look at him – maybe because it was so strange, maybe because to look at Moses was to be reminded of their own betrayal, worshipping the idol of the golden calf which is what sent Moses back up to the top of Sinai to bargain with God in the first place.

On the front of the bulletin is Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses – can you see he has horns? There are several classical images of Moses with horns, and the tradition comes from a fourth century mistranslation of this passage! The word for shining could also mean horn – and so we find these images of a truly terrifying leader. Some scholars wonder if there wasn’t some intention to this wordplay – drawing a parallel to the golden calf, such that to look at Moses was to be reminded of your own disobedience.

So Moses wore a veil, the text tells us, covering his face when he was out and about doing his day-to-day tasks, removing it only when he was praying, or speaking God’s word to the people. Strange, isn’t it. To be able to continue with his daily life, he had to hide his light…for those who were just in the Forum conversation – he had to assimilate.

Radiance is one of the most common descriptions of God – so bright, it’s like looking at the sun. Surely we’ve all seen someone we describe as radiant – people filled with joy, unself-conscious, beaming. A mother holding her newborn baby. A teacher teaching a topic they’re particularly passionate about. A child filled with pride upon learning a new skill, coming alive in a new way. Old friends, laughing out loud together.

Dorothy Day wrote about riding a city bus: a mundane, necessary task but rarely pleasant experience. She remembers suddenly noticing that all of the other riders were shimmering with the light of transcendence, beautiful, precious and beloved children of God. She was filled with love for them, in their ordinary-ness, the mother with the squalling baby, the rowdy teenagers in their awkwardness, the weary workers heading home. Radiance can find us anywhere, if we have eyes to see it.

Today is transfiguration Sunday, the end of the season of Epiphany and turn toward the season of Lent. Today is when we remember the revelation of Christ on the mountaintop, the transformation of Moses, too, and ask – What are we to make of these strange scenes? What do they tell us about God? What do they reveal about us?

One truth these stories show us that the life of faith moves between the mountaintop and the valley. We are always moving between encounters with the radiance and transcendence of God and the hard work to which God calls us, between the broad perspective we get from being high up and the day-to-day work down in the weeds. Between the clarity of vision we have at 9000 feet and the veiled memory of that vision that carries us through each day. Between the certainty of faith and the reality of doubt. It’s a cycle – up, then down, again and again.

In some ways, and maybe for some of us more than others, weekly worship reflects this cycle – we come, seeking God’s presence. Some weeks, in prayer and silence and scripture and song, we find it. Then, we step outside, back to the street…hopefully fortified, refreshed, and ready for the week ahead, confident of who and whose we are, clear about what God is calling us to do. We come back again, to be reminded.

We learn something of God in these passages – Moses’s second trip up Sinai finds God frustrated with the people for their disobedience, but willing to forgive…it’s where we find the language, God is patient and kind, slow to anger and abounding with steadfast love. Through Moses, God gives the Israelites law to live by, to guide them through the wilderness, to govern daily life. And it changes Moses to encounter God’s love and forgiveness, and to then share that with his people.

And so it is for us – when we encounter and experience the love and forgiveness and goodness of God, our hearts, our lives, are transformed, too.

Last night, as I tucked my girls into bed, I couldn’t help but think of Ukrainians huddled in subways and other shelters to sleep, seeking shelter from the Russian missiles that are bombarding their cities. The reality of war has gripped their country, as Putin grasps for power like a madman. I heard a story last week where mothers were stitching labels into their children’s clothing before sending them to school, labels with their child’s name and blood type in case they were to be injured in an attack. Unfathomable. And for what? Control of a piece of land? Access to natural resources? Bragging rights?

I’m reminded of the image of earth taken by the Voyager spacecraft before it left radio contact with us. Before it hurtled out to parts unknown, father than any other man-made object ever, it turned around to take a picture. Earth is just like a speck of dust in a sunbeam, suspended in space. Carl Sagan, the astrophysicist who worked on the project, says, look at that dot:

That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. … Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.  …To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known. (Carl Sagan, The Blue Dot, 1990)

My prayer for us this week is that we remember the perspective granted to us from our mountaintop experiences. That we are called to be peacemakers, to love one another as God has loved us, to resist the powers of evil and violence that threaten to undo us. It begins with us, with the transformation of our hearts, such that we shine with love, and can notice the shimmer of transcendence wherever we go.

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
February 20, 2022

Radical Reciprocity
Luke 6:27-38

On Friday, February 11, there was a women’s lacrosse game in Clinton, South Carolina. The Howard University Bison were up against the Blue Hose of Presbyterian College – that’s H-o-s-e, for the blue stockings their sportsmen used to wear, a nod to PC’s Scottish heritage. This was the first game of Howard’s season and the women were excited – it was their first time to play under the leadership of their new coach.

Now you might not follow women’s collegiate lacrosse, but if you’re connected to Howard or to PC, you may have heard about this particular game – because in the hours before the teams took to the field…before the players put on their safety glasses and helmets, before the girls from Howard, butterflies in their stomachs, nervously slipped on their gloves, grabbed their sticks, and ran out onto the field hoping to impress their new coach…Before all that, as the young women from Howard got off their bus, loaded down with gear, bundled against the brisk February air, and walked across the short green turf, some other young people, presumably students at Presbyterian College, heckled them, shouting hateful, misogynistic, and racist slurs at them – taunting and provoking the athletes, young women they’d never even met.

Howard Athletic Director Kery Davis said, “I am deeply troubled that some of our student-athletes were subjected to slurs and abusive language before the women’s lacrosse match on Friday.” [1]  Yeah, me too.

The school is investigating the incident – which, hopefully, will lead to consequences for the perpetrators, and will include an examination of the campus culture that gave rise to this incident, a culture in which some students thought that such behavior was acceptable in the first place.

But this morning I keep thinking about those young women who had to take the field with racist taunts ringing in their ears. I’m sure they were angry. Did they feel unsafe? Vulnerable? Insulted? Like something precious had been violated, robbing them of the excitement and energy of the first game of the season? Maybe they took the field as an act of defiance – forget those hateful people, we’re going to play anyway.

I’m going to show you a few pictures and I want you to pay attention to how you feel when you see them. How does your body react?  \What do the images evoke in you, or remind you of?

These guys are the Greenville 4: Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil. They started the lunch counter sit-in protests at Woolworths lunch counter in Greenville, South Carolina in February of 1960. The day they began their protest, they tried to buy lunch, but the staff refused to serve them. The police were called, but didn’t take action because the students were just sitting there. As you know, the movement grew from there – here’s a picture of another sit in, that grew a bit more heated.

Here is one that’s more recent – and a little confusing, if you remember the story that swirled around this viral video – a teenager from Kentucky in a MAGA hat grins at a Native American elder at a protest in Washington, DC.

Here is Dr. William Barber, and Jesse Jackson being arrested during a poor people’s campaign protest in DC.

This is from the Dakota Access Pipeline protest at Standing Rock.

Here’s Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman on January 6.

And here is an image of a Black Lives Matter protestor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana – in 2018.

Many (but not all) of these photos show civil disobedience, nonviolent direct action that seeks to create change by drawing attention to a problem, or to protest something that is wrong. These actions often bring people into conflict with others who oppose them, or with police who have been charged with to keep peace or protect property. These images are often what comes to mind for me when I hear Jesus call us to love and turn the other cheek.

The power of nonviolent resistance has transformed our world. It brought the British colonial empire to its knees in India. It ended Jim Crow segregation in the South. It stopped the pipeline. It’s drawn attention to police brutality and systemic racism.

Its power comes from collective action to form a movement – from many people acting as one to say together – there is a better way. But even movements come down to individual choices – one person committing to love instead of hate. One person and then another, and another choosing to work for restoration instead of seeking retribution. One person, in the face of violence, in the grip of fear or the red flash of anger, standing firm, sitting calmly, breathing peace, and turning the other cheek.

Our passage this morning may be Jesus’ most famous teaching. It may be one of his hardest teachings, too. So hard, many find it impossible. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…turn the other cheek…Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

This passage is the continuation of the blessings and woes we heard last week, the sermon on the plain from the Gospel of Luke. Christ is teaching his disciples, and many more who would like to be – a big crowd of folks who’ve gathered seeking healing, and power.

The path of discipleship is not an easy one. Discipleship led Christ into conflict with the authorities, to Jerusalem and Golgotha, to crucifixion and death. With this teaching, I believe Jesus is preparing his followers to navigate the difficult road ahead, where they will encounter conflict, opposition, even hatred. But not only that. He’s helping us find our way into heaven, here and now – the reign of God present in the world around us. He’s teaching us how to liberate ourselves from the burdens of hate, bile and bitterness. Let it go, he says. Give freely to others without expecting anything in return. Forgive, as you have been forgiven. Love, as you have been loved – as God has given to you, forgiven you, and loved you without expecting anything in return. This is radical reciprocity, rooted in and stemming not from other people but from the goodness and mercy and love of God.

You know, the Golden Rule is found in every major world religion, in some form or another. And so there is wisdom we can draw from other religions to help us put Christ’s call to love and forgiveness into action. Buddhist scholars Robert Thurman and Sharon Salzburg wrote a book called Love your Enemy. In conversation with Krista Tippett of NPR’s On Being, they explain that loving your enemy isn’t the weak choice. It’s not choosing to be a doormat or pushover. Loving your enemies is a way to show powerful compassion for yourself. In Krista’s words, loving your enemies “is actually the most rational and pragmatic move, an antidote to a consuming culture of anger that is not a way most of us want to live.”[2] It takes so much energy, so much negative energy to be angry! It makes us feel terrible. Sure, anger, and hatred can motivate us, they can drive us to take action. But at what cost? Anger and hatred allow others to control how we feel – they can eat us up inside, send our thoughts racing in the same harmful loops, recounting the same litany of failures over and over again. That’s no way to live.

In living with the text this week, I realized that so often I think of this call in a big picture way, envisioning THE ENEMY out there – a Big “E” enemy, the looming faceless other: Russia amassing troops on the border of Ukraine, or the white supremacist nationalists who stormed the US Capitol last year. But the enemy we confront far more often is smaller, closer, more intimate than that. A small “e” enemy – the neighbor that annoys, the sibling who disappoints, the friend who borrows and doesn’t repay. This enemy is sometimes even within us – my own shortcomings, my impatience and anger with my children, my husband, those I know and love best. Finding a way to show compassion – for ourselves, and for others despite our many faults – is a pathway to healing, wholeness, and reconciliation. If Christ is to be believed, it’s how we find our way back to God.

In that conversation with Krista Tippett, Thurman observes that Jesus only had four years to teach before he was killed, whereas the Buddha had 46 years after his enlightenment, which means he had a lot more time to help his students find methodologies to adopt and practice his teachings! Buddhism offers two ways to practice this. One way we can cultivate love of our enemies big and small is through mindfulness – a Buddhist would do this through meditation practice – to build an awareness and presence of mind to disrupt patterns of thinking and waves of emotion. To be aware of our bodies, how we are feeling and to recognize that our emotions pass. Just because our hearts beat faster, our faces flush, and our bodies tense with the heat of anger doesn’t mean we have to let it dictate our actions. We can notice it, and change the channel, let it go.

Another way we can cultivate love of our enemies is through a specific kind of meditation called Loving-kindness practice. I actually did this as part of a psychological study when I was in seminary at Boston University. It’s a practice where you take a few minutes each day to think of someone who irks you. Notice how thinking of that person makes you feel. And then actively try to disrupt that feeling, and to not jump to loving them immediately, but at least to feel neutrally toward them. Then, as time goes on, move toward loving them – which is to say, to wish for them to be happy. And notice how that makes you feel, what comes up in you when you try to do that. Over time, your ability to re-route your anger, and your capacity for love will grow. And that is the path to healing. The path to forgiveness, the path to wholeness. The path, ultimately, that will save us all.

I charge you to try one of these practices this week. Maybe just commit to being a bit more present. Or maybe you can try to cultivate love toward yourself, toward a small-e enemy. Maybe you can practice loving-kindness toward someone who is a big-E Enemy; someone who has harmed you or threatened you in some way. See if it loosens something inside of you, opens up a space for love. I believe Christ knew that the only way to change everything was to first transform ourselves. So that when it comes time to hit the field, we can step out with courage, and compassion, and play with joy no matter what they throw at us. May it be so.

[1] Bonesteel, Matt, “Howard Women’s Lacrosse Team Subject to Racist Incident Before Game at Presbyterian,” The Washington Post, 2/14/22, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/02/14/howard-womens-lacrosse-presbyterian/

[2] Tippett, Krista, with Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman, “Love Your Enemies?  (Really)” On Being with Krista Tippett, NPR, 10/31/13, aired again 2/17/22, https://onbeing.org/programs/sharon-salzberg-robert-thurman-love-your-enemies-really/#transcript

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
February 13, 2022

Blessed?
Luke 6:17-26

In my house, we love to read.

Reading has always been one of my hobbies – I can remember sitting sideways in a wingback chair in my living room as a child, curled in the sun like a cat, getting lost for hours in a book. I have less time for deep reading like that these days, and I miss it. It was a great relief and delight to see Maddie become a proficient reader over the past couple of years – for her to begin to carry books to the breakfast table, unable to tear herself away.

Books transport us; they ignite our imaginations, enable us to see the world and our place in it differently. During the pandemic, books provided the perfect escape – allowing us to encounter and explore other cultures and travel to far-off places from the comfort of our living rooms. Reading has taken me to Nigeria and South Africa and Italy, to 16^th century England, even to Mars! Through books, we understand first-hand what it might be like to live through plague, poverty, war, a zombie apocalypse. Books helped open my eyes to the experiences of first and second generation immigrants, the struggles and triumphs of people whose lives are very different than my own.

And reading isn’t just an enjoyable pastime. Research has proven that reading makes us better people – more compassionate, more empathetic, and altruistic. Readers are better able to put themselves in someone else’s shoes, to imagine how other people might be feeling, what others are thinking, and act accordingly. Readers understand others and themselves better – reading builds emotional intelligence and intuition.

And this truth about reading makes me think about how we read scripture, and how it changes us for the better. Are you an observer, on the outside looking in, or do you try to find yourself in the story? I wonder where you found yourself in this passage from Luke, as Jesus shares these blessings.

It’s a bit of a puzzling passage, isn’t it? Troubling, even. Because it doesn’t sound so good for folks who are comfortable, who are content and pleased with their lives and in good standing with their communities. I don’t know about you, but more often than not, that’s where I find myself. With the ones he says “woe” to. Not whoa… woe, as in woe is you. Woe you who are rich, who are full, who laugh.

In this passage, Jesus turns our understanding of blessing upside down.

Because the people he says God blesses, well, they’re not the ones we expect! Blessed are the poor, the hungry, grieving, the reviled.

This is particularly challenging for us as North American Christians, because we probably hear people talk about blessing with some frequency. People claim to be blessed all the time. But a quick search on social media of the #Blessed will show you that our culture does not see blessings the way that Christ does. #blessed reveals photos of smiling families, beautiful homes, designer sneakers, exotic beaches. #blessed reveals the extent to which a lot of American Christian have bought into the prosperity gospel – the idea that abundance, good health, wealth, and power are a sign of God’s favor and blessing.

Kate Bowler is a Professor at Duke Divinity School, who studies the prosperity gospel and is living with cancer. Shortly after she learned she has stage four colon cancer, she wrote an op-ed in the NYTimes connecting her research to her life, grappling with her diagnosis in light of the prosperity gospel. She writes: “The prosperity gospel popularized a Christian explanation for why some people make it and some do not. They revolutionized prayer as an instrument for getting God always to say ‘yes.’ It offers people a guarantee: Follow these rules, and God will reward you, heal you, restore you.”[1]

But we know this is not how God operates. Good people, faithful people get sick. Faith does not prevent suffering. It doesn’t guarantee long life. Bowler says friends, family, and colleagues struggled to make sense of her devastating diagnosis. “There has to be a reason,” she writes, “because without one we are left as helpless and possibly as unlucky as everyone else…The most I can say about why I have cancer, medically speaking, is that bodies are delicate and prone to error. As a Christian, I can say that the Kingdom of God is not yet fully here, and so we get sick and die…”[2]

In our reading this morning, we hear Jesus preaching to a crowd of people, and a lot of them were sick. Scripture tells us the crowds that followed him were people seeking healing, trying to touch him to receive the power that emanated from his being. In the midst of this crowd of hurting people, he offers a promise of blessing. Blessing to the poor, the hungry, grieving, the reviled. I take this to mean that precisely when we feel most isolated, troubled, and alone; when grief sucks the color from life or pain threatens to split us in two, God is most present to, and most concerned for us…in and through the care of our community.

Rick Ufford-Chase, peace activist and former co-moderator of the PCUSA, says he struggled with this passage until he realized that “blessed” can also be translated as “greatly honored.”[3]  God honors those who suffer, are poor, and marginalized, and we who seek to follow Christ must do the same.

We see this in the life and work of Jesus, who came to serve and teach and heal the poor people of Galilee, far from the halls of power. He walked with peasants and prostitutes, people struggling to get by in an occupied land. And everywhere he went, crowds of sick and suffering people followed him, seeking his presence and power. With these blessings and woes, Rick says, “Jesus was making it clear that his notion of community was a total re-orientation – a conscious move to bring those on the margins into the center of community life.”

In our Bible study this week, and in trying to find ourselves in this passage, we realized that the states of being Jesus describes aren’t permanent. We could be blessed one day and woe-begone the next! Grief gives way to joy, and then reemerges. Our hearts are big enough to hold both hope and pain at once. Wealth can be lost, and with inflation these days it feels like is quickly eroded by rising prices. So he might also be helping us see the impermanence and fragility of our existence, even as he calls us to center those who are most in need in our communities of faith and practice. With these blessings and woes, Jesus is building our empathy, our compassion for one another.

Yesterday morning, a group of us gathered in the fellowship hall. Jack Nesbitt has been hard at work, building cedar stands for a story walk that will be installed on our property. A Story Walk is a path that displays a book, page by page, for people to read as they walk. You can find one at the Ivy Bookshop, and at Lake Roland, and many other places if you’re not sure what I’m talking about. For our work day yesterday, Jack and Pat set up wood stain and sealant, paintbrushes and dropcloths. And folks came to pitch in: to sand, stain, and seal the posts and stands. Bill Curtis, Maddie, and I mapped out the walk, driving stakes into the ground where we hope the kiosks will go. It’s exciting, because it feels like our dream is so much closer to becoming reality.

The idea grew out of our concern for learning loss during the pandemic, kids falling behind in reading and literacy during the year of virtual school. One-on-one tutoring through our partner school wasn’t possible last year, but we felt if we could provide an engaging way for students and their families to read – by donating books, offering a little free library, and soon a story walk – with seasonal and other beloved books displayed page by page around the property – it would be a good thing. Good for Faith, and good for our neighbors – after all, reading’s not just an essential skill for academic success. We know it builds compassion, empathy, and altruism. It makes us better humans. And if that isn’t a blessing, I don’t know what is. Thanks be to God.

[1] Bowler, Kate, “Death, the Prosperity Gospel, and Me,” The New York Times, 2/13/16, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ufford-Chase, Rick, qtd. In a facebook post from the Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice, 2/8/21,

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
February 6, 2022

All the Fish in the Sea
Luke 5:1-11; Isaiah 6:1-6

He was exhausted, and his back ached as he crouched on the sandy lakeshore. The nets were a mess, filled with grit and reeds to be picked through, washed out, and cleaned. Another hour’s work at least. The fact that they had not caught any fish that night had one upside – at least they could go straight home to sleep instead of heading to market once the nets were clean.

His calloused hands worked quickly to tie and tighten the knots, mending holes in the nets that were his livelihood. Bending over the ropes, he strained to hear his friend’s voice ring out over the crowd that had gathered to hear him teach on the water’s edge.

It never ceased to amaze him how quickly word spread when Jesus showed up – people would appear out of nowhere, just to catch a glimpse of him, or would bring their old ones or their sick ones, hopeful for a healing. Children flocked to him, too. Luckily, his patience was endless. Peter looked up and shook his head – the villagers were crowding so close, it looked like they might push him into the lake! Another step back and he’d be in the water.

Jesus raised his arm and waved to him – and pointed to the boat. Could he teach from there? Inwardly groaning, Peter stood and shaded his eyes from the morning sun with his hand – hm. The boat might actually work – it would put some distance between him and the crowd, at least, practically the whole village was there. It was worth a try anyway – Simon shrugged and trudged over, whistling to his hired men to come help push the boat back into the water.

They’d already been fishing all night, so what was another couple of hours? The day was fair, and they’d be able to hear Jesus better this way – a front row seat. Simon had heard it before, of course, over dinner the night before, and in the synagogue before that. He’d seen demons cast out, and his own mother-in-law healed of a fever, and the crowds grew more and more each day. He understood their eagerness to hear him, because Simon never tired of hearing him either. Jesus shared good news, talking about the kingdom of God here and now, and promising liberation for the poor, for fishermen and farmers and their families. Simon couldn’t quite explain it, but the teaching filled him up, made his heart swell with something like hope, helped him forget the taxes he had to pay, and that he hadn’t made a good catch in a while.

When Jesus grew tired, he bid goodbye to the crowd and asked Peter to take the boat farther out, into the deep water. When they were far from shore, the men rested on their oars. “Cast your nets here,” he said. Peter laughed, ‘Did you forget you’re a carpenter, man? We fished all night and caught nothing.” Jesus pointed to the water, dark and deep, and again – here, he said. Peter and his men wearily gathered the net, and together heaved it out over the water, watching it splash and slowly sink beneath the waves. As they began to crank it back into the boat, the shining mass of fish startled them, practically leaping out of the water and into their boat, flashing silver, flopping against the wet wood, more than they’d ever seen in one place before. The men were dumbfounded, How could this be? Was it a trick? Their nets were breaking from the sheer weight of them!

They stood and turned back to shore, waving their arms. They cried out to their partners, James and John and their crew, waving, shouting, come, help us!

And when the other boat finally came, and they too were loaded with more fish than they should safely carry, when the wet nets were slung, dripping at the edge of the boat, and rough hands picked up the oars once more to return to shore. The work gave way to wariness. Simon looked at his friend Jesus and not for the first time, felt afraid – fearful for Jesus, for what would the authorities do to him when they knew what he could do? Afraid for himself, too, because surely this man was touched by God, and Simon was unclean – not fit for his presence. Simon couldn’t even remember the last time he’d made the trek to Jerusalem to sacrifice at the temple. Filled with fear, Simon flopped down on the bottom of the boat and cried – leave me be, Lord, I am a sinful man! I do not deserve this miracle! I never asked for it!

I’ve never witnessed a miracle like this, but I certainly know how he was feeling. It’s the feeling of inadequacy, of not being good enough, or skilled enough for the job at hand. It’s being asked to complete a task you’ve only just heard about, with not enough time, experience and resources to get it done. Or, it’s meeting the person you’ve looked up to your whole life, and feeling completely unworthy to be in their presence.

The prophet Isaiah, when called by Almighty God to speak truth to power, is overwhelmed by his own inadequacy. In the presence of God, Isaiah says, oh no, woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips! Choose somebody else!

Richard Rohr says that one of the earliest insights in the Christian tradition is the truth that we are saved by grace. There is nothing we do to earn God’s love. Rohr writes, “Not because you are so bright and light and have purged out all the darkness does God accept you, but as you are. Not by doing something, not by your works…”. There is nothing we can do or fail to do. God simply loves us, and embraces us completely – with all our imperfections, shortcomings, mistakes, and misgivings. By grace, we are good enough, just as we are.[1]

And here we see it, in the bottom of a sinking, stinking fishing boat, in the middle of the sea of Galilee, when Jesus smiles and stretches out his hand to his friend and says, don’t be afraid. Come with me, and we’ll fish for people.

Peter has every reason to feel inadequate. I imagine we all would feel unworthy to be in the presence of the one true God. His religion required regular sacrifices, visits to the temple in Jerusalem that would have been four day’s journey on foot, difficult and expensive for a poor fisherman to make to worship properly. He wasn’t lying, he was ritually unclean – and after fishing all night and hauling in more fish than two boats could hold, I’m guessing he was literally unclean, too. But Christ still chooses him.

I had a colleague in Atlanta who liked to remind elders and deacons that God promises us grace sufficient for our calling[2] – which means, I think, that whenever God calls us to a task, God also equips us to do it. Sometimes the work is overwhelming. It may feel as if our nets are breaking! Sometimes, the boat begins to sink. That is when, like Peter, we must look to shore, to find partners to come meet us and help. Because the silver flash of a miracle compels us to push onward, to push back against the inner voices that say we aren’t good enough, and the powers beyond us that would keep us in our place…God calls us to share good news with the poor, to practice forgiveness, and to work together for liberation. And God gives us to one another, to help make it happen.

I don’t know what it is for you. But I am sure that you all can think of a time when you felt inadequate for the task at hand. Exhausted, overwhelmed. Probably too many times to count over the past few years, we’ve faced fear, illness, and uncertainty. Our way of life has been completely upended. The future is still a bit foggy. But of this I am certain: God is calling us to share the good news of love and liberation with a world in desperate need of it. And God’s grace is sufficient for our calling. I wonder: will we have the wisdom to ask for help when we need it? And when we make it back to shore, will we have the courage to leave our nets behind? I pray that we will. Because when we do, God will surprise us with life abundant over and over again.

[1] Richard Rohr’s daily email, 6/16/21 “Shadow in Christianity”

[2] Rev. Sallie Ann McKenzie-Sisk