The Graciousness, Gratuity, and Unworthiness in God’s Call

We have accounts of the three great men in today’s readings: Isaiah, Peter, and Paul. God called them to be His messengers. Though the way of calling was different, we find a similar response, each of them realizes his unworthiness and sinfulness. And so they depend on God’s grace. Right from time, the Almighty God has been calling on sinful man to help in propagating His message to his fellow man. Each of them realizes his unworthiness and sinfulness, yet they depend on God’s grace to fulfill their calling.

The first reading speaks of the call of Isaiah as a prophet. Almighty God appears in splendor to Isaiah. Isaiah is overcome by his unworthiness and wonder how he, with unclean lips, could possibly serve the Lord. But an angel purifies his lips with an ember and Isaiah immediately declares his willingness to serve.

In the second reading, St Paul speaks of his vocation to preach, and he professes his unworthiness to be called an apostle because of his earlier persecution of the Church. Nevertheless, having been called, he tries all the harder to make up for his past.
In the Gospel reading, having witnessed the awesome and miraculous power of Jesus, Peter too realizes his sinfulness and suggests to Jesus to leave him alone. But Jesus assures him that with God’s grace he would be acceptable.
In each of these three vocation stories, what shines forth in Isaiah, Paul and Peter is their awareness of their unworthiness. The unworthiness of the individual character serves to highlight the graciousness and gratuity of God’s call, while at the same time making it vividly clear that all subsequent success in God’s work will come ultimately from God Himself.

God’s way is not our way. His standard is always different. To teach us wisdom, God chooses the foolish to shame the so-called “worldly wise”. Right from time, God engaged sinners to work for Him. God called St Paul, once credited as a persecutor of the Church, to work for Him. God called a great sinner like St Augustine. God called a simple man like St John Mary Vianne, the Patron Saint of the diocesan clergy, even though he was academically weak. This is to demonstrate that the strength and the wisdom is not from the called but the One who calls, that is, God. Every vocation belongs to Him. One is called, not because one is holy. There is a difference between holiness and charisma. It is not because somebody is holy, that is why God uses him to perform miracle. It is God who performs miracle through the human instruments as He chooses. Though, that does not mean one can not lose his gift as a result of one’s sin.

Also today, God is calling us too to be His messengers despite our limitations and weaknesses. The voice of God that echoed in the heavenly court at the time of Isaiah and the voice that call Peter and Paul continue to ask, “Whom shall I send?” What is our response? Our response too should be one of surrender, one of humility, and one of unworthiness. The deep sense of unworthiness allows God Himself to work. It enables the grace of divine call to be effective in us. Though God is all powerful and omnipotent, He does not work alone but continues to work in and through collaboration with human beings. And there is enough work for everyone in the Church and in the world. The clergy are not the only people called by God. We should use whatever gift we are given to work for God. We should not be spectators but participators in God’s work.

Indeed, we are unworthy to be called by God. And we cannot enter into relationship with Him unless we confess our unworthiness to Him. We must do away with sin, since we cannot remain in sin so that grace may be given the more fully (cf. Rom 6:1-2). And as for those whose sight of guilt discourages them from answering God’s call, they should seek the assurance of God’s mercy in the lives of Isaiah, Peter and Paul. None of them was without a dark side. Still, God used them. If we too are willing to obey God’s guide, He knows how to take care of our shortcomings. So, we should be aware of our own sinfulness. If we are not aware of our sinfulness, it is probably because we are not aware of the holiness of God. But our sinfulness should not cause us to run away from God or try to hide from Him. Instead, like Peter we should throw ourselves at the feat of Jesus and admit our sinfulness. One way to do this is to go to confession.

Today’s Gospel also illustrates a further point: Success does not depend on our efforts alone but on God’s blessing. Peter and his companions had fished all night without success. These people were professional fisherman. They must have been fishing in the same lake Gennesaret for years. They knew that the best time to catch fish was at night. That was exactly what they had tried to do all the night. But they caught nothing, not until Jesus intervened. The moment Christ stepped in, a miracle happened. They caught such a great number of fish that their nets were tearing. Where were the whole fish in the lake before?

This is the difference between doing it yourself, and letting God do it with you. Sometimes, it is like that with us. We have a project. We know everything about it; It is our field; we are expert in it; we have the resources: money and the materials. Yet we are not making it. May be we are trying to do it on our own like Peter and his companions. Let us hand over the project to God. Bring God into it. Let us pray more about it. Always put out into deep waters at the command of our Lord. Don’t do it alone. Success does not depend on how much effort we put into our work or how long we work. In just few minutes Peter caught the whole fish he could not catch for years. We too, when we involve God, the result will be great.

May God continue to bless the work of our hands, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Remain blessed 🙏
Rev’d Fr Andrew Dare Odeyemi ✍️