*HOMILY OF FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR C*
*THEME: UNWORTHY BUT SENT*
Isaiah, 6:1-2a,.3-8, 1Cor 15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11.
God remains God. Man continues to be man. In obedience and service, man shares in the life of the invisible God who works in us to will and to do.
Moreover, man for who he is, cannot represent God if not by grace, or else, he makes himself a God’s replacement and turns the world upside down.
More so, man, when called and sent by God, ceases to be who he used to be. Seeing him with the eyes of yesterday may amount to rejecting God who sent him on an errand.
However, he humbly serves God in his people who recognises his personal history and how his story started. *When a God’s servant has no record of how God called him, he makes ordinary the extraordinary life which God wants to give through him.*
School knowledge or study cannot authenticate God’s call. It can only help one who has recognised the love of God or one who had enjoyed the supernatural touch of God.
In Isaiah’s encounter of God, he accepted his sinfulness and how unworthy he was. But the Lord who called him, God gave him the enablement and equipped him for his task. And the Seraphim touched his mouth with a burning coal abd said, ” _Behold, thus has touched your lips; your guilt is taking away, and your sins forgiven._ ” Moreover, the Lord said, ” _Whom shall I send, and who will go for us.”_
Furthermore, Paul counted himself unworthy of God’s call when he said, ” _I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God. By the grace of God I am what I am. And his grace towards me was not in vain.”_
It suffice to say that when we surrender our whole being to God, he makes it clear to us how we cannot be satisfied or be fulfilled without his sustaining grace. Simon and his companions had suffered all night but caught no fish until they allowed the Lord to make use of their boat as a vehicle of evangelism.
Afterwards, the Lord Jesus Instructed them on what to do and they caught great shoal of fish that their nets were breaking. They had to beckoned on their friends in other boats to help them. Hence, after this supernatural encounter, Simon Peter exclaimed, ” _Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.“_ Great things happen when God mixes with us.
God uses the weak to shame the strong. He uses the Ordinary to perform the extra ordinary. He uses those who recognises his Lordship irrespective of their sinfulness or weakness.
All the Lord wants is simply to allow his glorious light to shine through our cracks. He is the sender. He is the doer. All we need is to allow ourselves to be used as the channels of his divine grace.
May his grace be enough for us. Amen.
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