Whom shall I send?

I’ve talked to a lot of people lately who are feeling anxious. Maybe you’re one of them. Headlines are scary, rumors are flying, and it’s hard to know what to do next. I wish I could tell you that God will fix everything, but that doesn’t seem to be God’s way. God will be with us through whatever comes, but the work is ours to do.

One piece of good news is that we aren’t the first people to face difficult times. Today’s lessons, in particular, are full of stories of people doing hard things in response to God’s call.

There’s the prophet Isaiah, who had a vision of God that overwhelmed him, and then went out to proclaim God’s message to a world with ears closed to what he had to say.

There’s St. Paul, who fell to the ground, struck blind for a time. A persecutor of Christians who became an apostle who would spend the rest of his life traveling the world to share what he had learned.

There’s Peter and the other fishermen, called from everything they’d ever known to follow Jesus, called to a life of hard work, hardship, and uncertainty.

And echoing through all these stories, the question asked of Isaiah, “whom shall I send.” And echoing even more faintly, Isaiah’s answer, “send me.”

Are our own times too hard?

Isaiah prophesied that his work would continue “until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate.”

Paul faced persecution, shipwreck, and imprisonment.

Peter and the other fishermen lived in a time of empire and unease, and following Jesus put a target on their backs.

So are our own times too hard?

When Queen Esther found herself in a position where she might be able to save her people, but only at great personal risk, her uncle reminded her that perhaps she was where she was “for just such a time as this.” The same words could have been said to Isaiah and Paul and Peter. The same words might be said to us. Perhaps we too are where we are “for just such a time as this.”

Ok, but what if you feel completely unprepared for the task in front of you?

When called by God, Isaiah said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” And in his vision, a seraph touched his lips with a live coal, burning and cleansing. But, despite his weakness, he found the strength to say, “send me!”

Paul called himself “least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle.” But still he found the strength to say, “send me!”

Peter fell down at Jesus’s feet saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” But still he found the strength to say, “send me!”

Are you completely unprepared for the task in front of you? If so, you’re in good company—and I’m afraid that doesn’t get you off the hook.

Would you rather sit this one out? You can. You have a choice, just as Isaiah and Paul and Peter had a choice. You can opt out. You can say no—or simply remain silent. God won’t love you any less.

But what might happen if you dared to say instead, “send me!”? What might that look like?

If you want to follow God, to help build God’s kingdom, you need to be willing to change, to act—maybe even to give up some good things in exchange for better things. Maybe even to set aside all that you know for something new. In today’s Gospel, Peter and the other fishermen leave their boats behind at the end of the most successful day of fishing they’d ever known.

You need to be willing to trust. To let down nets at Jesus’s command, even when you’re tired, even when it seems senseless. To trust that God will be with you.

You need to be willing to dare to love. To love God, and to love your neighbor. To be kind to the vulnerable. To be kind even to your enemy. That’s the bold call of the Gospel. To love. Full stop. It can look like weakness. It can look like madness. But it isn’t. It’s the way of Jesus.

How can you tell if you’re on the right track? Paul wrote about the fruits of the Spirit: “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Are those things growing in your life? If so, you’re probably moving in the right direction, no matter how dark your road might seem.

None of this is easy. But we shouldn’t expect it to be. Because God’s path isn’t about muddling through, keeping on keeping on. God’s path is a path of death and resurrection.

A pastor named William Sloane Coffin wrote this blessing, which I think is a good blessing for our times: “May God give you the grace never to sell yourself short; grace to risk something big for something good; grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.”

Where do you hear God’s call? And how will you answer? Because God is asking, still today, “whom shall I send?”