Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Sunday, February 6, 2022, at 8:00 & 10 a.m.
By the Rev. Stephen C. Galleher
Abundant Life & Being Good Enough
“[God,] give us…abundant life.” (Collect Epiphany V)
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isaiah 6:3)
“For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.” (I Corinthians 15:9)
“But when Simon Peter saw [such a large number of fish], he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8)
Today’s themes are about the disheartening fact that we human beings are ingrates and have trouble appreciating a good thing because of our oneriness and ingratitude. Yes, that’s right. All of the lessons are about slapping down a beautiful thing when it is staring us in the face. Just how long do we stay on the sunny side of the street?
Our collect asks God to give us abundant life. Abundant life: what a great phrase for the unlimited, illimitable spectacles called our lives. Consider just the smallest favors you have been given and then consider that your lives have been enriched, surrounded, overflowing with bounty, even in the midst of the trials and challenges you have faced.
In the call of Isaiah, we have a full-blown opera set with the fledgling prophet seeing God sitting on a throne with a long, flowing robe filling the temple. Angels hovered over God, each with six wings, covering their faces and feet. They flew with the remaining two. And they were singing one of the most spectacular outbursts of joy in all written literature:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.”
Cecil B. DeMille could not have choreographed such a scene. It is almost beyond our imagination. In fact, only our imagination can describe the scene as the writer of Isaiah does. Remember that I suggested that we substitute the word “beauty” for the word “glory”? The whole world is full of the grace and beauty of God.
But this young whippersnapper Isaiah. He just feels sorry for himself in the face of such a vision and says, “Woe is me! I am lost and I am a man of unclean lips.”
Paul is more sophisticated. He admits to his earlier terrible persecution of Chistians. But he has come to see his earlier defiance as a vehicle for his conversion to the graceof God. “By the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.”
And then there is poor Peter, who is a bridge to us modern people. The guys in the boats were complaining to Jesus, who had gotten into one of them, that they had gotten no fish. But Jesus told them to put the nets down into the water. Shortly thereafter they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break, and the boats were beginning to sink for all the fish! Peter, instead of rejoicing at the gift of the catch, falls at Jesus’s feet and says, “Leave me, Jesus, for I am a sinful man.” Sure. Here is the theme of our meditation! Ingratitude and not feeling good enough.
Before we scold Peter, perhaps we too fall victim to self-pity and never feeling quite adequate for the glory that surrounds us, the light that continually falls on us.
It is truly amazing. Someone chided me recently for not accepting a compliment graciously. This could very well be a posture of false modesty and of feeling really not worthy of receiving the compliment offered. Could be. For sure enough, there are a thousand and one ways we underestimate our own glory, we strip the gold from the people that we truly are.
Have you ever heard that wild song by the talented musician named Beck? It is called “I’m a loser, baby. Why don’t you kill me?”
We seem to sit—or, better, wallow—in our imperfections and concentrate on what we think we don’t have.
- I’m not good-looking enough.
- I’m not healthy enough.
- I don’t have enough money.
- I don’t have many friends.
- I want more hair.
I had been living in New Jersey a few years when I received a letter in the mail informing me that the storage facility in which I had two units full of old letters, slides, diplomas, camping equipment, etc., had burned to the ground and that everything was lost. It’s amazing how brief my grief was, for, after all, what could be done? It was gone and that was that.
And I have just moved and gotten the lesson again that I own more than I need. A friend said the other day, “Being happy with what you have is the only way to do it.” Being happy with what we have is, indeed, the only way to do it!
But, no, I am a child and I give myself messages that do not focus on the glory of what is around me. As St. Teresa of Avila wrote, “The farther away light is from one’s touch, the more one naturally speaks of the need for something else.” But the irony of this, of course, is that light is never absent from one’s touch. All we need do is reach out and touch it!
We are very clever strategists. We create powerpoints in our heads with conclusive evidence that we are not good enough.
“God doesn’t care about me.” And let’s be honest, isn’t there a side of us that kind of enjoys these negative emotions? A lot more happens in our heads that happens outside our own homes.
So we don’t think that God cares for you? I heard of a patient in a therapist’s office who was bewailing his sad lot in life. “What a failure I am,” he lamented.
The therapist replied, “But I love you and God loves you.”
“But I just can’t forgive myself for the things I have done.”
Just then the therapist stood up, pounded the desk and yelled, “Who do you think you are? Smarter and more knowledgeable than God?”
There is a time for therapists to pound on their desk, and this therapist struck the right note and should pound whenever you or I catch ourselves feeling sorry for ourselves.
But we can continue to dwell in the land of darkness if we want to. And we can continue to feel cut off from the sunlight of the spirit. I can tell you I love you till I’m blue in the face, but that just isn’t a message strong enough to pull us out of funks.
God does not demand, or even expect, perfection. The life of Jesus should show us definitively that God blesses imperfection. In fact, a poet proclaims, “Light baptizes life wherever it falls.” And that light falls right here on you and on me! It’s always about the light.
So I’m going to take us all to theological seminary this morning and give you a degree in thirty seconds. This will save you a lot of money, and you can get your degree and become a fully accredited priest in under a minute—at least, if you want to! Just don’t tell our bishop!
So, welcome class. The first question you must master is this:
- Where is God?
Yes, the answer is EVERYWHERE.
And the second and final question is:
- Why? Why is God everywhere?
Answer: Because he likes us!
So, I now award you your divinity degree.
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty. Heaven and earth are full of your glory!”
Amen.