Commit !

A shopkeeper said that in her job in a jewellers shop, she often arranged for engaged couples to have their wedding rings engraved inside with something special. She once asked a bride-to-be what she would like inscribed inside her fiancé's ring.

"We aren't very romantic," she replied. Then she said that they were even marrying on her fiancé's birthday so he wouldn't forget the date! But the shopkeeper persisted, "Isn't there something you'll want him to remember as he looks inside his ring?"

"There sure is," she said. And that's how "Put it back on!" came to be inscribed inside her husband's ring. It was perhaps a gentle reminder of his need to commit.

Another lady may well have wanted to help along her fiancé’s commitment for several decades, as she waited for 44 years of courtship before her boyfriend finally proposed to her, aged 68. Why the wait? Someone asked, to which the woman replied, "He is a bit shy, you know."

At the heart of any meaningful relationship is commitment. Commitment is vital to the success of anything that we do. And today we are challenged about our commitment to God and to the growth and development of his Church. But with the challenge comes also the promise that with God all things are possible !
Someone once wrote, "There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses - only results."

And so we are asked the question – Are we interested in God and his Church, or are we committed to them ? The theme of the readings today (Isaiah 6:1-8, 1 Cor.15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11) was very much about calling and commitment. Both Isaiah and Paul write about their calling by God, and ultimately their willingness to follow that call. And in the gospel Jesus calls the fisherman to follow him.

Commitment is a huge part of the Christian life – no Christian is called to live an easy and quiet life. We are called to be witnesses to the power and love of Jesus, committed to living out lives based on his… There’s a story about a man who had spent 3 days out fishing and caught absolutely nothing. So on his way home he called into a fish market, and picked out 3 large fish. As he was buying them he told the fishmonger, ‘don’t wrap them. Could you just throw them to me one by one, and then I can honestly tell my wife I caught them !’

As Christians we have the privilege of recognising that God doesn’t allow us to just rely on a fishmonger to do all our work for us – he allows us to do it. He allows us to be his head, his hands, feet, eyes, legs and his arms, and even more than just allowing it, he tells us to do it !

And yet so many of us are afraid to commit to the task we have been given. So many of us feel afraid and inadequate. And if we look back at the readings today, we find that, in exactly the same way, Isaiah and Paul felt inadequate, and so did Simon Peter. But think how these people were used by God, when they committed to the call they were given.

Once they removed their own objections and committed themselves to following God’s way, they became powerful servants of Him. And that is what each one of us is to do – to cast away those things that are preventing us from responding to, or even hearing God’s call to commit fully to him.

And those distractions can be many and varied. For some it may simply be a fear of a lack of knowledge or not finding the right words, but we can be assured that in God’s care, and with his guidance, we will find the right words. Or perhaps it is a case of being too busy for God – that is a very reasonable objection, until we remember what God has done for us, and begin to weigh up what is really important in our lives.

Maybe it is a feeling that God just couldn’t use us – but the evidence suggests he uses people in all kinds of different ways and situations and circumstances. The evidence of the work of Christians for centuries only serves to prove this point.

Or perhaps it is a more human problem within a Church – the feeling of not being valued or included by others – This is often a situation that we perceive rather than a reality but if it is right then in such circumstances we can only do what God allows us to do, and we must pray that we will have opportunities. Or another feeling is that we do it better than anyone else, and therefore can’t work with others because they don’t think quite the same way we do – I have seen a number of people who think like that, and undoubtedly they are hurting themselves as well as failing to live out the glory of God.

Ultimately as Christians we focus on Jesus, and what he means to us as individuals – As Paul pointed out, ‘Christ died for our sins, he was buried, he was raised, he appeared to others, he appeared to Paul’, and we can and we must add that he continues to appear today in the lives of his followers. That is the joyful and powerful message that we must be proclaiming… it is to a person and not to a task that we commit to – the work of Jesus will follow on though as an inevitable consequence of our commitment.

There will be times of failure and times of disappointment, but as the gospel reminds us, Jesus sends us back out to lower our nets into the water once again… there is a saying that ‘What you can become – you already are’… God has equipped us, and continues to equip us to do his work, but we must strip away the layers that are preventing us from hearing or doing that word.

Finally a fishing analogy – I am no fisherman, but I can understand this !

Firstly we've got to have a good fishing rod and reel. In Christ we have the best, and he has given us all we need to do the work.

Secondly, we’ve got to have the right bait. And that will mean being prepared to be appealing, work hard, and also pray and study the Bible. God gives us the power, but we still need to work ourselves.

Thirdly we’ve got to go where the fish are... So often we are in our buildings, expecting miracles, but we need to be, just as Jesus was, where people are.

And finally we’ve got to be patient. Personally I hate this one – I like to see ideas happening, I like to see things moving constantly, but actually it doesn’t always work that way – sometimes we have to be prepared to let God work in his time…

And so like Isaiah, like Paul and Simon Peter, whom we have heard about this morning, and all who have followed the call of God, may we begin to listen harder and respond more to our own calling to commit. AMEN