By the Grace of God I Am What I Am Isaiah 6: 1-8; Luke 5: 1-11; 1 Corinthians 15: 1-11 February 8, 2004 Rev.

Deborah Dail Denbigh Presbyterian Church

You dont throw away a whole life just cause its banged up a little. The movie, Seabiscuit, is set in the era of the Great Depression. Young Red Pollard is separated from his family when they can no longer afford to raise all their children. He works with horses and he boxes to try to make money. His spirit is nearly broken. He catches the attention of Charles Howard, a millionaire who knows the heights and depths of financial success and failure as well as the depths of personal despair, having a young son die and losing his first marriage amid their collective grief. After a time, Charles Howard buys a not-sospectacular looking horse. He hires an old cowboy horse trainer. He hires Red Pollard to be the unlikely jockey. Red is blind in one eye. They work and train hard. However, the horse and its jockey suffer serious injuries. But Charles Howard and Tom Smith and Red Pollard determine to persevere. You dont throw away a whole life just cause its banged up a little, Howard says. Together, the three broken men and the one broken horse, help a broken nation experience some measure of hope as they make the unbelievable believable. In our scripture lessons for today, we meet three ordinary, broken men called to be unlikely servants of God. Isaiah said to God in the temple that he was broken,
Copyright 2004, Reverend Deborah Dail

unclean, banged up more than a little from sin. But God said: You dont throw a whole life away just cause its banged up a little. Peter is an ordinary fisherman. Peter was pretty sure he hadnt gotten off on the right foot with this Jesus man who gave him crazy fishing advice that turned out to be right. He asked Jesus to leave him, because he felt so unworthy, so broken in his presence. Jesus could have walked away. He could have discarded Peter like Peter may have discarded or thrown back fish too small to use. But Jesus called him to fish for people. He named him The Rock. After all, you dont throw away a whole life just cause its banged up a little. And Saul, later re-named, Paul, was a persecutor of Christians. He organized and was perhaps a part of the hit squads that killed believers in Jesus. As he was traveling to carry out his deadly mission, Paul was thrown to the ground and struck blind by a light from heaven and he heard the voice of Jesus Christ saying: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Saul was blind for three days. A believer in Jesus named Ananias came to Paulafter being seriously persuaded by God. God had said to Ananias: Go to Saul for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel. Ananias laid hands on Saul and said: Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And Saullater named Paulbegan proclaiming Jesus, saying: He is the Son of God. Again, it goes to show that God doesnt throw away a whole life just cause its banged up a little.
Copyright 2004, Reverend Deborah Dail

Paul understood that as profoundly as any, I suppose. Besides being a persecutor of Christians whom God turned into a preacher of the Gospel he once despised, Paul was an unlikely choice in other ways, too. According to other parts of the New Testament, Paul was not a particularly attractive manhe may have had physical handicaps. He was not considered a great public speaker. Perhaps some of you have seen Pauls resume. Someone has put together what Preacher Pauls resume might have looked like had he been interviewing for a church job today. The conclusion of course, upon reading the scoop on Paul, is that he would never be called to a church as a pastor. Having a jail recordeven for preaching the Gospel or working for justice is a red flag for most Pastor Nominating Committees. But God doesnt throw away a whole life. Instead God uses even the most broken to carry out his will. Paul, for example, went on to help numerous people understand, believe in and follow Jesus Christ. Paul founded numerous churches and taught them the way of Christ. Paul wrote much of the New Testamenthis letters to these churches that speak enduring truths to us today. I am glad Jesus didnt throw Paul away. I love what William Willimon says about Jesus in this regard. The story of Jesus opens with an angel appearing to a young woman in Galilee, telling her that she is to be pregnant out of wedlock. Thats a shock. But then the angel is so brash to tell her what to name her child! Call him Jesus (Joshua) for he will save his people.

Copyright 2004, Reverend Deborah Dail

The world already has names for a baby like that: illegitimate (or worse), insignificant, poor, underprivileged. The angel says: Name him Jesus. Maybe this explains why, when little Jesus grew up, he went to and fro in Galilee trying to name people. He would meet someone who was busy at work, someone who he did not even know, and brashly tell them that they were not who they thought they were but rather they were who he told them they were. (Pulpit Resource, Who Are You? by William Willimon, pg. 25-28). You are fishers of men. This is who you really are. This is who youre meant to be, even though you are banged up a little. But we are prone to throw away whole lives because theyre banged up a little or a lot. We are prone to label, to discard and disregard othersand even ourselves-because were broken, unlikely candidates for anything. Theres a Matchbox 20 song called Unwell. The refrain says: Im not crazy, Im just a little unwell I know right now you cant tell, but stay a while and maybe then youll see a different side of me. Im not crazy, Im just a little unwell, I know right now you dont care But soon enough youre gonna think of me and how I used to be. How easy it is to write off the unwell. How easy it is to discard those having serious problems. How easy it is to just see one slice of a persons life and conclude we know who they are and what they can be. Often, when people are physically ill we forget who they are, who they have been and what they can still be.
Copyright 2004, Reverend Deborah Dail

My friend Kitty shared with me that while her husband Bill was hospitalized, suffering and dying from cancer, she recognized this tendency of forgetting who people really areof forgetting what they have been and who they still can bewhen they are lying in a hospital bed. So she filled the windowsills and any available spaces in the hospital room with pictures of BillBill at work, playing golf, enjoying his grandkids, on vacation with Kitty. She said: I didnt want them to forget he was a real person. I was hospitalized a week before our youngest son, Cameron was born. In that week I apparently gave new meaning to looking like death warmed over. No contacts, no makeup, bad hair every day, ugly hospital nightgowns and pain etched on my face. After Cameron was born I was back at the hospital visiting him and ran into the doctor who had cared for me during that week and who had delivered Cameron. When she saw me, I had to introduce myself. I looked different. And she said, Im sure without thinking, Wow, youre a real human being. You look so much better than you did. How quickly we forget that broken, sick people are still human beings and that even the sickest still have a purpose in Gods kingdom. We are quick to label, quick to discard, quick to throw away whole lives because were banged up a little bit or a whole lot. One of the ministers we received into the Presbytery some time ago, said she had taken a while to get to the point of ordination. For years, she was determined that God could not possibly be calling her to ordained ministry because she was divorced. But God was determined not to throw a whole life away. Remember what Will Willimon said. Jesus had been called all kinds of
Copyright 2004, Reverend Deborah Dail

names. But when he grew up he went about naming peopletelling them they were not who they thought they were but they were who he called them to be. Paul said: By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. Paul was an apostle of the Living Christa proclaimer of the Gospel, a personal, living testimony of the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But he had been unwell; some even said crazy. He was a murderer. He had physical disabilities. He wasnt a good speaker. Throw him away, many said, Im sure. But Jesus said, No, you dont throw a whole life away just cause its banged up a little. And because of that Paul was later able to say: By the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. As I look at this passage from 1 Corinthians, I realize that Paul is making an argument to prove the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Instead of DNA evidence or carbon dating evidence or any other kind of scientific or empirical evidence, Paul provides the evidence of his own life and the evidence of the lives of others who were not thrown away just cause they were banged up a bit. And thats the power of the resurrection for our daily lives. God loved the world enough to never throw away a whole lifea whole worldjust because it was broken, sinful, sick, unwell, crazy, banged up a whole lot. God loved the world so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to die for all the craziness and brokenness and sinfulness, and then raised that same Jesus from the dead. You dont throw away a whole life . . . . you bring new life. God didnt throw away you, or me or this world. Just when the world
Copyright 2004, Reverend Deborah Dail

thought God had thrown away Jesus, God raised him to new life and gave him the name, which is above every name. Regardless of your label, your name, your illness, your station in life, your sin, God will not throw you away. Just like with Isaiah and Peter and Paul, God will call you, raise you to newness of life and use you for the good of His kingdom.

Copyright 2004, Reverend Deborah Dail