Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42
Have you ever been told by someone that you’re not good enough? Or told yourself that? Maybe you were told that about a particular subject in school, or a sport. Maybe it was a work review. Maybe it was a comment about the way you were dressed, or just about you in general. It’s a terrible thing to be told, especially if deep down you suspect it’s true. When we don’t believe it, that’s okay, we can ignore it or fight to prove otherwise. But when we do believe we really aren’t good enough, we want to give up, or hide away. We might try to improve, but never whole-heartedly, because of this pernicious strain of self-doubt. In all areas of our life––at home, at school or work, even at church––believing that we’re not good enough can lead us to give up, and to hide ourselves away. Am I right?
Pastors get most concerned about people who hide from church: people who don’t come to church because they don’t feel good enough to be there. Some people don’t come to church because they’re mad at church or the pastor or someone else there, or because it’s not a good fit, or whatever––and that’s understandable. But what upsets pastors is when someone doesn’t come to church because they think they’re not good enough to be at church: maybe that week they got in a fight with a family member and they feel guilty about it. Or they’re having “bad feelings” towards God, like disappointment or anger. Or they don’t have the physical endurance to sit through a service and they feel embarrassed about it. Or, what used to be more common twenty or thirty years ago, they don’t have the right clothes, or they think they won’t know what to do during the service, or they think they won’t fit in. It’s concerning when people don’t come to church because they don’t feel good enough, or holy enough, to be here.
It’s concerning because it means that somewhere along the way, these people were taught that they have to be worthy to be in the presence of God. They learned somewhere that only those who are perfect, who are righteous, who are sinless, who are good enough are welcomed by God. But that is just flat out not true about God. It is not true that God only wants those who are perfect and righteous and sinless and good enough. In fact, God wants the opposite.
This is what our Scriptures from this morning are telling us. All of our readings this morning have something to do with God calling someone to do something, that person feeling unworthy to do it, and God using them anyway to do even more than they could have possibly imagined. Isaiah, the letter to the Corinthians, the story of Jesus calling the disciples, these are all stories about God specifically seeking out people who consider themselves unworthy, like Isaiah who says, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.” Who’s ever felt like Isaiah? Or the people of the church in Corinth who are constantly fighting with one another, or Simon Peter who tells Jesus he doesn’t need to die, denies Jesus three times, and then doesn’t believe that Jesus is actually raised from the dead. God seeks them all out, and calls them to particularly amazing roles in God’s kingdom. Our Bible readings are about God welcoming us when we are at our worst, and transforming us to be God’s best. This is who God is. This is what God does. Not just then, but now. Not just with people in the Bible, but with us.
So, why do we have such a hard time believing that God wants us when we are not good enough?
You know, we don’t talk much in church about the devil, we’re much too modern for that. But when it comes to feeling unworthy before God, and deciding because of that feeling to hide from God, it’s important to know that there is a devil, or evil, or darkness, or whatever you want to call it. And this power will actively work to get you not to answer God’s call, and will do it by telling you how unworthy you are. Because, if you are sufficiently convinced that you’re not worthy, that you’re not good enough for God, then you will not do the work God has called you to do. It is in the devil’s best interest that you hide from God, so he will do whatever he can to get you to think the worst of yourself, to convince you that you’re not good enough.
Because the devil would like you to forget that God has a plan for you: to make you holy and righteous and do great things for God. This is what God does. Listen to what Isaiah says, after all of Isaiah’s labouring in vain, “And now the Lord says ... it is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” God takes Isaiah, who thinks helping the people of Israel is an honour he doesn’t deserve, and says, “I’m going use you to help the nations, the entire world, and all the kings and princes will see this, and they, who are used to being worshipped, will themselves worship God. I will do this through you, Isaiah.” God’s plan is to take servants, the lowest position in society, and make them into lights that shine for everyone.
This is what God does. This is the power of God. God takes you at your lowest and transforms you so that you can be God’s light to those around you, so that they might know God, too. No wonder the devil tries to undercut that and convince us to hide.
And no wonder Christ calls us to follow him. Because it is Jesus Christ who knows that, through him, we are transformed to be children of God, to be more than good enough. Jesus called Simon Peter, and welcomed him and transformed him to be one of the foundation stones of the church. Jesus Christ called Paul, who persecuted Gentile Christians, and welcomed him and transformed him to be a foundation stone for the Gentile church.
Today, Jesus does this for us through his own body, through the body of Christ. By which I mean through the church, through the gathering of people every week, through this congregation, and through Holy Communion. This is why we have Communion every week in the church. So that God can transform us. Every week, God calls us to come to this place, to bring all our feelings of guilt and unworthiness and not good enough-ness to this very rail. And God invites us to take in the most holy body and blood of the Son of God not because we’ve earned it, or because we’re good enough for it, but because we are not. God calls us to the rail, to bow our heads before God in our wretchedness, to receive Communion, and then to rise up and walk away holy. Filled with God. Transformed from our worst into God’s best. Holy Communion is the very moment that the devil works to prevent every single Sunday. The words that shake the foundations of evil in the world are, “The body and blood of Christ strengthen you and keep you in his grace.” Because they do. When you get up and go back to your seat, you are filled and transformed by God. Maybe you feel it, maybe you don’t, but it has happened. You are renewed, forgiven, transformed, empowered to be good enough to respond to God’s call, to be God’s glorious light for those around you. So that they, too, might know that God makes them good enough.
Through Christ, you are more than good enough. You might still be bad at certain subjects in school, or in sports, but Christ makes you worthy to be in the presence of God. And that’s enough. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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