In the year that King Uzziah died….and once when Jesus was standing by the lake…these two low-key opening sentences lead us into two powerful encounters with God and with God’s call.

The description of Isaiah’s vision, the images of smoke and winged seraphs caused him to be awestruck and humbled by the experience of the Holy. God was after Isaiah but at first Isaiah resisted. He cried out that he was an unholy man, with unclean lips and that he hung out with others who were also not so good. But God remedies that situation by sending an angel with a live coal that touches Isaiah’s lips. Isaiah is declared whole, forgiven and God then asks a question: Whom shall I send? Isaiah answers, ‘Here I am, send me,’ and his life takes a different turn, forever.

There are many books written about modern day mega churches where big screens come down out of the ceiling containing other-worldly sights, rock bands produce loud music with a pounding beat, and dry-ice machines create the illusion of a room full of swirling smoke where people are packed in like sardines.

Last summer at our General Convention in Anaheim the diocese of Los Angeles invited everyone to come to an Emergent church experience. The Emergent Church is described as a movement that crosses a number of theological boundaries: participants can be evangelical, post-evangelical, liberal, post-liberal, charismatic, neocharismatic and post-charismatic. Some people call this movement a ‘conversation’ because it is still developing. Most involved agree that they are disillusioned with the organized and institutional church and want to deconstruct modern Christian worship and the nature of the modern Christian community. This emergent church had been broadly supported by many Episcopal churches and some of the authors of those books about mega-churches so I was quite enthusiastic about going for this worship experience.

The music was so strange I could not recognize anything that remotely reminded me of worship and it was so loud I couldn’t hear the lyrics. There were two huge screens on each side of the stage – no altar – just a stage – and I guess the pictures shown were supposed to connect us to Scripture but for the life I me I couldn’t make any connections. The sermon consisted of two men in dialogue with each other (the only voice from a woman was in a back-up band)and it felt to me like self-indulgent reflection. I left. I don’t even know what part of the service we were in – I just know I couldn’t take it anymore…the disconcerting images, the loud music, the non-message. No sense of the holy there, at least for me, and well,for several others who were sneaking out, shaking their heads. Is this kind of worship supposed to help people have an awesome sense of “the Holy”? Will people be in awe or entertained? Will faith deepen or will attention be diverted by all the sights and sounds.

Because the liturgy, which means the work of the people, is not something we do alone as our one on one time with God, it is all of us united in lifting our voices in prayer, praise, and in song, I am glad that for the most part the Episcopal Church remains as it is. Even though we change the language to reflect the equality of our times, even though we use prayers that come from sources other than the Book of Common Prayer, and even though we try some different music from time to time, at the heart of all we do as Episcopalians, we remain the same. We offer a way of worshipping God that invites people to experience a quiet, reverent, yet uplifting, way of getting connected to God and each other. And often in those moments we do have those feelings of being in the midst of something so holy and sacred that we are humbled, awed and open to hearing God’s call to us.

Several of you who are new to the Episcopal Church have asked about our liturgies, wanting to experience a bit more of what the church has to offer. This Lent we’ll try some chanting, of the psalms and other parts of the service, we’ll go a bit slower, be a bit more intentional in what and how we say and do, more intentional in how we do things.

God – the Spirit who created all out of nothing – meets us where we are, reaches out, connects with us, and in that connection we find the experience of the Holy.

Simon Peter in today’s Gospel had an encounter with the holy and was humbled by it. It was the end of a long day for those who had been fishing. There had been no catch. The fisherfolk are tired and frustrated. Jesus came along, walking by the lakeshore. He had a reputation and people were pressing in all around him. He spotted a boat already tied up on the shore, hopped in and told the owner, who happened to be Simon Peter, to push on out. Peter obeyed. Scripture tells us that Jesus sat and taught the people from the boat! There were no microphones or video screens, just Jesus, who must have been a powerful communicator.

When Jesus finished teaching he told Peter to go out further, to go to deeper water. At first Peter resisted. After all it had been a long day with back-breaking labor, and Peter had probably reached his limits but he finally said “if you say so.” Jesus instructed Peter and the others with him to cast their nets over on the other side. They did and the boats almost sank with the catch. And Peter was awestruck and humbled by this abundant and powerful experience of the Holy. He told Jesus to go away because he, Peter, was not worthy. But Jesus said, “Don’t be afraid.” And Peter’s resistance dropped and he accepted Jesus’ call to ‘follow me.’

Go deeper, now there is an instruction for all of us that we probably do not want to do. Go out further, away from the shallow end, go deeper into our lives, our hearts, to find God. I think for the most part, we’d all like to stay in right the shallow end where the only waves we’ll encounter are the ones spent by the time they reach us.

As a young parent I took my children down to visit their grandparents in Florida. They had a pool in the back yard with a very deep end. My oldest daughter took swimming lessons there when she was 18 months old. She was taught to hold her breath, open her eyes and swim under water. She was fearless. One day after the swimming lesson we were all sitting by the side of the pool. Catherine calmly walked over to the deep end and stepped in. I tried to be nonchalant as I stepped on the ladder, reached over and pulled her out…but someone there panicked, ran back and forth by the side of the pool and was yelling. Catherine never went back to the deep end and to this day is afraid of the water because we reacted, said something that made her forget what she had learned and how to trust.

When we’re younger we are so fearless, much more open to going off into the deep, exploring life, because we are confident in ourselves and in God who watches over us. Somewhere along the line our faith gets shaken – by others around us, by the message of the world – by some part of our lives that has fallen apart and we resist taking those steps beyond what we can clearly see, resist the abundance if life offered to us in Christ.

Bob Dylan, yes that Bob Dylan, is quoted as saying, “Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me? I said, I'm not resisting you! He said, You gonna follow me? I said, I've never thought about that before! He said, When you're not following me, you're resisting me.”

What keeps you from going off the deep end, keeps you safely locked in place, protected from being exposed to the possibility of being lured into an encounter with the Holy? Keeps you from jumping up and saying, “Here am I – send me to wherever or to whomever I am needed.” Was there some experience that scared you or someone who told you not to trust. It’s not that God is not present. God is always with us – has promised to never let us go. But probably if we always stay safely in the shallow part of the water, our experience of God, of life, will always feel a bit shallow.

Be brave, don’t resist, go off the deep end, be open, (especially when you think you’ve reached the limits of your endurance) encounter the God who is calling to you.

Jesus told the fisherfolk they would become fishers of people – how can we be fishers for people? Oh, that’s another story for another time. Going off the deep end is enough for today.