“A Faithful Measure of Success”

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Sunday February 7, 2010

Isaiah 6: 1-13

Psalm 138

1 Corinthians 15: 1-11

How do we measure success in the spiritual life?   What is the best test of faithfulness?

There are many proposed answers to such questions in the modern world.

Some tend to gauge spiritual success in statistical terms – how many people are in church; how much money is contributed to the work of the church; how many people are visited, fed and clothed in a given week; how much money does a congregation give to the needy, or to worthy mission causes. 

Such numerical measurements of success are perhaps most evident, these days, in the American megachurch phenomenon.  We hear about congregations whose exponential growth rates necessitate the construction of massive new facilities for tens of thousands of worshippers.   But such numerical measures of success are not new – rather, the evangelical rallies and missionary movements of recent centuries often assessed their success by the number of people who were convicted, convinced and converted as a result of the passionate proclamations of powerful preachers.  

There are biblical passages which seem to resonate with this success-by-numbers approach.  Images of growing plants, fields ripe for harvest, miraculously abundant resources; stories of thousands of people being converted on a single day, or about thousands of people being fed with five loaves and two fishes fuel this statistically-driven assessment of spiritual success. 

But, as we all know, statistics never tell the whole story.

Others, in this modern age, suggest that faithfulness is mirrored by success in other parts of a person’s life.  The so-called “Prosperity Gospel” suggests that the faithful person can expect God’s blessings to be reflected in prosperity, freedom from stress and debt, physical health, stability of their families and satisfaction in their personal relationships.  It is suggested that God, like any loving parent with their children, wants to bless the faithful with good things in life; therefore, the good things in life should be embraced as gifts from God.  Before we scoff at the more blatant manifestations of this Prosperity Gospel, it is interesting to realize that we all share certain assumptions with the proponents of it.  When tragedy hits a good or faithful person, for example, we sometimes find ourselves questioning the justice of God.  Such questions, when we think about them, actually reflect this same tendency to assume that faithfulness should be rewarded with health and happiness. 

Those who resist this tendency to measure faithfulness in relation to blessing sometimes end up suggesting that true faithfulness is found in the opposite end of human experience.  That is, true faithfulness will not be met with success, but with persecution, torment, failure and struggle.  If they hated me, they will hate you, stated Jesus; blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake; only those who lose their life for my sake and for the Gospel will save their lives, we read, and conclude that opposition and persecution are the best measures of faithfulness.  This success-measured-by-opposition not only finds great inspiration in the image of the cross as the sign of the world’s response to God, but was a tremendous source of inspiration to the ancient martyrs during times of persecution. 

The danger of this way of understanding faithfulness is that it begins to view any success or joy as evidence of moral or spiritual compromise, and any opposition as a sign of faithfulness.  When I was doing my undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, there was a small religious group that was prohibited from gathering on campus because of techniques that were perceived to be manipulative, isolating and cult-like.  The opposition of other religious communities on campus, and of the university administration, was interpreted as a clear sign that they were being faithful.  Resistance, rather than challenging troubling beliefs or actions, can sometimes embolden the true believers who are a part of the group.  Opposition is not always a good test of faithfulness.

Still others suggest that spiritual success is measured in inner terms.  A faithful life, it is suggested, will create a sense of peace, joy, clarity and calm.  Jesus’ promises of peace and joy, or the promise that God will inspire love, joy, peace, patience and the other fruits of the Spirit in a person’s life, are viewed as the measure of faithfulness.  While there is much to be said for such a perspective, there are circumstances which do not create of peace, calm and clarity – but which are inspired by faithfulness.  Jesus himself, during his anguish in the Garden of Gethesemane, was not filled with peace, joy, calm and clarity – but his anguish was a result of faithfulness.

So how are we to measure success in the spiritual life?  By some statistical or numerical measure?  By some level of financial success or physical health?  By some degree of persecution?  By an inner sense of peace or wholeness? 

What is the measure of success?

Today’s readings from Isaiah, and from Luke, present two seemingly different answers to this question.

Our reading from Isaiah recounts a visionary experience that the prophet had while in the Temple, in which he glimpsed the majesty of God.  “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.”  Isaiah’s initial response to that vision was understandable – “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Isaiah’s vision was not of a cute-and-cuddly, everyone’s best buddy, friendly deity.  To the contrary, this was the great mystery, the One whose glory was beyond human comprehension.  It was Isaiah’s spirit of humble awe that inspired the words of today’s opening hymn:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,

And with fear and trembling stand.

But even though Isaiah protested his own inadequacy, Isaiah’s protestations were not what was being sought.   A burning coal was put to Isaiah’s lips, symbolizing the cleansing and forgiveness of his unclean lips.  And then, a summons was issued.  “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” 

The final words of verse 8 – when Isaiah responds to God’s call “here am I: send me!” – have often been interpreted as an inspiring way to respond to a call to faithful service.  There may have been times, in many of our lives, when we have felt motivated, as Isaiah did, to respond with an exuberant acceptance of God’s call.  Here am I – send me.

Unfortunately, too often, we stop reading this passage at verse 8.

And one of the reasons that we stop at the end of verse 8 is because what follows is a bit more uncomfortable.

The voice of God continued to be heard.  “Go and say to this people: ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.’  Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.’”

The summons that God was issuing was a summons, to Isaiah, to be a complete and utter failure.  His words would not help the people, but would lead to confusion, a hardening of their minds and hearts, a time of complete incomprehension, and an unwillingness to turn to God for healing.

Which is not a description of success, by any measure that one might seek to apply.  In fact, Isaiah’s faithfulness and success would be reflected in the people’s unfaithful and complete inability to respond to God.

Our Gospel reading, on the other hand, presents us with a far more successful scene.  The fishermen were on the shore, exhausted from an unsuccessful night of fishing.  Christ asked them to put their boats a little out from shore so that he could more easily teach the crowds and, when he was finished, he told the fishermen to cast their nets out for a catch.  “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing,” said Simon.  But he nonetheless responded to Christ’s call. “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

That response led to a tremendous day of success for the fishermen.  “When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.”  And Simon, like Isaiah, was humbled by the experience.  “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

The outcomes for Simon and Isaiah could not be more different. Isaiah was told that his work would end in failure; Simon caught a boatload of fish that was so massive that other boats had to help him to bear the load. 

So how might we discern, from these two very different stories, some insight concerning how to measure success and faithfulness?

Such a question helps us to realize that there is a common theme in both of these stories.  That is, even though Isaiah may have been destined to miserable failure; and Simon destined to world-transforming success, there was something that both men demonstrated.  That is, both were willing to be obedient.

God called Isaiah, and asked him to speak; Isaiah obeyed.  Christ called Simon, and asked him to cast his nets; Simon obeyed. 

Neither man predicated his obedience upon some promise of success.   Rather, their obedience was to the call, not to the consequences; their obedience itself was the measure of success, rather than some quantifiable outcome. 

And, in this, there is a great message for every one of us.

Each one of us is called, as Isaiah and as Simon were.  We are called to different tasks, to different vocations, to different responsibilities in the church, in our working lives, in our families and in the world.  Like Isaiah and Simon, the substance of what we are called to do is very different, and the outcomes of our undertakings may be very different.  Some might meet with tremendous achievement in the tasks that God calls them to accomplish; others might confront times of great frustration, great confusion, perhaps even great struggle.

But what is common to every one of us is that the true measure of success in our response to God’s call is a willingness to be obedient.  As followers of Christ, we are called to root our lives in obedience to the command to love God with all that is within us, and to the command to love our neighbours – and our enemies – as we love ourselves.

And it is only when we realize that obedience is the only true measure of success, that the cross actually begins to make sense.  By any other standard, the cross is a sign of complete and utter failure.  It is a sign of Jesus’ failure to convince people, including his friends, of the truth of what he was trying to convey; it is a sign of a failure in his ability to create a community of friends who would stand with him to the end; it is a sign of a failure to resist, overwhelm and overcome the opposition of the religious and political realities of his day.

But in spite of the seeming failure of Jesus’ life, the cross continues to stand as a model of obedience – obedience to the call to love to the point of death; obedience to the call to forgive, even those who were nailing him to the instrument of his own execution; obedience to the call to respond to God’s direction, even when the cup that was placed before him was difficult to swallow.

And it was out of his obedience to the point of death on the cross that the pathway was found through death into a new, a complete, a resurrected and an eternal existence.

So what is the measure of success in the faithful life?

The only true measure of success, in faith, is obedience to the One who calls each and every one of us to love God with all that is within us, and to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. 

Whether this journey of obedience leads us to the megachurch or to martyrdom, to prosperity or to persecution, to crisis or to clarity, is not for us to predict.  Rather, our obedience is rooted in the faithful hope that the ultimate consequence of a life lived with love is the resurrection to eternal life.