Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of the Lord which engages us this morning comes from our Old Testament (Isaiah 6) and Gospel lesson (Luke 5: 1-11). ����������������

We're often looking for volunteers, in church, around the community. We have an "Adopt-A-Job" board in our atrium hoping that people will volunteer for various jobs around the church. But try to find Biblical examples of volunteers. Now that sounds easy, but it isn't. Moses doesn't work - he tried to get out of the job that God called him to do. Saul hid in the baggage when they tried to make him king. David wasn't with his brothers when Samuel went on the hunt for the next king. The New Testament doesn't yield any real volunteers, either. Not one of the disciples applied for the job. Paul had to be knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus. Timothy and Titus seem to have been recruited. ����������������

The closest I could come to a volunteer in the Bible is in our Old Testament lesson - Isaiah 6:1-13. Isaiah found himself in the very throne room of the God of the Universe. In the midst of angels flying around, buildings shaking and hot coals cleansing unclean lips, Yahweh would ask, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" I'm looking for a volunteer! Isaiah's response is, "Here am I. Send me!" A Biblical volunteer! But wait. There wasn't anyone else there! Are you really a volunteer if you're the only one around when someone asks for volunteers? ����������������

I've come to the conclusion that there are no true Biblical volunteers. All of us are draftees (or draft-dodgers). All, like Isaiah, are "men (and women) of unclean lips." All are in need of God's cleansing grace. All of them and all of us have been brought to God's throne of grace not by their own volition, but by the action and activity of the Holy Spirit. It strikes me that there are, therefore, no true volunteers in the church today. We've all been drafted, recruited, called into this Church (Small Catechism, 3rd Article of the Creed meaning). We've all been given special gifts that can and should be used in grateful service to our God and to our fellow man. My service in His Church is a grateful response to Him for the forgiveness he earned for me in Jesus. Isaiah isn't really a volunteer. Neither am I. Come to think of it, there was one volunteer - the One who voluntarily gave up His life for me! I thank God for that Volunteer! (thoughts about volunteers modified from Bruce E. Wurdeman, Lutheran Hour Ministries e-mail, February 4, 2004). Jesus Christ voluntarily gave His Life on the cross to bring about Isaiah's forgiveness and mine and yours. If any of us were to stand alone in the presence of Almighty God and his throne, we could only declare with Isaiah, "I'm ruined, I'm a sinner living among a bunch of other sinners. What is going to happen to me?" But the Lord chose His Old Testament servant Isaiah. He forgave Isaiah's sin through some sort of once-in-history sacred element live coal. Then He sent Isaiah to preach Law and Gospel, not to foreign countries, but to the Lord's own people. They were to be told that sin brings about death and destruction. They were to be told that a Holy Seed would come from the stumps that were destroyed. We know that Holy Seed to be Jesus. ����������������

In our Gospel, this Jesus came to Lake Gennesaret, and the people crowded around listening to the Word of God. Jesus didn't apparently have angels flitting around him, but the people still recognized his Words as from God. To emphasize his power, Jesus performs a rather simple little miracle by today's standards. With some sort of miraculous fish detecting radar ability, Jesus says "Put your nets over there." For those of you who are fishermen, I doubt that any have ever caught so many that your boat was about to swamp. ��

But Peter realizes, through Jesus' words and actions, that he is in the presence of God's Messiah and, like Isaiah, says to Him "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" ����������������

But Jesus didn't go away from Peter or me or you because of our sinfulness. Jesus volunteered to take our place, to receive our punishment. I hope many of you are looking forward to seeing this new movie The Passion about Jesus' suffering and death for us. I'm told it will be rated 'R', because the realistic violence against Jesus is so startling. I pray it will help many of us fully realize the degree of Jesus' love shown us on the cross. Jesus didn't go away from Peter as per his request. Jesus didn't go away from Peter when Peter tempted Him to avoid the cross. Jesus didn't go away from Peter when Peter denied His Lord just before Jesus' crucifixion. Peter knew he was a sinner. But he learned of the grace and love Jesus was to show for Him, to earn FOR him. He called Peter to a life as a witness to Him. He continues to call you and me to the same life as well. ��

He calls us not to be judges in his eternal court, but to be witnesses of his resurrection and love. ����������������

Peter became a bold witness, publicly proclaiming to crowds of people that the Messiah had come. Few of us will ever be called to attract people to Christ quite the same way Peter and Paul did. But Christ still calls each of us to be his witness, to share his name, the name we carry on ourselves at baptism, to share that name with others. ����������������

Most of our witnessing is likely to happen in passing moments of conversation--those occasions when we show, in relatively minor ways, who we are and to Whom we belong. I think of a suburban woman who was playing tennis with her good but quite secular friends. In a conversation break between sets she began referring to something she had read that morning. It would have been easy to say, "I read something this morning." Instead, with no attempt to be pious, she simply introduced one word: "In my devotional reading this morning." It was not a major soul-winning engagement. It was, however, a true sowing of seed. By a word, she had opened the door for some further conversation about Jesus. ����������������

Perhaps our greatest problem in becoming Christ's fishermen is that we don't earnestly grasp the opportunities that come to us; or we are so possessed of the idea that we must say something dramatic and far-reaching that we fail to say the small, immediate and potentially significant thing. To put it in the language of our lesson for the day, most of us really don't act as if we even have a call to "fish." We're out in the waters of human need every day, but we don't seem to know it. ����������������

The issue is not that we should become more aggressive about sharing our faith. It is that we should be more sensitive � sensitive to the needs of the world around us, and more sensitive to the subtle prodding of the Holy Spirit. The two sensitivities are wonderfully intertwined. To be sensitive to the Holy Spirit must mean that we will be more sensitive to people and their pain; to be more sensitive to people ought to make us more open to God and his purposes." (modified from J. Ellsworth Kalas, Reading the Signs, "From Empty Nets to Full Lives," CSS, 1988, p. 81-82.) ����������������

How might these opportunities to "fish for men" show themselves? Perhaps a friend goes into the hospital and you ask them "Do you have a pastor who will be visiting you?" If they say yes, then you have an open opportunity to share the comfort of Jesus' presence with them during their hospital stay. If they say no, you then have an opportunity to gently inquire about whether they would be interested in having me or another pastor come and pray with them. Perhaps a friend has a parent who is dying of cancer and you ask "Does your mother have a church or pastor she's connected with?" If they say yes you have an open opportunity to share the resurrection of Christ with a fellow Christian. If they say no, you then have an opportunity to again inquire if they would like me or another pastor of their choice to visit with the mother. ����������������

None of us will ever write a book of the Bible like Isaiah did, like Peter did. But yet our Lord calls each of us to a life of service and witness to Him. He says to each of us sinful people "Whom will I send" to other sinners to tell them of my righteousness, my power, my love and my salvation? May each of us respond as Isaiah did and say "Here am I, send me." May each of us respond as Peter did, leaving behind the distractions of this world and following Jesus to the cross.

And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4: 7)