Spirituality of the Readings

Who Is Worthy?

By this time we are well into Jesus’ public life, his Galilean ministry, the one he began in Nazareth.

But this Sunday contains a surprise development. Isaiah, Paul and Peter are each expressing themselves as worthless! Three of the greatest witnesses in the Bible!

What is your attitude toward worthlessness? Do you agree with today’s psychologized sentiment that, “I AM worthy,” or “I am ok, you’re ok,” or “I buy this product because I’m worth it”? Are Isaiah, Paul and Peter “worth it” in this way? Let us look at Sunday’s readings and see if these men fit the current definitions.

In Reading One, Isaiah receives a vision of heaven itself. The Lord is seated on a high and lofty throne. The Seraphim angel choir is crying out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!”*

It seems that Isaiah reacts with shame. “My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts! But woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips.” (Is 6:5)

In response an angel swoops down with a burning coal to cleanse his lips!!!! He is doomed, alright, but doomed to be made clean through suffering, to be made able through it to speak of God.

In Reading Two St. Paul says that Christ appeared to him last of all, as to one born abnormally. “For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Unworthy, yes. But did the grace of God discard him? No, it appointed him a key Apostle even though he had never even met Jesus.

In the famous Gospel story. Jesus tells Peter, James and John to fish in the deep water (where they had been fishing and fishing and fishing all night with no result). Without warning their nets are bloated with fish. Peter cries out, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” (Luke 5:8)

Isn’t the experience of God supposed to lead to peace, forgiveness, and joy—not to shame?

Ok, make a distinction. The real reaction of all three figures is not really shame, which means concluding that they are each worthless. Instead it is a finding of their true place in reality. They are expressing a kind of humility!

How?

Each of them is forced to compare himself directly with the presence of God. When people meet the holiness of God head-on, they are therefore able to glimpse by contrast the humanness in themselves. They see that humanity seems full of holes like a sponge. None of them can any longer pretend that they shine like the stars because they see the real star bursting with light.

Experience of God let them understand that they are far, far less than God.

This is not bad, it is good. A falsely supposed importance cannot make us holy. But God can make us holy.

We can be proud to be unworthy if reception of God’s love is a result. At Mass we echo that famous Roman centurion: “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed” (Mt 8:8).

I suppose we could we react with shame; but notice that God does not say in return, “I reject you,” but “I love you dearly. Come be with me, you fine human being.”

John Foley, SJ

**From Saint Louis University