REFLECTIONS

Broken Instruments

Fr. Johnny Go S.J., School Director

Mary the Queen Parish

4 February 2007

Posted Tuesday, 06-Feb-2007 3:54 PM

     I’d like to begin by telling you a story.  There was a man who loved to sing.   The problem was he could not sing.  And worse, he didn’t know it.  One day he decided to join the church choir.  But because he could not sing, he always managed to ruin the singing.  The choir director didn’t like having him around, so he started dropping subtle hints for him to leave the choir, but the hints fell on deaf ears.  Finally, out of exasperation the choir director decided to go to the priest and complained. "You'd better get that man out of the choir or else I'm going to resign." So the priest went after the man and said to him, "You should leave the choir." "But why should I leave the choir?  Give me one reason why I should leave," the man asked. "Well, I’ll give you five reasons," said the priest, "Five people have told me you can't sing." "So what?" the man replied, "every Sunday four or five people tell me you can't preach!"

     Now, here’s a couple of questions I’d like to ask you:

     If you were the choir director, would you hire or fire the vocally-challenged man?

     Question no. 2:  If you were God, would you hire or fire the priest whose preaching sucks?

     If we had a choice, most of us would probably fire both.  We may as well hire someone who would most likely do the job well.  But that’s what makes God so different from us.  As the readings today show us, God makes use of the most unlikely people to do the job for him.

     Look at the First Reading:  The prophet Isaiah received a vision of the Lord.  Suddenly face-to-face with God’s awesome holiness, what did the prophet say?  “Woe is me, I am doomed!  For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

     Did God fire the prophet Isaiah because he was unclean?  Far from it.  Instead God sent a seraphim to him who touched his tongue with the holy ember to cleanse it, and went on to hire him as a great prophet.

     Our Lord Jesus did a similar thing to Simon Peter in the Gospel.  When Simon Peter witnessed the miraculous catch and realized that he was in the presence of a holy man, he fell at the knees of our Lord and said:  “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

     Did our Lord fire Simon Peter because he was a sinful man?  Far from it.  Instead our Lord told him and the other men not to be afraid, and made them his disciples. 

Maybe we’re wondering why.  Can’t God find better people to be his instruments?  Why choose people who are, based on their own admission, unclean like Isaiah or sinful like Simon Peter?  Can’t God find and hire better-qualified people?

     If we examine the prophets and apostles that God has chosen in the bible and even in real life today, we will detect a disturbing pattern.  Most of them, if not all of them, are either weak or broken.  Think of David, the little shepherd boy before he became king.  No army could beat Goliath, but this shepherd boy with his slingshot succeeded.  Think of Mary, our Blessed Mother: Even if she was immaculately conceived—she was but a frail little twelve or thirteen year old girl when the angel appeared to her and extended to her God’s special invitation. 

     What does this tell us?  I think God’s recruiting preferences can tell us a lot about how God works and about who He is.  Our God is a God who doesn’t seem to like using instruments that are in perfect working condition.  He  seems to prefer broken instruments.

     So the question is why.  Why does God prefer broken instruments?  Here are two guesses.

     First, maybe weak and broken people are the only ones who are humble enough to allow God to use them.  They’re the only ones who can truly become God’s instrument because they know their weaknesses and brokenness, so they know they need God and they depend on God.  The Gospel’s term for this is “poor in spirit.”  If we want to become God’s instrument, if we want God to use us to do his work, we must become poor in spirit, humble and aware of our need for God and consequently willing to allow ourselves to be used.

     Secondly, maybe God prefers to use broken instruments because when He does, it becomes quite evident that when great works are accomplished, it is primarily because of God and not because of the person’s qualifications.  In other words, it becomes clear that the person is simply an instrument that allows himself or herself to be used by God.  So it does not become a case of us doing God’s work, but God Himself working through us.  There is a difference between the two.

     So tonight, my dear friends, I think there are a few things for us to think about and to pray about.  Here are two questions.

     First question: “Have I been using my limitations and sinfulness as an excuse not to serve the Lord?”  Maybe for some of us, every time the topic of serving God comes up, we say: “That’s not for me because I’m a sinner, or I’m weak, or I’m broken.”  Bad news, guys.  As we saw, God actually prefers to use broken instrument for His work, so it’s time to cut the excuses and to think seriously about what God may want you to do in your life to serve Him.

     The second question is for those who are already trying their best to serve the Lord in their own way.  It goes like this:  “Am I poor in spirit?  Am I humble enough to be God’s broken, but good instrument—allowing God to work through me instead of taking pride in myself doing God’s work for Him?”   Perhaps this secret pride has crept up when we weren’t looking and actually taken over, making us no longer God’s instrument, but our own.  Something to think about it.

     Let’s all pray tonight that our Lord will lead us to grow to a deeper knowledge of ourselves and a greater service of Him as his broken but good instruments. When we hear the voice of the Lord asking us, “Whom shall I send?” may we respond like the prophet Isaiah by saying, “Here I am, Lord.  Use me.”

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