By Reverend Laurie DeMott

I know from personal experience that young men are quite able to feel this sort of reverence – this sort of profound awe – because I see that awe in my own son, every time he sees a Lamborghini ..... or a Porsche, or a Jaguar, or any other number of cars that I cannot even name let alone recognize but that he carries in his head like an encyclopedia of the Fast and Furious. When John was 14, I took him with me on my sabbatical trip to Greece and Italy, and while I came home with a photo album of pretty landscapes and ruined temples, he came home with a photo album of Italian cars. It took me a while to realize that John’s love of expensive cars was more than just drooling over luxury toys; he really does experience a feeling of reverence for the beauty of the automobile – its line, its engineering, the quality of the craftsmanship that goes into the design of the vehicle. He looks at cars with an artist’s eye and feels awed by a particularly beautiful specimen in the same way that I feel awe when I hear an incredibly intricate piece of music well executed by a musician.

To be reverent is to be moved by something that we recognize as infinitely greater than ourselves, to feel a longing to be a part of it and yet at the same time to feel the humility of knowing that it remains elusive to us. What is it that makes you feel reverent? Is it, as it is for my son John, an incredible piece of engineering that feels you with a desire to possess even a little of the skill that crafted it? Is it, as it is for me, a piece of music that lifts you out of yourself and moves your heart with its absolute perfection? Or is it a landscape of sublime beauty or the vastness of the night sky or even the exquisite taste of a perfect creme brulee that is for you the height of creme bruleeness? To feel reverent is to feel filled with awe as we stand before something that is so pure, so right, so complete, that we are humbled by its holy perfection.

In the story from the gospel of Luke, Peter encounters Jesus for the first time and the meeting starts out in a rather ordinary way – Jesus asks Peter to take him for a ride in Peter’s boat, and once they are a little way out from the shore, Jesus tells Peter to go ahead and do a little fishing while they are out there. You can imagine Peter rolling his eyes at Jesus’ suggestion maybe even laughing under his breath at the naivite of this landlubber who doesn’t realize that the fish are simply not running that day and trying to catch anything will be a waste of effort. Nevertheless, Peter puts down the nets and to his shock, they quickly fill with fish, so many fish that the heavy laden nets threaten to drag the boats under water. Peter realizes that in Jesus he is encountering a power infinitely greater than any he has ever known and he is filled with awe. He calls Jesus, “Lord” for the first time, acknowledging that he is in the presence of the holy, and there is reverence in his voice.

But there is something more as well – there is fear. “Go away from me Lord,” he cries out, “for I am a sinful man!”

We may stand in reverence before the beauty of a Rembrandt painting because we are humbled by the painter’s talent and vision, but our reverence demands nothing of us. We can feel momentarily humbled and appreciative and then go about our business being the ordinary human beings that we are. Peter recognizes, however, that the reverence which is inspired by Christ is a reverence that he cannot simply walk away from unchanged. Christ asks us not only to revere his goodness, but to emulate his goodness. Christ asks us not only to revere his perfect compassion for others but to demonstrate that same compassion toward others in our own lives. Christ asks us not only to revere his mercy and forgiveness but to practice that same mercy and forgiveness to those who have hurt us. To revere Christ is to look not only upon the perfection of his holiness but also to hold the light of that holiness up to our own lives and look upon the flaws of our own.

Peter recognizes the perfection of the man who stands in the boat with him and he is filled with awe but he at the same time is suddenly struck by his own imperfection, and it is in confession that he cries out, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” His words are as much warning as they are admission because we know that it will be Peter who will misunderstand Christ in the days ahead, who will fall asleep when his Lord commands him to keep watch, who will deny Jesus, and who will flee at the foot of his master's cross. Peter is filled with awe at the holiness of Christ but is fearful of his ability to live up to its demands upon him: “Don't come near me Lord,” he warns, “for I have the capacity as a human being to hurt you as well as love you. I have the potential to cause you harm as well as good. I am a sinful man.”

Admitting our sinfulness is a difficult action for many people today. Our society has lately rejected the idea of admitting guilt and instead replaced it with a culture of victimization where everyone looks to blame someone else for our problems. We worry more about self-esteem than about responsibility and confession is associated with creaky old priests in musty confessionals. No one does that anymore. Yet Jesus was surprisingly keen on his followers taking responsibility for their failures and encouraged them to go to extremes in remaking their lives into something closer in line with God’s expectations. “Sell all you have and give it to the poor,” he told the rich young man. “Forgive 7 times 70 times,” he told his disciples. “Be perfect as your heavenly God is perfect,” he commanded his incredulous followers. Jesus believed that reverence should lead to change. “Don’t just sit there in awe of me,” Jesus said. “Look at your own lives, compare them to the life I am showing you, confess your mistakes, and change. If you truly revere me, you will try to become more like me. Anything less is just empty devotion.”

The Scout law lists reverence as the last of its 12 commands, but if we were to re-write the Scout law according to the gospel, reverence would be the first in the list because reverence is not the end of our devotion to Christ; it is the beginning. To revere Christ is to recognize the greatness of his compassion, the perfection of his mercy, and the power of his sacrifice for others, but it is also to allow our awe of that incredible love to move us to confess our own imperfect love and strive to become better people.

Reverence is not the end; it is the beginning. Reverence should move us to be trustworthy, to be kind, to be helpful, to be brave, in short, our reverence of Christ should move us to become more like the one we revere. To revere Christ is to be changed and so let us all come before him as Peter did, not only with love but also with a little fear and trembling, praying that we will be up to the task to which he calls us.