Isaiah 6 and Psalm 29

More than three decades ago when I began my theological training in Scotland, Anglican bishop Robinson startled the European Church with his wake-up call kind of book, “Honest to God”, which in some measure confirmed the dying days of the Western Christendom. Indeed it was so frightening that my friends warned me to distance myself from certain purportedly freethinking liberal theological seminaries in Europe and North America! In other words, most Christians are mere ‘monotheists’, shall we say, ‘unitarians’ who choose to hang on to one of the countless attributes of God.

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity was eliminated from our thinking, preaching, writing and singing and the mind set reflected a Christianity which was less than what I knew in my spiritual formation in my home church. We didn’t pay much attention to the Holy Trinity ---- to what it said or what it meant. Some Christian traditions prefer the glossolalia or speaking in tongues while others harp on faith and work. Some emphasize the sacraments while others preach the word. In fact, some Western theologians are unhappy about an suspected absence of ‘Christology’ in the Eastern churches. I am not sure whether the traditional pre-Constantinean churches in Asia and Africa, the matrices of the Christian faith, need any lessons in religion, especially in Christian theology from interlopers. Maybe we could emulate the example of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah in order to grasp what it takes to be a servant of God.

We all know we believe in God—the same God everyone believes in and that is that. Although, since September 11 tragedy, some Christians have tried to fence around God and say that “our God is a God of love, justice, compassion and life “ but their God is a God of violence, destruction and death etc.

This attempt to include some and exclude others is not done by theologians but largely by demagogues. Several years ago, one sunny afternoon I was out visiting—as I walked from the car to the front-door of a house, I heard ,”O my God!”. You see I am trained to be calm in order to exude a ‘take-charge’ attitude. Gently I said, “It’s not God but I am from the same department”; in fact I was more frightened than she was!. These days I visit such sun-worshippers only during the winter months!

We all have a different and a distinct way of understanding God---one that sets us apart from everybody else. Holy Trinity Sunday in the liturgical calendar is the day we are called upon to pay special attention to the way God has been revealed in the Christian faith. Even though the prayers, the creeds and most of the symbols we use in worship are thoroughly Trinitarian, the bulk of our thinking about God is not.

Of course, God is a whole lot bigger than anything we can ever say or imagine; therefore, all references to God will be both figurative and imperfect.

At the same time, this vision of the Trinity of God is appropriate and indispensable and it does have a great impact on our understanding of God. Our Sudbury Presbytery held a workshop on renewal of our congregations where we discussed the vision that we have as Christians.

It is important to take the visionary experiences of Isaiah’s call to be a prophet seriously. When I began my ordained ministry in the United Church in the mid-70s, we used to talk about prophetic witness, prophetic ministry and prophetic voice a lot. We tried to learn from Bishop Helder Camera, Mother Teresa and Archbishop Desmond Tutu on prophetic witness. Of late, those phrases and words like prophetic voice and mission statement are found in the pop culture of corporations.

People love to be prophets. Back seat drivers. Monday morning quarterbacks. “I told you that screw wouldn’t hold up the whole spice rack. Now look at the mess of spice jars strewn all over the floor. I’m going to re-alphabetize ALL of them. A prophet!

Anytime you hear a phrase like, “Well, all they need to do is…….decriminalize marijuana….. outlaw abortions……..balance the budget…….lookout---you may be in the presence of a prophet! The people who have more time than others, who have such definite visions of how to do things right, are upset with someone or angry about something else. People always learn something new and exciting and they glom onto their new knowledge as if it is the ultimate truth!

The term “sophomoric” ( sopho/sophy wise/wisdom; moros: foolish from moron! ) was fashioned for a reason. Sophomoric prophets can be a pain in the neck!. We had a sophomoric prophet in our theology class. He would question the professors endlessly day after day, week after week. He had all the answers. Finally he was ordained. His Christian pastoral ministry lasted only 5 months!

After three decades in ordained Christian pastoral ministry in the United Church of Canada, let me tell you, there is nothing repugnant or arcane about God’s call. Ministry is not first and foremost a job or a contract. It is not something I am hired or even invited to do. The ministry is created by the call of God and the authority to preach and teach is intrinsic in that calling.

1. Our understanding of the church and its mission has been flawed by the individualism of the modern era. Individualism corrodes deep and lasting community.

2. Our understanding of the church and its mission has been lost by secularization. We secularize the church when we reduce it to a club, a business, a support group; when we allow the church to be defined by something other than the good news of Jesus Christ.

3. Our understanding of the church and its mission is marred when we suffer from the absence of a theological vision…we are perilously close to losing hold of the common sense, down-to-earth enthusiasm and responsibility of our faith, the basic convictions that make the church to be the church and distinguish it from special interest groups, social clubs, political parties, and civic organizations.

Harry Emerson Fosdick once put it, “A God who doesn’t care, doesn’t count.” Isaiah’s call is one of the most powerful passages in the Bible of its sense of authenticity. Although I had known this passage of Isaiah’s call in Sunday School, when one of my relatives read this dramatic portion at the morning prayer at the digs, I felt its power in a special way that even 35 years later as it possesses that transforming quality.

When someone is touched by the divine spirit, one’s life is profoundly transformed. It is often painful and challenging. It often results in being invited to live with a deep sense of unworthiness. Isaiah was overwhelmed with the vision of the presence of God.

In his deeply spiritual experience in the Temple the year King Uzziah died, Isaiah glimpsed the Lord. That’s all it takes. In fact, this is all any human can stand. Just a glimpse so enthralling that we are struck speechless. Recently we have had experiences which shake our foundation and swallow us in clouds of unknowing. We can identify with such experiences that painfully pull us out of our fear and launch us into the challenge of bearing witness to the grace of God.

Isaiah’s speaking began in silence. He was speechless. He had a vision that was awesome---he saw God so huge that it only took God’s robe to fill the whole Temple---the music of the voices of the fiery, flaming creatures, the smoke ( Holy Smoke!), the raging storm of power, and foggy vision….. God so powerful, and so high and holy that the angels tended to God’s every need.

Isaiah cried out in response to that experience:
“There is no hope for me! I am doomed because every word that passes my lips is sinful and I live among a people whose every word is sinful. And yet, With my own eyes I have seen the King, the Lord Almighty!”

In spite of his vision, Isaiah felt unworthy, guilty, contaminated, inadequate; that is the experience of each of us who has been touched by the divine. As we experience the awesome holiness in the sanctuary of life, we are called, claimed and commissioned to stand up and shout the glories of God. We are invited to sit with people as they wander through the wilderness of despair like the disillusioned youth implicated in terrorist agenda that threatens to consume them and you and I wonder why God touched our lips!

Speaking of the voice of God, Gardner Taylor, an African American, one of the most famous preachers of our time, who preached in his booming voice from the pulpit of Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, had gone home to Louisiana to preach a revival. The rain was pouring down; people filled Evergreen Baptist Church; as the service began the congregation could see flashes of lightning outside. The people laughed nervously as thunder punctuated the choir’s anthem and the sermon.

The rain beat harder, the thunder and flashes of light were followed by an enormous crack of lightning. Startled, everyone in the church fell silent. Taylor later said, the darkness was so impenetrable that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face! In the long, stunned silence, a voice came from the back of the church:: “ Preach on, Brother! We can see Jesus in the dark! ”.

That is what Psalm 29 invites us to do. To preach on in the darkness, to sing on in the rain, and continue praying even in the midst of the storm. The last words of the Psalm is a prayer of the people of God: “May God give strength to God’s people, May the Lord bless them with peace”.

Isaiah was preaching the right stuff…the best theology: accusation and assurance. But one day he looked up. He saw what no one can and live. Isaiah saw God. The floor shook under his feet and he could barely see through the smoke. His knees crumbled and he cried out: “MY gosh, I’ll die.”

As Canadian singer Alanis Morrissette sings:
Oh perilous place
Walk backwards toward you
Blink disbelieving eyes chilled to the boneNo apprehended bloom
First to take this foot to virgin snow
I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment

The seraphim covered their faces before God’s glory! Isaiah was afraid that he would die like Gideon, Elijah and Moses! As John Calvin in the very first chapter of the Institutes refers to the “dread and wonder” of the presence of God.

“ I am shallow, I am disintegrating before the sight of God’s holiness.”
God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, says Paul (1 Cor.1:27) God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. It is about God, who is the source of your life in Jesus Christ.
And then, one of the heavenly beings flew over and picked up a live coal out of the fire and touched his lips, and said: “Your guilt is gone.”.
And then God said: “Now Isaiah, my beloved one, now I have something for you to say .
The past is gone.. NOW we can begin.