Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11
Rev. Laura J. Collins
February 8, 2004
Two biblical stories with the same structure:
Something amazing and awesome shows us the power of God.
In light of God's awesomeness, we feel small/sinful/insignificant/unworthy.
Instead, we receive confirmation and affirmation for our call.
Immediately, we say, "I'm yours!"
Isaiah -- vision of a God so big, you can't see anything but the hems of the Holy robes.
response: I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.
Great description. Fits us perfectly, as seen in last week's Super Bowl.
Per Jim Wallis of Sojourner's: you don't have to be a member of the religious right to be appalled by the baseness of the entertainment -- appealing, if appealing can be used to describe it, to such a new low in grossness. It makes me think of that Calvinist word I rarely find myself wanting to use: depravity.
So, in the presence of God's holiness, the unclean lips of our culture and our own unclean lips, become obvious, overwhelming. In the face of such beauty, ugliness is exposed.
But the purpose of such exposure is not shame or self-degradation. Immediately, the holy response to Isaiah's sense of guilt is forgiveness and call. "Don't worry," the angel says, "you are loved. You are clean. You never need to be ashamed in the presence of the Holy one."
Isaiah then is able to hear the call of God and answers without hesitation, "Here am I. Send me."
The story in the gospels in similar. Jesus is choosing disciples. He joins some fishers and though they have been without a catch all through a long night, with Jesus aboard, they immediately make an overwhelming catch. At once, these men recognize that they are in the presence of the Holy, that a spiritual power unlike any they have ever known has come near them. And Peter's response is the same as Isaiah's: "Don't come near me! I'm sinful!" The first words of response from Jesus are "Don't be afraid."
Don't be afraid. This is the first thing the angels in our Scriptures always have to say. Don't be afraid. Well, we preach such a nice, loving God in our church -- a friend, a lover, an always-welcoming, always-inclusive Holy Companion. Why would anyone ever be afraid of such a God.
Maybe because it's God. God. You know, the one powerful enough to bring creation into being, the one whose energy is the force of love in the universe? The big God, the God who is other, not just the spirit within, but the absolute center of all life!
When the Holy One arrives, things change -- people change, nations change, history changes, earth changes. The Holy One is completely beyond our control, completely beyond any theology we build to contain her, completely beyond our mind's reach, completely unpredictable and with a power unlike any other in the universe.
Frankly, I think it would be insane not to quake in our boots a little when this kind of power comes near. If you don't feel an overwhelming sense of humility in the presence of God, you probably aren't really in the presence of God.
But the stories don't end there. Yes, the awesomeness of God's power sucks the breath right out of your body. Yes, you suddenly feel incredibly unworthy of the experience and incapable of any adequate response. But then something else happens. A touch. A word. A promise. A call.
And the unworthiness melts aways. And something else comes in. A sense of empowerment. A sense of conviction. A sense of joy and eagerness. Send me! Isaiah shouts. Send me! I'm ready.
Much of what we do in our lives and even in our church doesn't spring from this kind of immediacy, does it? Maybe our experiences of the Divine are not so dramatic. Not so close up. Sometimes, we long for a clarity like that the first disciples received. In a moment they left everything and followed Jesus. It seems that all the possible choices evaporated in the presence of the only real choice.
Those people called to be elders and deacons who will be ordained later in the service probably felt less a sense of dramatic call from God than a urging from Jo Hoge. Think about the big decisions you've made: whether to marry and whom. Whether to leave your motherland and travel to a new country to make a new start. What career path to follow. How to bring up your children. It's not always so clear and urgent as these Biblical stories. We move around in a lot of gray area.
And so we have to tackle life without that sense of urgency or clarity. We go ahead and say yes to a proposal or no to a job or yes to a request for volunteer help or no to uprooting the children. Sometimes we move forward because we have to -- and while we'd love a lightening bolt of spiritual insight, it hasn't come.
Sometimes is doesn't come, because we haven't sought it. We haven't sat in silence and asked the question, "What would God have me do?" We haven't taken the time to wonder, "Where is God moving in this?" We haven't asked our friends to pray with us for clarity or insight or direction. Maybe we haven't prayed because we don't really want to be thrown off track by God's ideas. Who knows what that unpredictable Source of all Wisdom might think is wise for us?
But sometimes, we have tried. We have prayed. We have asked. And the gray remains. And so we move forward, trusting that God will stay with us, even though we don't know it at the time.
And sometimes, insight does come. Sometimes it comes not as a lightening bolt, but as a whisper. Not as a vision of the Holy One upon the throne, but a glimpse of a new possibility. Not as a spectacular catch of fish, but as a little hook that gets caught in our heart.
God calls. And God gives us what we need -- forgiveness, encouragement, hope, joy -- to say, "Here am I! Send me."
Today, we welcome new and returning elders and deacons into service in our church. I don't know if they prayed for guidance before they said yes. I hope so. If they did pray, I don't know if the answer came to them with startling clarity or as a tiny whisper or not at all. Maybe they decided to move forward anyway, murkiness notwithstanding.
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