Job 38:1-7, 34-41
1From out of a storm,
the LORD said to Job:
2Why do you talk so much
when you know so little?
3Now get ready to face me!
Can you answer
the questions I ask?
4How did I lay the foundation
for the earth?
Were you there?
5Doubtless you know who decided
its length and width.
6What supports the foundation?
Who placed the cornerstone,
7while morning stars sang,
and angels rejoiced?
34Can you order the clouds
to send a downpour,
35or will lightning flash
at your command?
36Did you teach birds to know
that rain or floods
are on their way?
37Can you count the clouds
or pour out their water
38on the dry, lumpy soil?
39When lions are hungry,
do you help them hunt?
40Do you send an animal
into their den?
41And when starving young ravens
cry out to me for food,
do you satisfy their hunger?
I always find this part of the story disturbing. I mean, Job is suffering, through no fault of his own, and he just wants to ask God face to face, why? I’m faithful. I’ve done everything you’ve asked. I have not lost my faith, indeed, I am even more certain that you will judge me fairly when you see the truth of the situation. I’m being punished unjustly and you are a just God. Job stands there secure in his knowledge of God’s power and grace and mercy and waits for God.
And God turned on him! God says “Where were you when I created all this? And where are you even now when the creatures of the world need food, or when rain has to be sent over a drought area? Are you helping me do my work? Or are you just caring for yourself?”
What have you done to help?
We look around and see so few people here. What are we doing wrong?
I mean, we’re doing this whole Job thing lately
so we just have to ask
What have we done to deserve this?
Are we totally innocent and faithful like Job and just being tested by the devil?
what have we done to help God?
I can go on here talking about the things we have done in the past
It is what I usually do at this time of the year, after all
the time of year when we talk about our heritage as Disciples
the things we are proud of as Delhaven.
I can point to the back wall and talk about awards we have won
about all the things we have participated in
I can talk about the past glories and honors
about the community center
and all the ways we have reached out to help our neighborhood
all the social action that we have done
And I can talk about the programs that we support today
Girl scouting and the preschool and the new preschool
ways that we are helping the future of children
ways we are helping lift our neighbors out of poverty
out of illiteracy and out of hopelessness
how we feed the hungry with our food ministry and with the Treasure Box program
I can say all those things that make us feel better about ourselves
even as we look around at these empty seats
I can point out how Uy and I were part of yesterday’s Regional worship service
How Hank serves our Region with the golf committee,
Doug with Global ministries and me with communications
and how Linda serves with general church boards and committees
and Kate teaches classes to ministers seeking to be licensed.
I can talk about all the work that we do for the Church
But I don’t think those things really help us feel better about ourselves,
especially when we look at all the empty pews. And still,
maybe even more so, we want to ask God – why? Why are we not growing?
June asked me that yesterday. She said she was so worried about the church,
about how we keep getting smaller and so many of those who are here are older
and not as able to do things as we once were. And these are legitimate concerns.
If the point of church was to be an organization that raised money to help the poor,
if it was supposed to be just like any other charity organization,
then we would be in pretty sad shape.
But the point of the church is to carry the Good News of Jesus Christ into the world.
The point of coming together for worship is to share God’s love with each other,
to learn from and be challenged by the Word of God,
to be changed by that Word, and then
to go out into the world and change it.
The business of Church is to be the center from which change comes about.
Delhaven is at the center of a lot of change. We may not be seeing growth,
but I am seeing so many wonderful things happening around us these days, with us as the center. Things that are happening because we are here.
Maurice can tell you that he has to fill the baptistery fairly often because one of the Spanish speaking congregations we share the building with have someone to baptize.
My friend Pastor Mary Hollifield of the West Covina UMC will be baptizing an adult member of her congregation, who wants to be immersed, here on November 1st.
There is a new Disciples Church in town, Iglesia Ven a Jesus. The congregation is almost all people who have never been part of any church, and have never been baptized. They meet in Alvara Regalado’s living room. He is also a new Disciple and learning to be a Disciples minister. They are being guided toward baptism by Martin Garcia, a Disciples pastor. And when they are ready, they will come here to be baptized.
And we have Abigail Conway, coming forward today to be baptized. A young girl who loves Jesus and wants to give her life to God. She has spent quite a bit of thought lately on how she can serve the church, what she can do for Delhaven. Right now it’s mostly about lighting candles.
When we think about it, isn’t bringing light exactly what Christians are supposed to do? Isn’t that the way we are able to help God, today, here and now? Isn’t our job to bring light into the darkness, to bring knowledge of God’s love, manifest in Jesus Christ, to all the world? Abigail’s lighting the candles symbolizes perfectly what it is we are to do as Church. A few years ago we said we wanted to be the light on the corner that shines into the neighborhood. A couple of years later we drew circles of community with Delhaven at the center. My sisters and brothers, I suggest to you that this is exactly what we are today. We are the light at the center of many intersecting circles of community. All come together here, and though we may not see the difference, I know that we are making a difference. We are, in fact, helping in God’s work, reaching out in love in so many different ways, showing the light of Christ to many who may not have seen it without us.
Let’s prepare for the baptism of this little light among us by singing the Disciples Affirmation of Faith, ‘We Your People, God, Confessing.”
Showing posts with label sermon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sermon. Show all posts
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Where is God? Part 2
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Then Job answered: ‘Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning. O that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me. Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; but he would give heed to me. There an upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted for ever by my judge.
‘If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!
Job is not a happy man. He has been afflicted with the loss of everything – wealth, property, health and even the loss of all of his children. His friends have been somewhat less than helpful in their advice and suggestions to him.
In case you haven’t read the entire story from where we left off last Sunday, the Reader’s Digest version is this. Job’s three best friends, hearing of his suffering, have come to comfort him and give him counsel. They tell him that all of these bad things prove that he has sinned against God. They don’t know what he has done, but it must have been terrible for such dreadful evils to fall upon him. They tell him he must confess his sin, repent of it and then, he must endure his punishment without complaint.
Job continues to proclaim his innocence. He points out that very often the wicked seem to prosper, so why can’t it be possible that the innocent sometimes suffer? His friends don’t buy that. He proclaims God’s power and goodness. He cries out to heaven that he would happily accept any punishment God felt he deserved for wrongdoing, but he just does not understand what he has done to deserve this.
His friends tell him – if you refuse to accept God’s punishment, if you refuse to confess that it is entirely your fault that all this bad stuff is happening to you, then you are speaking against the teachings of your religion. Everyone knows that good is rewarded and evil is punished. For you to say innocents can be punished for no reason you are speaking against God! Clearly, you are guilty and must be punished!
We’ve heard all that before, haven’t we? We’ve heard it from TV preachers and from live pulpits. We’ve heard it in folk wisdom. We hear people say “everything happens for a reason” and “this is what was meant to be,” and “whatever happens is God’s will and we just have to accept it.” We hear people say “If you do what we tell you to do, your life will get better.” We hear TV preachers telling us if we are faithful we are sure to prosper, our illnesses will be cured, and all our financial affairs will be successful but that if we are unfaithful, well . . we’ll lose it all. They would be right there with Job’s friends, refusing to believe that these bad things could possibly happen to anyone who hadn’t done something really terrible.
And Job is saying “Hey, what is going on? I AM faithful, even now. And everything is going wrong. Why, God, Why? Why was I even born if you are going to do this to me?” Job hasn’t lost his faith. He still believes God to be all powerful, fair and just. He goes on for verse after verse, proclaiming God’s greatness. He tells his friends “I know that my redeemer lives!” He knows that in the end times he will see his God and be judged with compassion and mercy. He just wants to see him now! He says, “I know if I could just present my case to you that you would relent and end this torment. Where are you??”
You all can surely tell by now why this passage doesn’t get preached often. We do not preach about a God we can’t find. Pastors do not tell their flocks about a God who seems to disappear in the hardest times. We tell you, “open your hearts. God is there, you just aren’t connecting.” We might even imply that if you would just try harder you would be able to hear God. That God’s apparent lack of response is somehow your fault for not listening hard enough. We’ll say things like “We can hear the voice of God in other people.” Well, Job was hearing a lot from other people and none of them were speaking with the voice of God. All of them were just repeating conventional wisdom – if he was faithful and blameless these things wouldn’t be happening to him. And that just plain wasn’t true!
And really, who would tune in to a TV preacher who preached on this, on the despair that Job is going through in this passage? There is no light at the end of the tunnel here. There is no good reason for what is happening to him. There isn’t even the example we usually get to use of other people being touched and changed by Job’s suffering, like the upsurge in volunteerism that follows a disaster. There’s nothing but pain and despair and a request for God to come and judge his righteousness.
We might be asking the same question when we look around here and see that only 10% of the seats are taken. Or when we see needed repairs that we’ve had to put off year after year because there simply aren’t enough funds coming in to pay for a new roof or whatever. And we wonder why. We are faithful. Even when we can barely make the bills we still give to mission and we work hard to care for our neighbors. We reach out to feed the hungry, teach the children, help the hopeless and give hope to the helpless. We’ve even started new programs to help our neighbors, stepping out boldly in faith that God will provide what’s needed for us to go forward. We take stands on issues that may make us unpopular but that we believe are faithful to Jesus’ commandment to love one another. We are faithful and we are generous and we are loving and welcoming and we just don’t understand. Where is God? Why is God letting us fade away like this? If we could just talk to God, face to face, and justify our presence here, explain what we are doing, we know that God would see we deserve better than this.
Pop wisdom tells us that if we want to be revived we have to change the way we worship. We have to use new music and technology. Going door to door doesn’t work. We have to enter people’s homes through their computers. We have to market ourselves, like Starbucks. We have to create a brand name presence, so that when we say “Delhaven Christian Church” people know exactly what church we are talking about. The experts and pundits tell us that we have to change and conform to society’s desires for an entertainment factor in everything, that we have to cater to the short attention span that MTV and UTube have created. Conventional wisdom tells us we are doing something wrong and until we confess what we are doing wrong and go forward atoning for our past sins we are doomed to failure.
Maybe. I had lunch with a group of ministers this week. Most of us come from small churches. Most of us were engaged in the Church Extension transformation process. One was pleased to report his church is growing. We talked about what the church might look like in 10 years and what evangelism tools work best. We talked about how studying certain books as a congregation is guaranteed to bring new life and energy into the church. Some lifted up computerized social networking and coffee shop worship as the wave of the present and possibly the future, others maintained that when those fads have ended the traditional church will be waiting for those folks to return. During the week I read probably a dozen articles on the future of the church, some proclaiming we have been worshipping in roughly the same way for close to 2,000 years and that tradition of worship will continue on until the end of time and others saying the days of the church meeting in an actual building are numbered.
And underlying all the conversations and the articles is this sense that we are all crying out with Job, “God, where are you? Come talk with us, face to face, so we can justify our existence and our actions to you.” Through it all is this undercurrent of “God, where are you? Please come and tell us what to do. Let us know what we are doing wrong and we’ll change it. But please, come, and talk to us.”
So, what’s the Good News in this passage? I want you to know that in every preaching class I took, and probably every preaching class ever given, the instructor is sure to say that there always has to be good news, there always has to be hope, there always has to be a word that the people can take and hold on to in the coming week.
We could jump ahead to the end of the book and see that Job gets everything back and more. But I think that would be unfaithful to the lesson in this passage. I think doing that would be unfaithful to the whole point of Job’s tribulations – that sometimes bad stuff happens even to the faithful, through no fault of their own. It’s Good News, but it may not be the right Good News for this day.
I believe the Good News here is that it’s ok to sometimes feel like God isn’t listening. That it’s ok to lift up our heartfelt pain and complain about the way the world is treating us. It’s ok to say “God, why are you forsaking me? Where are you?” It doesn’t make you a bad person or an unfaithful person. After all, the psalmist and Job and even Jesus asked those questions.
And it doesn’t mean that God isn’t there. It doesn’t mean that God isn’t listening. It may just be that it’s not time for an answer yet. It may be that God is waiting for us to get past the anger and the fear and the rushing around trying to make things work and just settle down so that we can listen.
One thing I know for sure. In the end things will work out. They may not always work out the way I want them to. They may not work out the way I expected them to. They will almost certainly not work out when I want them to work out – which for me is usually right now. But they will work out if we are willing to slow down and listen, and wait for the answer. God will not leave us out in the cold and dark of pain and despair forever. Eventually God will answer and the darkness will lift. Eventually the barriers will be gone, the path ahead will be clear. Eventually, and in God’s own time, God will make a way, somehow.
Then Job answered: ‘Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning. O that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me. Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; but he would give heed to me. There an upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted for ever by my judge.
‘If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!
Job is not a happy man. He has been afflicted with the loss of everything – wealth, property, health and even the loss of all of his children. His friends have been somewhat less than helpful in their advice and suggestions to him.
In case you haven’t read the entire story from where we left off last Sunday, the Reader’s Digest version is this. Job’s three best friends, hearing of his suffering, have come to comfort him and give him counsel. They tell him that all of these bad things prove that he has sinned against God. They don’t know what he has done, but it must have been terrible for such dreadful evils to fall upon him. They tell him he must confess his sin, repent of it and then, he must endure his punishment without complaint.
Job continues to proclaim his innocence. He points out that very often the wicked seem to prosper, so why can’t it be possible that the innocent sometimes suffer? His friends don’t buy that. He proclaims God’s power and goodness. He cries out to heaven that he would happily accept any punishment God felt he deserved for wrongdoing, but he just does not understand what he has done to deserve this.
His friends tell him – if you refuse to accept God’s punishment, if you refuse to confess that it is entirely your fault that all this bad stuff is happening to you, then you are speaking against the teachings of your religion. Everyone knows that good is rewarded and evil is punished. For you to say innocents can be punished for no reason you are speaking against God! Clearly, you are guilty and must be punished!
We’ve heard all that before, haven’t we? We’ve heard it from TV preachers and from live pulpits. We’ve heard it in folk wisdom. We hear people say “everything happens for a reason” and “this is what was meant to be,” and “whatever happens is God’s will and we just have to accept it.” We hear people say “If you do what we tell you to do, your life will get better.” We hear TV preachers telling us if we are faithful we are sure to prosper, our illnesses will be cured, and all our financial affairs will be successful but that if we are unfaithful, well . . we’ll lose it all. They would be right there with Job’s friends, refusing to believe that these bad things could possibly happen to anyone who hadn’t done something really terrible.
And Job is saying “Hey, what is going on? I AM faithful, even now. And everything is going wrong. Why, God, Why? Why was I even born if you are going to do this to me?” Job hasn’t lost his faith. He still believes God to be all powerful, fair and just. He goes on for verse after verse, proclaiming God’s greatness. He tells his friends “I know that my redeemer lives!” He knows that in the end times he will see his God and be judged with compassion and mercy. He just wants to see him now! He says, “I know if I could just present my case to you that you would relent and end this torment. Where are you??”
You all can surely tell by now why this passage doesn’t get preached often. We do not preach about a God we can’t find. Pastors do not tell their flocks about a God who seems to disappear in the hardest times. We tell you, “open your hearts. God is there, you just aren’t connecting.” We might even imply that if you would just try harder you would be able to hear God. That God’s apparent lack of response is somehow your fault for not listening hard enough. We’ll say things like “We can hear the voice of God in other people.” Well, Job was hearing a lot from other people and none of them were speaking with the voice of God. All of them were just repeating conventional wisdom – if he was faithful and blameless these things wouldn’t be happening to him. And that just plain wasn’t true!
And really, who would tune in to a TV preacher who preached on this, on the despair that Job is going through in this passage? There is no light at the end of the tunnel here. There is no good reason for what is happening to him. There isn’t even the example we usually get to use of other people being touched and changed by Job’s suffering, like the upsurge in volunteerism that follows a disaster. There’s nothing but pain and despair and a request for God to come and judge his righteousness.
We might be asking the same question when we look around here and see that only 10% of the seats are taken. Or when we see needed repairs that we’ve had to put off year after year because there simply aren’t enough funds coming in to pay for a new roof or whatever. And we wonder why. We are faithful. Even when we can barely make the bills we still give to mission and we work hard to care for our neighbors. We reach out to feed the hungry, teach the children, help the hopeless and give hope to the helpless. We’ve even started new programs to help our neighbors, stepping out boldly in faith that God will provide what’s needed for us to go forward. We take stands on issues that may make us unpopular but that we believe are faithful to Jesus’ commandment to love one another. We are faithful and we are generous and we are loving and welcoming and we just don’t understand. Where is God? Why is God letting us fade away like this? If we could just talk to God, face to face, and justify our presence here, explain what we are doing, we know that God would see we deserve better than this.
Pop wisdom tells us that if we want to be revived we have to change the way we worship. We have to use new music and technology. Going door to door doesn’t work. We have to enter people’s homes through their computers. We have to market ourselves, like Starbucks. We have to create a brand name presence, so that when we say “Delhaven Christian Church” people know exactly what church we are talking about. The experts and pundits tell us that we have to change and conform to society’s desires for an entertainment factor in everything, that we have to cater to the short attention span that MTV and UTube have created. Conventional wisdom tells us we are doing something wrong and until we confess what we are doing wrong and go forward atoning for our past sins we are doomed to failure.
Maybe. I had lunch with a group of ministers this week. Most of us come from small churches. Most of us were engaged in the Church Extension transformation process. One was pleased to report his church is growing. We talked about what the church might look like in 10 years and what evangelism tools work best. We talked about how studying certain books as a congregation is guaranteed to bring new life and energy into the church. Some lifted up computerized social networking and coffee shop worship as the wave of the present and possibly the future, others maintained that when those fads have ended the traditional church will be waiting for those folks to return. During the week I read probably a dozen articles on the future of the church, some proclaiming we have been worshipping in roughly the same way for close to 2,000 years and that tradition of worship will continue on until the end of time and others saying the days of the church meeting in an actual building are numbered.
And underlying all the conversations and the articles is this sense that we are all crying out with Job, “God, where are you? Come talk with us, face to face, so we can justify our existence and our actions to you.” Through it all is this undercurrent of “God, where are you? Please come and tell us what to do. Let us know what we are doing wrong and we’ll change it. But please, come, and talk to us.”
So, what’s the Good News in this passage? I want you to know that in every preaching class I took, and probably every preaching class ever given, the instructor is sure to say that there always has to be good news, there always has to be hope, there always has to be a word that the people can take and hold on to in the coming week.
We could jump ahead to the end of the book and see that Job gets everything back and more. But I think that would be unfaithful to the lesson in this passage. I think doing that would be unfaithful to the whole point of Job’s tribulations – that sometimes bad stuff happens even to the faithful, through no fault of their own. It’s Good News, but it may not be the right Good News for this day.
I believe the Good News here is that it’s ok to sometimes feel like God isn’t listening. That it’s ok to lift up our heartfelt pain and complain about the way the world is treating us. It’s ok to say “God, why are you forsaking me? Where are you?” It doesn’t make you a bad person or an unfaithful person. After all, the psalmist and Job and even Jesus asked those questions.
And it doesn’t mean that God isn’t there. It doesn’t mean that God isn’t listening. It may just be that it’s not time for an answer yet. It may be that God is waiting for us to get past the anger and the fear and the rushing around trying to make things work and just settle down so that we can listen.
One thing I know for sure. In the end things will work out. They may not always work out the way I want them to. They may not work out the way I expected them to. They will almost certainly not work out when I want them to work out – which for me is usually right now. But they will work out if we are willing to slow down and listen, and wait for the answer. God will not leave us out in the cold and dark of pain and despair forever. Eventually God will answer and the darkness will lift. Eventually the barriers will be gone, the path ahead will be clear. Eventually, and in God’s own time, God will make a way, somehow.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Here Am I.
Isaiah 6:1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.
5And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 6Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” 8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I;
This is Trinity Sunday, when in many churches around the world preachers are doing their best to define and discuss the Holy Trinity. It’s an intimidating task, and every year when it comes around I flash back to a day in my first student minister position. I was working in a retirement community and spent a good deal of time ministering to the staff. One day one of the housekeepers asked me to join her on coffee break, and then asked if I could please explain exactly how God could be three different people at the same time before she had to go back to work. Well, I knew there was no way in the world I could do this – theologians have been writing books on the subject since about the year 400 and they haven’t been able to make it clear yet. We’re not even really supposed to understand it. As Thomas Acquinas said “We know that God is, not what God is.” Her coffee break lasted just about the same amount of time that a sermon does, and I am no better able to explain this great mystery in 15 minutes now than I was then.
One thing I think I understand about the different persons of God is that we hear God in different ways. God chooses different means to break into our lives, to get our attention, and the way we hear it has something to do with the way each of us understands God.
Look at Isaiah, for example. His focus in life was God, creator and sustainer, law giver and judge, Lord and bridegroom of Israel. So when he heard God speak, he heard from the Lord of the Universe, mighty Yahweh on the throne of heaven, surrounded by the heavenly host.
Isaiah wasn’t always a prophet. He was a priest in Jerusalem. His job was to make sure worship went the way it was supposed to, to preside over the various rituals in the temple, to make sacrifices in the proper way, to make sure the offerings were distributed among the poor fairly – in a lot of ways his job was pretty much like my job.
His job was also to take care that only the worthy came close to God – to protect the Holy of the Holies from anyone who wasn’t supposed to be in there. Only the priests were allowed behind the curtain to the place where the Ark of the Covenant was kept and then only after rigorous cleansing rituals to make sure they were acceptable. It wasn’t that they believed God lived in the temple, exactly, any more than we believe that God lives in this building. The Holy of the Holies within the temple was more like the place God rested his feet while sitting on the heavenly throne – but even getting near the place where God’s feet touched the earth was too wonderful and holy for ordinary people. Isaiah no doubt expected that his life would keep on going the way it had been, and then, he had this vision. He found himself in the presence of God. He was in God’s actual presence within the temple, surrounded by wonderful beings and heavenly music and the most marvelous incense. And of course he panicked. “I’m not worthy. What am I doing here?” No doubt he thought he was going to die immediately, for scripture told him no one can see the glory of God and live. Even Moses only got a glimpse of the back of God, and that while he was hiding behind a rock. And Isaiah certainly wasn’t Moses. He was just a priest and he knew that he was no better than the people he served. He knew that no matter how many cleansing rituals he went through, the bottom line was that he was just as impure as any other person. But a seraph brought a live coal from the altar, which cleansed his lips and his soul, so that he could not just hear God’s word, but so he would be able to speak it to others. And when God said “Who will go to our people?” Isaiah said “I’m here. I’ll go.”
I wonder if Isaiah would be so anxious to volunteer if he realized just how hard it was going to be to get anyone to listen to him, if he realized how much pain this new job was going to bring into his life. Because what happened here is that Isaiah’s job changed. Isaiah was now a prophet. From now on, instead of making sure everything kept going the nice comfortable way it had been going, he was supposed to bring people to change. He was supposed to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. He was supposed to shake people out of complacency and teach them how to change their world, to shape it according to God’s will rather than according to their own desires. He was supposed to bring God’s word to the people and bring the needs of the people to God. He was to be the conduit between God and Israel. From now on he would fight against the status quo instead of working to maintain it.
I don’t know what Isaiah normally felt walking into the temple before this momentous. Did he see it as “the office” or was it always a special place? I don’t know if he found leading the worship services exhilarating or whether it was just a job. Or whether his response was like mine – varied according to a whole host of causes. Sometimes when I come in on Sunday morning I am just so focused on making sure the sound system is turned on, and checking to see that everything is where it’s supposed to be, and discovering broken things that it just doesn’t feel very worshipful in here. And sometimes, when I wander over in the middle of the week for no particular reason it is as if God is here waiting for me. Sometimes when I pray I’m just kind of going through the motions and sometimes it is an overwhelming experience. Very often during worship I feel like a stage manager, trying to make sure things happen in a timely manner, in the proper order and in such a way that the congregation feels like they have been in worship. And sometimes the prayers and hymns and readings get to me the way I would hope they get to everyone else. And you know that sometimes the sermons take on a life of their own, when the Spirit decides to say what I don’t know how to.
On this occasion, however, Isaiah knew he was in the presence of God. He felt the power, heard the voices, smelled the smoke – all of it was overpowering. He was overwhelmed with awe, realizing that he was in the presence of the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. He was filled with humility. He was no longer the high-ranking priest of the Temple. In God’s presence he was just a man with all the same failings other people had. And he became willing to offer himself in service, to carry God’s word to God’s children, to do whatever God asked him to do and go where ever God asked him to go. It wouldn’t be for quite some time that God would say to Isaiah ‘Behold, I am about to do a new thing.” But clearly, God was doing a new thing in Isaiah’s life on this day, because from this day forward Isaiah will be an entirely different person.
The thing about God is that we never really know what to expect. God has a way of breaking through, of coming into our lives in amazing ways, unexpected ways. We find ourselves going about our lives in the same old way, expecting to find God in the same old places and suddenly it’s not like that at all. Suddenly God’s presence is real and different and frightening, and we find ourselves compelled to change in ways we would never have considered before. We find ourselves doing things we never would have considered.
God has a way of changing the things that make us most comfortable, and then waiting to see how long it takes us to move on with a new thing. Isaiah was comfortable as a priest. He knew what to do next, he knew all the rituals and the methods of sacrifice and to divide up the lambs and such between the temple and the poor. He figured he’d spend his life doing the same old, same old, just like his father and his father before him.
Yesterday I got a phone call from someone who said, “God’s not there! What do I do?” Just the day before she had told me that God was like a big pillow that she hugged close to herself at night to keep her safe and comfortable. But yesterday when she reached for that pillow it wasn’t there. I know that God didn’t go away, but I think maybe God is letting her know that it’s time for her to give up that safe, comfortable pillow and let God lead her into a new way of being. For many, church is that comfortable pillow. We’re used to things going in a particular way on Sunday mornings. We’re used to the bills getting paid and the office being open and repairs getting done. And when that changes, or looks like it might change, it gets scary. One local congregation had a meeting this week to talk about what to do now that they had lost a substantial portion of their income. Some panicked and said, “God’s not there. Our pillow has disappeared.” And others said “Have faith. God will do a new thing in us. We just don’t know what it is yet.”
We really don’t know what God will ask of us next. We can be fairly certain it will be outside our comfort zone. Isaiah didn’t expect to find himself in God’s actual presence. And he didn’t expect to hear God ask, “Who shall we send?” But when he heard that, he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t dither or worry or start looking for that comfortable pillow. He said “Here am I. I will go.”
When we find ourselves in God’s presence may we respond in the same way that Isaiah did. May we approach with awe, with fear and trembling and love and trust. May we stand before God with humility, knowing that we are no better or worse than anyone else in God’s eyes. And may we offer ourselves to serve God’s people in what ever way God asks. And most of all, let us keep in mind God’s words to us through Isaiah – the priest turned prophet – “Behold, I will do a new thing in you.”
I will do a new thing in you, I will do a new thing in you,
Whatever you ask for, whatever you pray for,
Nothing will be denied,
Says the Lord.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.
5And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 6Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” 8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I;
This is Trinity Sunday, when in many churches around the world preachers are doing their best to define and discuss the Holy Trinity. It’s an intimidating task, and every year when it comes around I flash back to a day in my first student minister position. I was working in a retirement community and spent a good deal of time ministering to the staff. One day one of the housekeepers asked me to join her on coffee break, and then asked if I could please explain exactly how God could be three different people at the same time before she had to go back to work. Well, I knew there was no way in the world I could do this – theologians have been writing books on the subject since about the year 400 and they haven’t been able to make it clear yet. We’re not even really supposed to understand it. As Thomas Acquinas said “We know that God is, not what God is.” Her coffee break lasted just about the same amount of time that a sermon does, and I am no better able to explain this great mystery in 15 minutes now than I was then.
One thing I think I understand about the different persons of God is that we hear God in different ways. God chooses different means to break into our lives, to get our attention, and the way we hear it has something to do with the way each of us understands God.
Look at Isaiah, for example. His focus in life was God, creator and sustainer, law giver and judge, Lord and bridegroom of Israel. So when he heard God speak, he heard from the Lord of the Universe, mighty Yahweh on the throne of heaven, surrounded by the heavenly host.
Isaiah wasn’t always a prophet. He was a priest in Jerusalem. His job was to make sure worship went the way it was supposed to, to preside over the various rituals in the temple, to make sacrifices in the proper way, to make sure the offerings were distributed among the poor fairly – in a lot of ways his job was pretty much like my job.
His job was also to take care that only the worthy came close to God – to protect the Holy of the Holies from anyone who wasn’t supposed to be in there. Only the priests were allowed behind the curtain to the place where the Ark of the Covenant was kept and then only after rigorous cleansing rituals to make sure they were acceptable. It wasn’t that they believed God lived in the temple, exactly, any more than we believe that God lives in this building. The Holy of the Holies within the temple was more like the place God rested his feet while sitting on the heavenly throne – but even getting near the place where God’s feet touched the earth was too wonderful and holy for ordinary people. Isaiah no doubt expected that his life would keep on going the way it had been, and then, he had this vision. He found himself in the presence of God. He was in God’s actual presence within the temple, surrounded by wonderful beings and heavenly music and the most marvelous incense. And of course he panicked. “I’m not worthy. What am I doing here?” No doubt he thought he was going to die immediately, for scripture told him no one can see the glory of God and live. Even Moses only got a glimpse of the back of God, and that while he was hiding behind a rock. And Isaiah certainly wasn’t Moses. He was just a priest and he knew that he was no better than the people he served. He knew that no matter how many cleansing rituals he went through, the bottom line was that he was just as impure as any other person. But a seraph brought a live coal from the altar, which cleansed his lips and his soul, so that he could not just hear God’s word, but so he would be able to speak it to others. And when God said “Who will go to our people?” Isaiah said “I’m here. I’ll go.”
I wonder if Isaiah would be so anxious to volunteer if he realized just how hard it was going to be to get anyone to listen to him, if he realized how much pain this new job was going to bring into his life. Because what happened here is that Isaiah’s job changed. Isaiah was now a prophet. From now on, instead of making sure everything kept going the nice comfortable way it had been going, he was supposed to bring people to change. He was supposed to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. He was supposed to shake people out of complacency and teach them how to change their world, to shape it according to God’s will rather than according to their own desires. He was supposed to bring God’s word to the people and bring the needs of the people to God. He was to be the conduit between God and Israel. From now on he would fight against the status quo instead of working to maintain it.
I don’t know what Isaiah normally felt walking into the temple before this momentous. Did he see it as “the office” or was it always a special place? I don’t know if he found leading the worship services exhilarating or whether it was just a job. Or whether his response was like mine – varied according to a whole host of causes. Sometimes when I come in on Sunday morning I am just so focused on making sure the sound system is turned on, and checking to see that everything is where it’s supposed to be, and discovering broken things that it just doesn’t feel very worshipful in here. And sometimes, when I wander over in the middle of the week for no particular reason it is as if God is here waiting for me. Sometimes when I pray I’m just kind of going through the motions and sometimes it is an overwhelming experience. Very often during worship I feel like a stage manager, trying to make sure things happen in a timely manner, in the proper order and in such a way that the congregation feels like they have been in worship. And sometimes the prayers and hymns and readings get to me the way I would hope they get to everyone else. And you know that sometimes the sermons take on a life of their own, when the Spirit decides to say what I don’t know how to.
On this occasion, however, Isaiah knew he was in the presence of God. He felt the power, heard the voices, smelled the smoke – all of it was overpowering. He was overwhelmed with awe, realizing that he was in the presence of the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. He was filled with humility. He was no longer the high-ranking priest of the Temple. In God’s presence he was just a man with all the same failings other people had. And he became willing to offer himself in service, to carry God’s word to God’s children, to do whatever God asked him to do and go where ever God asked him to go. It wouldn’t be for quite some time that God would say to Isaiah ‘Behold, I am about to do a new thing.” But clearly, God was doing a new thing in Isaiah’s life on this day, because from this day forward Isaiah will be an entirely different person.
The thing about God is that we never really know what to expect. God has a way of breaking through, of coming into our lives in amazing ways, unexpected ways. We find ourselves going about our lives in the same old way, expecting to find God in the same old places and suddenly it’s not like that at all. Suddenly God’s presence is real and different and frightening, and we find ourselves compelled to change in ways we would never have considered before. We find ourselves doing things we never would have considered.
God has a way of changing the things that make us most comfortable, and then waiting to see how long it takes us to move on with a new thing. Isaiah was comfortable as a priest. He knew what to do next, he knew all the rituals and the methods of sacrifice and to divide up the lambs and such between the temple and the poor. He figured he’d spend his life doing the same old, same old, just like his father and his father before him.
Yesterday I got a phone call from someone who said, “God’s not there! What do I do?” Just the day before she had told me that God was like a big pillow that she hugged close to herself at night to keep her safe and comfortable. But yesterday when she reached for that pillow it wasn’t there. I know that God didn’t go away, but I think maybe God is letting her know that it’s time for her to give up that safe, comfortable pillow and let God lead her into a new way of being. For many, church is that comfortable pillow. We’re used to things going in a particular way on Sunday mornings. We’re used to the bills getting paid and the office being open and repairs getting done. And when that changes, or looks like it might change, it gets scary. One local congregation had a meeting this week to talk about what to do now that they had lost a substantial portion of their income. Some panicked and said, “God’s not there. Our pillow has disappeared.” And others said “Have faith. God will do a new thing in us. We just don’t know what it is yet.”
We really don’t know what God will ask of us next. We can be fairly certain it will be outside our comfort zone. Isaiah didn’t expect to find himself in God’s actual presence. And he didn’t expect to hear God ask, “Who shall we send?” But when he heard that, he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t dither or worry or start looking for that comfortable pillow. He said “Here am I. I will go.”
When we find ourselves in God’s presence may we respond in the same way that Isaiah did. May we approach with awe, with fear and trembling and love and trust. May we stand before God with humility, knowing that we are no better or worse than anyone else in God’s eyes. And may we offer ourselves to serve God’s people in what ever way God asks. And most of all, let us keep in mind God’s words to us through Isaiah – the priest turned prophet – “Behold, I will do a new thing in you.”
I will do a new thing in you, I will do a new thing in you,
Whatever you ask for, whatever you pray for,
Nothing will be denied,
Says the Lord.
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