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"Here I Am. Woe is Me!"

Sermon by Dr. Greg Knox Jones
on Isaiah 6:1-8
given February 4, 2007

The Scriptures are filled with stories about people who are called by God to particular forms of service. Last week Anne told the story of Jeremiah's call to become a prophet, and today's reading from the Hebrew Bible tells of Isaiah's call.

Our story is a dramatic one, recounting Isaiah's mystical experience in which he envisioned the heavenly throne. Isaiah saw God sitting on a throne high and exalted and surrounded by six-winged messengers named seraphs. The word "seraph" literally means "fiery one" and these creatures are members of the heavenly court that cry out in fiery voices that shake the foundations: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of God's glory!"

Isaiah's mystical experience came at a critical moment in history, in the year 742 Before the Common Era, when King Uzziah died. It was an unsettling time for the Hebrew people. The Assyrian Empire was casting a menacing shadow over the Middle East and, with the death of their king, uncertainty ruled.

At that moment in history, the Hebrews were living in a divided kingdom: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Uzziah ruled the southern kingdom of Judah for 41 years. Can you image the same ruler for 41 years? Thanks be to God that presidents have term limits!

King Uzziah's rule marked a time of great prosperity. During his reign, the nation expanded its territory and its economy boomed thanks to lucrative trade routes. However, by the time Uzziah died, things were beginning to unravel. The armies of Assyria were on the rise. Within a generation, the northern kingdom of Israel would be obliterated and within a decade Judah would become a vassal of Assyria. (1)

Isaiah's encounter with God is telling. His response to being in the presence of God is not: "Oh, God, it is so marvelous to stand before you!" Neither is it "God, thank you for the marvelous blessings of life." Instead, the words that immediately pour out of Isaiah's mouth are: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips."

You could interpret Isaiah's response as fear; fear of a vengeful deity who might hurl a bolt of lightening at him reducing him to a pile of ashes in an instant. Isaiah knows that God demands justice. However, there is no indication that he believes God is vindictive and finds pleasure in punishing. Instead, it seems that Isaiah's response is based on the fact that in the presence of God, his overwhelming feeling is how much his life is out of sync with God. In the presence of the Holy One, Isaiah is struck by the enormous discrepancy between the life God calls him to live and the life he is actually living.

Author Wendell Berry says that the notion of what constitutes an ideal life has changed. The ancient ideal was a life in which you perceived your calling, faithfully followed it, and gained satisfaction in fulfilling your work. However, today it appears that many believe an ideal life is merely a long life. (2) I think he is basically right and, while many people seem to think the most important goal is how long they live, there are many others who hunger for more.

Today, living in the West, we are experiencing a peculiar phenomenon. Church membership and attendance is declining while interest in the spiritual life is increasing. Many people know that something is out of kilter in our world and in their personal lives. Many people hunger for wholeness and a sense that their lives are on the right course. Many people wonder: Does God have a plan for me?

The answer of the Scriptures is "Yes, God has a plan for you. But are you absolutely certain you want to know the plan?"

God wants us to live rich and fulfilling lives, but in order to do that, most of us need to undergo a major overhaul. We need to make changes in our priorities and changes in our patterns of living. Many people turn to God for peace of mind. They may possess the things that our culture says will produce happiness, but they know on some level that something is awry. Their lives are not satisfying and so they pray to God for inner peace.

But peace of mind is not something God gives us regardless of the way we live. Peace in our inner being emerges from a life in harmony with God. And so to urge us to live in particular ways, rather than giving us peace of mind, God often unsettles us. God irritates and agitates us, God pesters and provokes us. God makes us feel uncomfortable because we ought not be comfortable with the way things are in our world today.

This is how it was for Isaiah. He said, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips." God got under Isaiah's skin and called him to be a prophet to his people in disturbing times. Isaiah wound up serving as a prophet for several decades and, during those years, he made it clear to the people that the reason for their suffering was not simply the ascendance of a foreign power. It also was the result of their own moral failing.

That came as quite a shock to the people because they believed that participating in worship rituals would appease God and keep God on their side. More importantly, they were so convinced of their own virtue that they believed God favored them and protected them and sanctioned their way of living. But Isaiah confronted them with the harsh truth: They were neglecting the poor, they were failing to take up the cause of the oppressed and they were allowing injustice to flourish.

Reading about Isaiah's experience prompts us to consider parallels to our own situation. Many Christians in our nation speak as if God is always on our side and bristle at any suggestion that we may not be in harmony with God's purposes. When we read about the enormous and continually increasing gap between the poor and the wealthy, it ought to give us pause. Many Christians today are pathetically uninformed about the Scriptures. They are under the notion that the Bible is mostly concerned with what one does in one's bedroom. They are stunned to discover that there are 2,000 verses in the Bible that speak about wealth and God's concern for the poor and the vulnerable. Many think that the chief job of Old Testament prophets was to predict the future. But most of the prophets told the people that their suffering was the result of ignoring the Deuteronomic command: "Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land'." (Deuteronomy 15:11)

And Jesus follows in the pattern of the Old Testament prophets. According to the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus launched his ministry, he quoted Isaiah, saying: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor." (Luke 4:18a)

Does God have a plan for us? Is God calling us to particular ways of living? Absolutely! God expects us to help the poor, to take care of God's natural creation, to seek justice for all people, to stand up for the weak and the abused, to speak out against sex trafficking and slavery, to demand health care for everyone, to strive for peaceful coexistence with others, to make war an absolute last resort.

These problems may seem too enormous and too intractable to tackle, but at the end of our lives when we stand before God, each of us will have to answer the question: What did you do about these problems?

Although most of us have become accustomed to relying on our government to address the problems of our world, it is increasingly clear that political entities alone cannot solve the deep difficulties of our planet. People of faith must bolster the backbone of our political leaders and we must also take action on our own.

Recently, I came across a quote by an eighty-something man named Pop Staples who said, "Tell you what's wrong with the world today, people done gone and put their Bibles away." The simple wisdom of that elderly man is directly on target.

It is time to open up our Bibles again and to heed the message of the prophets and Jesus that "nations will be judged not by their military might or their gross national product, but by how we treat the most vulnerable in our midst. The ones that Jesus called, ‘the least of these." (3)

As with Isaiah and his people, there is a discrepancy between the life God calls us to live and the life most of us live. Isaiah shows us how to change this. By confessing that we are on the wrong path. In his mystical experience, once Isaiah confesses his guilt, one of the seraphs picks up a burning coal from the altar, and with a pair of tongs, touches Isaiah's lips. The seraph declares that Isaiah's guilt is gone and his sin is blotted out. And once his sin is behind him, he is able to discern God's call and to make a faithful response.

God wants each of us to live exciting, challenging and fulfilling lives. However, such lives elude us as long as our focus remains inward and self-serving and small.

The other day I came across a pithy philosophy of life that strikes a chord. It's this: "I want to die young ... as late in life as possible." (4) To be young means to be inquisitive and adventuresome and hopeful. To be young is to still be excited about learning and to still be seeking a deeper connection with God. To be young is to believe that the future is wide open, ripe with possibilities and nothing seems impossible. To be young -- which is another way of saying: to be fully human -- we must give our lives to God who calls on us to serve the needs of others, to strive for justice and to take on the impossible. May we have the grace to admit it when we veer from God's path, and may we have the courage to grasp the opportunities to serve God faithfully. Each morning as we begin our day, may we be as bold as Isaiah and say to God "Here am I, send me!"

NOTES

1. Darrell Jodock, "Called to Change" in Christian Century, January 25, 1995.

2. Wendell Berry, The Way of Ignorance: And Other Essays, (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2006).

3. Jim Wallis, "Building a Covenant for a New America," at the Sojourners' Call to Renewal Conference, Pentecost 2006.

4. Rich Mayfield, Reconstructing Christianity: Notes from the New Reformation, (iUniverse, Inc., 2005)

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