"Claiming Our Voices: Here I Am”

Isaiah 6:1-13

A Sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

February 4, 2007

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

            Isaiah worked in the temple in Jerusalem.  He was a man not unlike other men of his time, except that he was a priest and that made him a bit of a muckety-muck.  He campaigned for kings and lobbied and preached in such a way that the policies of the kings would either be followed or opposed.  This was not uncommon for preachers then and it’s not uncommon now. 

            Isaiah’s favorite King was Uzziah.  Uzziah led the southern kingdom of Judah for forty years.  In the same period of time, there were four kings in the northern kingdom of Israel.  With a long reign, you can do a lot of things.  He brought stability to a country which had been in a civil war for fifty years.  He made sure that the towers were fortified.  He built a sophisticated army.  He expanded the borders of Judah and made friends with his neighbors.  He even recreated stable relationships with Israel.

            But stability and equity are not the same things.  Sure, there were few wars and lots of military spending, but social problems were also on the rise.  The people became arrogant in their prosperity and forgot the widows and the orphans.  They blamed other people for their relative poverty.  They mistrusted outsiders and even levied curses upon them.  They trusted themselves a lot more than they trusted God.  The word for that is idolatry. 

The occasional lonely prophet reminded them of their responsibility. 

            “Thus says the LORD:  “When you stretch our your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;  Remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes;  Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:15-17)

But it was such a downer and not many people listened. 

            The people kept on doing their own thing.  They were lulled into a belief that if you ignore the problem long enough, it will go away.  Or at least you can blame it on someone else, say the next administration.  That’s easy to say if you’re not poor or a minority or without health insurance, or a decent education, or without food or shelter or dignity.  But for the mainstream media of the time, it was acceptable, seemingly appropriate, and popular to fall in line with the status quo.              Then King Uzziah died.  In his last year, he contracted AIDS or the biblical equivalent which was leprosy.  He was relegated to a separate house.  Since he was ritually unclean, if he wanted to go out into public he had to have a sign around his neck and yell the indignity: "Unclean, unclean!"  How even the mighty have fallen.

The establishment priest Isaiah went to the temple as was his custom. Now, God was not often overtly encountered at the Temple.  People would go there because it looked good.  It was the pious thing to do.  Isaiah was in the temple leading the people in a collective mourning period for their dearly departed leader.  The people were weeping and wailing and Isaiah was imparting the empty platitudes of God about this great man.  That’s when it happened.

            It happened way up in the rafters of the great temple.  Isaiah was blinded by a great shining light and there he saw what he deduced to be God sitting on a throne.  God on the throne, not Uzziah.  Uh oh.  It was like he was the kid with his hand in the cookie jar, caught in the act.

Isaiah knew he was in trouble.  The hem of God’s robe filled the whole temple to the extent that everyone was underneath the wingspan of the almighty.  So this vision was not only for Isaiah, but for everyone.  Incense burned and the place filled with smoke.  Seraphs, angelic figures, flew around and they called to each other:

            “Holy, Holy, Holy is the God of hosts.  The whole earth is full of God’s glory.”

            God’s glory, not Uzziah’s

            Not this or that empire

Not the glory of violence.

            Not the glory of the so-called free market system.

            Not the glory of military might.

            Not the glory of prosperity for some at the expense of others.

            God’s glory.

            And Isaiah, in a moment of humility in the presence of God, realizing the power that was there—the real power, fell to the ground and said, “I am lost.  I am a man of unclean lips.  I have told lies on behalf of the empire.  I have squandered my duty as a priest.  I was too preoccupied with being liked and getting along.  I’m sorry.  I’m a man of unclean lips.”

But he couldn’t just leave it there.  He added a bit of an accusation, “and I live among people of unclean lips”.  This is a “the devil made me do it” line and a cop-out.  Isaiah was a priest and should have known better.  He had access to the scrolls.  He was the emparter of God’s word.  He gave holy sanction to the King’s actions.  If he lived among the people of unclean lips, that was partly his fault for not being enough of a healer.

            One of the angels heard his pathetic cry and swept down and took a coal off of the altar of sacrifice which was used to atone for all of the sins of the people.  And the seraph took the coal and touched it to Isaiah’s supposedly unclean lips. Dang.  Now his excuses were gone.

            In a voice of soft compassion amidst the ruckus came the voice of the seraph: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”  What the angel didn’t say, but Isaiah knew was “now what are you going to do?  What are you going to do once your excuses are gone?”

Isaiah admitted that he and the nation were lost.  In the presence of the people as an establishment priest he had parroted the words of the great king.  But now that the king had died, the scales came off of his eyes and he beheld the true face of God in each of the people.

Thirty-something years ago, Oscar Romero was selected as the Archbishop of El Salvador.  He was selected because he was bookish and rather conservative.  As such, he was not expected to upset things too much.  But then he began to see the extreme poverty of El Salvador.  He began to see what happened to his priest friends who dared to advocate on behalf of the poor.  They were killed by the US-backed death squads.  He became radicalized and realized that a theology of liberation was God’s intent for the people of El Salvador.  He stopped the construction of the gold-laced fancy cathedral and re-appropriated that money to the poor.  He was eventually gunned down while saying Mass.  But shortly before he died, he said that if he was killed then he would rise again in the people of El Salvador.  Archbishop Romero found his voice, claimed it and used very effectively.

When we stand in the presence of God (and we do--not only in church but when we encounter people made in God's image) it is important to be humble.  It is important to confess and know that we have something to learn.  None of us are ever total experts on human experience. 

Don't you see that it is only after Isaiah confessed his need that the angel touched his lips.  And the angel said "your guilt is taken away and your sin is forgiven." 

That’s when God said, "Whom shall I send?" 

In a moment of humble clarity, Isaiah said, "Here I am!  Send me!"

            Isaiah was called to tell the people of Judah to repent of their idolatry and get right with God once again. God is constantly making things new, confronting us in our complacency, recreating the world, recreating each of us.  And Isaiah the former establishment priest would be God’s spokesperson for change. 

            I found myself thinking this past week about the death of the great columnist Molly Ivins.  She was such an articulate, funny, piercing truth-teller.  I already miss he columns.  And I think about who can speak now that she’s gone.  That’s a natural thing to think about when someone retires or moves away or dies.  Who will take up their mantle?  Well, we know the answer, don’t we?  We can’t wait around for someone else to do it. Maybe we are the ones who need to step up and fill the void. 

We are gathered here in this place as sinners in a land full of sinners.  We have unclean lips and we long to be touched by holiness.  And we are touched by holiness each time we touch each other, each time we look with honesty at a sister or brother in need, each  time we tell the truth with love.  Each time we muster the courage to face the bitter cold of apathy with the coal from the fire of purpose, we are washed clean.

We are gathered here in this place because we have heard God say to us, "Whom shall I send?" 

Whom shall I send?

Remember, God did not choose the most articulate or the most intelligent to do holy work.

God chose and chooses us: limping, cynical, forlorn, hopeless us who are living in a land of unclean lips.

            Perhaps we need an Isaiah to speak for us. 

Or, perhaps we need to claim our own voices and say “Here I am, send me.”

Isaiah saw his land of unclean people, he saw their hatred of others and perhaps recognized for once what it really was: disguised self-hatred.

And in the midst of all of this, God convicts us.  God singes our lips in the honesty of our confessions.  God forgives us of our shortcomings and then challenges us:

Whom shall I send?  Who will go for me?

The answer which we give to that question makes all the difference in the world.

Whom shall I send?