MORE POWER! MORE GLORY!! MORE SPIRIT!!!
SURVEYING THE SITE—Isaiah 6:1-8
This week we observe Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost. It is part of Ordinary Time, those weeks which aren’t part of the festival seasons of Christmas and Easter and their corresponding preparatory seasons of Advent and Lent. Although the color of the day is white, the color of the season is green. This is the growing season in the northern hemisphere, and green is the color of living plants.
We are told that this takes place in the year that King Uzziah
died. The Old Testament reading introduces us to the throne room of God and the
attendants surrounding God’s throne. We see the seraphim, fiery serpents with
six wings (dragons?), circling above God’s head calling to one another, “Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.”
These same seraphim are consulted when querying, “Who will bring God’s message to the world?” With the enthusiasm of John Fogarty’s baseball player, Isaiah cries out, “Put me in, Coach! I’m ready to play today.”
READING THE BLUEPRINT
In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a
throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Seraphim stood above
it, six wings they had, with two he covered his face and with two he covered
his feet and with two he flew. And cried this [one] to this [one], “Holy, holy,
holy, The Name of hosts. Full to overflowing of the earth is his glory.” The
posts of the door [between heaven and earth] were shaken by the voice of the
one who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So, I said, “Woe me for
I am undone because a man of unclean lips [am] I; I [am] in the midst of unclean
lips. I dwell for the king; The Name of hosts has seen my eyes. And flew to me
one of the seraphim and, in his hand, having a live coal with the tongs he had
taken from the altar, and he touched on my mouth, and said, “Behold, has
touched this upon your lips and is taken away your iniquity, and your sin
purged. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send and who
will go for us?” And I said, “Here I! Send me!”
ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE
At the beginning of Isaiah, so much is happening. The Northern
Kingdom (Israel) has already fallen. The great diaspora (scattering of the
seed/people) has already occurred. The Southern Kingdom (Judah) is about to be
overcome by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, and the judgment of God is about
to be spoken. The only question is, “Who will be the bearer of the bad news?”
Isaiah is living in dire times. King Uzziah, who was a great king for many years of his life until his pride got in the way, has died. In 2 Chronicles 26, we read that in his pride, King Uzziah attempts to usurp the authority of the priests by making the sacrifice of incense in the temple himself, thereby taking the power of king and fusing it with the role of priest. The priest Azariah challenges the king with eighty of his closest priests and circumvents King Uzziah’s attempt at taking over the temple and aligning it with his enthroned power. When Uzziah expresses his anger and frustration, he develops leprosy on his forehead (a rash of some sort that stays with him until he dies).
It is this stance of pride that sets the stage for this reading in Isaiah. As the king was prideful, so now, the people are prideful. In the words of Reinhold Niebuhr, “Having been given the ability to transcend self, [humanity] attempts to transcend God.” (“The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation, Volume one: Human Nature”, ch. 5). This is the situation when God’s great throne room appears with God’s robe covering the Mercy Seat in the temple.
As a testimony to God’s credentials for making the judgment, the Seraphim with two wings to cover their faces so that they will not look upon the face of God, and two wings to euphemistically cover their feet (more vulnerable parts), and two wings to fly, the seraphim fly above God’s head, crying, “Holy.” Here again, we discover that holiness is not something that places God beyond creation but models the very quality of being engaged in and with creation.
This holiness speaks of God as being active in history, involved in relationship with the seraphim and Isaiah. The relationship does not point away from God’s creation. Rather, God’s holiness points to the overflowing abundance of God’s good creation and the quality of mercy that will be experienced by God’s nature of being “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” The does not mean that correction will not be administered, but that God’s love will win out.
In this throne room of judgment, in consultation with the seraphim, God asks, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for the entire heavenly court, for us?”
PUTTING UP THE WALLS
I can’t ever read this passage without thinking about
chocolate chip cookies. One night my sister Jamie was baking chocolate chip
cookies. I told her that I loved eating chocolate chip cookies right out of the
oven. To this, she said, “No, you don’t.” When I assured her that I did, she
said, “Open your mouth.” When I did, she slid a chocolate chip cookie that had
just come out of the oven off the spatula. Steam like a smoky mist shot out of
my mouth and filled the room. Well, it was probably my scream that filled the
room. I spit out the cookie and struggled with a rather sore, burned tongue and
lip for several days.
The act of purification in this text has life-long scarring implications, and yet we continue to witness the faithfulness of Isaiah’s response to God’s call. In fact, many who are in the ministry feel a similar response to God’s call. But it is not as savory as one would think. The message pastors often have to bring is the prophetic word of change.
We can’t stay where we are. God requires us to move, to think of things differently, to consider the effects of our opinions and desires. There is a call for humble accountability, claiming our responsibility for the state of the world and a need for a time-out, a time to acknowledge prideful self-interest, a time to get in touch with the rest of God’s good creation, reclaim our relationship with God and one another, and a time to heal and move into the new place God would have us go.
“Here I. Send me,” cannot be made lightly. The sizzle of coal burning purification and the knowledge of painful moments of misunderstanding are there. There will be times when the entire community will hate you, not because they have animus toward you, but because you are charged with holding a mirror up to God’s people, and they do not particularly like what they see.
Most of all, the response is made, knowing that change is a sign of God’s immanent* presence and our relationship with God is about to enter a new phase. It is exciting and terrifying. Maybe there should be a question mark at the end of the great response to God’s call, “Send me?”
HANGING THE TRIM
I really do like warm chocolate chip cookies with the chocolate
melting into that crisping shell of sugared dough, but not so fresh, please.
* Immanent: permanently pervading and sustaining the universe
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