It’s God Calling
on Lines 1, 2 and 3!”
Psalm 29, Isaiah 6:1-8
Trinity Sunday, June 3, 2012
Rev. Rich Gelson, Fairmount Presbtyerian Church
You’ve heard
people talk about being “called” by God, right? I know I use this wording whenever asked why
I chose to become an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA). I’ve made lots of education and career
decisions that at various times seemed to be leading me in any number of
directions, but I firmly believe they have all been under God’s purposefully
influencing guidance. More specifically,
I say my sense of “calling” from God is why I am passionate about preaching the
Bible and leading worship, about spiritually companioning any and all people, about
loving our neighbors through selfless service, about small groups being the
backbone of congregational health, and about Sunday School and youth ministry
being critically important heartbeats for every church family’s present and
future.
More generally this
morning, I’m wondering what you all start thinking about when I proclaim on
behalf of the total witness of our Scriptures that every single one of us is uniquely called by God. How and where does it happen that any of us
flawed human creatures dare to admit that we’ve been, and continue to be, contacted
and called by the Almighty?
Before we consider
this further, let’s reflect a moment on some ways we contact each other in this
day and age. E-mails.
Text messages. Facebook updates
and chats. Written notes. Greeting cards. Talking on the phone. Face to face interactions with loved ones,
friends, colleagues, and work associates that are in person or by way of a
real-time computer video services such as Skype. In fact, just this past week Simon Kamande, who
visited us from Nairobi, Kenya last year, and I began trying to set up a live
video chat sometime soon.
I believe God,
the Father, who created each of us and who redeems each of us through Jesus Christ,
the Son, is fully present in all our human interactions through the indwelling power
of the Holy Spirit. In this way God
does connect with us through every face-to-face, ear-to-ear, text-to-text,
email-to-email communication. Yet I haven’t
met anyone who has straight up received a phone call or a text or a Skype
request or an email or written letter or a full in-person face to face from any
person of the Holy Trinity. I don’t
find this to be how God “calls” us, though a “call” may well happen as a result
of those interactions. I do enjoy
joking about how my email address @gmail stands for God.mail!
In all the ways they happen, “call” stories have
a wonderfully mysterious and profound tone to them – whether they are about God
calling someone to a particular career, church home, path of service,
friendship, or committed loving relationship.
They can immediately or eventually make perfectly good sense to the
people receiving and responding to them.
A brief further word of personal witness -- I believe with all my heart,
mind, and soul that I received the gift of a holy vision while in my first year
of graduate school. This happening
changed my career path from mental health professional to pastor. And I am similarly convinced that I “heard”
God offer a word of strong confirmation to me very early on in my relationship
with my wife Stefanie. If you take time
to listen faithfully to people, especially those you love and trust, I do
believe you’ll hear honest stories about how they believe God has communicated
more or less directly with them at critical moments in their lives.
Today’s passage
from the Book of Isaiah is one person’s call story. It’s as totally unique and curious as any of
ours. Yet I believe it also teaches how and where God most constantly contacts
and calls on each of us. This is a
generally well known bit of the Bible, but since it always sounds quite
bizarre, let’s quickly review …
This call story
is about God directly contacting one particular person at one particular time
in the ancient history of the Hebrew people and of the world. God did so in order to call this person,
Isaiah, to become a mighty prophet. As
we read it and hear it, the holy contact comes by way of Isaiah suddenly seeing
God seated on a great throne in a heavenly court. Flying all around the throne are several
fiery, smoky, six-winged celestial beings shouting mighty praises to God the
Father, Son and Spirit -- “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole
earth is full of his glory.” These
essentially angelic beings were doing what Psalm 29 teaches us all to do.
Isaiah,
understandably, is awe-struck and overwhelmed to be witnessing this heavenly
scene. More specifically, he feels that because of
his sinful human nature, he is very much unworthy and spiritually unclean to
have been granted this great heavenly glimpse. So he cries out a bold confession of
this. This then triggers an even more
amazing ethereal experience as he senses one of the fiery, smoky, six-winged celestial
beings – called a seraph – flying
straight to his face and placing a burning hot piece of coal on his lips. It does this while also offering a word of
forgiveness. It seems the wound of the
sinfulness Isaiah confessed with those lips had been spiritually
cauterized.
Then, there’s
more! Before the call story scene ends,
the newly pardoned Isaiah also experiences God speaking directly to him! Representing the entire Trinity, he hears a
voice rather rhetorically ask, “Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us?”
Isaiah’s reply is immediate, faithful and famous – “Here I am, Lord,
send me!”
This particular
call story is nicely summed up by one contemporary Bible teacher with these
words – Isaiah “knows he is unworthy to serve, yet what other option does he
have here at the throne of God? This is not the time to say no; it is the time,
in Isaiah’s words, to say woe. “Woe is me! I am lost.” There is a deep mystery at work here, and it
profoundly upsets Isaiah’s equilibrium. But in the upsetting, Isaiah is able to
confess his sin, be cleansed of his guilt, and receive a clean heart. Only then
can he hear God’s call with clarity.”[i]
I don’t know how
well you can relate to experiencing seeing God enthroned in heaven. I don’t know how well you can relate to
seeing seraphs and having them speak and act in a way that offers you pardon
for your sin. My guess is it’s all too
strange, and so you don’t really relate to it terribly well. But I’m also guessing – no, let me say that
I trust in faith -- that you do strongly relate to the great praise for God
shouted by these seraphs, and that you do understand what inspired Isaiah’s
enthusiastic reply of “Here am I, send me!”
I believe it’s why you are here in worship right now – and being in worship
is the big, not-to-be missed point of this Bible passage. In the midst of the strange and mysterious
things you read about, do not overlook the fact that we are told it all
happened while Isaiah was in worship on one particular day in his life. It
may well have been a day for him back then like today is for us – rather ordinary
until a holy in-breaking summoned a strong commitment.
So let’s go back to the question I asked
several minutes ago. How and where does
it happen that any of us flawed human creatures dare to admit that we’ve been,
and continue to be, contacted and called by the Almighty? It happens whenever and wherever we are
actively worshipping the God of our biblical faith – Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit.
As Fairmount Presbyterian
Church, as Faithful People in Christ in this particular time and in this particular
historic place, this very hour every Sunday is where we are gathered together
in faith to sing holy, holy, holy praises, confess our sin, seek and receive
forgiveness, and hear a fresh call to loving service through God’s Word. Here we are! And our worship doesn’t ever cease, for
God’s sanctuary is building-less and boundless. So when we leave this beautiful sanctuary,
just as Isaiah left his worship space long ago, our faithfully committed hearts
and minds go with us into our daily lives to spiritually influence the whole
world for God’s sake.
We go forth from
here as long-time members and friends of this faith community. One of us will go forth (hi, Emma!) as a
freshly professed and confirmed part of the FPC fold. We all go, I hope and pray, feeling
spiritually renewed and urgently called to bear good witness to our Christian faith
through our words and actions in all times, places, and social circles.
We are all
heavenly beings amongst a great diversity of heavenly beings called according
to God’s purposes. I’m glad, as perhaps
are you, to not be of the fiery, smoky, six-winged variety. Though how wonderful to also respond to the
instruction we find in Psalm 29 -- “Ascribe
to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe
to the Lord the glory of his name; worship the Lord in holy splendor.” And how wonderful as well to celebrate Psalm
29’s benediction as we too pray, “May the Lord give strength to his people! May
the Lord bless his people with peace!”
Amen.
[i]
Bartlett,
David L. and Taylor, Barbara Brown (2011-05-31). Feasting on the Word: Year B,
Volume 3, Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Kindle
Locations 1113-1115). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
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