The Voice of the Lord

Sermon Isaiah 6: 1-8 May 27, 2018 Trinity Sunday/Memorial Day weekend

The Voice of the Lord

“In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.” This classic opener line to the call story of Isaiah grabs our attention, holds on to us and gets us to read the rest of the story. It’s a classic capture phrase as good as any classic novel we have read. “Call me Ishmael” from Moby Dick is one that almost everyone knows even if they’ve never read the book, they know the phrase that famously draws readers into an adventure of a man and his adventure with the whale hunting obsession of Captain Ahab. “In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord,” draws us into an adventure with Isaiah and his experience with the voice of the Lord and the people of Judah.

                                  King Uzziah was the king for a little more than 45 years when he was struck                                       with leprosy and had to have someone else rule in his place. When he died                                             everything that had been rather relaxed and comfortable for the people of Judah                                   was thrown into uncertainty. Judah was always under the threat of invasion by                                       the Assyrians and now with the death of the king that threat became more of a                                        reality. The king died, an era has ended, things change.

We mark our lives and our history books by significant events. 

Where were we on the day Kennedy was shot, the Challenger exploded, the bombing of Pearl Harbor or on 9/11? 

Those particular events in history are events that signaled an end of an era and the beginning of something else. 

We can recall the tiniest details of those moments in our lives and we can repeat them to others over and over.

It is in this moment in history that the people of Judah can recall the details of when everything changed for them. It was all in the year King Uzziah died. And in that year, something else happened, one young man had his life turned upside down. One young man heard the voice of the Lord and his life changed direction forever. It was an event that he could recall the tiniest details because they marked him and took him to a place he could not have done on his own.

God called him into service. God called him to a life committed to prophesy, to be a prophet.

After Uzziah died his son Jotham was on the throne and Israel had allied with the Syrians and were making advances against Judah. The crisis continued as Jotham’s son Ahaz took to the throne. And there through the readings of Isaiah we discover how he tried to convince Ahaz to resist these advances. But, he chose an alliance with Assyria. Through the power of this alliance they were able to defeat the Syrian-Israeli advance. But, they were eventually bound to an intolerable alliance with Assyria which ended in the invasion of Judah by their allies under the reign of Hezekiah. Thus, fulfilling the prophecies given by God to Isaiah.

And so, for Isaiah, that very significant moment in history, that moment in the Temple, when sci-fi creatures approached him, and the Temple filled with smoke, God’s presence was very clear.

God enters and intervenes in moments of history to declare that all is not lost and purpose is not nullified.

It’s interesting to note that this passage of chapter 6 verses 1 through 8, interrupts the section of Scripture where the prophet Isaiah is already speaking to the people. Some would say it is out of order and yet others say it is inserted at just the right time to bring attention to the fact that Isaiah has been called by God to do this job.

An essential piece about this text is that it claims a particular order of worship. If we pay attention to the verses we can observe that verses 1-4 are words of praise, verse 5 confession, verse 6-7 forgiveness, and verse 8 a sending or commissioning.

In significant events in our life, the call of God and God’s claim on who we are become essential. We often ask ourselves the question, “Why am I here?”  We wonder about our purpose and if we can make a difference even as we age. Isaiah’s story reminds us that especially in the events of history God calls us out and uses us for God’s glory. God call us to serve even if our world is just one small room. It is God who takes out of our comfort zone and sends us into the world of the people.

In the midst of what was happening, in the upheaval of events around him, Isaiah went to church, he went to worship, he went to the Temple. Perhaps, he went because he wanted comfort, or perhaps as an obligation or he went out of habit. But, he went. In the midst of the events that are happening around us today in the world, in our country, in our community, and in our own homes, are we aware of the desire or the need to go to church, to go and find an opportunity for worship?

Greek Orthodox Church, Corfu, Greece

As Isaiah entered that Temple on that day, it filled with smoke and seraphs, and the very presence of God scared the living daylights out him. He was overwhelmed by the presence of God.

I’m not sure how I would feel if this sanctuary filled up with smoke. I look up at these rafters and wonder how it would be to watch billowing smoke filling this place. Okay, not like it did that recent January, not that kind of smoke. But, the incense kind of smoke that our Episcopalian or our Orthodox friends use, yes, like that a room filled with incense smoke. And then if a bunch of creatures started coming down from the rafters, giant winged things, I’m not sure if I would recognize any of it as the work of the Lord. I might think I’d been captured by aliens. 

For this story of Isaiah, this appearance of God fully present was his experience of the power of God to engulf him and claim him for a life of service. He was in the holy place of the presence of God and God came to him and all he could do was cry out to God in his own sense of inadequacy.

Immediately God intervenes and touches the lips of Isaiah,

purifies him,

and makes him whole.

We, too, can have an experience in the presence of God that throws us into a sense of inadequacy. Also, in the presence of big events, major world happenings, national crises, community tragedies, or personal challenges we can get overwhelmed and think we are inadequate.

We have a sense of helplessness

or distress of purpose,

or a sense of a loss of direction. We lose hope. We wonder when God will show up for us.

For some God’s voice comes as it is for Isaiah,

God reaches down and touches us,

calls us,

sets us apart,

and sends us out.

 For some the claim God makes on us is much quieter. God comes with the still small voice. Or God comes in the silence.

The heart of the matter is that in any event,

whether major earth shaking historical moments,

or individual trials,

God shows up.

And God calls us as witnesses to the awe and wonder of the presence of the One who holds us and binds us together with heaven and earth; binds us to the saints, the saints before us and the saints present with us; binds us to the work of the Lord.

When the voice of the Lord fills our lives in the presence of worship we are overwhelmed, 

and we are caught in the moment and there is no turning back. 

We are changed forever. 

An era has ended and things change. 

We are caught in the grip of the love of God that will not let us go. 

It does not let us go.

When we leave the sanctuary of our experience with God, our lives are changed and all our encounters with the world are changed. God’s presence, 

God’s love has altered the course of our personal history. 

And by our own personal historical change 

we can change the course of the history of the world.

Through the love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are brought to new life. How will we alters the course of the world’s history? 

In the year 2018, I saw the Lord…whom shall I send…here I am, send me. Amen.