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Epiphany Lutheran Church The Holy Trinity Sunday, June 15, 2003 Here am I! Send me! In an old lectionary with the old red hymnal, we used to find this lesson read every year on Trinity Sunday. But, I made great use of it when I was recruiting for the seminary because it is a very positive picture of Isaiah willing to go for the Lord. Now in our current lectionary this story will be read only in the years 1997, 2000, and 2003. I don't know what will happen after this year. It is a lesson that I find thrilling and powerful and one I want to share with you. It underscores God's Grace and therefore it is very Lutheran... If any verse can be Lutheran, but I'll explain later. Isaiah is having a vision; he sees the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. His robes fill the whole temple! Quite a sight. Seraphim - winged creatures - We're not sure of their identity; perhaps angels. Isaiah sees them in his vision and describes them for us. They have 6 wings, 2 for face, 2 for feet, and 2 for flying. They call out "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory." The voice was so loud that it shook the foundation of the temple. And the temple was filled with smoke! It was an awesome scene that Isaiah witnessed... Isaiah's response to this vision of the Lord was to recognize his unworthiness. He says: "There is no hope for me! I am doomed because every word that passes my lips is sinful, and I live among a people whose every word is sinful. And yet, with my own eyes I have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." Then, as if the seraphim sensed what was wrong with Isaiah, he flew to Isaiah with a burning coal and touched his lips and said: "This has touched your lips, and now your guilt is gone and your sins are forgiven." And then, the Lord called, "Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?" Isaiah responded, "Here am I, send me!" As a story of 25 centuries ago, it is probably meaningless for our culture. Most scientific persons would laugh at it. But as a vision of one of God's servants, it is significant for us because imbedded in it are three truths affecting our attitudes: 1. To sense God is to be awestruck, dumbfounded. 2. To sense your own unworthiness is to repent of your sin. 3. To repent of sin brings one immediately into contact with God's forgiveness. 1. God is holy. The word "Holy" is carved, woven and painted on almost every chancel in almost every church throughout the world. Theologian Regin Prenter calls God "The holy other." Now there's a play on the words h-o-l-y and w-h-o-l-l-y. God is both holy other and wholly other. God is not flesh. God is totally different from any of our experiences. To stand in God's presence would be to fall on your knees immediately. Prenter says that we sense our own limited, frail and sinful humanity in God's presence. During WWII our unit received some combat veterans who had recovered from injuries received on Okinawa and other islands in the Pacific. One young man with whom I became friends confided that he sensed God's presence during the battle for the island in a way that he had never known before. He said his experience was uncanny, impossible to explain. Not many of us have had that kind of experience. But many of us have been in the presence of a great man or woman and we recognize the aura surrounding them - kind of awe inspiring. But to be in the presence of God - the wholly other - the one who is really "out of this world" is the experience one would not likely forget. It is the kind of attitude that is expressed in the phrase "fear of the Lord." 2. To sense unworthiness Isaiah expressed his unworthiness by saying he had unclean lips. He admits his inferiority before the Lord. He admits his sense of guilt. He even includes everyone he knows as having the same problem. He cannot turn to them for help for they are sinners just as he is. This is the essence of confession: just to realize your unworthiness - is confession before God. This morning, as we are about to receive communion, we must be struck with a sense of unworthiness with the sense that we cannot do it ourselves. It is a humbling thing: to admit that we can't do it on our own. A small example from our lives: Jeannine is somewhat shorter than I am. So when I took over the kitchen several years ago, I just put things anywhere I could reach - top shelves, above the cabinets, way back. When she needs something that I have put up out of her reach, she asks me to get it down. I always do it willingly. But every time she has to ask, it demeans her. It says she can't do it on her own. Then, I had to learn that lesson in my several stays in the hospital. Things that were only a few inches away from my fingertips, I had to ask help."I just can't wait till I'm out-a-here." But, it is essential for our well being, our spiritual and mental health to admit that God Is God and that we are his creatures, to admit that we are in conflict with God instead of being servants who faithfully serve. 3. Instant Forgiveness Nowadays we have instant everything: Instant tea, instant coffee, instant dinners, instant computers. But God is the Father of instant forgiveness! Just as with Isaiah who declared his guilt and was cleansed so we too, as we repent are given God's assurance of his love and forgiveness. The seraphim took a coal and cleansed Isaiah's lips, took his guilt away, forgave him his sins. Lutheran theology is based on God's Grace that it is not something that we have done to deserve God's forgiveness; it isn't how we pray, how we fold our hands, the words we use. God's Grace comes to us immediately in our attitude of openness to God. The recognition of God as God is enough. It is our attitude. It is an interesting parallel that today we receive assurance of God's forgiveness through the bread and wine which we receive through our lips. Is that not like Isaiah's experience? It wasn't the coals that gave forgiveness but rather symbolized the reality of God's great YES to Isaiah. Therefore, it is with God's resounding YES to us that we receive Christ's body and blood of the Lord's Supper. God is in effect saying to us "Yes, you are my child, I know you, you have my mark on you. Do not let your unworthiness stop you... Do not let your sins overcome you.. Go and be clean, be a whole person." This is a special day - a day on which we are given a cure for unclean lips. The bread and wine are brought to our lips as Christ's body and blood. They are given to us to cleanse us: our lips, our minds, our souls, our dispositions, our unruliness, our greed, our pride... to cleanse us from anything that holds us back from being whole persons. Even, if we wonder whether we're fit for life, whether we can do anything right... God comes back with a great YES! Be clean!, be whole because you are my child. Then Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord: Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? Isaiah's response is quick and willing: Here I am! Send me! Only a person, who has experienced what Isaiah did, can God use in his work. Only one who senses that God is God; One who sees himself or herself as unworthy before God; one who receives forgiveness from God; only that kind of a person can God send on his mission. God asks, we answer. As forgiven servants of God, we can answer: Here am I, Lord, send me. May this be our earnest desire! Amen! |