God is God and You're Not!

 

“I’m God and You’re Not”

 

Isaiah 6:1-8, (9-13)
6:1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.

6:2 Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.

6:3 And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of God’s glory."

6:4 The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.

6:5 And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

6:6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.

6:7 The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out."

6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"

6:9 And God said, "Go and say to this people: 'Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.'

6:10 Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed."

6:11 Then I said, "How long, O Lord?" And God said: "Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate;

6:12 until the LORD sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.

6:13 Even if a tenth part remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled." The holy seed is its stump.

 

Chevy Chase, back in the days when he hosted Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update,” used to introduce himself thusly: “Good evening, I’m Chevy Chase, and you’re not!” There are several times in scripture when God pretty much uses Chevy’s routine to make the scene. One is certainly in the Book of Job, when God speaks from the whirlwind. If that isn’t a “Good evening, I’m God and you are not!” moment, I don’t know what is. Here’s another, although the narrator is the one doing the introduction, proclaiming God to be the one “high and lofty.” 

 

This passage has all kinds of good “biblical” stuff—royal imagery for God, angels, worship liturgy, a call and anointing of a prophet, a promised smiting, if the prophet’s (God’s) warnings are not heeded, and special effects. This passage is the stuff of movies and majesty, if not fear and foolishness. 

 

The angels depicted here may be part of the reason the first things these characters have to say when they show up, “Be not afraid”—they have six wings and pull off a kind of Cirque du Soleil routine with them as they prepare to speak praise about God: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of God’s glory!” Generally speaking, angels in the Bible are messengers, but in this narrative, one of them even performs the unusual “hot coal” anointing on the budding prophet, Isaiah. This is part of the call story.

 

I like call stories, regardless of where I hear them, but obviously, the Bible is full of them, ranging from God calling Abram to be the father of many nations, to Moses, leading God’s people from Egypt to freedom and toward the Promised Land. There is the “drafted into service” call story of the young shepherd boy, David, who tussles successfully with the Philistine giant, Goliath. In the New Testament, we have the calls of Mary and Elizabeth, the baptism of Jesus, which becomes a kind of call story leading to his ministry years and the cross, the various calls of the disciples, and of course the call of Saul, persecutor of Christians who becomes Paul the Apostle. In my twelve years on the Board of Ordained Ministry, I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the call stories of the many candidates for ministry that came before our body. The “strength” or passion of the call story was often a good predictor of how well that pastor would perform in the parish, or in whatever field of ministry they were called. I heard once of a candidate whose call story went something like this: “I tried a couple of other careers, and they didn’t work out, so I thought I’d try this.” I’m guessing that didn’t go well, either, but who knows? Sometimes those who recognize their genuinely recognize and admit their weaknesses and offer God their availability may be in the best position to allow God to be their strength? There’s actually scripture about that (II Corinthians 12:9), and a host of stories about “failures” who are used mightily by God. Even film producer Woody Allen has said, “90% of success is just showing up.” 

 

Bible Scholar J. Clinton McCann, Jr. echoes the question of many other bible interpreters in wondering why Isaiah’s call story comes so late into the book (Chapter 6). His answer is that maybe this ISN’T Isaiah’s “call to be a prophet” story, but a kind of Aldersgate “reawaking” call, in the manner of the Rev. John Wesley. While some continue to believe Wesley’s life-changing experience at a Moravian Bible study on Aldersgate Street (just down the road from St. Paul’s Cathedral) in London on May 24, 1738 was his “conversion,” most of us believe instead that it was the time when “the light went on,” and his faith suddenly made sense. This led to his call to begin the Methodist Societies, which became the nutritious agar out of which was born the Methodist Church. McCann suggests that the young prophet is given a specific assignment to speak to Israel, and then is empowered to deliver the message with the image of the “hot coal from the altar” as the anointing necessary to speak with authority—a kind of ordination, if you will. If McCann is right, and I agree with him, I guess we could say this was Isaiah’s ALTARSgate experience! Sorry…

 

OK, I can’t get out of this without a personal story. Many years ago, when dinosaurs walked the earth, I, as a young adult, felt God calling me to give up most of my personal agenda and embark on a certain ministry that would involve relocating to the other side of the country. This “calling” (which was not my call to the ordained ministry, which would not come for many years after) happened at a young adult Bible study in a rural United Methodist Church. When I “heard” this message in my heart, I remember pulling a “Moses,” and telling God I would not have the right words to say, since I hadn’t even finished college, let alone any seminary training. Suddenly, I felt my lips get very hot, almost like they were burning, which was really, REALLY weird. In my “brilliance,” I deduced that maybe this was some kind of a sign that God would provide the words. It wasn’t until about a week later that I came across this Isaiah 6 story in my devotional reading, which at least put some perspective on my experience. Thankfully, I didn’t have to endure the six-winged angels, nor did I take it as a sign of something greater than it was meant to be. But nonetheless, it was an amazing experience, indeed. Of course, for those of you who get tired of my extroverted, excessive verbiage, perhaps you wish I had taken it as a warning instead of an anointing—”Shut up, son, you talk too much!”

For Isaiah, along with the hot lips came an assurance of forgiveness and cleansing of sin. This would have been welcome affirmation for a young prophet living in the days generations before the “free grace” imparted to all of us by Jesus Christ, and it would have been in itself, empowering to him. It’s still true today, that experiencing God’s pardon helps one get over our “natural” feelings of inadequacy stemming from our proclivity to do stupid things, think stupid things, or say stupid things. Remember the first things John Wesley wrote after his historic “Aldersgate Experience?” “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” This is almost an exact parallel to verse seven of today’s text! Being redeemed should be an empowering and confidence-building experience!

 

Isaiah had a difficult job to do, after the angels, the calling, and the pyrotechnics. He had to go warn his people that God’s judgment for their disobedience was coming. Prophets usually were not told to deliver an “if-then” message, but to announce what was about to occur because of a protracted period of either disobedience to God or the law, or just plain backsliding from their relationship with God, overall. The “rhythm” of the Book of Isaiah is: 1. you screwed up, and will wind up in exile in Babylon; 2. Here are some things for you to ponder—and repent of—while in exile; and 3. Hallelujah, you GET it, and now will be going “home” to Zion! The latter messages of what we label “Third Isaiah” would be much easier ones to deliver, probably not requiring “coals to lips,” but just a gentle “shushing” finger over the lips to keep the prophet from repeating the infamous “I told you so!” chastisement. 

 

The problem with the prophetic message of Isaiah 6, and even the power of the call story, is that is makes it easy to oversimplify the relationship Israel—and WE—have with God. It is too easy to come to the conclusion that if we “obey” God, God will be good to us, but if we “disobey” God, God will either precipitate, or at least allow, BAD to happen to us. This is a childish view not supported in scripture. The truth is, as with so many things, it’s COMPLICATED! To believe that we know, absolutely, what is the “right” thing to do, especially by just reading scripture, is arrogant. And to believe that by “just doing what the Bible says” will keep us on God’s “good side” is juvenile. If we look to the life, ministry, and redeeming events of Jesus Christ, we see that God’s primary focus is on how we relate to EACH OTHER, first (forgive each other, love your neighbor, “greater love has no one than that they lay down their life for a friend,” etc.), and THEN how we relate to God. Loving others IS loving God is the predominant message of the New Testament, and a careful reading and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible will yield the same message. Just as God wants our “availability” to serve more than our “ability” to do so, so God would rather we put into practice the “love message” of loving others, first. Only when we have gotten that down can we, with integrity, love God. One can stand around all day praising God, singing “hallelujahs,” and reading scripture until blue in the face, but following up this “worship fest” by treating others like jerks blows the whole gig.

 

So, how do we acknowledge that God is God and we are not? By following God’s command to “love one another like I have loved you.” And as redeemed Christians, we should be able to do so without fear of judgment when we slip up. Besides, in all actuality, we judge ourselves by reaping the results of any discord we sow. We may call the resulting difficulty God’s judgment, but it’s our own fault, and a lesson is available to be learned. Jesus said, “what you sow, you will also reap.” Or, as an American preacher by the name of William Watkinson said in 1907, “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”

 

A new week is ahead, and a new opportunity for you to listen for God’s “refresher” calling on YOUR life! It’s a new week to “feel” the ordaining “hot lips” to be a witness to the love and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and to put into practice God’s greatest commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you!” And when you are tempted to get angry at someone you encounter who you may feel doesn’t deserve your love, or most certainly not your forgiveness, may you be reminded again that GOD is God, and you’re not! Amen!