Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

In the 8th century BC, the kingdom of Judah was at a significant time of transition. On the one hand, they were flush with prosperity. King Uzziah’s reign had been characterized by wealth and military prowess. But the last eleven years of his life were spent in semi-exile because of his leprosy (which, the Bible explains, was divine punishment for his arrogance). And now Uzziah’s dead. And to make matters worse, the neighboring kingdom of Israel is on the verge of Assyrian attack – which we know from history – will spell the end of the northern kingdom. They will become “the lost ten tribes of Israel” assimilated into the conquering Assyrian culture.

And it’s at this point, of extreme cultural and political transition, that the prophet Isaiah has his vision:

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.

Most likely, this theophany – this mystical vision of God – happened while Isaiah was in the temple worshipping, probably for some festival. You can imagine the temple packed with worshipers, participating and watching the familiar liturgy, but for Isaiah – suddenly it all becomes real. He sees the divine reality that the liturgy is designed to represent.

It would be as if you’d come to St. John’s for the Easter service, and during communion, while we’re all singing the familiar Sanctus, “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might…” suddenly you see angels swarming and swooping above the altar, singing the same song along with us, but with conviction! And you see Christ – somehow falling dead off our cross, but rising up again – alive and vital and with the energy of all creation flowing from him, and then (I don’t know how! but) he offers himself to you to eat (which you do) and suddenly you feel like you’ve become part of the surging energy of this resurrected, cosmic Christ. And you’re overcome with the substance of it all, and you look around you and everyone else is still just droning on, “…heaven and earth are full, full of your glory…”

That’s the kind of experience Isaiah had – this divine inbreaking where the words and symbols of the liturgy burst open to reveal the literal presence of God in his midst. For us, the most important, tangible elements of our worship are the those associated with the sacraments: the font with its water and the altar with its bread and wine. In Isaiah’s time, hands down, the most important, tangible element of worship was the ark of the covenant. This big, gold-covered box (as it were) was understood to be the actual place in which God was present. It was so holy, in fact, that it was concealed in the inner-sanctum of the temple, where only a single priest could enter once a year. But the entire worshiping life of the nation was always oriented towards this ark as the center of their existence. They understood it to be a kind of throne where their invisible god took residence, over which two angel-like sculptures hovered in perpetual adoration.

And in that moment, it was the ark itself (you might say) that became alive in Isaiah’s vision. The angels (or “seraphs” as they’re called) he saw flying around the temple. And God is visibly present, seated on a throne! And his robe, it says, fills the temple. That is to say, God’s presence fills the temple. And inasmuch as the temple is a symbolic representation of the entire world, Isaiah is witnessing the God of all creation inhabiting all creation.

And beholding this divine presence, Isaiah’s automatic response is a kind of terror. He’s overcome by a feeling of absolute uncleanness, as well as the uncleanness of all humanity. And it’s interesting that what he calls “unclean” is his lips, as if to say that human sinfulness is most revealed by the words we say, since they give voice to our inner condition. Whereas the seraphs perpetually declare God’s holiness our speech is filled with, what? banality, complaining, or even the mumblings of soulless liturgical repetitions. The difference between what the seraphs say and we say is as different as day is from night. They represent two utterly different experiences.

And if I could (just as an aside) this isn’t a criticism of you or us. We live mundane lives. We do our best to worship a God who remains invisible to us. We can’t force ourselves into a kind of ecstatic worship, simply by sheer will or determination. After all, Isaiah’s response is exactly that – it is a response ¬– to a revelation God chose to give him.

But carrying on, notice what happens next. When Isaiah declares the uncleanness of his lips, one of the seraphs brings a burning coal and singes his lips and thereby proclaims them clean. Culturally, I don’t know exactly what’s meant by this action. But the end result is clear: “Your guilt has departed,” the seraph says, “and your sin is blotted out.” Isaiah’s confession, we see, is met with healing. It is met with grace. And he who has witnessed God’s glory can now join the angels in declaring the holiness of God.

And the first thing Isaiah says, with his now purified lips, is “Here I am; send me.” And the Lord gives Isaiah a message he’s to share.

But here’s the crazy thing: there’s hardly any substance to the message, other than the absolute certainty that it won’t be received. “Keep listening,” God tell him to say, “but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand. Make the mind of this people dull.” And the message goes on with more of the same.

What kind of prophecy is that?! What’s the point? God gives Isaiah this extraordinary theophany. God purifies his lips and makes them holy, like the angels’, so he can speak with conviction and authority. Then God sends him out with no particular message at all, other than the certainty that he won’t be understood.

So Isaiah asks, “How long, God? How long will your people be hard-hearted and stubborn? How long will my message be disregarded?”

“How long?” God replies. “Until they are destroyed. They will carry on in their wayward path until their eventual demise.”

I find this to be a very sobering passage. Like all thinking people with an ounce of compassion, we want to know why God doesn’t intervene. When the country is going to hell in a hand basket, why don’t you do something, God? Why don’t you give everyone a vision like you gave Isaiah? Pull back the curtain. Show us your majesty! Convict us of our sin! Bring on another Great Awakening.

I would prefer it if God would step in and convict me and this world of our sin, and draw us into repentance. But just as Isaiah was the only one in a crowded temple to whom God’s majesty was revealed, so it is in our lives and in our world. And so we carry on in, to our ruin. As a human species, as a nation, as individuals, we’re hellbent on our stubborn ways. We’re self-centered and intransigent, refusing to change our narrow views and destructive patterns, even when all evidence shows that we’re undermining our own happiness, and destroying the health of the planet and the hope of generation to come.

How long, O Lord?

Until cities lie waste without inhabitant and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate.

Such are the days in which we live.

So what is the point? What is the point of Isaiah’s vision? And what is the point of our carrying on?

For Isaiah, his vision gave him the strength he needed to keep pursuing his task, even when everything around him should cause despair. The memory of that pivotal moment became the anchor of his conviction of who God was, and how he was called to serve that God.

And though few (if any) of us will ever receive a theophany like Isaiah’s, the principle remains the same for us all. Which of us has not, at some point in our lives, perceived something to be particularly true, and particularly worthy of giving ourselves to? In the language of the church we might add, What aspect of God or God’s kingdom have we experienced, and known in our guts, to be right?

It could be any moment, any experience, when we’ve felt our eyes open, our hearts enlarged, our passions stirred:

A moment of conviction when you knew God’s love for the poor.

A moment of profound soul-satisfaction when you brought a meal to share with someone who was alone.

A friend told me the other day of a breakthrough he’d just had this week – of his own worthiness in God’s eyes, and not him alone, but all of God’s creatures. It transformed the way he viewed himself, and his neighbor, and his God.

For me, I recall – vividly – a season in my life, where for several nights in a row I sat staring, longingly, at the coals burning in my fireplace – the way they pulsated with red hot light and energy. There was this gut instinct in me that actually wanted to consume them. And what I began to understand was those coals were as the holiness of God to me, and I wanted it. Not as a thing to possess, but as the sole object of my deepest yearnings.

I can’t say what that moment was for you. But I can say that it is each of our responsibilities to take seriously what we have experienced. And, if there is something – some moment of clarity of what this life is about, of what ultimately matters – my God, take it! Grip it like a stone in the palm of your hand, as your own. Then own it.

“Here am I; send me.”

Then step out of the temple, and into the temple of this world, embracing what you have received, and stride with purpose in this life. Others may not see the shaft of light in which walk, and you may often feel alone. And that is okay. Your job is not to convince them of the light, but to let it continue to illumine your way as you seek to love and bless and care for this hurting world – this holy world – which is filled with the glory of God.