St. Paul’s On-the-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

Trinity Sunday; June 7, 2009

Isaiah 6:1-8

John 3:1-17

HERE AM I? SEND ME?

Here am I, send me; to

Others

Leaving

Your sins

        Isaiah is in the Temple. For some crazy reason he went to worship that morning and he is ruing the day. He got out of bed instead of having a second cup of coffee and reading the newspaper.

        For here he is, in the Temple, and there is thunder and lightning coming from around the altar and it is probably quite terrifying. There are seraphs – strange Babylonian serpent like heavenly beings flying around, with huge wings, yelling at each other with huge voices, saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The whole Temple is certainly full of his noise and his light and Isaiah probably alternates between fascination and deep fear in this mystical moment.

        And he says: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Before the Lord he is deeply, deeply aware of his inadequacy.

        Before God, humility is not an emotion you have to work up to. It comes quite naturally. We think – what an idiot I was to come here. What an idiot I was to think I was up to this task! What an idiot I was to think I could be used by God, to start on a life’s ambition, to think I could make a difference in the world. When faced with such enormity, we have a deep, deep awareness of our own inadequacy, our own inability, our own sin.

        We have a deep awareness of the people around us, of the sinfulness of all the people around us, of our inability to make a difference in their lives, of the inability of anyone to make any change at all in the world we are condemned to live in.

        “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.”

        Why has God come to me, spoken to me, sent Jesus to me? There is nothing I can do.

        Then the worst comes. The snake like angel flies at Isaiah with a burning ember from the fire. The angel doesn’t even pick it up with his own heavenly fingers since it is so hot. He uses a pair of tongs – and heads straight for Isaiah’s lips.

        What are you doing? Get away from me!

        Hsss.

        “The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin” – your inadequacy and all you do because of it to hide it – “is blotted out.”

        “Then I heard the voice of the Lord” – the mighty, thunderous, magnificent voice of the Lord – “saying, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?”

        I can imagine Isaiah turning around and looking over his left shoulder and seeing – nobody there. Then I can imagine him turning around and looking over his right shoulder and seeing – nobody there.

        The Lord is looking for volunteers and there’s nobody there – except Isaiah, tiny little inadequate him; tiny, little, insignificant us, recently burned on the lips by the divine embers – with that incredible, magnificent voice calling out: “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?”

        Why didn’t he stay home that morning and have that extra cup of coffee, read the daily paper or the daily papyrus? No, he had to come to worship. He thought he’d be just a moment and then he could go home and go about his day.

        No. The mighty voice had spoken. The angels had appeared. Perhaps the inescapable voice has spoken in your heart.

        Here am I? Send me?

        There doesn’t’ seem to be anyone else. God seems to have awakened something in my heart that I thought had safely gone to sleep. Here am I? Send me?

        ‘Yes, you in the back,’ says God in his thunderous voice, or in his still, small voice in the recesses of our hearts when we finally admit to our dreams and our abilities and make that commitment – that tiny step forward into the magnificent presence of God and his plans for us.

        “Here am I. Send me.” I give up. But please don’t touch me with those tongs again.

        God has removed all our excuses. Now he just wants our commitment. “Here am I. Send me.”

        Then off we go to help others. Remember, God asks, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” We are not here just for our own purposes. We are not here just for mystical experiences. We are not here to be born again, and again, and again. We are here to be born again – to see or hear God – to be sent, to go for God, to others.

        We are here for God’s other children. You know, sometimes when we’re at communion, I think that God is the wafers but we are the dish. God needs a dish, a support, a carrier to take him into the world. We may be silver or pottery or dirty or broken and mended and fixed, but God needs us to carry him out into the world.

        God has a message, but he needs a messenger. Isaiah made the mistake of going to worship when God announced the need for volunteers, and made Isaiah an offer he couldn’t refuse; to be able to love God and work for God, who would send him into love and work with God’s people.

        “Here am I. Send me.” Loving and working with God is too wonderful to pass up, and if it leads me or sends me into loving and helping God’s people even at the risk of my own embarrassment and failure; well, I’ll do it.

        And so we come to God. And so we go – to his people.

        Nicodemus did this, but it took him a little longer than Isaiah.

        He went to Jesus by night. He had heard him in the Temple but perhaps was reluctant to be identified with him in public so he went to him by night.

        Are we like that? Are we devoted people or interested in the life and witness of Jesus, knowing he’s from God as Nicodemus says, but reluctant to be identified with him openly, reluctant to be identified as Christians?

        So we go to him by night, in secret. It’s okay. Nicodemus did. Jesus listened to his questions.

        He said – you can understand all you want about the kingdom of God but “very truly, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the spirit,” or perhaps baptism. You can think all you want, know all you want, understand and study all there is to know about Christ and Christianity, but unless you step up and make that commitment, the soul’s hunger will never be satisfied, only the mind’s.

        Isaiah’s response was: ‘I’m not good enough.’ God dealt with that – with the tongs and the burning ember on the lips and the forgiveness of sins. What’s our excuse? We have many. God can deal with those too, as he does everything he can to give birth to us again, blessing us with water and the spirit.

        Nicodemus does nothing here. He goes away. But many chapters later, at the end of Jesus’ life, he and Joseph of Arimathea come to Pontius Pilate to get Jesus’ body, in the day time. They know they are important enough as members of the Council to get it. But they know they could be ruined, or at least identified publicly as Christians, as rabble rousers, as dangers to the state.

        But now, years later, they are willing to step out in faith and commitment.

        Jesus is willing to wait for us – between his testimony and our action. Perhaps your action is immediate after a big conversion experience like Isaiah’s. Perhaps it takes a little longer and a lot of thought, like Nicodemus.’ It doesn’t matter. Jesus waits.

        Then once we have reported for duty – early like Isaiah or late like Nicodemus – God sends us out again in ministry to his people; or, in Nicodemus’ case, ministry to God himself.

        We always go in and out to ministry; in to God and out in ministry. It is like breathing. There is a quote up at Maryknoll which says: “Being a missioner is like breathing. Sometimes God draws you in. Sometimes God breathes you out.”

        We are breathed in here, when we come here in worship. We satisfy our soul’s longing to oxygenate ourselves at the deepest, most life giving level. Then God breathes us out again on his holy breath, sending us to oxygenate other souls, to help redeem other people from their sins, to help carry their burdens. Then it’s up on a Sunday morning again, to be breathed in again into the heart of God and have our own hearts restored before being sent out again in another week of ministry.

        We go with God, with his holy breath and Holy Spirit all around us. We are taught by the Son, who also listens and listens and listens to all our reasons and all our excuses and never forsakes us. We are sent by the Father, when we make the mistake of coming into his presence when it would be safer to stay under the covers.

        It would be more deadly too. For then we would be fated to live only our own lives with only our destiny and only our vision.

This way we get God’s vision, God’s destiny, God’s blessing – breathing us in, teaching and loving us, and sending us out again – going with us again – on his holy breath, with his holy mission.