Isaiah 6:1-8
Years ago there was a program on television called Welcome Back, Kotter. It was about a guy who taught at a New York high school. Well, he didn’t just teach; he was responsible for a group of kids called The Sweathogs.
They were called this because they were the kids who were always getting into things, always causing some kind of problem, always making bad grades. A lot of you probably remember this show.
There was one kid in The Sweathogs named Arnold Horshack. He was short and skinny with curly hair and a strong New York accent. Whenever the teacher asked a question and Arnold thought knew the answer, he was completely unable to contain his excitement.
He’d throw his hand into the air and start shouting "Oooooooooh, oooooooooh, pick me, pick me." Of course, this was designed to get the teacher’s attention, but instead of calling on Arnold immediately, the teacher would look around the room, hoping that someone else wanted to answer, because he knew what kind of answers Arnold usually gave.
I bet we’ve all done something similar to this in our lives. When we were in school, particularly elementary school, if the teacher asked a question and we knew the answer, naturally we’d want to let her know that we’d studied the material. So we’d raise our hands, maybe flap our wrists for added effect, and hope that she’d see us and call on us.
When I read today’s scripture, I couldn’t help but think about Arnold Horshack and the antics he pulled to get the teacher to acknowledge him.
Last week we read about the call of Jeremiah. This week we’re going to talk about the call of Isaiah. I really like this scripture. It was one of the ones I chose to have read at my ordination last year. It’s very meaningful for those who’ve been called into any type of ministry, because Isaiah’s response is so wonderful.
Verse 1 starts out, "In the year that King Uzziah died." Uzziah, also known as Azariah, was the king of Judah for 52 years, and his story is an interesting one. He was generally considered a good king, but he failed to acknowledge that all his success came from God. He became full of pride at his accomplishments, and that led to his downfall.
He was unfaithful to God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar. Eighty priests followed him in in order to confront him. They told Uzziah that it wasn’t right for him to burn incense because of his unfaithfulness. Uzziah got angry at them and began to rant and rave, and while he was doing so, leprosy broke out on his forehead.
The priests ran him out of the temple, and Uzziah himself was anxious to leave because he knew the Lord had afflicted him with this leprosy. I imagine he was scared half to death. Well, the leprosy stayed with him until he died, which was about 742 B.C., and that’s the year Isaiah had this vision of God.
The rest of verse 1 through verse 4 describes Isaiah’s view of God. There are several accounts in the Bible of people seeing God’s likeness, but this one of Isaiah’s is very grand. He sees God seated on a throne, which is raised up high, and the train of God’s robe fills the temple.
There are seraphs all around God, and they each have six wings. Seraphs are angels whose name is derived from the word for "burn," and who are thought to symbolize purity. They’re covering their eyes to show that no one can see God directly and live; they’re covering their "feet," which is a euphemism for their nakedness; and they’re flying back and forth calling out "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." The voices of the angels are so powerful that the doorposts and thresholds shake.
The throne, the angels, and the threefold "holy" all stress God’s holiness. To be holy means to be morally perfect, pure, and set apart from all sin. This time period was one of moral decay, so it would have been important for Isaiah to see God in his holiness.
We also need to understand God’s holiness. Our daily frustrations, society’s pressures, and our own shortcomings reduce and narrow our view of God. At seminary we were encouraged to look upon God as lover, brother, friend, acquaintance, or confidante. God was reduced to what we wanted him to be, something almost equal to ourselves. Our view of God became very small, something we could be comfortable with.
We need Isaiah’s view of God as high and lifted up to empower us to deal with our problems and concerns. God’s moral perfection, properly seen, will purify us from sin, cleanse our minds from our problems, and enable us to worship and to serve. We need to know that God is larger than we are, that God is huge and powerful and omnipotent, and that without God, we are nothing.
Isaiah knows this immediately. Seeing the Lord and listening to the praise of the angels, Isaiah realizes that he is unclean before God, with no hope of measuring up to God’s standard of holiness. In his despair he cries out, "Woe is me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."
Isaiah knows that he and all his people have fallen very far from anything that even faintly resembles perfection. He also knows that he’s seen God, and no one can see God and live. I imagine that at this point he believes he’s going to die. I know that’s what I’d think if I ever found myself standing before God.
But Isaiah doesn’t die. Instead, one of the angels takes a live coal from the fire and flies over to Isaiah with it. He touches this live, burning coal to Isaiah’s lips and says, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
When Isaiah’s lips are touched with the live coal, he’s told that his sins are forgiven. We all know that fire purifies, and this touching of lips with fire is a symbolic cleansing of Isaiah, getting him ready for the job that God has for him. The painful cleansing process was necessary before Isaiah could fulfill the task to which God was calling him.
Now we hear the voice of the Lord for the first time. God is asking the question, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
This reminds me of a little game we’ve all played with our children or grandchildren at some time or other. When we want a child to do something, without having to order them to do it, sometimes we’ll look all around the room, everywhere except right at the child, and say, "Who am I going to get to feed the dog? I wonder who would be willing to do that for me?"
And then the kid starts jumping up and down, trying to get you to look at them, shouting "Me! Me!" And you pretend not to see them. After this goes on for a while, of course, you look at the child and say, "Why, here’s little Jimmy. I bet he could do that for me!" And the kid does it and thinks it’s a game, and everybody’s happy.
When you ask the question, "Who am I going to get to feed the dog?" you know it’s rhetorical. You know who’re you’re going to get. You just want to give them a chance to volunteer.
I think this is what God’s doing, on a much more serious level. God is asking the rhetorical question, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" in order to give Isaiah a chance to volunteer. God knows that being a prophet is a difficult and thankless job, and it works out much better if the person chosen to be a prophet actually wants to do it.
So God is playing a little mind game with Isaiah. And Isaiah plays his part to perfection. This is why this passage reminds me so much of that kid, Arnold Horshack. When God asks that rhetorical question, "Whom shall I send?" I can just see Isaiah throw his hand into the air, flap it around, and shout "Oooooh, ooooooh, send me, send me!"
The more clearly Isaiah saw God, the more aware he became of his own powerlessness and inadequacy to do anything of lasting value without God. But he was willing to be God’s spokesman. How many of us can say the same thing?
As I said in last week’s sermon, when God asked Jeremiah to be his spokesman, Jeremiah tried to get out of it by saying, "But I’m only a child."
It’s no wonder that people tried to avoid being prophets. There were times when they had to do things they found hateful, as in the case of Jonah. He was to offer the Ninevites a chance to repent, but he hated the Ninevites and wanted them to be destroyed. He tried to run from God, got caught in a storm at sea, was thrown overboard, swallowed by a huge fish, spent three days in the belly of the fish, and was finally vomited back out on shore. He was really unhappy when the Ninevites were spared.
Jeremiah was poor and underwent severe deprivation to deliver his prophecies. He was thrown into prison and into a cistern, and he was taken to Egypt against his will. He was rejected by his neighbors, his family, the false priests and prophets, friends, his audience, and the kings.
Ezekiel really had to do some strange things. He had to lie on his side for 390 days during which he could eat only one eight-ounce meal a day cooked over manure. He had to shave his head and beard, and he wasn’t permitted to grieve for his wife when she died.
Daniel was deported to a foreign land, thrown into a fiery furnace, and tossed into the lions’ den.
Hosea had to marry a prostitute, act as father to her children - some of whom were actually fathered by other men - retrieve her when she ran off to be with other men, redeem her, and forgive her completely.
Joel had to describe vivid images of destruction and devastation.
Amos had to leave his sheep and predict the destruction of the nation of Israel, including his own home town.
All these people had one thing in common. God called them, just as surely as he called Isaiah. Some protested, but most of them answered just like Isaiah, "Here am I. Send me." God never promised that they would have an easy time of it. He never even promised that they would live through it. But he did promise to be with them, and guide them, and give them the words he wanted them to speak.
And that’s the same promise that God gives us today when he calls us. And he does call us. Each and every one of us is called as we can read at Matthew 28, verses 19 and following: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." That’s our commission - to go and preach the gospel to everyone we meet.
And along with that commission, there’s a promise: ". . . and remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." That’s what God promises us when he calls us. Not that it will be fun; not that we’ll be honored and respected; not that we’ll get rich; not even that we’ll survive. Just that he’ll be with us throughout the whole ordeal and forever.
What will our response be when God calls? Will we argue? Will we run and hide? Will we make excuses? Or will we be like Isaiah and raise our hands and jump up and down and holler, "Here am I. Send me!"?
There’s a hymn by Daniel L. Schutte that I love very much. So much, in fact, that I asked a friend to sing it at my ordination. It’s not in our hymnal, or I’d have you all singing it now. As it is, I’ll just read you the first verse and the chorus. It’s based on today’s scripture, and it’s called "Here I Am, Lord."
I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry.
All who dwell in deepest sin my hand will save.
I who made the stars of night, I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear my light to them? Whom shall I send?
Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go, Lord, if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.
Shall we pray?
