Isaiah 6:1-8
“Call and Response…An Eternal Dilemma”
By: Kenneth Emerson Sauer,
Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church,
Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org.
Back in the 1980’s there was a rock band named Twisted Sister that became popular through a video for one of their songs that used to play on MTV.
In the beginning of the video, a father walks into his son’s room…is disgusted to see a Twisted Sister poster hanging on the young boy’s wall…towers over his son and demands: “What are you gonna do with your life?”
The child—guitar in hand-- answers: “I wanna Rock!”
At this, the child metamorphizes into the lead singer of the band…the song begins…and the boy drags his father down the stairs by his hair.
Our lives are full of all kinds of voices calling us into all sorts of directions.
To say the least, things can get awful confusing!
And if we listen to and follow the wrong voice…we can get ourselves into some horrible trouble, and waste an awful lot of time in the process.
There is always the temptation to believe that we have all the time in the world to decide what we are going to do with our lives, whereas the truth of it is…we do not.
We all have but a short life—a mere flash in the pan—and the choice of how we are going to live our lives is an eternal decision—it’s up to us.
And if we let this world make the choice for us we will have listened to the wrong voice.
This world is filled with people who seem to have listened to the wrong voice and are now finding themselves in a situation in which they find no pleasure or purpose in life…and they are running the risk of suddenly realizing someday that they have spent the only years that they are ever going to get in this world doing something that is meaningless.
What a nightmare!!!
But this nightmare is real for millions and millions of us.
Therefore it is so very important that we listen for the right Voice, and follow where that Voice leads.
And that right Voice comes from God.
God calls each and every one of us to use the gifts and graces that He has given us to fulfill His good purpose for us during our short stay on this earth…it’s up to us to listen and act on that call.
Some 2,738 years ago there was a man named Isaiah who heard the voice of the Lord saying to him: “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
Isaiah was faced with a mighty call on his life…
…but it wasn’t easy for him.
He had to make a decision, an eternal decision.
Would he respond to God’s call or not?
How many of us have heard God’s call on our lives, but are still unsure of how we will respond?
How many of us feel that we aren’t up to the task of fulfilling God’s will for us?
Have you ever heard one of those omnipresent “Saint Peter Jokes”?
You know how the jokes go.
Someone arrives at the gates of heaven and Saint Peter must decide whether to let them into heaven or not.
The jokes always assume that being allowed into heaven depends on a person’s behavior in life.
It makes it seem like arriving at the gates of heaven and being in the presence of God puts everyone on the defensive.
God is about righteousness.
Morality and works are what matter, and usually the punch line has something to do with that expectation.
As we look at our Old testament Lesson for this morning…well…we see that this is sort of the same kind of thing that Isaiah experiences by being in the presence of God.
He is overwhelmed by his sense of sin.
He sees himself as he truly is…
… “Woe to me!” Isaiah cried.
“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.”
Unlike the way our world has stripped sin of its true meaning…
…where it has become a matter of making a mistake or an error or a slip up…
…Isaiah’s sense of sin means that his relationship with God is in trouble.
His sins are more than minor ‘slip-ups.’
They are proof that there is a fracture in Isaiah’s relationship with God.
And this is a conclusion that all of us must come to and face before we can allow God to turn us into the people God wants us to be.
Isaiah is terrified!
He, a sinner, has seen God.
He, a man with unclean lips in the midst of an unclean people, is in big trouble.
As a sinner, in the presence of a holy God, he is doomed!
But this is where things really take a turn.
Because God can do something with people who see what they are and know that they need to be saved.
With Isaiah’s admitting his sinfulness before God…
…we see God do for Isaiah that which no person can do for themselves.
God forgives Isaiah and makes him clean!!!
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!”
Without warning or explanation, one of the seraphs flies to Isaiah “with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched” Isaiah’s “mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
Isaiah had been convinced that the holiness of God had been bad news for him.
But in fact it was just the opposite.
The holiness of God is Good News!
It is what makes God so great.
What makes God so great is not that He reads the riot act to sinners.
There is nothing unique or unusual about that.
Everyone in the world thinks that is what God is like.
What makes God so utterly unique and Holy is His desire to be merciful and forgiving of all sinners.
That is what the holiness of God is all about.
And that is the holiness that God reveals to Isaiah.
Has God revealed this holiness to us?
We see God’s holiness at the heart and center of Jesus’ life and ministry.
What is at the heart of Jesus’ holiness?
Is it the Golden Rule?
Is it the Great Commandment, to love God and neighbor?
Is it the Great Commission, to go and make disciples?
No.
At the heart and center of Jesus’ life and ministry is this simple announcement…
…that we find at the beginning of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Jesus begins His ministry by saying it all: “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news!”
Jesus is the incarnation of the kingdom of God.
Watch Him.
Listen to Him.
See what happens to Him and we will see what the kingdom of God is all about.
We will see the holiness of God.
And we see that holiness of God made flesh in Jesus Christ by His life of incredible grace and mercy, His forgiveness of sinners, His willingness to make friends with outcastes in the name of God.
And how should we respond to this holiness of God?
The answer is repentance and faith.
And repentance is not just a recognition that we are sinners, but a total re-orientation of our lives.
Not only did Isaiah realize that he was lost, a sinner, a man of unclean lips, but he also realized that God was calling him.
And this totally changed Isaiah’s life.
“Here am I. Send me!”
Do we have the faith to say this to God…as He calls us out of a life of sin and into His kingdom?
Faith trusts that the searing, white-hot holiness of God will not destroy us but purify us.
Faith trusts that God has overcome His judgment and anger…
…and has instead…
…forgiven us.
Faith trusts that God’s last word to us is a wonderful promise of a wonderful life in Him.
God is not our enemy but our friend.
Are we answering God’s call on our lives?
Are we being the people that God wants us to be?…
…that He knows we can be?
Ministers are not the only people who are called to live out their lives for God.
What unrealized possibilities, for example, await the Christian teacher, the Christian doctor, the Christian business person, the Christian ship builder, the Christian military person, the Christian student, husband, wife, mother, father…oh, the list could go on forever!
If we heed God’s call on our lives the opportunities to live out our calling are all around us…no matter who we are…no matter where we live and work.
Isaiah’s call was very dramatic.
Not all of us experience such a sudden and dramatic call…but some of us do.
For some of us, God’s call is the culmination of a growing awareness of what God wants us to do with the gifts He has given us.
But a decision to respond to God’s call always has to be made.
Are we willing, like Isaiah, to respond to God by saying: “Here am I. Send me!” ???
Let us pray: God, we thank You that you are ever so willing to love and forgive us. We praise You that You have a plan and a call on each of our lives. Make us sensitive to Your call and obedient to Your will. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
