The Dilemma of a Prophet from the

Privileged Class

Transcribed from the sermon preached February 4, 2007

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

St. John’s Presbyterian Church

2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705

Telephone 510-845-6830    Fax 510-845-6837

office@stjohns.presbychurch.net    http://www.stjohns.presbychurch.net

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 6:1-13 Luke 5:1-11

The call of Isaiah is both inspiring and troubling.  It draws us toward the glory and mystery of God, and this, to our personal sin and redemption.  We also see that personal sin and salvation is tied to collective sin and salvation.  The experience of the glory and grace of God leads us to answer God’s call to go out to the world, to be fishers of women and men.  Still the call is not easy, there are no promises that preaching and doing the Word of God will make us popular, or even that people will be able to hear.  Yet may we say with Isaiah and Abraham Lincoln, "The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me."
Let’s take a walk through our passage.  “In the year King Uzziah died.”  Uzziah, was king of Judah from 769 -736 BCE.   David’s Israel had been split in two: Israel in the North and Judah in the South.  The preceding fifty years were a very prosperous time for the wealthy of Judah and Israel.  A thriving export trade led the wealthy to acquire more land and change to crops, which fed the export market. They solidified their economic foothold in foreign markets with political and religious alliances celebrated in marriage, priestly ritual, and wild, extravagant parties.
 
On the other hand, the poor suffered as they lost land to the rich and found themselves forced into debt slavery.  Priests of the elite no doubt preached a prosperity gospel, leading the wealthy to feel good about themselves while they exploited the poor.  “God, after all, blesses those who bless themselves.”
 
Isaiah is one of the temple priests, a professional servant of the upper class.  He is in the temple, going about his usual business and then something happens.  Suddenly his God gets a little bit bigger and a little more present.  “I saw the Lord, seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.”  God is not contained in the temple.  His robes alone fill the temple.
 
It seems Isaiah’s vision is reversing his institutional understanding.  When a people have worked long and hard to establish an institution, putting time and resources into developing tradition, organization, and valuable and beautiful capital, those things can become more consuming than the original purpose.  In short, our god becomes contained in them.  Instead of the means to an end, they become the end in themselves.  Whether in family, business, nation, race or church, God can get trapped.  But here is Isaiah’s vision, God is high and lifted up, the whole earth is full of his Glory.
 
A God whose glory fills the whole earth is larger than our self-perpetuating and self-serving gods, it shakes the thresholds of the temple. Isaiah is convicted.  “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!”
 
Here is where most Christian preachers jump to Isaiah as a representative of fallen humanity.  We get there, but not so fast!  Isaiah is a preacher to the wealthy classes, and in the midst of the glory of God, a God who is high and lifted up above the confines of a self-serving religion; he sees the half-truths of the prosperity gospel.
 
If we have seen the glory of God filling the whole earth, then, when we see the vitriolic hatred of immigrants, the bombing of Baghdad, the torture of prisoners by American soldiers, the neglect of hurricane Katrina victims, even polar bears floating on melting icebergs, we will cry out, Woe is me!  I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.”  This is not just personal sin.  It is certainly that, but it is also collective sin. It is the general falleness of humanity, but that falleness manifests itself in specific, systematic ways.
 
This experience of the awesome power of the mysterious God shines light on our personal and collective sin, and convicts us of our transgressions, but it also cleanses us and calls us to go out and serve.  Isaiah cries out, "woe is me", but he is also cleansed of his sin.  We see this also with Peter; after the amazing catch of fish he says, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  The seraph told Isaiah that his guilt had departed and his sin was blotted out; Jesus told Peter not to be afraid.  Both were called to become spokespersons for the holy God.
 
It has been one of those days when difficulty has convinced you that the world, your work is in vain.  Your words are infected; your soul has been fished out.  There ain’t nothing left.  No words worth speaking, no fish in your sea.  But then God burns away the infection, and pulls up from your soul, a load you are sure wasn’t there.
 
Yes we have sinned.  We have been wrong.  We have grown up among and benefited from a people whose worldview is arrogant and oppressive, but God has work to do.
 
Whom shall I send?  So amazed at this God, high and lifted up, at seeing this holy divinity shining glorious throughout the whole earth, at finding food when you were certain there was none, despite yourself you cry out, send me! Here I am Lord. Send me!
 
We find all sorts of reasons why God should not send us, both personal and collective.  We have other things to do.  Like Peter, maybe we are common working folk, without much education.  Or maybe like Isaiah we feel we are overeducated, or feel too sinful.  And it may be true, we may have some repenting to do, but God is gracious and merciful, and empowers us to move beyond our sin.
 
A couple weeks ago I went through a litany of the diversity in this part of the Body of Christ, mentioning all the different jobs in the church being filled by folks with qualities, which could be seen as reason to exclude them in another time or place.  Certainly, like lepers and widows, tax collectors, slaves, fishermen and gentiles, we want to name those categories of people as covered by the grace of God.  Still the important part is not the category, but the grace of God.  One cultural category does not define our entire being.  Your identity is not limited to not having a college education, or being in a nursing home, or in a wheel chair, or being Chinese or African American or a lesbian.  As a child of God you are always more than just that.  In the eyes of God, fitting this category means neither damnation nor justification. 
 
That is the whole point of the struggle.  We visit one who lives in a nursing home, and the one in the wheelchair leads the worship committee, and a lesbian goes on behalf of our church to presbytery, not simply because they are too old to get out, physically challenged, or live with a woman, but because in God's grace they are so much more than that.  And if there is a lifestyle they fit into, from God’s perspective, then it is the lifestyle of those who have seen the glory of God filling all the earth, of those who have cried out “Woe is me, I am lost, yet who have experienced the amazing, mysterious grace of God, heard God’s call, and stepped up to walk with Jesus and be fishers of men. 
 
In the same way, if we fit into those categories of the majority or powerful, which sinfully discriminates against the minority and powerless, to the degree, that we, like Isaiah, are among the people of unclean lips, God’s glory and grace take away the excuse that it is not our struggle, not our responsibility.  We do not speak or struggle for others, but we do speak and struggle with them and for the glory of God.  Finally, justice by group is not enough, for it leaves us defining ourselves over and against the other, when in the eyes of God we are all brothers and sisters.  I am a White, American, Protestant, straight, male, but my God is so much more glorious than any and all of these or any other human pretensions put together.  So much so that when I come into Her presence, I must proclaim, "Woe is me, I am lost."  But by the glory and grace of God, I can rise beyond these human constructs and speak and work for a new day.  A new day, when our nation doesn’t hang a dictator for killing a hundred thousand and call him evil, while at the same time we kill 200,000 and call it freedom.  A new day, when those whose rage against big government would rather spend 365 billion on education, health care, infrastructure, and disaster relief before they burn it through killing people.  A new day, when a woman or an African American can be elected President and nobody thinks twice about them being a woman or an African American, but only about their qualities for being a national leader.  A new day, when workers get a living wage, no matter where they come from.  A new day, when the quality of a marriage is determined not by the gender of the couple, but the love and compassion they share with one anther.  A new day, when preachers no longer use the coming of God’s kingdom as an excuse to excessive consumption and wonton destruction of the planet Earth.  A new day, when sins of humanity and the sins of the Church are burned away. A new day when God asks, "whom shall I send", we all say at once…  "Send me!  How long, Oh Lord, How long?"