GOD’S CALL TO ISAIAH … AND OTHERS

Isaiah 6: 1-8

In her book called FAMILY FAITH STORIES, Presbyterian author Ann Weems tells the story of her father’s call to ministry. The Rev. Thomas Calhoun Barr was attending Davidson College when he heard God’s call to ministry. By chance or by God, representatives from some northern seminaries came to his Presbyterian college campus to invite students to apply to seminaries other than those around them. One representative was from Union Seminary in New York, not the Union Seminary with southern Presbyterian connections in Richmond, Virginia. He had recently read an article in Forum magazine written by Dr. Henry Sloan Coffin, President of Union in New York. The article was titled: “Why I am a Presbyterian” and his answer was because he was born one! “My father liked that answer” Ann Weems said, and the southern boy went to New York: a worker for the Lord, like Abraham and Sarah long ago, who went from their home country to a far country, a very different country. When I, as a Princeton graduate was called to my first church in Arkansas, I learned that they considered themselves to southerners, and said I was Yankee: I came from a Yankee seminary, and from the north. I talked differently from the way they talked. They had expressions that I’d never heard. I had gone from my home land to a far country, so to speak. Doesn’t that seem to go against common sense? Why not move where you have connections? Why move to a place where you don’t know a soul, have no connections, and have no family? It is the call of God. God’s call brought me to Arkansas where I didn’t know a soul. God’s call brought me to Florida where I didn’t know a soul. God’s call brought Abraham from Haran to Canaan. The call of God is powerful; at times it can overwhelm someone as it did for the Apostle Paul; at other times God’s call seeps into one’s soul, like a linen cloth wicking up holy water from a font. But God gets in where God wants to be; God keeps working on souls already set aside and identified for holy use. God knows, said John Calvin, who is destined for holy service. Today some here today may not yet be aware of God wicking into their souls, or of God’s plan for a calamitous event to get your attention. Who knows but God when, and who?

As we looked at the forty year career of one of Judah’s greatest prophets last week—the so called “weeping prophet” Jeremiah because of all the destruction that actually occurred during his ministry—today we look at the other major prophet whose ministry lasted forty years: Isaiah. The great prophet Elijah needed to stand against the spineless and amoral King Ahab; the prophet Isaiah came in just as good king Uzziah of Judah died. God had plans for a person to guide the people as Judah collapsed into leaderless confusion. And God chose Isaiah. The record of God’s calls in the Bible fall generally into two categories: called by the word of God, as with Moses, Gideon, and Jeremiah; or called by an appearance of God called a theophany, as in the case of Isaiah. The Bible gives us a marker in time to know the world’s situation when Isaiah began: “It was the year that King Uzziah died.” As many here today remember where they were when the United States entered World War II, or when President Kennedy was shot, or when planes flew into the World Trade Center, Uzziah’s death and the rise in Assyrian power created great unrest for the southern kingdom of Judah. God appeared in an exalted vision to Isaiah, not unlike the vision that John saw that has become known as his Revelation. Isaiah, a Jew who thought it both disrespectful and deadly to look at the Lord straight on, must have been terrified and thrilled at the same time, when one day he saw God!! “I saw the LORD seated on his throne, high and exalted. The train of his robe filled the temple.” The holy presence was surrounded by angels and archangels who were praising God: Isaiah was brought into the presence of the Holy One! Might he have thought: “How awesome is this place!” or “How terrified I am!” Then, in the midst of terrible shaking like an earthquake and with smoke as from fire, Isaiah began to confess his sinfulness in the presence of holiness: a good idea for any of us. At the confession, an angel powerfully cleansed his guilt with fire. Youth in retreat settings sometimes write things down for which they are sorry, acknowledging their sinfulness and their regret, and then they drop the paper into the flames of a fireplace. There is both fear and awe with flames; imagine the scene for Isaiah with smoke, flames, and the ground seeming to shake loose from its foundations. God…was…calling.

Today, God still needs men and women to carry out holy purposes. Perhaps as we partake of this holy food, that God will whisper in your ear and seep into your soul; conversely one day soon God might thunder in your heart, and let you know that you have been tapped for divine service. You will need strength for your days ahead. Holy food is now prepared for you. I began with recollections by Ann Weems. Let me end with her poem:

“In the absence of a burning bush or a blinding light or a voice that claims us, how does one know for sure that it is God who is calling? Perhaps this is where faith comes in, and hope, and love, and prayer without ceasing. I do know that when the hand of God is laid on the shoulder of our lives, somehow we know. We are even given the boldness to say:

Here am I [Lord]. Send me.”

Jeffrey Sumner February 7, 2010