All Consuming Presence

Isaiah 6:1-8

1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, the edges of his robe filling the temple. 2 Winged creatures were stationed around him. Each had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew about. 3 They shouted to each other, saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heavenly forces! All the earth is filled with God’s glory!”

4 The doorframe shook at the sound of their shouting, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 I said, “Mourn for me; I’m ruined! I’m a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips. Yet I’ve seen the king, the Lord of heavenly forces!” 6 Then one of the winged creatures flew to me, holding a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. 7 He touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt has departed, and your sin is removed.” 8 Then I heard the Lord’s voice saying, “Whom should I send, and who will go for us?” I said, “I’m here; send me.”

INTRO

This week, we begin a new sermon series entitled Ascribe to God. I think it is especially appropriate that on this Trinity Sunday, we begin a sermon series that looks at attributes of God. So often in our faith, we struggle to talk about “God.” It’s easier for us to think about Jesus and his work recorded in the Gospel. We also explore the Holy Spirit’s role across the biblical canon as well as in our lives. Yet we struggle to talk about God, and truthfully, this is rightly so. Our human language does not have the words to describe God accurately. And yet, there are certain things that we ascribe to or assign to God. Over the next four weeks, we will look at different attributes and qualities that we give to God as a means of deepening our understanding of who God is and how God is at work in the world. This week, we begin with understanding God as an all-consuming presence.

In our Old Testament lesson, we are confronted with Isaiah’s vision of God’s throne room. At first glance, it may seem like an odd vision. It is both descriptive yet in some ways lacking description, despite being in the throne room of God, Isaiah only sees the edges of God’s robe. Two “creatures” with six wings are flying around God, proclaiming God’s holiness. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heavenly forces! All the earth is filled with God’s glory.” The door frame is shaking, and smoke fills the room. This vision is far removed from the “streets of gold beyond the crystal sea” that we like to dwell on when we contemplate the heavens. This vision of Isaiah is so “out of this world” that it is hard for us to envision.

Often, when we think about God's holiness, we think about structure, order, rigidness, and rules. We think of one who follows all the precepts laid out entirely. The reality is we do not fully understand what holiness means. Originally, being “holy” was a way of saying something was set apart. In this context, being holy, at least in some way, means being transcendent or beyond our physical human experience. In this vision, the God who, throughout Isaiah’s ministry, is proclaimed as the Holy One of Israel, is certainly set apart and beyond our human experience.

So if Holiness means to be set apart, transcendent, and beyond comprehension…what makes Isaiah feel unworthy? Holiness is not to be blameless. God is not confined to a set of rules by which God is blameless nor must God adhere to some form of code, law, or human standard. In both Jewish and Christian traditions, holiness is something far deeper than simply being blameless. To be holy is to move towards perfection.

In the early Eastern church, “perfection” is the mark of holiness. Perfection does not mean that we never sin or that we have no flaws. Rather, Gregory of Nyssa believed, it was a change in who we are. Perfection is evidenced in the visible growth of love of neighbor and God. In other words, we grow in perfection when we grow in our love of God and love of our neighbor and express this love in tangible ways. The desert father and mothers expand on this idea, arguing that holiness is viewed as compassion.

One theologian shares this story, “One time a member of a monastic community was put on trial for violating his vows. The other monks summoned Abbot Moses, famed for his holiness (that is, his uprightness), to join them in passing judgment. As they saw him approach, they noticed he was carrying a basket with holes from which sand was spilling onto the ground. When asked to explain, Moses said, ‘My sins are running out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I come to judge the sins of another!’ The accusing brothers thought they were promoting the community’s holiness by protecting its good reputation. Yet by identifying with—and hence seeking to reclaim—the erring brother, Moses’ action is remembered as the more holy, for it more fully expressed the gracious character of holiness refracted through the prism of divine love.”

When faced with this overwhelming experience of God, Isaiah is made aware of his shortcomings. Isaiah feels unworthy because in the presence of such loving kindness, when faced with the holy of holies, the God of Israel, Isaiah knows that he is not holy, he is not perfected in love. He and the people he lives among have not loved one another or God with their whole hearts; they have failed to be all that God has called them to be.

As we think about this Isaiah text this morning, our first call is to examine how we believe God to be holy and how this holiness might be reflected in us. If we think of God’s holiness as adherence to the law, this dramatically changes the way we see God. It changes the way we think about and interpret scripture. If the law is holy, we begin to idolize the law. But if we see God’s holiness as genuine compassion, true love, we begin to see things differently. We begin to see God’s love as the means by which we set about learning to truly love God, our neighbor, and all of creation. We begin to find our neighbors easier to love. We begin to see the ways God loves us in a new light. We begin to see the Laws of God as the means by which we also learn to love our neighbor.

And if we are honest with ourselves, this is the God we serve—a God of love and relationship. I think it is especially appropriate that we are reading this passage on Trinity Sunday. We serve a God who is three in one. Who from the very beginning desires to be in relationship. In Genesis, we see God breathing and speaking the Word to create, this act of creating is an embodied expression of love. All three are present, active, and working together to bring creation into being. God loved Adam and Eve so much that God continued to be in relationship with them even after the fall. God continues to be in relationship throughout scripture as our trinitarian, relational God interacts with creation even now. Even our being present in this space of worship speaks to the relational God who creates the church through the Word and the Holy Spirit. The church, we, who are called by God, can not exist by or for itself.

Isaiah is summoned to the throne of God. Although he is not worthy to stand before the Lord, he is in the presence of the Creator. There is this profound mystery at work. God's presence unvails the ways in which we have failed to love with our whole hearts, we have not heard the cry of the needy, we have broken God’s laws….yet grace still abounds. We are offered the chance to confess, know forgiveness, and be empowered. For like Isaiah, we too are sinners, we dwell among sinners, we live sin-filled lives and our encounter with the divine ought to shatter our self-centeredness and bring us to a place of lament.

Church, we have much to lament, from the racism that is still today promulgating our cities and churches. Our harmful language found in the discipline that failed to see the belovedness of all, our quelling among each other over how to go about doing mission and ministry to those with disabilities, the LBGQTIA+ community, the childcare center in our building, and the marginalized among us. If we are honest, our mistrust of the other, our reluctance to get to know one another and be in a relationship is sinful; why are we so reluctant? Because we know relationships will change us. At some point, all of us have to stand before God and those we harmed to confess that we did not act out of love. We were not perfected in love. We must confess these things that God, who is ready to save, will cleanse us and bring us closer to being perfected in love. Then we, by God’s grace, will be able to answer God’s call on our lives.

In worship, we are brought together by God in Christ Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. As we are ushered into the presence of the Holy, we have the audacity to believe that God really shows up in the place and draws us into a closer relationship with God and one another. We are challenged to truly get to know those who are drawn to this place by God’s Spirit. You see, when you get to know someone, when you genuinely get to know someone and their heart, you begin to be transformed by the relationship and the loving presence of God through them, then and only then do the walls of separation, injustice and oppression come crashing down.

Sometimes, it is in and through these relationships that we realize we are imperfect people. Sometimes, in these relationships, we realize we have been complicit in the separation, injustice, and oppression. Sometimes in these relationships, we need to proclaim that we are people of unclean lips, and we live among people who are not clean. Encountering the presence of the divine in worship or in relationship with God and with others pushes us to examine the ways that we have fallen short. For it is only by God’s grace that we are made clean.

You see, this is why we have confessional liturgy each week. It isn’t to rub our faces in our sinfulness. Rather, it acknowledges that we are not perfect, and it is only by God’s grace that we are able to be perfected in love. It acknowledges that we need God in our lives and need to be in right relationships with God and with one another. In fact, our whole ministry as a pastor and a congregation is grounded in this idea.

In the liturgy we use when a pastor is leaving a congregation, the pastor states, “I thank you, the members and friends of XXX United Methodist Church, for the love and support you have shown me while I have ministered among you. I am grateful for the ways my leadership has been accepted. I ask forgiveness for the mistakes I have made. As I leave, I carry with me all that I have learned here.” The Congregation responds, “We receive your thankfulness, offer forgiveness, and accept that you now leave to minister elsewhere (retire). We express our gratitude for your time among us. We ask your forgiveness for our mistakes. Your influence on our faith and faithfulness will not leave us with your departure.”

You see our covenant together as a congregation and a pastor is grounded in the love of God. Because God first loved us, we can love one another, hold one another accountable, forgive, and be forgiven as we trust God’s timing in a pastor’s length of appointment. Because we have been together in the holiness, in the love, in the graciousness of God, we are empowered to work together in this journey of ministry together. This mirrors the text from Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah is bound to his community to the point that his life mirrors the life of his community. If God can cleanse Isaiah, then God can cleanse the community, too. God has loved us; God has cleansed us. Now we must respond.

In our morning text, Isaiah hears God saying, “Whom should I send, and who will go for us?” This question is asked not just to Isaiah but also to the whole community. It is a question that we must answer individually and collectively as a congregation. In our baptism, we are all called into ministry. We are all called to serve God and to build out God’s kingdom here on earth. This response is on display for us each week in worship as we hear the word of God proclaimed, confess our sins, and then are sent out into the world for God’s work. The question we answer each and every week is who will go and do what God has called them to do? Who will show others how they, too, might experience and come to know the Holy Triune God? How might we, too, share the perfect love of God?

We experience all of this text from Isaiah as a worshipping community week in and week out because we have the audacity to believe that God lives and dwells among us. We believe that God is an all-consuming presence in our lives and leads us and guides us each and every day. When we make God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, lord of our lives, when we worship God on Sundays and other times during the week, we begin to enter into a pattern of worship… we are Gathered in Christ’s preferect love, we hear the Word proclaimed, we respond to the God through our prayers, our gifts, our service, our confessions, and then we are sent out for the work of ministry in the world! We are told to Go! In the strength of God’s Spirit to give ourselves for others! Just as God has given God’self to us in worship. That is our call. That we order our lives around God’s will and God’s ways. That when we go out into the world, our answer will always be, “I’m here; send me.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.