Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, May 27, 2018
Isaiah 6:1-8
Anyone heard of the band the Flaming Lips? I’ve actually had the opportunity to see them in concert, and let me tell you, as a band described on Wikipedia as psychedelic rock/post-punk, they did not get their name from reading the first lesson we heard from Isaiah this morning! The Flaming Lips are known for using pyrotechnics at their concerts. Isaiah has a vision of God using pyrotechnics in worship, in the temple. God uses a live coal to purify Isaiah’s lips before he goes to speak to the people of Israel. Ouch! One of the commentators I read this week in preparing for this sermon said he’s threatened to use live charcoal briquettes as a part of the confession and forgiveness in worship! I don’t think the fire marshal would approve.
But the cleansing of Isaiah’s lips with a live coal before he speaks does cause us to ask the question, “How is God using ME to speak?” I think it’s fair to say we live among a people of unclean lips as Isaiah did. Especially when it comes to what people are willing to say anonymously on social media, we ought to have our mouths washed out with soap, at least, if not seared with a live coal. God’s purification of Isaiah’s lips with a live coal is admittedly extreme, but is it also hopeful to know that God cares about how we speak to one another? God wants for us to speak the truth, even when it is painful. God desires that our speech builds up, encourages, and helps others grow in faith and love of God. And so much of our speech tears down, divides, and destroys what God is trying to build. So, how do we listen to God to find courage to say the right thing?
If you read further through chapter six in Isaiah, we see a willing servant who says, “Here I am, send me!” when the road ahead is NOT easy at all. God tells Isaiah that he will go and speak God’s word to the people and they will not listen or understand. God tells Isaiah to keep speaking the word of the Lord, “‘Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate; until the Lord sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.’” This is a hard task for Isaiah, to speak the truth, and know people will not listen. But the hope that God gives Isaiah is that there will be a holy seed rising out of the ashes of what is left of the people of Israel. God will bring renewal, rebirth, new faithful followers and believers, through a painful process of telling the truth. Eventually, the people will listen, and God will do great things.
There are times in our lives when God asks us to speak the truth when it’s hard, like Isaiah does. Hopefully not to the same extent – but here are some examples that may hit closer to home. I have a friend whose coworkers started telling racist jokes in the lunchroom. Some of these guys were not just his coworkers but also his friends. He asked them to stop, but they ignored him, and this went on for a few weeks. It bothered my friend so much that he reported the behavior to his boss, but unfortunately, his boss dismissed his concern. He went to HR, they blew him off. My friend quit his job. He lost his friends. He didn’t want to work in an environment where racism was accepted as a matter of course. He happens to have a great job now, but that was hard – that was a difficult road to take – to stand up for all children of God regardless of race and be willing to lose your job over it.
Another example: being a parent or grandparent. For some of us with little kids, you know that it’s hard to remain firm and set boundaries with your kids – no dessert until you eat your vegetables. Bedtime is bedtime. No, you can’t play with the electrical socket, stand on the table, or crawl up the bookcase. But when our kids get older, there are even harder words to say: Because I love you, I will not give you more cash to feed your addiction. You cannot live with me for free unless you have a job. Or sometimes we as kids have to tell our parents hard things: Dad, it’s not safe for you to drive anymore. Mom, I think it’s time you moved out of your house. Do you have a will in place? How about funeral plans?
God gives us the strength to say hard things that need to be said, just like God gave Isaiah strength. And I suppose it’s good news to know that we don’t have to wait until our lips have been burned with live coals to say those things. As your pastor, for this Bethel Relaunch, I have had to tell you hard things. I tell you these things definitely not because I like to, but because I believe that it’s best for our church moving forward that we speak the truth in love to move toward greater health and a more hopeful future. I am trying to be in constant prayer in discernment about how to say those things, and if those things are really coming from God. You also may have hard things to say back to me, or to other people in our church. Unlike the people of Israel, my prayer is that we are able to listen – that we listen to the Isaiahs in our lives even when we don’t like what we hear, that we speak with the courage of Isaiah when something important needs to be said, that we listen to God most importantly of all!
Isaiah offers us a powerful vision of a powerful God this morning whose presence cannot even be contained by the enormous first temple in Jerusalem. It is good news to know that our God who we confess to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is a God of great love and mercy. This loving Holy Trinity always uses power for good, and gives us that same divine power to confront the unholy powers of systemic racism, workplace dynamics, gossip, diseases of mental illness and addiction, dementia and death. Whatever we are facing, not knowing how to speak, when to speak, what to speak, our all-powerful and all-loving God is right there with us, filling up our lives – filling up this worship space and every space so that we can say, terrified as we may be, “Here I am, Lord. Send me.” Amen.
