Sometimes change is scary and sometimes we need the scary to change. Pastor Helen not too long ago taught us that fear in of itself isn’t necessarily bad but can help keep us safe, help offer us protection. And that’s the prophet’s perspective, that sometimes we need the scary in order to be safe. Last week we took a look at what judgment was, according to the prophets and Scripture. This week we are going to take a look at how to read and respond to these judgments by taking a look at the call of the prophet – Isaiah. And right off the bat, we need to recognize . . .
It’s not very nice or gentle to speak of God and horror but I’m not sure it’s wrong.
One of the things about the prophetic task is to understand that cheap religion teaches people how to live successfully in a sick system.
Cheap religion fashions a God that maintains the status quo and ministers to people to make them feel better about it. Holiness is the antidote. Holiness is the God-given gift, God-inspired vision, of refusing to live in a dirty system. And so we need a revelation of God not, first and foremost, to make us feel better. No, we need a revelation of God and God’s holiness, to see how scarily we have strayed from the path of loving our neighbor. We don’t need a religion to help us find a cuddlier version of ourselves. We need a vision that tells us the truth and that has us first and foremost say, “Woe.” We will never get to “woke” if we first don’t utter “w-o-e.” And “woe” is a response to scary change.
In verses 1-4, Isaiah sees God seated on a throne and God is not contained within the little box of the Temple, but God’s glory is overflowing the Temple, filling the earth. Flying, smoky, six-winged monsters are flying around the throne shouting out to one another, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.” This is the true commander-in-chief of all the world. This God is not intimidated by the Assyrians or Babylonians, or controlled by the Israelites, but this God is not about political domination, accolades or even worship (note the monsters call out to one another, not to God). This can’t God can’t be bought, controlled, or even convinced. This God needs nothing but does want something. This God, we are told, is holy and keenly desires justice for the earth.
Here is the heart of that “public love.” Every nation will be judged by God on one scary, standard:
Does your system seek justice by rescuing the oppressed, defending the orphan, and pleading for the widow? OR, Does your system make the rich and powerful more rich and powerful at the expense of the weak?
This isn’t an Old Testament standard but is exactly what Jesus was getting at in Matthew when he tells the parable of the king separating the sheep from the goats. The standard was, “What you have done for the least of these.” God calls Isaiah to spread this message. By the way, the book of Isaiah had a fantastic editor because he hooks us by allowing us to hear Isaiah’s preaching and then experience the call, so that there’s no delusion of misplaced greatness or inflated ego.
We understand that the full weight of God’s holiness isn’t so much to make us see that God is scary but to show us how scary we’ve become, how far off track we’ve gone from loving our neighbor. We’re THE SCARY! Remember what we learned last week. Judgment aims to correct how we love and care for another which always means a part of us will have to die. Are you scared, yet?
Isaiah’s call reflects three movements for us, three positions we are to adopt, three responses that we must engage, if we are going to be God’s prophetic people:
When Isaiah is confronted with the holiness of God, sees the goodness of God, his perspective is realigned, it destroys him. He cries out, “Woe is me! I am destroyed, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.”
This is the difficult position of solidarity, confession and repentance over the ways that we have participated in the nastiness of our society. Face down understands that we are all complicit as a “people of unclean lips” (vs. 5). I wish to stress that “face down” does not mean “eyes closed.” Isaiah’s calling began by seeing God (vs.6). Face down does not mean “not my problem.” Face down is not saying, “I’m a door mat.” Face down is not saying to others, “Sit down and shut-up!” No, face down is claiming my responsibility, my failure, my lack, my need, first. Face down is not saying that, “I’m dirt” but it is saying “I’ve acted dirtily.” Face down is claiming a life of prayer and a confessing community. We will never be able as a church to live into a prophetic calling if we don’t live face down. I’ll never forget traveling in Egypt with other Egyptian Christians. One of the things that fascinated me were countless Muslim men with zabiba,
It’s a devout sign. To be prophets we must first see sport our own zabibas. If we hate something that we don’t recognize in ourselves we become self-righteous, and a false prophet.
One of the freaky, flying serpents picks up a burning coal from the altar and touches it to Isaiah’s lips. Can you imagine how much that must have hurt?
Yet, the fire did not consume Isaiah. It purified him. It burned out all the junk. It’s not enough that Isaiah recognized his sin. He also realized that he needed help personally from the outside and that God was willing to help. He needed a surgeon. And God performed open heart surgery. It’s interesting that it’s his mouth that is touched. I still don’t think we’ve properly wrestled with that. The mouth as a place for so much of our sinfulness. But Jesus is right, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). In the church, however, we’ve changed the posture. Our hearts have become puny and small and our mouths wide and loud. We’ve imagined ourselves as God’s mouthpieces with little change of heart. We will never be able to speak like Isaiah unless we allow God to purge our lips, which means we need something deeper. We need God to do something and I’m thankful for the grace even within Isaiah’s prophecies that God will do just that. So the prophetic task is also to hold two realities together: the systemic nature of sin and holiness, and the personal nature of it as well. Each of us must have our heart realigned by God. Heart open.
The LORD asks, “whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Remember
the message that the LORD has for the people. It’s not an easy message to
preach. It’s not a prosperity Gospel. It’s not a “do whatever you want to do
because God’s just a big push-over” Gospel. It is a message that will call
people to make hard choices. It will challenge us to inspect our lives and
evaluate if our perspectives are aligning with God’s perspective. It will ask
the political system to evaluate whether it is seeking justice by rescuing the
oppressed, defending the orphan, and pleading for the widow or whether it cares
more for the rich and powerful at the expense of the weak and marginalized. Would
you sign up for that assignment – to be face down, mouth cauterized? Imagine
for a moment the strength it takes, after those experiences, to lift up one’s
hand and say, “I’ll do it. I’ll go, I’ll speak. I’ll be holy.” Hands up. That’s
the prophetic call on our life, friends and the necessary prophetic timeline. We
must move through repentance, to transformation and to mission.Hands up.
2020 has been one of those years. It is so easy for our perspectives to get focused on fear, hatred, power, control. My prayer is that this story of Isaiah will help us to remember the bigger perspective. As disciples of Jesus, we are not called to American political allegiances and petty turf wars. We are not called to the American Dream, whatever version of it you may have. We are called to follow Jesus, to be like Jesus, in order to do what Jesus does. And that means taking on Jesus’ own prophetic task of calling out injustice. It’s interesting that in Christian theology the roles attributed to Jesus are prophet, priest and king. And yet, Richard Rohr remarks that in all his time in the church he’s heard plenty of discussion of the role of priests, and lots of churches named Christ the King. He has never once heard of a church called “Christ the Prophet.” We probably don’t want Jesus to deconstruct the system.
That response doesn’t find us repenting to God’s vision but with
violence and threats calling for others to: “Get down! Get down on your face!”,
perhaps kneeling on their neck to gain control. It’s pulling out our weapons of
Scripture, power and authority, and shouting: “Get your hands up! Get your
hands up!” All of which our brothers and sisters of color have turned into
chants of protest. If we somehow believe that we are the authority, and that
this work is about making others cower. Isaiah reminds us that: “The prophet
himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that,
he is a false prophet.” ~ Reinhold Niebuhr
So which position are you in right now? I tend to find myself moving through each position on a daily basis. God uses something to remind me of the Kingdom Perspective and I fall on my face. God uses difficult circumstances and the power of the Spirit to burn away the junk and open my heart. Then, sometimes, I hear God’s whisper of love saying, “Whom shall I send?” And I feebly raise my hand and say, “OK, here am I, send me.”
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