Isaiah 6:1-13, Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11
I had an epiphany the other day. You know one of those moments when you suddenly behold the world in a new way. One of those times when a new light shines—often on your own self and you see with new eyes—you see with a sudden clarity. My granddaughter and I were just leaving a restaurant in downtown Petaluma—she suddenly pulled my hand and pointed across the restaurant at a man sitting at a table by the window. Her face had a kind of astonished look on it—although she didn’t say anything. I looked over and what I saw was an African American man sitting at the table. That’s what I saw. I looked down at her—a little embarrassed that she was pointing at him. She whispered to me,”Look, Mamaw, there’s a policeman eating here.” What she saw was a uniform. What I saw was the man’s skin color. My eyes were trained to see that way a long time ago. Who says racism is dead in this country? Who says I’m not infected with it? It was a little epiphany—an insight into the truth. A challenge to let go—and enter a new future. It was a light shining in the darkness of myself calling me to new life.
The season of the Epiphany when we celebrate the light of Christ shining in the darkness of the world—is a time to think about our own epiphanies—small and large. Our own moments when the light of Christ shines on us revealing the truth and reorienting us. Revelation involves challenge and change.
In today’s lessons God’s light falls on 3 men and they are never the same again. All three are humbled as they encounter the power and the mystery of God. We start with Isaiah the prophet—who spoke to the political realities of his day—a world of displacement and devastation when the powers that be destroy Jerusalem, drive the people into exile, and then, finally, there is a promise new beginnings. Isaiah has a vision of God so powerful, so indescribable really, that the closest he can come to words is to say that the hem of God’s robe filled the entire temple.
In the face of God’s majesty—the words of the seraphs praise: “Holy holy holy” echo even today in our own words at the Eucharist—Isaiah describes himself as tiny, lost, a man of unclean lips amidst a people of the same kind. God’s otherness, God’s holiness, God’s glory reveal the smallness—the lostness—of the man Isaiah.
And then with fire, a seraph cleanses Isaiah and pronounces that he is forgiven. Isaiah overhears God asking, ”Whom should I send?” He blurts out, ”Here am I. Send me.” And that’s where we usually end the lesson—but not this morning. . .
This morning we hear the awful commission of Isaiah by God to a thankless and incredibly painful task—he’s to speak to the people in ways that will actually keep them from repenting and being healed. Isaiah is called by God to be an agent of judgment—to speak to God’s people who have remained steadfastly resistant to God’s call. Not only will his words fall on deaf ears, but God seems to have given up on the people and decided to leave them to their own devices—to the crushing results of their having shut down— to their refusal to see and to hear. Isaiah can hardly stand it. He asks, ”How long must I do this?”
God’s response is not encouraging—“do it until there is nothing left, Isaiah. Do it until the land is utterly desolate and there is a vast emptiness. Everything burned.”
These are not words I want to hear on a Sunday morning or ever, really. These words expressing God’s frustration and giving up almost on the people of God. God sending his prophet to add to the numbing of the people—to encourage them in the path they have already clearly chosen.
Poor Isaiah. Poor Isaiah’s people. The people of God. The only word of possibility comes at the end of the passage. In describing the stump that is left, God proclaims that the holy seed is in the stump.
This passage reminds me of how stumped we get in our EFM class some Monday nights when we are reading some of the Old Testament passages. It makes me think of how much I like to skip over Good Friday to get to Easter morning.
The only sense I make of it in my own experience is that there have been times in my life when I had to bottom out—I seemed to have to go the absolute end of the path I had chosen—to its depths, its pain, its loss—the fire of it—before I could experience new life. I had to lose all and give up all before I could turn around—turn toward God for the seed of new life to begin to sprout.
It’s discomforting to think that God might have actually encouraged me along this path—helping me to reach bottom—numbing me so that I wouldn’t choose new life before I hit bottom. I don’t know. But it gives me pause as I consider the ways in which I personally, and we nationally might be numbing out to God’s option.
And then there’s Paul and Peter. They had epiphanies, too: one was on a road to Damascus and the other was in a fishing boat. God can come to us anywhere, any time, any place. In the ordinariness of life. In a restaurant.
Peter in the boat after a night of fruitless fishing. Or fish-less fishing I guess. And then with Jesus in the boat he and his friends are overwhelmed with fish. Their nets just about bursting with abundance. Something in that moment led Peter to fall down on his knees and proclaim his unworthiness. There is no earning, no deserving. All the other fishermen hauling in the catch go about their business—perhaps thankful, perhaps amazed. Only Peter falls to his knees in the truth of his humility. Like Paul who knows himself to be the “least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle,” Peter tells Jesus to distance himself from him. He is not worthy. What do you suppose Peter saw that the other men didn’t see? What glimpse did he get of the divine—of the God who knocked Paul off his high horse of righteousness, and Isaiah to the truth of his limits?
Whatever he saw—whatever the others maybe sensed—the story ends with them leaving everything and following Jesus. Following the one who had blown open their ordinary lives and who invited them into an open future. Business as usual—professional expertise hadn’t gotten them anywhere—but Jesus showed them that right in their midst—in the ordinariness of their days—there was goodness and abundance and fullness of life they hadn’t imagined—and off they went into the future—into God only knows what—trusting this light that had suddenly lit up their lives.
Now you and I in our ordinary days find it hard sometimes to find any flickering light—the numbness of business as usual is so overwhelming that we don’t hear, don’t see, don’t think or imagine, don’t even smell the possibilities of the new thing God is doing—the new thing we are called to be a part of—the new open-ended future that beckons. Sometimes all we can focus on is the past—all we can feel in the present is the emptiness—or the fire that burns—and we lose hope. Our children keep making lousy choices, our friends are ill, our church is falling apart, our government is carrying us to desolate places. All is lost and woe are we. That God might be at work in all of this seems impossible to trust.
You’ll have noticed that none of those chosen by God to take part in the mysterious workings of God is really the kind of person you would have chosen. None is of presidential caliber. None is the kind of person who did well on his SATs or the kind of person you’d want your daughter to marry. They are all in their own ways failures—or worse—even after they catch a glimpse of God they aren’t pillars of righteousness. Peter, as we know, failed again and again.
But God calls and transforms them. They take tiny steps or big ridiculous leaps of trust and they become part of God’s working. God’s mysterious workings among us. They lean into the new possibilities. They trust themselves to God’s future.
There is no excuse. Really. No manner of sin or unclean lips. Self-righteousness, ignorance, victimization… Not even persecution of the faithful can get you off the hook.
Have you had any epiphanies recently? Any moments in a restaurant? Any conversations with a friend? Any invitations to let go of your old self and move into the open-ended future of God? Any possibility for making amends, or speaking the truth in love, or forgiving, or encouraging, or calling even the most recalcitrant to new life? Has any light shined on you and called you to be more than you thought you could be—or more than you wanted to risk being? Is God calling us at Incarnation out of comfort into newness?
It is the season of Epiphany which is not to say that God will only disrupt our lives in this time of the year—nevertheless you might keep and eye opened, and ear tuned, a mind alerted, and hand ungrasped. You and I are no more unclean than Isaiah, no more unworthy than Paul, no more a sinner than Peter. Pay attention. The Holy One is in our Midst. You can expect to be reoriented. Revelation means change. Thanks be to God.
