January 27, 2013, "Begin the Work"

I Chronicle 22.15-16; Luke 4.14-21

In the Friday LA Times, a teaser for the Sunday edition, “Stories made for this Sunday.”

I can’t think of a better story for Sunday than Jesus preaching in his hometown of Nazareth … his formal introduction as a rabbi … when he returns from his baptism and his trial in the wilderness … where the Devil threw at Jesus temptation, to take the easy way out … take care of yourself first of all - feed your hunger, said the Devil to Jesus … and you can feed the world, too … and the world will be eating out of your hand - look at all these stones; you can make bread from them. To which Jesus, True enough, but human beings need more than bread; they need the word of God.

The Devil tries another tact - Jesus, you and I both know how hard this life is going to be … you’ve chosen a difficult assignment - here, I’d like to show you a shortcut … why not make things a little simpler … you want the world to know your Father’s love? Well, I tell ya’ what, just bow down to me, and I’ll give you the world, and then you can do with it as you will. Just bow down; it’ll be easy … no one needs to know; just you and me … to which Jesus replies, True enough, but it is written, plain and clear, worship the LORD your God and serve only him.

The Devil, if you will, plays his last and final card … Astound people with your holy power, do a few tricks, a little razzle-dazzle will go along way; people are suckers for the fantastic - jump off the temple pinnacle; you and I both know God’s angels will bring you down like a feather … and your fame will grow, and you’ll have the world at your feet … to which Jesus replies, True enough, but it is written, clear and firm, don’t tempt God with your own vanity and foolish desires.

With that, the Devil leaves, as Luke says, until the next opportunity … then Jesus heads home, in the power of the Spirit, to announce good news.

Jesus begins with the people he knows best - hometown folks - they know him and his family - they watched him playing in the streets with his friends, they watched him learn how to plane a plank of wood under his father’s guiding hand … they loved his mother and her faithfulness … they were proud of this young man now become a rabbi, commissioned by John the Baptist in the Jordan, at the age of 30, when a man ends his schooling and becomes a teacher of others - rabbi Jesus, in his hometown.

Jesus preaches an imaginative message … can you imagine what the world would be like if the reign of God were to hold sway over the affairs of men and women? … can you imagine what the world would be like if the reign of God could set the pace for government and commerce? … can you imagine what the world would be like if the reign of God governed the banking system and how we care for one another?

Can you imagine these things?

The power of imagination is great … science, art, religion … the greatest human ventures of idea and ideal are born in the fires of imagination.

The American Poet, Emily Dickinson said, “The possible’s slow fuse is lit by the imagination.”

Imagination is the energy of invention ...

Henry Ford imagined a better way to build a car …

The Wright brothers imagined a way to link a gasoline engine to a glider ...

Einstein, when but a 16-year old boy, dreamed of chasing after a beam of light … 

Abraham Lincoln imagined the United States free of slavery, a more perfect union … 

Gandhi imagined India free of British Rule …

Mandella imagined South Africa free of Apartheid …

“You can’t depend on your judgment if your imagination is out of focus,” said Mark Twain … 

Will you seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love? We ask Deacons, Ruling Elders and Teaching Elders.

The key word is imagination … energy is good, and so is intelligence, but without imagination, energy and intelligence never spread their wings, never take off and go anywhere … and love? Without imagination, love cannot rise above itself, or go anywhere truly great … imagination sets love free, free to fly high, and reach far.

Frederick Buechner writes:

"To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world's sake - even when the world bores and sickens and scares you have to death - that little by little we start to come alive."

William Barclay, one of the great Bible teachers of the 20^th Century said: “There are two great days in a person’s life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.” 

Imagination is the way of discovery … imagination is the only way we can think big enough to imagine the love of God … big enough to see what we can be, what we can do for the glory of God.

Faith requires imagination … so does hope, so does love … faith, hope and love are always beyond the immediate reach of reality … of all the things that can be said about God’s people: “We don’t give in to reality, low down and dirty, as it is; we believe and we live things that cannot be seen by the physical eye … we believe and live in the greater reality of God’s reign, ultimate reality, true and lasting reality … we imagine what the world could be like if the reign of God held sway.

Paul the Apostle writes: God has prepared things for those who love him that no eye has seen, or ear heard … things that have never crossed the mind … God has revealed these things to us through the Spirit [1 Corinthians 2.9-10).

Can we imagine the reign of God? … can we see it in our mind’s eye? … what love looks like? … all the fruits of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? … can we see these things? Imagine them? What the world would like if the reign of God held sway in the affairs of humanity?

Imagination sets the soul free to fly high and wide in the glories of God and the ways of Jesus … They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint [Isaiah 40.31].

When Jesus goes home to Nazareth, he invites his hometown people to imagine, to imagine with him, the world God imagines!

Luke says of Jesus, He went to the synagogue as he normally did … rhythm to his life, built around worship and learning, instilled in him by Mom and Dad … a faithful family set in the ways of God - to Jerusalem when they could, with all the other pilgrims, to celebrate the feasts of Israel’s life - to imagine a world made new!

The imagination was alive and well in his family … now, in his hometown synagogue, Jesus begins his ministry with one of the most imaginative readings of all, from the Prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the LORD is upon me …

The LORD has anointed me ...

Can you imagine what this means?

Can you imagine good news preached to the poor? Those who have not enough, who are without hope in this world, for whom life is hard and mean?

Can you imagine release to the prisoners … prisoners of injustice - who wear the shackles of Rome’s brutality and human cruelty?

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine the blind receiving sight … when eyes can see the glory of the LORD … the majesty of God’s creation and the wonders of love. 

Physical eyes blinded by disease … spiritual eyes blinded by sorrow and sin … the eyes of the soul, the eyes of the heart … can you imagine?

Can you imagine what it would be like to liberate the oppressed … those who suffer under the iron heel of the powerful and the mighty, who rule the world for their own pleasures, and care not a whit for the lowly? Can you imagine the oppressed set free?

Can you imagine the Year of the LORD’s favor? When debts are released, when slaves are set free, when land given as collateral for a loan is returned to the original owner, whether the loan is paid or not, so that every family can retain its inheritance … the year of the LORD’s favor, can you imagine, when the world starts all over again … the Year of the LORD, the Year of Jubilee … a new beginning for the world … can you imagine this?

Luke tells us that Jesus hands the scroll back to the synagogue assistant and sits down … every eye is fixed on him; they’re waiting for him to teach … and to them he says, Today the scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.

It’s possible, says Jesus.

It can be done.

The way will be hard, that I know … the Devil tempted me to take the easy way, and I said no, because the easy way is no way at all … I have taken up the task of my Father in heaven, and I invite you to come with me, stand and stay with me, learn from me, dream with me, imagine with me, and go my way.

You have within you what it takes … now get busy, and get to it.

The reading from 1 Chronicles … David’s encouragement to his son, Solomon, to build the temple … you have all that need, now get to it.

Nothing more needs to be given; what has been given is sufficient.

Can we imagine it? Can see it in our mind’s eye?

What we see with our eyes depends very much on what we see with our soul … imagination fires up the soul, sets the soul free to imagine the goodness of God and the glory of God’s work … 

Like David to Solomon, You have what you need … look no further; no need to wait for another day … just get going and build it.

The marriage of imagination and reality … imagine the temple of God, then to build it.

Imagine the Year of the LORD’s favor and live it.

Imagine the reign of God in all things great and small, and apply ourselves to make it happen.

Can you imagine it? Asks Jesus!

Can you imagine this kind of a world with me?

Can you imagine walking with me,  to the far places, to the ends of the world, where there is darkness, so that we can bring the light of love to the loveless and the forlorn?

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine doing the great work of God with me, to salt the earth with goodness and peace?

Can you imagine a world made new?

Our hearts cry out to the Lord, Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can.

To the glory of God. Yes we can!

Amen and Amen!

May 6, 2012, "Quickly the Doors Open"

I didn't preach this text ... when I stepped into the pulpit, I went in some other direction, extemporaneously ... but I wanted to post the text I had prepared:

Acts 8.26-40.

Quickly the doors open.

God’s love reaches far and wide.

An angel sends Philip to a desert road, to meet a carriage, a man on his way back home …

The power of one … one person with a purpose … with a heart … with a vision … a willingness to go to a desert road, get into someone else’s carriage, spend some time with them.

How many of you have ever heard of John Wood?

I never heard of him either, until earlier this week.

He’s a library man.

12,000 libraries and 1,500 schools, all around the world.

[the following material comes largely from a New York Times article - see below; I’ve edited it to conform to preaching].

It began in 1998 when Wood, a Microsoft marketing director, came upon a remote school in Nepal serving 450 children. Only one problem: It had just a few books.

Wood offered to help and eventually delivered a mountain of books by a caravan of donkeys. 

The local children were happy, and Wood said he felt such exhilaration that he quit Microsoft, left his live-in girlfriend (who pretty much thought he had gone insane), and founded Room to Read in 2000.

He faced one challenge after another, not only in opening libraries, but in filling them.

There are no children’s books in many languages, so Wood became a self-publisher, with now more than 591 titles in languages including Khmer, Nepalese, Zulu, Lao, Xhosa, Chhattisgarhi, Tharu, Tsonga, Garhwali and Bundeli.

Room to Read also supports 13,500 impoverished girls who might otherwise drop out of school. 

In a remote corner of the Mekong Delta, reachable only by boat, one of these girls, a 10th grader name Duyen … her family, displaced by flooding, lives in a shabby tent on a dike.

When Duyen was in seventh grade, she dropped out of school to help her family. “I thought education was not so necessary for girls,” she said.

Room to Read’s outreach workers trekked to her home and convinced the family to send her back to school. Room to Read paid her school fees, bought her school uniforms and offered to put her up in a dormitory so that she wouldn’t have to commute to school, two hours each way, by boat and bicycle.

Duyen is back in school, a star in her class — and aiming for the moon.

“I would like to go to university,” she says.

The cost per girl is $250 annually. 

To give some perspective, Kim Kardashian’s wedding is said to have cost $10 million; $10 million could have supported 40,000 girls in Room to Read.

Education is a powerful tool to transform the world … the powerful nations of the world have yet to learn this lesson - the big powers of the world continue to believe that the world can be made better with missiles, soldiers, conniving treaties and billions spent on planes and warships.

Schooling is cheap and revolutionary … the more we spend on schools today, the less we’ll have to spend on missiles tomorrow.

Wood is only 47 years old - tireless, enthusiastic, emotional … when he talks about Room and to Read and the lives of girls transformed, he tears up.

“If you can change a girl’s life forever, and the cost is so low, then why are there so many girls still out of school?” he asks.

Room to Read now has fund-raising chapters in 53 cities around the world.

Wood tells supporters they aren’t donating to charity but making an investment: “Where can you get more bang for the buck than starting a library for $5,000?”

“There are 793 million illiterate people - the solution is so inexpensive …. 

No guarantee every child will take advantage of the opportunity, but if it isn’t provided, there will be no opportunity at all, and poverty will continue.

Wood would like to have a 100,000 libraries, in 20 years, reaching 50 million kids. 

Big plans … big ideas … and it all started with one man’s decision 

[The New York Times: “His Libraries, 12,000 So Far, Change Lives,” by Nicholas D. Kristoff, November 5, 2011].

Whatever we might learn from the story of Philip, this much we know for sure: God works through people, just like Philip, just like you and me, just like John Wood.

An angel told Philip: Go to the desert road between Jerusalem and Gaza …

Philip might have asked a millions questions:

Why?

How come?

What am I supposed to do?

How much will it cost?

How long will it take?

Isn’t there anyone else?

No questions … just obedience … call it faith … faith isn’t something we believe … faith is what we do with our hands and our feet … faith is life, action, decision, work … 

Philip went to the desert road.

And when a carriage came near, the Spirit told Philip, Approach this carriage and stay with it.

We know the rest of the story.

Dear friends, never underestimate your power to change the world … God works through people … great things happen when love is the power, when compassion is the goal, when someone says, I’ll do it!

Who knows?

Maybe there’s a John Wood sitting in the congregation right now … an idea … a project … a dream … it’ll unfold, and the world will be changed.

Maybe there’s a Philip here … one day, an angel will tell you where to go … because someone needs to hear your voice and guidance.

Who knows?

Never ever underestimate your place in the kingdom of God.

Never underestimate the doors you can open!

Amen and Amen!

December 5, 2010, "Road Building"

Matthew 3:1-12

I was on the 405 a few days back, over the Sepulveda pass … where the 405 is being widened …

Big machines moving lots of dirt … retaining walls being built … steel and cement for bridges and barriers … so that traffic will flow better on the west side of Los Angeles.

It’s a lot of work to build a road … low places have to be filled in  … mountains cut down … uneven ground made level … rough places smoothed out …

Sounds almost biblical, doesn’t it?

Well, it is biblical.

From the prophet Isaiah …

Chapter 40 … the very chapter that Matthew quotes, to describe the work of John the Baptist … a cry to the people, Prepare the way of the LORD, make his paths straight.

Get busy, build roads … build roads for God … build roads for one another … you see those high and rocky places over there? … take ‘em down a little bit … you see those dark and narrow valleys just across the way? … fill them in a little bit … you see all that rough, uneven ground ahead? …  smooth it out … make it easier for people to meet God …

I can’t think of a better image to describe the Christian life than road building … that’s what you and I are called to do … build roads in the rough and tumble places of life.

On Thursday, our Presbyterian Women held their annual Christmas Luncheon … with a special guest from the Angel Interfaith Network, the Rev. Ann Mills, who presented to us a certificate of appreciation.

Let me read what was written about us:

“The Deacons, Presbyterian Women and members of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Westchester have assembled and donated hygiene kits in decorative bags, blankets, baby supplies, greeting cards, and funds for food-assistance for Angel Interfaith Network to distribute to patients every year since 1995, under the leadership of the Rev. Frank Marshall, now an Angel Interfaith Network board member.”

Frank Marshall served Covenant for 32 years and is our pastor emeritus.

In other words, road building.

Smooth out the rough places.

Fill in the ditches.

Make life a little easier for folks who are having a hard time of it.

Friday afternoon, I made a pastoral call on a family where there’s been some illness … and when folks are ill, folks are often cold, even when it’s warm … during the course of our conversation, the sweetest thing: they told me of a friend, whom we all know, who knit a cap and sent it to the husband to keep his head warm and to make him feel a little more comfortable.

Yesterday, two memorial services here … for Dr. Ed Ricketts and Richard Brubaker … men who embodied the very best of road building … their careers and their vision and their faith made life a little easier for a lot of people.

But not all roads are built easily.

In Friday’s LA Times, columnist Hector Tobar writes about Orange County in 1947 … the struggle of Latino families for integrated schools … prior to their efforts, Latino children had to settle for separate and often poorly maintained buildings and second-rate programs.

Mr. Tobar writes of brave and loving parents who went to bat for what was right and good.

They confronted school administrators, held community meetings and eventually went to court, and in 1947, they won the case.

Their victory changed education throughout California and impacted the nation.

These parents were road builders for their children.

In the town of Orange, just a block north of the Plaza is an old theater that today houses a religious center. In the 1940s, it was the Orange Theatre.

Whites sat in the orchestra section, Mexicans in the balcony — until a Mexican American soldier returning from World War II refused to obey the rules.

"If you don't move up to the balcony," an usher told him, "I'll have to call my manager."

"I just came from fighting the Nazis," he said. "I'm pretty sure I can handle your manager."

The soldier was a road builder. In the war, he built a road for freedom.

When he refused to sit in the balcony, he built a road for justice.

I think of Rosa Parks, a seamstress on her way home after a long day’s work, who refused to give up her seat to a white man and sit in the back of the bus.

She was tired.

Tired of the humiliation.

And she became a road builder for a new generation of Americans who would no longer sit in the back of the bus, or drink at “colored only” drinking fountains … or be denied a hamburger and French fries at the local lunch counter … 

All of these examples, from hygiene kits to the knit cap to the solider home from war - illustrate Isaiah’s image of the road builder … take down the mountains … fill in the low places  … make it easier for folks to find their way through life.

As our story goes, John was a man of the wilderness … he wore the clothing of the poor and ate their food … and gained the respect of many.

Folks came out to hear John.

And he baptized them in the Jordan River.

It seems that a lot of people came to see what John was all about … including a good many Pharisees and Sadducees …  read: “important people” … dignitaries from Jerusalem … muckety-mucks and big-shots.

They wanted baptism, too … but John doesn’t welcome them … calls ‘em a bunch of snakes, a brood of vipers … what are you doing here? Who warmed you about the wrath of God?

Whoa … “wrath of God”? … when was the last time we heard anything about that?

God is all love, right?

Well, yes, God is all love.

But tell me, is love blind?

Does God not see religion when it has no heart?

Churches that love themselves more than their neighbors?

Does God not see our cruelty and war and oppression and discrimination?

The financial shenanigans of nations and corporations for whom enough is never enough?

Lying and envy and strife and jealousy and quarrels and factions?

Is God’s love blind to all of that?

Of course not!

The wrath of God is God at work in hard places and tough times.

God’s wrath is proof of God’s love … a love that works hard to make all things new … and sometimes things don’t want to be made new; sometimes you and I don’t want to be made new.

 The world may need a savior, but the world is often quite content with the way things are; the world has little interest in being saved, especially that part of the world that sits on top of the heap.

John doesn’t mince words.

Nor is John buffaloed by these dignitaries.

He cuts to the chase.

And says to them, Bear fruit worthy of repentance … getting wet in the Jordan isn’t enough … God needs to see something real!

I find myself going back to the letter of James … a small letter with a giant message … worth reading this afternoon.

At the heart of the letter that James wrote is a classic statement we all know: faith without works is … dead … not just injured, or weakened, or tired … but dead … flat-out dead … without a heartbeat or brainwaves … dead as a doornail.

James writes the rest of his letter spelling out what a living faith is all about and coins a powerful definition of real  faith:  to care for the orphans and the widows in their distress and keep oneself unstained by the world.

And what are the stains of the world for James?

Partiality to the powerful.

Contempt for the poor.

A failure to act out the realities of faith.

A tongue that doesn’t know when to be quiet.

Boasting about our own powers and abilities.

Bad-mouthing others.

Impatience and irritability.

Failure to pray.

Failure to give thanks.

Failure to join with one another in mutual assistance.

A living faith spends a lot of time listening.

A living faith honors all people regardless of their place in life.

A living faith acts out the realities of God’s mercy and God’s compassion.

A living faith restrains the tongue.

A living faith understands that tomorrow is in God’s hands, not our hands.

A living faith strives to be patient in all places and times.

A living faith prays often, gives thanks eagerly, and sustains the fellowship of faith through mutual support and encouragement.

A living faith builds many roads.

Smoothes out the rough places.

Fills in the ditches.

The gospel of Matthew gives us page after page after page of insight into how to build good roads … roads for God … roads for one another.

Because we follow Jesus.

Who builds a road for us.

Jesus takes down the high mountains of religion that human beings love so greatly – the temples and the trappings, the rules and the regulations, the dogma and the doctrine, the pomp and the circumstance, so that we can approach God with ease.

Jesus helps us out of the ditches into which we’ve fallen, ditches we’ve often dug with our own hands, and then fills them in.

Jesus smoothes out the rough places in our soul.

Jesus levels the uneven ground of our confusion.

Clears the way and charts the course.

Come, and follow me!

We follow Jesus on the very road Jesus builds for us.

So we can build roads for others.

Whether it be a hygiene kit, a knit cap, or a stand for social justice.

We build roads.

Prepare the way of the LORD.

Make his paths straight.

Amen and Amen. 

June 7, 2009 - "Crisis"

Isaiah 6:1-8

The unexpected sorrow …
The change of course that no one wanted …
The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray …

Crisis comes a-calling … everything we’d planned on has to change …

These days, financial crisis … mortgage melt down … CEO’s going to jail for all kinds of schemes and scams … credit card companies jacking up interest rates, and banks closing …

Someone said to me the other day, “I’m worried about my bank closing.”
I said, “Don’t worry. If your bank is closed, just use the ATM!”

Speaking of banks, you know how a banker defines optimism? Ironing five white shirts on Sunday!

Crisis … our passage this morning from Isaiah is a series of crises … filled with spiritual guidance …

There are four crises here … maybe more, but I count four …

The first is a political crisis … in the year that King Uzziah died … and a good king he was … guided Judah through thick and thin for 52 years – that’s a long time; a couple of generations – King Uzziah is all they knew … but nothing lasts forever, does it? … not even a good king.
But as Judah mourns, wondering what to do, Isaiah sees a vision of God, sitting on a throne, high and lofty … the eternal king!

The first spiritual lesson – to see God above when things are dicey below …

“But pastor,” you say, “how do we do that? How do we see God above when things are dicey?”

Good question … how did Isaiah do it?
I think Isaiah was used to looking for God … Isaiah did it regularly … Isaiah trained his heart and mind; conditioned his soul – to look for God, and the promise of God is clear – “Look for me, and you will find me” [Proverbs 8:17; Jeremiah 29:13].

When I lived in northern Michigan, a springtime rite – the search for Morel mushrooms … slice it, dice it, cook and bake it – an incredible culinary adventure … but you had to find them first!

I went out with an experienced Morel hunter – tromping through the woods, looking here, looking there … he knew what to look for, and his eye was trained – he saw the Morels long before I did … he had trained himself over the years to find them.

Seeing God is a matter of practice and persistence … and like a good Morel hunter, coming home empty handed now and then – there are times, when we try with all our might, and we still can’t see God … but don’t give up; disappointment is part of the process.
In time, the Morel hunter learns how to do it, and they come home most of the time with a bag full of Morels.

Learning how to see God … a skill acquired over the years … learned from others, and practiced when times are good, and when times are hard.

Isaiah trained himself to see God above when things below were a dicey.

We can do the same … it takes times, persistence, a willingness to come home now and then empty-handed … a basic devotion to the great spiritual disciplines of faith: Bible reading and study, prayer and reflection, good reading and diligence in the life of the church - in time, we learn how to see God above when things below are dicey.

This is one of our gifts to the world … to see God high and lifted up when things are low-down and dirty.
We train ourselves to do this … and we help others do it … just like good Morel hunters in Northern Michigan!

The second crisis: a spiritual crisis – because God is really big!
So big, that only the hem of God’s robe can fit into the temple, which was pretty big; it was a big temple, but miniscule compared to God!

Isaiah says, What with all the singing of the seraphim, creatures of flame, the whole place was shaking … and the temple was filled with smoke.

How big is God?
How big is your God?

J. B. Phillips wrote a book some years ago, “You’re God is Too Small” – and he’s right … most of the time, our god is too small, way too small …
I like a god all packaged up – neat and clean!
Don’t you?
I think we Christians do this a lot to God.

We put God in a box.
We write our creeds and publish our theologies, and we’ve got it all figured out.
Believe this, and you’ll be saved.
Do this, and you will live.

One of my heroes of the faith, Harry Emerson Fosdick, wrote this piece of wisdom: I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.

I think we waste a lot of time with small ideas.
A candle when we could have the sun.
Pictures of Big Bear when we could be there in two hours.
A can of hash when we could have a steak instead.

Humankind is shaped by big ideas.
Big ideas that demand big things of us …
And the church is shaped best of all by a big God!
A God who shakes things up now and then.

A God so big we have to be big.
Bigger than we were yesterday!
Not always fun when the thresholds shake and the place is filled with smoke … sounds like a bad earthquake.
Religion needs a good earthquake now then; knock a few things off the shelves – smash a few things; move the furniture – turn a few tables!
A good shaking up now and then, from a really big God, a God too big for the commonplace … too big for our creeds and our confessions; too big for our conventional wisdom and bigger than our habits … bigger than our ideas and bigger than what we usually expect … a God so big that even the Crystal Cathedral could hold only the hem of God’s robe.
That’s the kind of God we need … that’s the kind of God we have … and THAT God will give us a good shaking now then …

The third crisis: an emotional crisis.
Woe is me! says Isaiah. I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.

When Isaiah sees God, Isaiah sees the stains on his own soul.
When Isaiah sees purity and goodness, faithfulness and love, Isaiah recognizes his own sad state … Woe is me.

I think of Peter in the New Testament, when he and the other fishermen are told by Jesus to put out into deep water and let down the nets … Peter objects – “We just came in from a long night of fishing, without a fish to show for it, and you want us to go out again, in daylight, when no one goes fishing?”
So they put out into deep water and let down the nets, and they catch such a huge number of fish, the nets were breaking; they call for their partners in the other boat, and both boats are soon filled with so many fish, the boats are in danger of sinking.
When Peter sees this display of grace, he falls at the feet of Jesus and says, Go away from me, LORD, for I am a sinful man.

There’s some powerful stuff going on here … 
Both Isaiah and Peter meet their match and then some in the glory and grace of God.
Isaiah and Peter – powerful men who need to be tamed by the power of God.
Proud men who need to spend time on their knees, humbled by the goodness of God.
Good men, who need to see the stains on their souls, the grip of sin in their lives … lest they become puffed up with themselves!

There’s something important here for us …
A lesson to be learned …
We live in a culture where folks are mighty puffed up with themselves.
“Everyone else has issues, but I don’t.”
“If only folks would get outta my way so I could be happy.”
We are culture that deflects responsibility … and loves to blame someone else!

No, not me; oh no; never me!
It’s my boss, my spouse, my parents, my children, my teachers, my co-workers, my neighbors – but it’s not me, LORD.
It’s circumstances beyond my control … my DNA … a bad time in the womb … and my Irish ancestry … but it’s not me, LORD.
It’s the color of my hair, the shape of my nose – my dog ate my homework, and apparently Martians are in charge of my bank account, but it’s not me, LORD … no, never me.

I think we might do well to spend some time with Isaiah and his woe is me … I am a man of unclean lips.
Please note - Isaiah beings with himself first: I am a man of unclean lips.
And only then does he speak of others who share the same malady.
Isaiah doesn’t shift the blame.
Isaiah begins with himself measured in the grace of God, and that’s always a good place to begin. Not easy; but good!

Sure, I’d rather begin with others …
Let’s see, how can I fix Donna?
Or my children?
Or the folks I work with?
If they’d only listen to me.

But that’s not how it goes, if we really want to make a difference!
We start with ourselves!
We stay with ourselves, and we stay on our case.
Because it takes a lifetime and then some to work out the kinks and fulfill our destiny.
We don’t have time to work on others.
There’s plenty of work to be done on our own lives.
And if we have any hope of changing the world, we do it by changing ourselves …

And with that, one of the seraphim, one of the burning creatures of God, flies to the altar and grabs a burning coal with a pair of tongs … the fire of God – and touches Isaiah’s lips – and with that, the declaration needed by every human being: Your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out!

The gift of life from God above.
The healing of the soul.
The sad darkness within dispelled with light.
That’s what we just did in the LORD's Supper – the love of Christ touched our hearts – the burning coals of God’s grace … your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out!

The last crisis – a vocational crisis.
God asks, Whom shall I send?”
Unfair question!

But there’s always one more piece to the puzzle …
Yes, I’m forgiven, but now what?
What comes next?


Whom shall I send?

I’ve got a good idea God.
Send Willie.
Send Shari.
Or how about Leslie, or Stafford?

Yeah, send them, LORD.
They’ll do a good job for you.
I know they will.
Send them.

Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?

Isaiah looks around, and there’s no one around.
Willie isn’t there, or Shari.
Neither Leslie nor Safford.
Just Isaiah.
Just you.
Just me.

This is a personal calling from God.
We can’t deflect it.
We can’t nominate anyone else.

It’s a call that comes to each of us.
Yes, to each of us! No one in this place is exempt!
To Abraham and Sarah in Haran.
To Moses in Egypt.
To Isaiah in Judah.
To the fishermen in their boats.
And Paul on the Damascus Road.

To everyone who even comes close to God.
God is a calling God.
A God who says, Whom shall I send?

And there’s no one there but you and me to answer.

God does it that way.
Just you and me … puts us on the spot.

Isaiah echoes the faithful words of a real giant – a man on his way – growing in the love of God – Here I am; send me.”

The word “vocation” - from the Latin - from which we get the word “vocal” – voice – a vocation is the voice of God calling us, and everyone in this place hears this call.
Many of us heard it in Sunday School when we were children.
Maybe you heard it ten years ago, or just last week.
Maybe you’re hearing it right, for the first time in your life, or maybe for the umpteenth time …

Here I am; send me!

Well, there ya’ have it: four crises: four lessons.

To see God above when things are dicey below.
A big God always shakes things up, and it’s okay.
The love of God reveals things we’re not proud of, but with the burning coals of God’s love, our guilt is sent packing and our sin is no more.
The call of God comes to us … personal and deep … and there’s only one answer to satisfy the soul: Here I am; send me.

Amen and Amen!