Sermon: "Cleansing Before Calling"

Delivered May 29, 2005 by Rev. Laura Crihfield.

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If you would like to open your Bibles I will be reading from Isaiah, Chapter 6 beginning at verse 1 and going through Verse 8. Here the word of God from Isaiah:

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." At the sound of their voices the door posts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

Will you pray with me? Holy God, thank you for your Word. Thank you that it is as alive today as when it was written. Thank you God that we have the privilege of opening it, studying it, and talking about it, and applying it to our lives. God I pray that you would open our minds, our ears, and most importantly our hearts, to all that you would teach us this day. Speak through me Lord. May my words be your words. Come Holy Spirit Come. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, a few years ago when I was home in California with my family, I had an extended conversation with a good friend of mine from my youth group. In fact, he's the friend that I went to the prom with. So he's a good friend and at that point he was in a place that he would never imagine he would be; finishing his first year of seminary. Some of you can relate to that. You never imagine you'd be where you are. If you had asked him even a year earlier where he would be at that point he most likely would have said, "Well, I will be finishing my first year of law school." You see, Eric had always planned on entering law school and going into private practice as an attorney. And his decision to enter seminary instead was a surprise, I think to him in some ways, and it certainly was to all of us who knew him. And as we were catching up with one another I naturally asked him why he had made the decision to pursue ministry. And he paused and he's got a great sense of humor, and he kind of just chuckled a bit and looked at me with this rye little smile and he said kind of complexed, "I really don't know, how to explain it I mean. Other than to say that God's call was really loud and I couldn't say no." God's call was really loud and he couldn't say no. As sort of ambiguous as that may sound I completely understood his response having experienced similar feelings a number of years earlier as I had explored my call to ministry, and as I had ultimately come to the conclusion that for my life God's call also was so loud that I couldn't say no.

As our conversation continued Eric went on to explain that he had for a long time felt a call to ministry, and he had for a long time ignored it, avoided it, and in fact done everything he could to escape it; staying as far away from it as possible. He couldn't imagine himself in ministry. He had always wanted to be a lawyer. Why would God call him? These questions haunted him and hunted him for quite some time, as he did his best to escape them, and as he was thinking about his life plans. The plans that he had set out for himself he realized that he didn't have a sense of peace about them. It just didn't feel right. And as he prayed that God would give him the sense of peace about law school, the only thing he felt any sense of peace about was ministry. And he found himself continuously thinking about seminary, continuously pondering all that God had done in his life to forgive him; cleanse him and draw him to Christ. And he found himself remembering the joy that he felt as he worked with high school students while he was in college, in youth groups, in churches. He was surprised, having applied to law school, that he found himself thinking and watching the progression of his thoughts shift from ministry- not me, to ministry- why me, to ministry- maybe me. Ultimately, what it boiled down to as Eric shared with me was an acceptance of God's incredible love for him, and a desire to serve him and share that love, share the love of Jesus with all those around him in any way that he could, for Eric was a clear call to ministry.

Now you may be thinking, well what does that have to do with me? I am not called to ordained ministry. I am not going to seminary. Maybe not, but the truth is whether ordained or not, the call to ministry is something that every one of us has in common. Now, that may sound a bit bold and you may be thinking that there is no way that could be true. Again, I am not called to ministry, but scripture is clear that as Christians God calls each and every one of us to serve him and to share the love of Christ with those around us. And simply put, that's ministry.

The prophet Isaiah certainly experienced this call in his life and Isaiah 6 that we read and that we sang, I love that last song that we sang , "Here I am Lord,"that was in my ordination, which is in many ordinations these days, but that just spoke what I was feeling at the time that I was ordained. In Isaiah 6, which is referred to as Isaiah's call or Isaiah's commission, we see that like Eric, Isaiah also struggled with this idea of call. He too wondered why in the world would God want to use him, and he too eventually responded the only way he knew how, with a clear and firm yes to all that God desired to do in and through him. It's a wonderful piece of scripture that we can learn so much from, and I want to focus our attention on four components of it that I think are important for us to understand as we seek to live God's call for our lives and understand what it means to follow him in to ministry, whatever that means for each of our lives. So I want to think about these four parts.

First, in Verses 1 to 4 we see a very clear statement. This is a great place to start and Isaiah knew it, about God holiness and God's majesty. Isaiah begins: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. Imagine the scene. And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke". What an image Isaiah gives to us in that passage. Isaiah gives us a clear picture of this group of angels, each with six wings. That in and of itself is kind of difficult to imagine; gathered together with the Lord and the Lord sitting on the throne, and his robe is so big that the train or the hem of his robe filled the entire temple and the seraphs, the angels covered their faces in reverence for God, and they covered their feet as they bowed down before God, and with the third set of wings they fly in service for God. They clearly have a sense of just how great and holy the Lord is and they cry out. What do they cry out? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. How true that is.

Everywhere we turn we see evidence of just how holy and how incredible the Lord is. Every time I see a newborn baby or, having grown up on the beach, not on the beach literally, but near the beach in Southern California when I would go to the beach and I would sit and I would close my eyes and I would listen to the sound of the waves just crashing on to the shore and just that rhythm. As I grow in relationships with my family and with my friends and I see God working in and through them, as I see a flower bloom in the garden, as I take in the glory of a sunset and very occasionally a sunrise, I am reminded of what Isaiah knew, that the God we serve is magnificent and mighty and worthy of every bit of praise we can render. Isaiah recognized his splendor. He proclaimed it boldly and we are called to do the same; to declare to the world holy, holy, holy is the Lord almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. That's the first thing we can learn from this passage.

Unfortunately, like Isaiah, as we do this we will also be reminded of just how unholy we are? It's like an ultimate study in contrast; God's splendor and our sinfulness. God's holiness and our hollowness, if that's a word. My spell check told me it wasn't a word, but we are going to make it a word. Look at the second part of this passage. Verse 5 Isaiah says, "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." What incredible honesty. I am a man of unclean lips. He knows that he is a sinful person and he confesses it openly before God. No hesitation. He simply says it, I am a man of unclean lips. In my opinion as I was thinking about this it is no fluke that Isaiah in talking about his sinfulness specifically focused on his speech. As I examine my own life as well as I think human nature in general, as I was sitting at the ball game yesterday, it became clear to me that Isaiah was in touch with one of the key ways that sin can rear its ugly head in our lives. All it takes is one or two little words, the wrong word, perhaps unintended words and things can go from absolutely wonderful to absolutely awful before we even know what it is we just said. Can you relate to that? Before it even registers. Words are powerful and whether we like it or not our speech often reminds us of the fact that we are sinful human beings. Isaiah recognized this. He acknowledged it and he cried out to his holy God for help. Not in hopelessness, but in assurance that he was able to acknowledge his dependence on God for life and breath and forgiveness and salvation.

And God's response to this confession, a clear reminder of his cleansing and his forgiveness. He immediately has one of the seraphs take hold of a burning hot coal and touch Isaiah's lips with it and declare " See, this has touched your lips;your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." I love that response because it clearly affirms who I believe God to be; a forgiving, loving God who is concerned with what concerns us. He doesn't lecture Isaiah. He doesn't chastise him. He didn't need to. Isaiah was doing a pretty good job of that himself. Rather than chastise, God cleanses. God meets him where he is. He recognizes what he needs. He cleanses him and in the process he assures him that he loves him and forgives him through his words. What a wonderful encounter. This holy and majestic God caring for sinful Isaiah; loving him and interacting with him in a very powerful way, and ultimately equipping him to do all that he was called to do, which was obviously tremendous.

How does God want to interact with you today? What areas of your life need his cleansing? Are you willing to let him go there, not just in the easy areas, but are you willing to allow him into those places that really need his touch? Those places that you would rather no one know about? Are you willing to let him take that burning coal and touch your lips with it? There is no getting around the fact that the cleansing God wants to do in our lives is hard, really hard at times and the process can be painful. I am learning that in really profound ways in my life right now as I work through some stuff, but it is so important. Scripture seems to indicate that our usefulness to God depends on our willingness to allow God to touch our lives with that hot coal of forgiveness and cleansing.

Throughout the gospels Jesus consistently kind of went through this pattern with people. He met sinners where they were. He forgave them, and he cleansed them, and then he commissioned them. It would always happen in that order. Cleansing first and then commissioning. Sometimes I think we want it the other way around, and actually we would really just avoid the cleansing all together, right? Be really honest. But that commissioning that follows the cleansing brings us to the fourth component, which is God's call, Isaiah's response and the commissioning that we see in Isaiah. Verse 8 says and this is Isaiah speaking: "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah recognized and acknowledged God's glory. He has been forgiven and cleansed and now he is called to witness to all that God has done in his life. He is called as an instrument of God's mercy and God's grace and God's prophetic words, which were sometimes hard for people to hear; to serve God's people. And essentially he says, here I am Lord. I will go wherever you want me to go and I will do whatever you want me to do. I don't know what that means for my life. Verse 9 picks up with God saying, okay go. Isaiah didn't know what he was saying yes to before he said yes. But I am yours, use me.

Thinking about Isaiah's response naturally makes me examine my own response to God's call and as I do, I realize that fortunately there are times when like Isaiah, I say, "Here I am Lord. Use me; I will go wherever you want me to go." But more often it is a little muddied and sometimes there is no yes at all. Sometimes there is a really clear no even though I know God is saying, "Okay Laura. Step up to the plate on this one." I am not proud of that, but it is true for all of us I would guess. Saying yes to God is a serious matter because when we give God permission to use us we can rest assured that God will. Don't be fooled into thinking that maybe God will use me if I ask him to use me. God will use you if you invite him in to do so. And that can be scary because when we say okay God I will go wherever you want me to go. I will do whatever you want me to do, we are giving up control aren't we? We are putting our life in God's hand and that can be really scary, but the benefits of God's blessings as we do so are beyond our wildest imagination.

A couple of years ago I was at a gathering of about 5,000-6,000 Christian leaders, most of whom were church members, not pastors, and at one point one of the speakers had a talk about a kind of effective ministry in the church and how it happened. He asked the audience how many of you are in full time ministry? And you know a significant number of hands went up, but most hands kind of remained in people's laps, because like I said these were mostly church members, not people in full time ministry. So he had us put our hands down. Then he said, okay I want everybody to raise their hand. I am going to ask another question. So everybody raised their hand. Go ahead. Raise your hands. And he asked the next question. How many of you are in full time ministry? Gulp. You could have heard a pin drop, except all of us who were pastors who were like yeah they are.

All of us are in full-time ministry. Not just Isaiah. Not just Eric who I shared about at the beginning of the sermon. Not just John and George, not just me, those of us who are ordained, but all of us are called to full- time ministry. All who follow Jesus Christ and who have been saved by his grace are called to share that with others in full- time ministry. Full- time ministry means a lifestyle of service. It doesn't necessarily mean ordination. Full- time ministry means asking God to open our eyes to our surroundings and the ways that we can share the love of Christ in them. It doesn't mean being paid by a church or a parishioner organization as a vocation. It means intentionally seeking ways to plug in to the various ministries of the church and serving, not just being fed. It means being used by God wherever you are and not just haphazardly, but consciously recognizing that no matter where you are, you are the face of Jesus in that place, and you are called to share God's love with those who are in that place. God is most assuredly calling every single one of us to ministry of some sort.

For each of us it is a little different and I don't know what it is for each of you. For some it may involve teaching Sunday School or working with the students. For others it may involve using your gifts in another area of ministry in the church, maybe it's the music ministry, maybe it's deacons or elders, maybe it's the mom's group, maybe it's the men's ministry. It may mean being involved in the social action program that John was talking about, getting involved in the community reaching out as we talk about being beyond these walls. I don't know what it is for you, but I want to ask you what is God calling you to do? What is it that has been nudging you for a long time, and like Eric and like me, and like all of us you have kind of said, no I will get to that later. I know you are calling me to do it, but I am just not really interested right now.

Corporately, what is God calling this church to be a part of? As we seek to be, like I said, a church without walls. What ministries lies before us? Some of them we know. Some of them we have no clue what they are going to look like. My prayer for us this day is that all of us will be reminded again of God's majesty and God's glory, that we will sense God's forgiving love as we allow the hot coal to cleansing to touch our lips, to touch our lives and that we will be renewed in our sense of call having been forgiven so that we can be commissioned to do the work of God in new and profound ways wherever we are, wherever God calls us, in this church, in this community, in our world, way beyond the walls of this church. For holy, holy, holy is the Lord of host, the whole earth is full of his glory. May we be people who proclaim that boldly to the world? Will you pray with me?

Loving God, you are indeed holy and you are indeed worthy of all of our praise and all of the honor that we can offer to you. God I want to take just a minute for each of us to set before you the thing that you are nudging us about, to offer to you the things that perhaps we know you are calling us to, but we are hesitant to say yes to, or God to those who aren't sure of what you are calling us to. We ask God that in these next few minutes you would begin to nudge us. Hear us in these moments of silence God as we come before you and seek your will and your guidance. Hear us Lord.

© 2005, Rev. Laura Crihfield
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org