This week
was fun and amusing and exciting at the same time. The amusing part was Tina’s confusion. Apparently, she has never had a year with a
Fifth week of Epiphany. She thought she
had all her templates done, only to find out this week that the number of weeks
in Epiphany fluctuates as Easter Sunday moves in the calendar. So we spent some time going over the Prayer
Book, the varied seasons, and other technical things with respect to Orders of
Worship in the Episcopal Church.
The fun
part was more reminiscence on my part.
Our reading today is from Isaiah 6:1-8.
It was one of the readings from my ordination to the priesthood. What made my ordination memorable was the
fact that my bishop preached from the Old Testament that day. I was not surprised to hear an Old Testament
sermon, as I had heard quite a few in seminary.
The surprise was my new colleagues.
“Bishop Alan never preaches from the Old Testament” was often repeated
to me that day and in the weeks and months that followed. Colleagues were so surprised that they shared
the contents of his sermon with other colleagues who were absent that day. Those who were not present at my ordination
asked “Is it true he preached on Isaiah?
He never does that. Did you make
him?” and other such questions. Needless to say, I relived a number of
conversations in my mind, some of which are not appropriate to share in our
setting today.
The
exciting part, though, was the wonderful new insight I had to offer Adventers
when I first arrived. Unlike Tina who
did not think Advent goes past four weeks plus a Last, I generally forget that
not every week’s readings get used in services.
Three years ago, when the reading last came up in the lectionary, I was working
a bit ahead. At that point, of course,
we were still feeling each other out.
There were a number of well-educated intellectuals in my new flock. I was having to stay on top of my game. I know some thought I only worked three to
four hours a week, but we clergy are required to do Continuing Education, as
part of our obligation to the diocese, and those of us who like to be somewhat
relevant, need to stay abreast of particular developments.
My
excitement was due to the simple fact that I had come across an article from
one of the Psychiatric or Psychological peer-reviewed journals. This article had purportedly figured out what
caused human beings to move beyond self-interest to communal interest. Many of you are in health care related
fields, so I know you understand the lingo.
For those of you outside healthcare and mental health care, in
particular, there is a recognition in the fields that human beings tend toward
selfishness. Put euphemistically, most
of do things for our own benefit or self-interest. Such behavior makes sense to us in the church. But we are communal animals and need,
sometimes, to put the good of others before our own in order to perpetuate the
society or the family or the parish or the company or the tribe or whatever
group to which we belong. Psychiatrists
and psychologists had theories, apparently, since the 1970’s, but no one had
done the peer-reviewed studies until the last cycle of these readings. While psychiatrists and psychologists
struggled with this question, God had spelled it out for His people over and
over and over again. And I had
scientific proof! I was so excited. And then I learned that we did not get to do
Epiphany 5 three years ago.
When I
ask you to define awe, what is the quick answer that you give? Is awe like pornography in that you know it
when you see it? Do you even give awe
much thought? For those of us who turn
to the dictionary, we learn that awe is feeling of reverential respect mixed
with fear or wonder. If we have ever
studied Kant, which I know a few of you have, awe is that feeling produced by
the starry sky above us and the moral law within us. The problem for psychiatrists and
psychologists today is that the latter does not necessarily exist. The only real Truth in the world is the
axiomatic statement that there is no real Truth in the world. Your truth is as valid as his truth is as
valid as her truth and so on. A moral
truth requires an outside person or agency or observer, who is able to judge
objectively. In a world that has tried
hard to kill God, such a being cannot exist.
As you’ve
no doubt figured out, awe is that feeling which causes human beings no longer
to act selfishly, at least according to the experts. Psychiatrists and psychologists were able to
measure that truth, presumably objectively, and set up experiences that
confirmed their hypothesis. As I read
the study three years ago, though, one of the author remarked on the difficulty
of causing awe. There is no formula, so
far as they could tell three years ago, that would cause everyone to respond in
the same way. Put in simple terms, we
are each awed by things differently. For
some of us, that reverential feeling can come upon us while looking at a
mountain, at a starry sky, or maybe the beach.
Others of us, however, are not awed by visual clues. Musicians may be awed by the perfect harmony
or melody or other aspects of music that tone-deaf people like me cannot hear,
let alone appreciate. Still other folks
can be driven to that feeling by a highly personal event, say the birth of a
child or sitting with a loved one as they loose their earthly bounds. Different things inspire awe, or so their
research seemed to indicate. It was both
amazing and frustrating insight for those seeking to quantify such things.
As a
pastor, of course, I am not too surprised.
I think psychiatrists and psychologists are correct when the assert that
we need awe to become better who were are meant to be. Awe enables us to be fully actualized as
human beings, as the mental health folks like to say, as who we were created to
be, as those in the Church like to say.
Our
readings today have two different encounters with awe. I’ll spend more time on the Isaiah vision,
but I want you to notice the awe of the fishermen as well. What drives them to awe? What causes them to recognize that Jesus is
from or blessed by God? A lot of
fish! That’s right. Now, it’s a lot of fish in a particular
circumstance. The men have fished all
night and caught nothing. The preacher,
Jesus, has asked one of them to put out a bit from shore so that He can teach
the crowds and keep them from pushing in and around Him. By way of thanks, Jesus tells them to put
down their nets. If you know any
fishermen, you know they are not shy about sharing their wisdom, expertise, and
experience. I can well imagine Peter’s
eye rolls and arguments with Jesus. Luke
recounts that Peter merely points out they caught nothing that night, but he
will do as Jesus says. I’m sure that
conversation went a bit more pointedly.
In the end, though, Peter catches so many fish that his nets are nearly
burst and both his and his partners’ boats are swamped. It is that miraculous catch of fish in
Peter’s eyes that causes awe and drives him to his knees. He tells Jesus to leave because he is a
sinful man. Jesus recognizes the truth
of all that Peter is experiencing and understanding. There’s no false modesty at play. There is no deceit made. And Jesus tells Peter that He will make him
fish for people from now on. From that
moment of awe, an amazing catch of fish, Peter’s life is changed. From that point forward he becomes a literal
man of God.
Look at
our reading from Isaiah. It’s a tough
reading because most of us in the West do not believe in visions any more. How do we know that mystics are not mentally
ill or high on drugs? In every parish I
have served, I have encountered mystics, including here at Advent. We are so unaccepting of their experiences
that we drive them underground, but that’s another sermon. Notice the vision of Isaiah. All the senses are involved. This is not just a dream where he watches
events like we might on television. He
definitely can see, but he hears and feels the voice of the angels speaking and
shaking the pivots. He sees and smells
the incense of the Holy Temple. He both
sees and cannot fully comprehend the Lord.
His line of sight seems to indicate that Isaiah can only see the lower
half of the Lord sitting on His throne.
And he sees and feels the hot coal burning his unrighteous lips and
making them fitting mouthpieces for the word of God. All the sense are engaged, not just sight.
What does
Isaiah see and hear? I’ve already
touched on his perception of the Lord.
God is so big, so massive, so beyond that the hem of His robe fills the
Temple. The Temple was, what, something
like thirteen football fields in area.
And God’s hem fills it?! Like
Peter after him, the prophet recognizes his sinful nature when confronted by
the presence of the Holy, righteous, and other great adjectives we use to
describe God. He is an unclean man who
lives among an unclean people. The angel
flies to him, holds the live coal to his lips, and proclaims that Isaiah’s
guilt has left him. Isiah rightly
recognizes the danger and truth of his own standing before the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. Yet, having been
cleansed by God’s grace, he also recognizes he is a fit vessel to go for the
Lord. He takes up the role of
prophet. And, although our editors cut
the reading off early, Isaiah takes on the role despite God’s announcement that
his ministry will be fraught with failure.
The people will hear his words and reject them. The people will know Isaiah is a prophet of
the Lord and still will not listen
to God. Still, despite the promise of
rejection by the Lord, Isaiah goes.
Isaiah picks up the mantle and does all that the Lord commands. The awe of the vision compels him. He can do nothing other than what God asks,
no matter the cost.
My guess
is, if we spent time going around the pews, each of us has a moment similar to
Peter or Isaiah. I would expect that
each of us, at some point early in our walk with God, had that experience or
set of experiences which convicted us of our own mortality and of God’s
holiness, righteousness, omniscience, and omnipotence. There was a point in our life where we began
to recognize that there was so much more to the world than our own self-interests,
our own egos. I would imagine, as we
went around the pews, we would discover that those moments of awe were rather
personalized. I can remember sitting in
a Roman history class, reading a castoff paragraph of Tacitus and realizing
Jesus was real. Real human beings wrote
and talked about His work and ministry even though they rejected His claims on
their lives. I can remember sitting in
my first Evensong service at Oxford, listening to the choir chanting the Nicene
Creed in Greek, and realizing that chant had resonated off those walls for 7 or
8 centuries and in other locations for nearly 17. I can recall my first visit to
Canterbury. The weight of the structure
is immense; yet it strives for the heavens despite that weight. And we 30-40 people gathered for Compline,
needed only to speak in our normal voices to be heard, for worship to fill that
structure. I can remember that
ordination at which my bishop preached, and in particular the complete and
utter realization that God calls us even though we are not worthy. If I spent more time, I can probably think of
more times when that awe of the presence of God manifested in the world around
me.
What are
your memories? When did God speak to you
in a way that, like Isaiah and Peter before you, convinced you of His deserving
of worship grandeur and your own fallibility?
When did you truly become aware of the grace extended to you and of the
Lord who was extending that grace? What
happened in your life that drove you to your knees and then lifted you up to
serve Him? Where did you do your
darnedest bestest effort to do something right, only to screw it up royally,
onlyt to see God’s redeeming grace at work in your life and ministry? Those are our testimonies. Those are those awe-inspiring moments which
changed our lives for ever. And how
unwilling are we to share them with one another, let alone the world.
One of
the great aspects of the awe which causes us to act, of course, to which the
mental health folks cannot speak in scientific terms, is the Gospel of that
awe. Like Isaiah and Peter and countless
others who have gone before us, we are right to recognize that it is dangerous
for us to approach God. In fact, we
would say it is fatal, apart from the work and person of Jesus Christ our
Lord. But, apart from that danger lies
an even more glorious reality. That
magnificent and glorious God, whom we should fear to approach on our own terms,
not only makes it possible for us to approach Him, but wants nothing more in
the universe than for us to return to Him.
And then, like a proud and loving Father that He is, he raises and
trains us to do His work in the world and sends us back out there to do the
work He has given us to do. In a real
way, awe inspires mission and ministry just as the experts have noticed.
And we,
who at a glimpse of His magnificence and glory and other aspects of His awe-inspiring
presence, are reminded that He stands with us and behind us as do those tasks
He has given us to do. Some of us, like
Isiah, will be given tasks that result in abject failure. Others, like Peter, will be given tasks whose
results are easily measurable and quantifiable.
Both, and all those in between however, share in that knowledge and
certainty that it is the Lord who makes all things possible. We who were once broken and fearful are now
healed and empowered. We cannot end
hunger in Brentwood, let alone Nashville or the state of Tennessee or the
country or the world, but we can fight it where He has planted us, confident
that He will sustain, enable, and empower us.
We might not be able to end all systemic injustices in the world, but we
battle them confident that He whose hem fills the Temple, is ever watching, ever
urging, and ever empowering. We might not
be able to conquer any of the evils of the world, in fact, I would argue such
is not our job. Our job is to go where
He sends us, to preach what He tells us, to serve as He instructs us and to do
so faithfully. When we do that, my
wonderful brothers and sisters, when we go in His name conscious of His grace
and power, then we go knowing who it is that stands behind and with us,
trusting that where we are too weak, he is more than sufficient, and that where
we are great mess-makers, He is the Great Redeemer!
In Christ’s Peace,
Brian†
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