The Peripatetic Preacher
(Lectionary for May 27, 2018)
We are about to enter that long swatch of Sundays that used to be called “ordinary time,” a huge section of weeks that are to be found between Trinity Sunday and Christ the King and Advent, comprising nearly half the year. The preacher usually takes a vacation during this time and hands the reins of the church over to an associate (if she is lucky enough to have one) or asks friends to “cover” for her in her absence. But in late May, most schools are still in session, businesses are gearing up for the summer rush (or slump), depending on the merchandise, and attendance is expected to sag a bit as parishioners head for the mountains or the seashore.
But first there is Trinity Sunday, a minor celebration of the way many Christians view the nature of the Godhead, one in three and three in one, as the theologians have it. Let me make an early admission; I find little revelatory help in this odd notion. I live my life on the conviction that God is a God of justice and unbreakable love, but I do not believe Jesus is some divine figure, however much the Gospel of John tries to show that he is, nor do I find a separate “being” in a Holy Spirit, choosing instead to see the works of an active God. Someone once called the Holy Spirit God’s nickname—I forget who— but if that is so, then why bother? God remains God. So, for me Trinity Sunday holds little theological potency. If it does for you, I am glad you find help and strength in the idea.
Isaiah 6 has long been associated with a Christian notion of the Trinity, given the famous “Trisagion,” the “three holies” uttered by the seraphim who attend YHWH in the Jerusalem Temple in the exalted vision of the prophet Isaiah. For early Christian commentators, those loud cries are in fact indicators that God is finally and in some odd sense three in person, a notion thoroughly foreign to the Israelites who recorded the scene. After all, for them, YHWH was distinctly one, and only one, alone, in no need of rival or companion god or goddess. Still, Is.6 was soon connected to a celebration of the Christian Trinity, though it appears to me that the three-fold cry of the giant creatures whirling about the Godhead has more to do with the famous “rule of three” in folklore than it has to do with theological intricacies. Like the “three Billy goat’s gruff” and the “three little pigs,” so the three voiced holies of the seraphim.
In any case, my interest in this well-trammeled text today is to be found in the ironic and perhaps hilarious actions of the prophet in Is.6:11 as he responds to the call of YHWH in Is.6:8. How well I know that ubiquitous hymn, “Here I am, Lord,” sung especially in services with mission focus in Protestant and Catholic services worldwide. Dan Schutte’s 1981 song is regularly listed among the top five favorites among hymn singers in the US and Britain. “Here I am, Lord; Is it I, Lord?” bears the clear implication that it is in fact I whom the Lord is calling, and further claims that “I will go, Lord, if you lead me.” This is of course a lovely sentiment. Would that Isaiah at his own calling had had the hymn to chant by way of reply, but alas, Isaiah was far more like me when called to do the work of God. My question, as was the prophet’s, is rather, “How Long?” How long must I do this, God? What will be the result of my actions for you? What I learn from the great temple vision of Isaiah is: you better be in this business with God for the long haul.
After the intensely dramatic call story, with its gigantic portrait of YHWH seated in the temple, the divine robe filling the entire space, the seraphs (literally “burners”) flying attendance, and the lowly prophetic worshipper peering through the smoke and feeling decidedly lost, YHWH cleans Isaiah up with a burning coal from one of the seraphim and then thunders out the divine calling to service: “Whom shall I send; who will go for us?” And the overwhelmed and overawed prophetic confidently replies, “Here am I! Send me!” How often have willing servants made a similar response to a perceived call to work for God? I know I did. I studied Hebrew for about a month in 1968 and knew almost immediately that I wanted to serve God by teaching that stuff to would-be clergy. Lucky me, I was able to do that for over three decades, but my primary faculty role was to teach preaching; I was only allowed to teach Hebrew and the study of the Hebrew Bible on occasion. I readily admit that during some of those homiletical classes I(I taught introduction to preaching 60 times), I cried out, “How long, O Lord,” as I heard one more student sermon, spoken by a reluctant but earnest preacher, fulfilling her curricular requirement.
And so it was with Isaiah. Right after his ringing resolve to go where YHWH was prepared to send him, YHWH then went on to tell him something of what the prophet had just let himself in for. “Go, and say to this people, ‘Keep listening, but do not understand; keep looking but do not comprehend. Make this people’s mind dull, stop their ears, so that they might not look with their eyes or hear with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed’” (Is.6:9-10). I picture Isaiah’s eyes widen, his right eyebrow cock, his left ear turn to attempt to discern what YHWH has just said. “I beg your pardon, YHWH. How’s that again?” But the command was clear enough for full comprehension. Your task, Isaiah, that you have just accepted with such alacrity is to make it much harder for the people of Israel to respond to God at all! Your success, Isaiah, will be Israel’s failure. They will not listen; they will not see; they will not get what YHWH wants from them.
Little wonder that the horrified prophet stammers out a more timid, “How long, YHWH?” How long, indeed! God’s answer is nothing short of monstrous. “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate; until YHWH sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness of the land” (Is.6:11-12). In short, the work of God does not always lead to large congregations, housed in resplendent buildings, all parishioners shouting the acclimation of their pastoral darling. The work of God at times leads to rejection, disgust, empty pews and emptier coffers. Exactly how ironic is it that this passage has become the very model of call and response to call, when in fact it warns us of the possible dangers of following that call and describes for us, if we are honest, what we may say when a fuller understanding of working for God becomes clear.
God’s work requires many things, but among the most important of those things are patience and perseverance. What God asks is often hard, all right, but its difficulty often consists of the vast length of time that any sort of fulfillment of the task may take. I am now nearly 72 years old, and have been an ordained clergyperson for almost 50 of those years. And what has my work for God accomplished? I have tried to teach and preach the gospel with clarity and force, but what has that preaching and teaching actually done? Is the world any closer to God as a result of my 50-year efforts? I would be hard-pressed to answer in the affirmative. In my own denomination, United Methodism, there were over 12,000,000 US members the year of my ordination. In 2018 there are barely 7,000,000. A loss of 40% of US membership is not everything, but it is something, and that something can hardly be all good. In 2018, America seems to be a more violent, more divided, more angry place than I ever hoped to see, led by people who themselves are violent, angry, bigoted, and xenophobic, all traits antithetical to the God I have tried to serve. How long, O Lord, indeed!
Yet, I trust in the power of the justice of God, a justice that will far outlive my short span of years, and will persist on the earth as long as that earth exists. In that belief is my hope, that justice will ultimately prevail, when I cannot know, how I cannot conceive. Yet it shall prevail. My sometimes anguished “how long” cannot finally still my certain “In God’s good time.” May it be so for you.
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