“In the year of the death of Uzziah, ruler of Judah, I saw Yahweh seated on a high and lofty judgment seat, in a robe whose train filled the Temple. Seraphs were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.
They would cry out to one another, “Holy! Holy! Holy is Yahweh Omnipotent! All the earth is filled with God’s glory!” The doorposts and thresholds quaked at the sound of their shouting, and the Temple kept filling with smoke.
Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! I have unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips! And my eyes have seen the Ruler, Yahweh the Omnipotent!”
Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding an ember which it had taken with tongs from the altar. The seraph touched my mouth with the ember, “See,” it said, “now that this has touched your lips, your corruption is removed, and your sin is pardoned.”
Then I heard the voice of the Holy One saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
“Here I am,” I said, “send me!”
Isaiah 6:1-8 (NRSV Inclusive)
[1] We both managed to keep it together until she got to the last line. Then her voice caught, and I could see her chin quivering just a little from my perch on the front row below her. Our eyes met as she glanced up at the gathered congregation, and I knew my eye makeup was toast.
[2] The occasion was my ordination service, March 25, 2007. The moment was my mom reading Isaiah 6, the passage above. It would have been a special moment no matter what. But there was symbolism to that moment that made it sacred. I grew up in a denomination that didn’t believe women should lead any aspect of worship, should not be in any position of spiritual authority over men. My mom grew up in the same denomination and had stayed a member even as I had followed my Call, often with fear and trembling, out of that denomination and into the UCC.
[3] And so in that moment, a woman who had never spoken from a pulpit was reading these powerful words, witnessing, affirming, and blessing her daughter who was also finding her voice for the first time.
[4] Now, my mom is an introvert who does not like public speaking so she hadn’t exactly been longing to lead worship anywhere, but she shared her voice on that occasion for me and I know she, too, appreciated the symbolism of the moment. Hence, the emotion.
[5] I mentioned to a couple of clergy friends that I was excited to preach on this text because it was so powerful at my ordination, and they both chimed in that they, too, had used this text at their ordinations. It is a common ordination text because it is the powerful Call story of a powerful prophet, Isaiah. And while I know some readers might have similar Call stories into ministry, my guess is that most readers are more like my mother, with Calls that don’t involve ordination. And that makes me wonder, what would it be like if we read this verse at confirmation services, or, at retirement services? I think this would be meaningful because I think this text is every bit as relevant, and powerful, for those of us who aren’t ordained.
[6] Let me set the stage. The context is the ancient Israelite, or Jewish, nation of Judea in massive political turmoil. It’s long-standing leader, Uzziah, has just died, and it is plagued by external foes, threatening takeover and exile, which will ultimately be successful, and internal threats by way of corrupt leaders and economic greed that has led to mass injustice and vulnerability among the people of Judea. God is calling the prophet Isaiah to speak out against these realities, instructing him to proclaim to the people that their acts of worship are hollow and meaningless when they allow and perpetuate such injustice all around them. Because a society that allows such injustice to flourish is not a society following God.
[7] So this story is about God calling Isaiah and all God’s people back into faithful relationship and just political and religious systems.
[8] It’s interesting to me where the story starts. With a description of Isaiah catching a glimpse of the size, expansiveness, and power of God. Isaiah doesn’t even see all of God, and he is still brought to his knees in utter awe and sheer terror. God is described as being up above, transcendent, and beyond us even as God also fills the earth with God’s presence, God’s immanence.
[9] God is also the God of thresholds and boundaries, shaking everything up with God’s power and glory. Appearing to each of our senses of sound, sight, touch, and smell through smoke and wind and booming voices.
[10] And God is surrounded by unearthly beings, seraphs, with wings and eyes in strange numbers and places. I’m not necessarily drawn to apocalyptic visions, but I do think it’s important to spend some time with these kinds of images because they remind us that God and God’s realm is so far beyond our limited human experience. I think we often limit God by getting stuck with just a few images of God, a few metaphors for God in language that confirms what we already know about God and we often imagine God how we want God to be.
[11] There is truth in all images and metaphors for God and a time to take refuge in the familiar, comfortable ones. But this moment in the life of the Israelites and in Isaiah’s story is more about pushing us to be open to a God who is bigger, more present, more powerful, more “other,” more demanding than at other times. This God wants us to be uncomfortable, shaken even, so that we look around with newly alert eyes and find our ways back into right relationship with each other and with God.
[12] I suspect the parallels to then and now are clear. If there is ever a moment in most of our lifetimes to let the discomfort of vulnerability and troubled times lead us to new, powerful images of God, I think it has to be now. We need new visions, new inspirations, new accountability to build a world where all can thrive. We need a God whose justice is more about restoration than retribution. A God who cares about the entire, global common good. A God who wants creation to thrive. A God who demands mercy and empathy and justice for those marginalized by current power systems. A God who values people not by what or whether they are able to work and produce but because they are inherently worthwhile.
[13] A God who declares Sabbath good in a world where we’ve become too busy and overscheduled. These are images of God that have always been available to us, but perhaps we can see them and respond to them in new ways in this moment.
[14] Now when Isaiah takes stock of the God he is witnessing and that God’s expectations, he is terrified. He feels completely inadequate and utterly broken. He sees this divine being that is too vast to take in, too holy to comprehend, too powerful to resist, too righteous for any human, and he shatters, bemoaning his failures and those of his community.
[15] I wonder how many of us have ever had a moment like this? An encounter that leaves us shaken to our core by something that is so much bigger than ourselves that all we know in that moment is that we feel unworthy and inadequate and small. I’ve never quite experienced what Isaiah describes, but I think the closest I’ve come is in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, on top of a 14,000 foot mountain, with the wind whipping all around me and the world stretch out below me and storm clouds rapidly moving in and all my human frailty letting me know I am at the mercy of these massive, glorious forces of mountain and wind and lightening.
[16] I have always felt God in the mountains, but I’ll never forget that first time, when I experienced God in a new, visceral way. That experience of something holy both humbled and empowered me. The God I encountered changed me and demanded a response even though at the time, I had no clue what lay ahead. Maybe for you it’s the ocean or Lake Michigan or the forest or the desert. Or maybe it’s an experience with other people. Or on a mission trip. Or in a church. Or maybe you’ve not had that kind of experience. Plenty of us haven’t.
[17] Whatever the case, God’s response to Isaiah’s brokenness and awareness in this moment is to send the seraphs to touch his lips with a live coal. God empowers and restores Isaiah by literally touching him with fire, filling him with such a flaming passion that when God asks, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us,” Isaiah responds without hesitation, “Here I am! Send me!”
[18] I think part of Isaiah’s response to the call is that while he saw the fullness of his own brokenness and also the brokenness around him, he also experienced a God big enough, powerful enough, present enough to overcome the bigness and powerfulness of our brokenness and of the systems of domination and oppression we humans have created.
[19] I think Isaiah also realized he would not be alone.
[20] It seems significant that college students from non-Western countries bring to their studies a sense that they are pursuing higher education on behalf of the communities that nurtured them and sent them. They bring their countries and communities with them and believe they are accountable to using the gifts of education for the common good of those communities.
[21] We also see this, often, with US students from marginalized communities who know they have a unique opportunity to use the gifts of their education for the common good. But most often when I ask my more privileged college students about the common good or what communities they are in relationship with that support them and hold them accountable for what they’re learning and what they will do with that education, students give me strange looks and don’t have clear answers. We tend to be more individualized than that in the US.
[22] But it’s a potentially powerful re-frame, and I see it here in this Call story. Isaiah isn’t on a solo mission. As I said earlier, these sorts of communal calls and relationships of support and accountability seem fairly clear within formal ministerial settings. But here’s the thing. Every one of us who seeks a relationship with God, with the church, and with all our neighbors near and far, familiar and different, has a Call. All of us are on the hook to do our part, to answer the call, to speak love and justice into this world, particularly in a democracy. Particularly in a world as fractured as ours.
[23] It will look different for all of us. Maybe it’s something you get paid to do or maybe it’s not. Not all Calls are careers.
[24] And we may not ever see an impact—spoiler alert if you’re planning to go home and read what comes next—God tells Isaiah to go call the country back to right relation while also telling Isaiah that they won’t listen.
[25] This can be depressing or a relief, depending on how you see it. We’ve got huge problems and we’re unlikely to make an immediate, big dent in them. And we have an even bigger, more powerful, more present God who is on our side, empowering us and entrusting us to get uncomfortable, to see a God beyond our limited imaginations, to recognize our vulnerabilities and brokenness, and then to get fired up to do our part of speaking truth, love, justice, and compassion to a world in desperate need of each.
[26] My mom may not have been called to public church leadership, except in that one beautiful moment when she called me and let me know I was not alone. But she answered her call through her career as a public school teacher and through volunteering, friendships, and raising children and now grandchildren who were prepared to answer their own calls.
[27] So what is your call? Who are you in community with? In relationship with? Who are you accountable to in that call? And how will you support others as they answer their calls? The road is uncomfortable and not always encouraging. So we need each other more than ever.
[28] We are entering a new phase of existence right now. The problems are immense, and our rush to put the individual over the common good has been exposed in particularly powerful ways. But our gifts and our God are also limitless. And so the time is also charged with possibility.
[29] We can’t make any promises of outcomes, but we can promise to be there for each other as we answer our calls as a church and as individuals. And so we must decide how we will answer as God calls to us, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
Rev. Dr. Julie A. Mavity Maddalena is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion, University Chaplain, Ethicist in Residence, and Director of The Ulrich Center for Faith, Ethics, and Justice at Lakeland University. She specializes is women’s and gender studies as well as intersections of class, race, gender, and ability. She is ordained in the United Church of Christ.