Isaiah 6: 1-13
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 7, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
Several years ago, Bronwen’s brother-in-law gave us a CD for Christmas, In Search of Angels, the soundtrack for a PBS special by the same name. While I appreciate most of the New Age and Classical music on the disc, one song stuck with me, “Calling All Angels,” by Canadian singer-songwriter, Jane Siberry. It begins with an ethereal roll call of the saints, starting with Santa Maria and ending with “Vladimir, and all the rest.” The verses seem to suggest our quest to make sense of life’s losses, as Siberry sings of looking at a sunset in the second verse,
Why it’s…it’s almost as if, if you could only crack the code,
then you’d finally understand what this all means,
but if you could…Do you think you would trade it in,
all the pain and suffering?
Ah, but then you’d miss
the beauty of the light upon this earth
and the sweetness of the leaving.
Yet, the chorus of “Calling all Angels” keeps coming back to me,
Calling all angels! Calling all angels!
Walk me through this one! Don’t leave me alone!
Callin’ all angels! Callin’ all angels!
We’re tryin’; we’re hopin’; we’re hurtin’; we’re lovin’; we’re cryin’; we’re callin’;
’cause we’re not sure how this goes
I hear the chorus as a kind of prayer, a cry from the heart for help. It expresses how all of us may feel when the earth shakes beneath our feet, when the bottom falls out of life. We try… We hope… We hurt… We love… We cry… We call out for saints, angels, God to walk with us and not leave us alone. God answers such calls and calls us to answer, when “we’re not sure how this goes.”
We can imagine what drew Isaiah to the temple “in the year that King Uzziah died.” We don’t need to know all the details of who Uzziah was. We don’t need to know how his death spelled the beginning of the end for Judah. We don’t need to know, because those seven words say everything we need to know. We understand how the loss of a national leader leaves people feeling as if the bottom falls out of life. We understand how a disaster, like Katrina or Haiti, an attack like December 7, 1941 or September 11, 2001, makes us feel as if the earth gives way beneath our feet and the foundations of our world shake.
We can imagine what drew Isaiah to the temple, because it may be what draws us here today. All of us know pain and suffering, even if it’s just the nagging realization of how more time lies behind us than lies ahead of us. Some of us come to this sanctuary, seeking shelter from life’s storms. Maybe, we got the call from the doctor’s office we’ve been dreading. Perhaps, we grasp our marriage is over or we’re still trying to understand how it all ended. We may continue to mourn the loss of a loved one. Maybe, we grieve the loss of a job or the death of a dream. Perhaps, we cannot quite give up something that’s gone, never to return, or someone who’s never really been there for us. It could be we’re just sick and tired of being sick and tired. We understand what brought Isaiah to the temple. We know, because who among us hasn’t wondered how all of this goes.
We may come to this sanctuary in search of comfort, wanting some answers,but God seeks us out with a call, which raises new questions, as well. Some of us may imagine God as a kindly old man or a heavenly shoulder on which to cry. We think of angels as cherubic little children or handsome young men. Yet, if they were, why are their first words always: “Do not be afraid”? When Isaiah encountered God in the temple, he met no kindly old man. God filled the temple with just the hem of God’s garment, so Isaiah could not see, let alone reach God’s shoulder to shed a tear. God could not be contained in the temple, no matter how large it was. Some scholars suggest the seraphim, soaring around God, were something more like fire-breathing dragons than cherubs. I’m not sure, but seraphim means “fiery ones” and they sang a song we continue to sing, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
I wonder whether we understand those words when we sing them. When we say God is not just holy, but thrice holy, we acknowledge how high and lofty God is, how worthy God is of our praise and adoration. When we call upon God as Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, we acknowledge the might and mystery of who God is. When we say the world reflects God’s glory, we acknowledge God as the Creator of everything seen and unseen. When we sing this angelic song, we say something about God. We say God is greater than all that is and better than anything we can imagine. We affirm God is perfect, which leads us to confess how we are not. With Isaiah, when we fully grasp who God is, a truth totally takes hold of us. We are not God; we are not perfect; we are not creator, but creatures; we are weak; we are not worthy. As Isaiah cried out, we confess, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” When we really come face to face with God, we become aware of how great our need of God’s grace is.
Yet, with a fiery coal, a seraph takes away Isaiah’s sin. With a word, we are made whole and righteous to stand before the King. For us, that word above all earthly powers is Jesus, who called common fisherfolk, even when they felt they were unworthy to follow. For us, that word comes from one who called Isaiah to proclaim a difficult word to people who might not listen, but who promised a holy seed would stay, a faithful remnant. For us, we see that word in bread and cup upon this table, where we experience him with us, here and now.
We continue to call all angels to let us know God remains with us. More recently, Train recorded a song with the same name as the one with which I began this sermon, “Calling All Angels.” It offers an appropriate prayer with which to end:
I need a sign to let me know you’re here
All of these lines are being crossed over the atmosphere
I need to know that things are gonna look up
‘Cause I feel us drowning in a sea spilled from a cup
When there is no place safe and no safe place to put my head
When you feel the world shake from the words that are said
And I’m calling all angels
I’m calling all you angels
I won’t give up if you don’t give up
I won’t give up if you don’t give up
I won’t give up if you don’t give up
I won’t give up if you don’t give up.
I can only add: God won’t give up, so let us not give up.
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
