May
31st, 2015 “Embracing the Mystery” Rev. Heather Jepsen
Isaiah
6:1-8 with Psalm 29
In our modern day and age, I believe
that we have lost a lot of the mystery and reverence people once had for
God. We have spent many years trying to
define and understand the nature of God.
From doctrines of the Trinity and Atonement, to big words like Perichoresis
and Transubstantiation; humanity has made a strong effort over the centuries to
define that which in essence is undefinable.
God is not a mystery if students can take three years of classes and
“master” divinity.
So too, we have come to understand the
created world we live in in such a way as to push aside all mystery and
wonder. What once was the magic of
pinpoints of light in a distant sky is now a catalog of named stars and galaxies;
complete with distance approximations between here and “there”. What once was the inexplicable force of
thunder and lightning is now a predictable pattern of air currents and
temperature swirling the globe. Where
humanity once wondered at the power and presence of fire, I now carry a phone
in my purse that is so complex that I not only don’t understand how it works, I
don’t understand how to use all of its features properly. Once there was mystery in the created world,
now there is mystery in the wonder of things people have created.
It is no surprise then, that we have
lost our sense of the mystery of God. If
people can create things like this, than where is the wonder when we look at
the creations God has made? If people
can define and label every aspect of God, then where exactly is the
divinity? God, who was once a force to
be feared and respected, becomes nothing more than a quaint idea of times gone
by. And we wonder why young people don’t
go to church! Have you noticed the world
they have grown up in?!?
Our reading from Isaiah takes us back
to a different time in the life of the church.
This reading takes us back to a time when God was a force and a power,
God was something to fear.
Isaiah is granted a vision of the Lord
and what he sees is terrifying to behold.
Isaiah looks up from the temple and sees God sitting high on a
throne. The hem of his robe fills the
temple and he is accompanied by holy and strange winged beasts. It is a scene of immense power. The throne symbolizes power in the political
realm, the temple symbolizes power in the spiritual realm, and there is
actually a lot of imagery of sexual power as well in the euphemisms of covered
feet and that giant hem of God’s robe.
The vision Isaiah shares is meant to be overwhelming, and it is meant to
be frightening. This is not a God you
call “Abba”; this is a God you cower away from in fear.
Like Isaiah, readers of this scripture
should feel uncomfortable. Our response
should be his response. When faced with
the sheer awesomeness of God’s power and wonder, we should hide ourselves in
fear. “Woe is me!” we should all cry
when we consider being in the presence of such a God.
Isaiah is overcome by his own
sinfulness and unworthiness, his own powerlessness and his humble place in the
created order. As he shrinks away in
fear a seraph flies toward him and burns his mouth with a hot coal. It is a symbol of his cleansing from sin, and
Isaiah is now prepared to go out and be the Lord’s prophet.
In one
of the most beloved lines of scripture, the holiness of God cries out “Whom
shall I send, and who shall go for us?” and Isaiah replies in a frightened
stammer, “Here am I; send me!” Lest we
should all line up for the privilege of this mission, it helps to read on a few
lines where we find that Isaiah is being sent to preach a word of judgment to a
people who will never ever listen. Furthermore,
he is called to preach this word until the land is utterly desolate and the
cities lie in waste. Talk about a tough
first call!
I don’t know about you, but the story that
Isaiah tells makes me really uncomfortable.
Political power, spiritual power, sexual power; it’s all a bit much for
me. If God is some sort of strange
figure filling the temple and shaking the earth with his voice, I’m not sure I want
to be part of this. I am not sure I want
to meet this God. I’m not sure I want my
lips burned off, just so I can go preach a word that no one wants to hear
anyway. I’m not sure that’s what I
signed on for.
Today is Trinity Sunday which is about
the strangest Sunday in the liturgical year.
Instead of celebrating our God, it seems to me that we are celebrating
an idea that we have about our God. And
what an idea it is!
How do you explain that God is Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit; but is also one thing not three? God is like water. It can be vapor, ice, or liquid. But that doesn’t really work because it is
not all those things at once. God is
like light. It is a wave and a
particle. Ok, maybe, if you got a better
grade in physics than I did then that works for you. In seminary they teach you that God is
movement. God is the three parts of the
trinity dancing with each other and then dancing with you. That’s a nice idea, but I’m not sure that
works either. God is three things and
God is one thing, go figure!
The church developed the concept of
the trinity at the Council of Nicaea in 325.
The argument was about the nature of Christ. Was Christ equal with God or less than God? It was this argument that led to the idea of
three persons, one God. To be honest, I
think the guys at Nicaea (and of course they were all guys) did a great
job. But I wish we would have left it a
little more nebulous. I wish we would
have left a little more mystery in the world.
I wish we had fewer answers and fewer definitions in the church.
Our Psalm reading for today is thought
to be the oldest Psalm in our collection.
Some scholars believe that this may be a hymn from the Canaanite
religion that the early Israelites adopted and made their own. Like the God of Isaiah, the God of Psalm 29
is mystery and wonder. Tying the power
of God to the wonders of the natural world, God speaks and the storms
arise. They move into the land and bring
chaos wherever they go. Trees break,
cities fall, and the land lies flooded.
God is in the power of nature, God is to be respected and feared.
When I read verse 10, “the Lord sits
enthroned over the flood” all I could think about were the people in
Texas. I imagined the destruction and
chaos in cities like Huston, superimposed with the image of the giant God from
Isaiah sitting on his throne. Is this
the God we worship? Is that the God we
serve?
Like many of you, I am much more
comfortable with that loving parent image of God. I like the mother from Isaiah that yearns to
hold us to her breast, I like the loving Abba that Jesus speaks of, I like the
mother hen who gathers me close to her downy feathers as I shelter in her wings. I like that God.
But I think sometimes I need this
other God. I need the God of Isaiah full
of power which causes me to hide in fear.
I need the God of Psalm 29 who destroys forest and city with natural
disaster. I need the God of Genesis who
grieves over creation and wipes it away like a child throws their toys across a
room. I need the God of Revelation who
comes in frightening judgment and threatens all the world with a lake of
fire.
I need a God who inspires fear, to
remind me of who I am and my place in the world. If I only think of the loving God, then I
start to think that God loves me more than other people. Just like how I love my own kids more than
other kids in the world. I start to
think that God loves my family more than other families. That God loves my country more than other
countries. I need to remember my place
before God is the place Isaiah takes. I
need to cower in fear, I need to be humbled, and I need to remember my place,
as does all of humanity.
On this Trinity Sunday, I want to
encourage you to embrace the mystery and profound holiness of our God. Sure, we have some ideas about who God might
be. But most of God is mystery and most
of God is other. And sure we can
understand a lot of our world, and we can make amazing things, but my IPhone is
nothing when compared to a ripe juicy strawberry which was grown by a person,
but which was made by our God.
It is good to feel loved and cared for
by our Lord, but it is also good to remember our place. We are each but one person on a very crowded
planet. And we are each loved equally by
a very powerful and frightening God. And
we each stand as sinners when we come before our Lord’s throne. The world we live in tells us that we are
center of the universe. Our faith is
telling us another story, and I think it is one that we would all do well to
embrace. Amen.
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