26th Sunday after Pentecost                

The chapters of Isaiah leading up to today’s reading are proclamations of a vision that Isaiah has seen. And, they are not good. He sees an unfaithful people, an unjust city, wickedness, depravity, rebels and sinners. He sees God’s punishment of fire and earthquake, how the people will be humbled. Two verses in particular stuck out to me, Isaiah chapter 3, verses 4 and 5:

“And I will make boys their princes,

   and babes shall rule over them.

The people will be oppressed,

   everyone by another

   and everyone by a neighbour;

the youth will be insolent to the elder,

   and the base to the honourable.

Those verses make me think about so many of the issues we’re facing in our current day. The verses after our reading aren’t much better, so it’s interesting to me that those who put the lectionary together chose this passage. Taken alone, out of context, despite the outrageous other-worldly scene of a heavenly court filled with angels, it seems rather benign, even hopeful. But, what’s actually happening here is that we have a very scared human being, who feels unworthy to deliver God’s message to the people, a people who seem like they might not be very receptive to it anyway. But, when God asks who should be sent, Isaiah says, “Here am I; send me!”

 

Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw God sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and the hem of her robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And, one called to another and said,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;

the whole earth is full of his glory.”

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And, I said, “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!”

Then, one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”

Then I heard the voice of God saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

And, I said, “Here am I; send me!”

Good News

 I don’t have to tell you that there’s a lot going on in our world, right now. A lot of people are freaking out. I feel like I should be freaking out. But, for some reason, I’m not. I’m feeling strangely calm. I’m probably in denial, it is after all one of the strongest human emotions. Regardless, our job remains the same as ever. God calls us to love our neighbor, to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, all of the things that we talk about every Sunday. And, I feel like we do a pretty good job with those things. But, one thing that God asks us to do that we don’t talk about very much is sharing the Good News.

I know! I know! It’s scary, right? It can be a little uncomfortable for some of us to talk to other people about our faith, especially with people we don’t know. But, in this world that has hijacked our faith for nefarious purposes, for power, for greed, for control, we no longer have a choice. We are on the precipice of a descent into chaos. And, if we’re being honest, we’ve been on this precipice for a while. It’s kind of a miracle that we haven’t already started plunging to the bottom. But, I can feel us teetering.

Throughout history, God has sent prophets to warn people that trouble was coming…to tell people to change their ways, and to follow God. That is what God is telling Isaiah to do here. Tell the people that their food and their water is going to be taken away. Tell the people that everything is going to burn! Tell the people that I am going to send earthquakes! Isaiah 6:11-12:

Until cities lie waste

without inhabitant,

and houses without people,

and the land is utterly desolate;

until the Lord sends everyone far away,

and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.

I don’t generally believe in using fear to motivate people, but I also believe that we have a responsibility to acknowledge the reality of our situation, and things are getting scary out there. People no longer trust scientists, doctors, teachers, journalists. Our country is more divided than ever, and our Earth continues to get warmer and warmer. More than 270 people died because of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, this year, not to mention the billions in damage they caused. While I was on vacation in California last week, huge wildfires were eating their way through Ventura County, where my parents live. I remember driving to my sister’s house, and there was this dark brown wall of smoke reaching up to the sky for as far as I could see in either direction. And, at first I thought it was dust from of all of the wind, because I didn’t know about the fires yet, but I had never seen dust like that. And then, I smelled the smoke. So far this year, in California alone, wildfires have burned over 1 million acres of land.

During the 2021-2022 academic school year, Montana lost over 2,000 teachers, a lot of them because they couldn’t afford to live here on what they were being paid. Here in Helena, the school board trustees passed a $2.5 million budget cut, eliminating almost 40 teacher, custodian, and other positions. When ranked by state, Montana schools come in at 27th in nation, so it could be worse, I guess, but it’s probably going to get worse if these trends continue.

I don’t need to keep listing all of the bad things that are happening, you already know about a lot of them. But, these things aren’t happening by chance. They aren’t some kind of punishment from God. We did them. It was our actions, our choices, that caused these things to happen. And, God is calling us to say something. God needs the people to hear! Danger is coming! Look! Listen! How do we get the people to listen?

In our effort to be inoffensive, in our desire to be accepted and welcomed, many of us are not outspoken about our faith. Maybe we aren’t secure in our beliefs, or maybe we don’t want to be associated with certain groups of people, but we can’t afford to be quiet anymore. There is a very specific narrative being told in this country about what Christianity is, and the voice countering it, our voice, is simply not loud enough. There are people who think that God sees the United States as the most important country in the world. Jesus never said that any country was more important than another. God loves all people. There are people who think that God rewards the faithful with wealth and good fortune. Jesus told us to give our all of our belongings away. There are people who believe that it is only power that will keep us safe, and that we have been blessed by God to be powerful. Jesus told us to turn the other cheek. Jesus told us that we need to be like children. Jesus told us that the first will be last and the last will be first. We need to share the Good News with the people!

So, what does it mean to love God and love our neighbor? God gave us intelligence and imagination so that we can think critically about these things. Is passing laws to limit a person’s bodily autonomy, while also failing to provide adequate medical treatment, maternity leave, and child care loving our neighbor? Is berating someone for wearing a mask loving our neighbor? Is strip mining in a jungle or drilling for oil in a national park showing our love for God and God’s creation? What about gerrymandering? Deportations? Bombing?

We need to tell everyone what Jesus really said so that they will stop being bamboozled by all of these people telling them lies. These lies are not only bad for the people who hear them, they’re bad for our country, they’re bad for the church, they’re bad for the world. And, they aren’t going to bring anyone closer to God.

There are so many people in this world who willfully, wantonly, maliciously, misrepresent, misquote, outright lie about what the Bible says. God is calling us to remind everyone what it does actually say. God is calling us to remind people what Jesus said, what Jesus taught. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. That is what Jesus actually said. We are on the precipice, and we have to do our part to keep ourselves from falling into it. Amen.

~ Rev. Charles Wei