Context always matters. We learned that in a new way this week when bomb scares spread throughout the city of Boston. Those little boxes with dangling wires cropped up on our urban infrastructure and we took them seriously. Commentators from other places may treat the incident lightly, but we remind them that 9/11 began here. Boston has taught the nation an important lesson this week: context always matters and deserves our full respect.
Context also matters when we read the Bible. In our Old Testament lesson today, the context of a whole world is evoked with just 11 words,
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord...”
It was not just any year, but the year that King Uzziah died, around 740 BCE. Uzziah ruled Israel for over 50 years in a time of prosperity and stability. The king built water towers and agriculture flourished. Other nations respected him and kept their distance, even when he was in poor health.
But in the year that King Uzziah died, the world began to change. Larger nations stared greedily at Israel’s borders. The Assyrian army was on the move with superior weapons and conquered neighboring states. Isaiah would live to witness the Assyrian assault which stopped just outside the walls of Jerusalem. The year that King Uzziah died was an ominous year. Power was shifting and change was in the air.
And in this uneasy time, Isaiah visited the place where he felt most secure. He went up to the great Temple in Jerusalem, to the heart of the city and its people. I like to think that today he would come to Trinity Church. So I invite you to let your imaginations run this morning and picture this scene with me:
Isaiah gets off the green line on a Sunday morning and walks across Copley Square. His collar is turned up against the cold wind. He makes his way to Trinity Church and is startled as he comes up on our porch. The great wooden doors are rattling. Not the glass doors that you came through today, but our massive doors that are only closed at night. Isaiah looks and sees that the doors are actually shaking. What’s that about, he wonders. Do we have more building problems to contend with?
Then, Isaiah walks into this room and everything is different. He sees big wings everywhere, flapping about the room, attached to fiery creatures. He smells smoke, but not the kind that sets off our smoke detectors. This is an ethereal smoke with a mysterious fragrance, ancient and spicy. He hears voices chanting and the words “Holy, Holy, Holy” echo all around him. Isaiah looks up into our tower and sees the shape of a throne and a long, ephemeral cloth begins to unwind and fill the church. It drapes across the apse and the altar, it covers the balconies, and it flows down and hovers over the pews.
The cloth is stitched like the hem of a garment. It is not heavy; it does not cut off the air. Instead, the air feels alive, vibrant. Isaiah’s head is spinning and he says, “My eyes have seen God, the Lord of Hosts!” Then he feels puny and overwhelmed by his own inadequacy and shouts out, Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips and so is everybody else around me! I do not deserve to be in the presence of God! I am lost!
By now this room is pulsing with electricity, and the hem of God’s robe sweeps back and forth across the nave. Suddenly, Isaiah is aware that the angel wings are getting closer, headed in his direction. He ducks but it makes no difference. Those wings are flapping right towards him with a pair of tongs holding a red hot coal. Isaiah’s eyes get bigger and bigger. What is going to happen with that coal? Before he knows it, the burning lump is pressed against his own mouth. He should feel pain, but it does not hurt. It is a thrilling sensation. Isaiah feels a surge of power and all of his senses are heightened. He hears an awesome sound and recognizes the voice of God. This voice calls out, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah opens his hot, steamy mouth and blurts out, “Here am I; send me.” And so God begins to teach this man who will become a prophet in a time of great change.
I doubt that Isaiah expected this experience as he walked across the square to Church. He came expecting the familiar and the predictable and he hoped to get some fresh ideas from the sermon. He may have had plans for brunch after the service and a list of chores to do on his way home. Isaiah came seeking God, but I don’t think he expected a heavenly vision or a change of vocation.
For most of us on any given day, our expectations of God’s presence are pretty tame. Many of us relate to God primarily through the world of ideas and the experience of Isaiah seems foreign or shocking. He experienced God with every one of his senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, and emotion. The scope of God’s revelation is beyond our imagination. The very hem of God’s garment can fill this room and transform everything. We must stop and stand in awe before the creator of the universe. What can we say but, “Holy, Holy, Holy?”
In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah left the temple with a new mission. He reminded the people of God’s rule as they lived their self-absorbed lives on the edge of chaos. He was a messenger of warning and priorities. He taught that God demands unconditional loyalty and justice. He promised that the people’s downfall would come from their lack of devotion to God and their neighbor, not the Assyrian army. The message was as searing as a hot coal: stay focused on God’s will for your life and for your community. But in the year that King Uzziah died and for many years afterwards, Isaiah’s message was often lost in the uproar.
Today you and I live in a context of change, and power is shifting in ways we never imagined. Nations are dissolving and being reconstituted. Groups without names wage wars without resolution. We in the western world do not always comprehend the dynamics that drive other nations. Here I think of our ignorance of indigenous tribalism which under girds so many other cultures. Our perceptions are often flawed. Isaiah would say that we are a people of unclean lips and we live among a people of unclean lips. We are still learning to ask the right questions, even as the answers are changing. And on Wednesday, a grotesque advertising hoax on our bridges reminded us of our vulnerability.
Therefore we turn to the One who created us all and continue to cry out “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Let the hem of your garment sweep over us once again. Remind us of your power and majesty. Tell us once more to follow your ways and your wisdom. Teach us to honor you and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Many centuries later, after Isaiah and the Assyrians were long gone, another man experienced the presence of God in a different context. This time it did not happen in the Temple. It was not a grand vision. This time God’s revelation took place on a gritty fishing expedition after a long night of failure. Peter did not see flapping wings or smell incense or hear heavenly voices. He just sat in a rut where he worked everyday. Jesus climbed into Peter’s boat, and it was as if Jesus perched on the edge of Peter’s desk in a modern office. The vision is humble rather than heavenly. Yet Peter was transformed by the same power of God through the presence of Jesus.
You and I are given the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works. It may be the heavenly vision or the ordinary miracle of Christ’s constant presence in our daily life. We cannot know the many ways that God will be revealed to us, but we do know that context always makes a difference. So look for the presence of God in your life and context. Raise your expectations and be alert with all your senses. The hem of God’s garment sweeps over us here today. Christ will be present in your office and at your kitchen table this week. Whatever the context, the message is always the same: love and honor God unconditionally. Love your neighbor as yourself. And in every context, God’s question is always posed: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
Let that red hot coal linger on your lips this week. Give glory to God and answer, “Here am I; send me!”
AMEN | 
