February 4 , 2007
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See also: [2001] [2004][Sermon] |
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 138
I Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11
Today’s scriptures speak of the glory of God embodied in the human and non-human worlds. God’s glory, like “God’s majesty” and the “praise” of God, is often ignored by progressive and mainstream Christians. To some Christians, glory implies patriarchal and authoritarian relationships and the otherness of God. Sadly, glory and power have been identified in hurtful and oppressive ways. Yet, I believe that images of divine glory and majesty can be recovered in healing and life-transforming ways. I believe that God’s glory is more about wonder and beauty than power and coercion. God’s glory is about the divine depths that are reflected in every moment of experience, great and small.
Isaiah 6 describes a mystical experience, akin to Rudolf Otto’s image of God as “mysterious, tremendous, and fascinating.” When Isaiah enters the temple in a time of national upheaval, he has no idea that he will encounter the living God. I suspect that Isaiah came to participate in religious services, and perhaps he alone - in the crowd of hundreds of temple worshippers - experienced the fullness of God appearing in the finitude of human experience. Mystical experiences, experiences of what the Celts call “thin places,” in which the divine becomes present in human life, can happen anywhere and everywhere. We cannot control when and where mystical experiences occur, and often run away from them, but when we open to the mystic, our lives are transformed.
C.S. Lewis described the Lion-Christ Aslan as “untamed,” and that is surely the case for God’s revelation to Isaiah. The foundations shake, angels fly, and Isaiah is overwhelmed. “The whole earth is filled with God’s glory.” What a revelation! All things are permeated by God, inspired by God, enlivened by God. Every moment is a holy moment, every place is a holy place, and every encounter is a holy encounter. In the spirit of a litany from our Saturday evening church, Disciples United Community Church, Isaiah experiences “God in all things and all things in God.”
In his awe, Isaiah hears a majestic voice, “Whom shall I send, and who will speak for us?” The majestic God is neither all-powerful nor all-controlling. God needs us to be God’s partners is mending the world (tikkun ‘olam) and in speaking a prophetic word of justice and healing to the community. Mysticism leads to justice-seeking and service to the world.
Psalm 138 describes the interplay between divine majesty and divine love. Majesty alone does not lead to worship or trust. Power can intimidate as well as transform. In contrast, God’s power and majesty, according to Psalm 138, is grounded in loving and steadfast care. And God’s love inspires gratitude. As Meister Eckhardt notes, if the only prayer in your entire life is “thank you,” that will suffice. Thank you, God, for waking me up this morning. Thank you, God, for morning sun. Thank you, God, for insights and inspirations. Thank you, God, for the love of families and friends. Thank you God for unexpected courage and strength to face even the most desperate personal and political crises.
Thanksgiving connects us to the larger realities of life. When we are thankful, we see our lives from a wider vantage point. When we live by gratitude, we trust that God can transform even the negative realities of our lives. From gratitude comes perspective and willingness to face life’s “unfixables” (Margaret Guenther) with patient, persistence, and resolve.
Isaiah proclaims “the whole earth is full of God’s glory.” I Corinthians 15 affirms that “by the grace of God I am what I am” and “it is not I, but the grace of God that is with my.” God’s resurrection glory is our deepest reality. God’s resurrection is living within us in terms of God’s moment by moment aim toward healing and wholeness. In each moment’s perishing, new life emerges.
From a process perspective, God’s grace is the ever-present reality from which each moment’s experience arises. Gentle and persuasive, yet constant and indefatigable, God invites us to resurrection in each encounter and even at the moment of our deaths. For those who believe in resurrection, death is an open door to divine possibility. When we can no longer hope for a cure, we can depend upon a healing resurrection in this life and the next.
Luke’s gospel describes the spiritual and vocational transformation of Peter. Fatigued by an unproductive night of fishing, Peter initially turns away from Jesus’ call to fish in deeper waters. When Peter is ready to give up, Jesus says “go deeper” – go deeper into the waters, go deeper in faith, go deeper in trusting my vision for your life. God’s aim always calls us to go deeper in our spiritual and vocational lives. Though Whitehead describes God’s passion as the “best for the impasse,” and as arising out of the concrete context of our lives, the divine aim is never tied to the status quo. The pure conservative, again according to Whitehead, goes against the nature of the universe. Divine energy pushes us forward to new adventures and greater personal stature as persons and congregations. The preacher needs to ask her or himself, “where do I need to grow? What deep waters call to me? Where do I need to take a risk in order to claim God’s adventure in my life.” She or he also needs to ask the congregation, “what new, and apparently impossible, adventure does God call us toward?” Like Peter, we may feel “unworthy,” and our congregations may not expect to grow in numbers and influence, but God’s grace speaks through our experiences of unworthiness and limitation, inviting us to become more than we can ever imagine.
Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary and co-pastor of Disciples United Community Church in Lancaster, PA. Ordained in the UnitedChurch of Christ and Disciples Christ, Bruce is the author of twelve books. He can be reached at bepperly@lancasterseminary.edu or www.ducc.us
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