Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Having Visions


[This is a sermon I preached the Tuesday after Trinity Sunday. It’s a little bit longer than the usual post.]

Ever have a vision? Last March I had something like a vision. I’m a little bit stunned to be saying that, because I think of myself as a very rational person. Visions, it seems to me, are reserved for those that are perhaps more intune to their emotional side--those who live completely by their feelings and their hearts. I don’t see that in myself. Yet, here I was, feeling something irrational, a kind of vision. Here’s the story.

My parents are both dead and buried at Forest Hill Cemetery not very far from where Elvis was briefly entombed. Mom’s birthday is June 22 and Pop’s is July 3, so each year on one of those days, I visit their graves. I can’t remember going any other time except around their birthdays. But last March, I began to have an urge to visit the cemetery. It was every day, and some days it was several times a day. It wasn’t just a thought that I might go, it was a sense that I needed to go, had to go, would keep feeling bugged about it until I went. Finally after about a week of this, I gave in and on this particularly warm March day, I got in my car and headed out.

As I drove toward the graves, I began to feel relaxed, less driven, as if I’d been told to do something and now that I was doing it, everything was OK. I wound my way through the cemetery roads to the very southern edge and parked at the foot of the stone walk that led up to their graves. It was like any other day I’d visited, sunny, bright, mostly quiet, but with some road sounds from the nearby interstate.

When I reached the end of the stone walk and arrived at their graves, I was stunned to see my mother’s grave stone was missing. Where it had been was just pine needles.  Thinking maybe the stone had settled, but not sure how it could have happened since it had been there since 1978, I used my foot to scrape away the needles. I fully expected to find the stone, but it wasn’t there. Suddenly, I understood why I’d felt the urge to go to the graves out of season. It was as if an angel had been pushing me to make something right that had gone terribly wrong.

Isaiah had a vision too, but his was more graphic than mine. And in the face of the angels who visited him, he uttered the words that have become famous: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Put more simply, he realized in the face of the angelic visitation that something was very wrong. He was a man who had not honored the Lord God and he was a part of a nation that had not honored him as well. You know, such a realization has got to bring you to your knees if you’re at all open to God’s love. 

When we realize we have come up short in our relationship with God, the sensitive ones among us will likely feel devastated. When I saw my mother’s headstone gone, there was a sudden hole in my gut. Someone who deserved honor had been dishonored. I knew I hadn’t done it, but the people who are a part of my world had. I was aware that my relationship with my mother had not always been what either one of us had wanted. The thought grieved me. I had long ago reconciled myself to the belief that she did the best she could as a mother, but I wasn’t sure I’d done the best I could as a son. It was as if I had unclean lips; but I’d make this particular wrong right.

Don’t all of us have those times when we know we have been less faithful than we could have been. We’ve seen Jesus hungry and we haven’t fed him; we’ve seen him sick and we haven’t visited him. We’ve seen Jesus naked or in tatters and we haven’t clothed him; we’ve seen Jesus in prison and we didn’t visit. We’ve seen him beaten on the side of the road and we’ve walked by, looking away. No wonder we feel as if we’re unclean or unworthy.

When Isaiah realized his sinfulness, he was astonished at something else. After pronouncing himself unclean and unworthy, he said something we really need to hear: “Yet,” he said, “my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” God had seen past Isaiah’s failings and had shown him a vision of himself which Isaiah had thought could never happen. When we’re offended by someone, we might avoid them like the plague. They don’t deserve our love or our friendship. I’ve heard it said, “Shoot, I would spit on him if he was on fire,” so unforgiving they were.

But God isn’t bound by how we might act. He showed himself to the undeserving Isaiah because it is God’s nature to seek out those who are most distant from him and draw them close. To clinch the deal, one of the angels took a coal from the altar and touched it to Isaiah’s lips and pronounced that his guilt was removed and his sin blotted out. That what God does. This sacrament we will receive in a few minutes is given to us without regard to our deserving. It is given to us because God understands our need. One of the ancient prayers we sometimes say sums it up this way, “We are not worthy to gather up the crumbs from under your table, but you are the same God whose nature is to always have mercy.”

I’ve known people to stay away when communion is served just because they don’t think they deserve it. Well, let me suggest the ones who come because they are sure they’re good enough to receive it are the mistaken ones. God gives each of us grace because without it we can’t survive, not because we are deserving or because we’ve been good.
Which parent sitting here today if estranged from their child wouldn’t still love them and welcome them to the dinner table at any time. We feed them because they are hungry and we love them. It’s just that simple and God is infinitely better at parenting than we are.

When Isaiah was reminded of his value to God and reminded that his sin was no impediment to a relationship, God asked, “Whom will I send to tell others this good news of unbroken covenant and unbound love? Who will go and spread the joy of unconditional grace?” Isaiah doesn’t hesitate, “Here am I, send me!” What will we say? 
We’re being asked the same question in our time. Returning to the inadequate metaphor of my mother’s missing headstone that I’ve been using, who else would go? I am the last child, who but I would be asked to go? I went and eventually, the wrong was made right. If we go, wherever we go because God has sent us, the wrongs of separation will be made right because it is God’s nature to love, to be merciful and to be gracious. Bask in that as your lips touch the coal of bread and wine, but leave the moment with a renewed sense of vocation. “I will go; send me.”
Peace, Jerry

1 comment:

  1. I think it was your mother tapping you on the shoulder...thanks for sharing this. And thanks for reminding me I am always welcome at the table.

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