February 7, 2010 Des Moines

Isaiah 6:1-8

Upon the Installation of Suzanne Stout

As Minister of Family Life

Catching the Hem of Glory

There is something about Isaiah’s vision that reminds me of that wonderful scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her fellow-travelers, after all the perils of the yellow brick road – the attacking apple trees, the flame-throwing witch, the poppy field narcotic, and the initial slamming doors of the Emerald City -- are finally escorted in to the Wizard’s private chambers. There are smoke and billowing flames, threatening moving parts, an enormous ethereal face, and there is this booming, thunderous, and terrifyingly other-worldly voice that asks, “Who dares approach the Great and Terrible Oz?” Maximum drama. Maximum intimidation. Little wonder that Dorothy and her companions feel miserably and insignificantly small!

Isaiah would have sympathized. As his vision unfolded he, too, began to feel smaller and smaller, himself; minuscule and insignificant. Here, too, were smoke and flames, loud sounds and strange creatures, and the very room, itself, shook as in an earthquake. But unlike the silly little man who hid from Dorothy behind a curtain, before Isaiah sat the very Lord of Hosts in full view. Just to observe one small indication of scale, notice that it is merely the hem of God’s robe that fills the room. There is no way to comprehend the enormity of what little Isaiah is experiencing. Maximum drama. Maximum intimidation. But here the Lord was not sending away, but rather calling out for holy service. “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

It’s an odd sort of query. After all, it’s not like God had no helpers. The room was apparently full of them – seraphs, angelic creatures attentive and ready to do God’s every bidding. And frankly they seemed better equipped. I mean, who wouldn’t envy having even one pair of wings, let alone three? And if I couldn’t have wings, I would happily settle for six hands, especially when it comes to juggling the demands of ministry.

But for some unexplained reason, God seems intent on more. Whatever the resources already at God’s disposal, there were yet gifts for which God had need; particular work that God needed done. “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” If it sounds, for a moment, like a “cattle-call” audition – a blanket invitation to anybody and everybody who might want to volunteer – keep in mind that the setting was no football stadium with 100,000 screaming fans, joined by millions of others in a television audience. The audience, if you will, of this particular broadcast was exactly...

...one. God had particular needs for a particular person, and a particular call was extended.

For several years, we, in our way, have been discerning a need – specialized in a way, though hardly unprecedented. “Family life,” we observed, was becoming increasingly and wonderfully complex –

· seniors enjoying whole lifetimes in retirement;

· extended families flung too distant for mutual support;

· cultural pressures on children growing up, if always more than any two parents could contend with, becoming more and more and moreso;

· young adults, torn between an ever-changing job market and a hunger for true vocation.

It’s not like we were new to this sort of thing. And it’s not like we were impotent. We had several programs and practices in place that were responding to this sense of call. We had volunteers providing priceless leadership and tenacious dedication. We had hands and, in a metaphorical if not quite literal sense, countless sets of wings. But there still was, we sensed, more that was needed than we already had.

And so, after several years of part-time attention we made the commitment to elevate that ministry to full-time. And we began to search. In our own particular twist on the call, we asked as loudly as we knew how, “Who will come with us? Whom shall we call?”

You need to know that many raised their hands. But this wasn’t a blanket invitation – a “first come, first hired” proposition. We are a unique people in a unique community with particular opportunities and challenges and personalities. Our obstacles – just like our assets – are bigger than some; smaller than others. The important thing about jigsaw puzzles, just to draw an analogy, is not that some pieces are bigger than others, it’s that they all have a different shape. We – and the ministry to which we are called – have our own shape, and the person we would call and the person who would answer would simply need to fit.

You know by now that such a call was eventually extended, and was eventually accepted. In November our ministry was joined by Reverend Suzanne Stout, whose vocation among us is being solemnized today. In so doing, we are also recalling to mind that it is neither her ministry nor ours that is finally the center of our attention, but rather the one to whom we add our voices and energies and resources in praise,

"Holy, holy, holy LORD God of hosts; heaven and earth are full of you; heaven and earth are praising you, O Lord Most high!”

I once served a congregation which had a member who actively and openly campaigned for election as elder. He had, to be sure, considerable talents and resources. He had things he wanted to do through the church and gifts he wanted to contribute, and this seemed to him to be the appropriate expression. The rest of the congregation, however, disagreed. It’s not that he was a bad or evil person. It’s just that, among other things, by his very campaigning he betrayed himself to be unfit for the office he was seeking. Such high and lofty aspiration was not Isaiah’s problem. Like virtually every leader whom God has somehow called, Isaiah pled inadequacy.

"Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips,

and I live among a people of unclean lips...”

“I am hardly good enough,” in other words, “hardly pure enough, holy enough, exemplary enough to do what you want me to do,” Isaiah demurred “and the people around me aren’t all that hot either.”

For the record, I have every reason to believe that Suzanne is not a perfect person, and I can unequivocally acknowledge that we are not a perfect people. But you may have noticed – in this story and others just like it – that imperfections and inadequacies are never deterrents for the divine. God doesn’t call the ready or the worthy; God readies and makes worthy those whom God calls.

All of which should serve to remind us that we all have ministry to do. Suzanne’s, in some ways, is front and center today, but only in an illustrative sense. She isn’t here, after all, to do our ministry for us, but rather with the gifts and graces she brings to bear, to serve as a catalyst for our own and the ministry we share.

Her call – and Isaiah’s for that matter – may not be ours, but if God has God’s own way with us, their response might inspire and stimulate our own, as we, too, taking full assessment of the holy hem filling the world as we know it, humbly and perhaps even breathlessly swallow hard, reach out to grab the glory of it, and respond with mounting enthusiasm...

“...Here I am. Send me.”