”How Can We Speak of God?”

Trinity Sunday

Sunday June 7, 2009

Isaiah 6:1-8

Psalm 29

Romans 8:12-17   

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.” 

There are a number of passages, in the pages of Scripture, in which people write or speak of the experience of catching sight of the mysterious and majestic presence of God.  These passages, which are often referred to as ‘theophanies’, are quite intriguing.

Today’s reading from Isaiah is such a passage.

Isaiah was in the Temple in Jerusalem, when suddenly he caught sight of the presence of God and of the hosts of heaven.  The fact that it was only the hem of God’s robe that filled the Temple offered some sense of the enormity of Isaiah’s vision, and a subtle but powerful reminder that the Temple in Jerusalem – as with every Temple made by human hands -- was not adequate to fully contain the majesty of God.

So what was Isaiah’s reaction to that great theophany, that great visionary experience, that glimpse of God?   Did that vision fill him with joy and with celebration?

Not quite.  Rather, his response was this -- “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!” 

It was not enthusiasm, or excitement, or ecstacy that Isaiah experienced – it was dread. 

Woe is me!  I am lost.

In the presence of that great mystery, Isaiah recognized his own inadequacies, as an individual; and he recognized the inadequacies of the community of which he was a part.  I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.  Neither Isaiah, personally, nor the community of which he was a part, was worthy of being in relationship with the God whose presence he had seen in that vision.

So how could he, as a man of unclean lips, even begin to find words to encompass the mystery, the power, and the holiness of God?  There were no words to describe what he saw, no human ideas expansive enough to relate the vision that he had seen.  And the sheer majesty and holiness of God seemed to provoke, in Isaiah, a deepened awareness of his own sin, his own failing, his own limitations. 

But Isaiah’s articulation of his sense of inadequacy did not overcome God’s call to Isaiah.  In the vision, an angel touched Isaiah’s lips with a burning coal, Isaiah’s sin was blotted out, and he was thereby prepared to go and to speak for God.  We read, “then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’  And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’”

And so ends today’s reading – with Isaiah’s seemingly triumphant acceptance of this divine call.  But, as the verses which follow today’s reading reveal, that divine call, and Isaiah’s willing acceptance of it, did not mean that life was going to be easy, nor that Isaiah’s message would be met with an enthusiastic response.  In fact, the subsequent verses in Isaiah 6, which we did not read this morning, suggest that the message that Isaiah was being sent to deliver would be neither palatable nor willingly accepted by those to whom he was being sent.  The text suggests that he was being sent to a people who would listen, but not comprehend; who would look but not understand; whose minds would be dull, ears stopped and eyes shut. 

But in spite of the way that his message would be received, Isaiah was nonetheless sent to speak of  -- and to speak for -- God.  It was a massive undertaking, a daunting call – particularly for someone whose initial response was one of dread, of fear and of inadequacy.

There are times when most of us can relate to Isaiah’s sense of inadequacy.  After all, how many of us are hesitant to speak of God?  We may regularly be a part of the church community, we may have a deep and abiding faith, we may know the comfort, the strength, the inspiration and the hope that we draw from faith, but we are still hesitant to speak of God.  

It may be because we know, as Isaiah did, that we are incapable of fully articulating the great vision of God’s love that lies at the heart of faith; it may be because we know that our lives do not always reflect that love, and that we, like Isaiah, feel a sense of our own sinfulness and inadequacy; it may be because an awareness of our own failures reminds us that our lips are unclean and our voices incapable of speaking with integrity about a holy God; it may simply be because we live in fear – and not only the fear of what others might think if they came to know that we are people of faith.  It may be the fear that emerges from our own concerns – and sometimes horror – at the ways that God is spoken about in this modern world.

And yet, Isaiah did not allow his awareness of his own inadequacy, nor his fears to silence him.  He spoke.  He wrote.  And, in so doing, he changed the world.  It is amazing to realize, after all, the way that Isaiah’s words have reverberated across the centuries, and even into the modern world. 

Isaiah’s words, both about and for God have become some of the most powerful passages in the recorded history of human consciousness.  Isaiah’s visions and words have been the inspiration for movements for faith, for justice, for hope, for courageous engagement with powers of oppression, and for the assurance of God’s comfort in times of distress, in every culture and in every corner of the world. 

Even a cursory consideration of some of Isaiah’s famous words reveal how inspiring they continue to be, even thousands of years after Isaiah first uttered and wrote them.  His words about a day of peace when when wolves would lie down with lambs; his words of a time when swords would be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks; his words about a suffering servant who would be wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities; his call to people of faith to loose the bonds of injustice and let the oppressed go free and to be restorers of streets to live in; his glorious vision of a new heaven and a new earth where weeping and mourning would no longer be known – these, and so many of Isaiah’s words have become some of the greatest sources of inspiration in the history of human language.  Even Jesus himself, as he began his ministry, used words drawn from Isaiah when he quoted that wonderful passage from Isaiah 61 – “The spirit of the LORD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoner; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour”.  In ways too numerous to count, and even on the lips of Jesus himself, Isaiah’s words have shaped human consciousness and have changed the world.

Which is not bad for a guy whose initial response was rooted in a sense of woe and of his own inadequacy, and who did not think that he could speak for God since he was a man of unclean lips who lived among a people of unclean lips.

When we consider the incredible power that Isaiah’s words have had over the course of human history, however, it is incredibly important for us to keep in mind the spirit of the person who first pondered and uttered these words about God. 

The man who first articulated these powerful words about God was a man who was rooted in a spirit of humility, in a sense of inadequacy, and in an acknowledgement of his own sinfulness in the presence of a holy and majestic God.

And, in this, there is a powerful lesson for all of us to remember, even in this modern age. 

After all, there are times, in this modern age, when God is spoken about too casually; when claims are made about God that provoke extreme and violent reactions; when words about God incite truly ungodly sentiments and feelings towards other people. 

There are times, in this modern age, when our words about God are rooted in a self-righteous confidence in our own goodness, and a deep and abiding conviction about the immorality and sinfulness of those who we are criticizing.   Which is quite different from Isaiah’s experience – that is, he was not confident in his own goodness, but rather he was quite convinced of his own sinfulness.

There are times, in this modern age, when it might be better for us, and for all who speak about God, to recover something of the sense of woe, of inadequacy, of humility and of dependence that Isaiah came to experience in his visionary experience in the Temple. 

But even if we are aware of our own inadequacy, there are other times when our fear that mentioning God will provoke such negative and dismissive reactions we hold ourselves back from speaking of God at all.  We do not give voice to the hope, to the compassion, to the grace and to the inspiration that we have found, and in so doing fail in the call to give reason for the hope that is within us.

In such times, it might be good for all of us to recover both Isaiah’s humility and self-awareness of the inadequacy of what words he might find to speak of that great mystery; and Isaiah’s courageous willingness to triumph over his own fears, and to embrace the call to be sent to speak for God.  

One of the reasons why this invitation both to boldness and to humility is good for us to ponder is because today, in the Church year, is Trinity Sunday.  It is a day when we are invited to ponder and reflect upon one of the central ideas, one of the essential insights, one of the most significant theological claims of the Christian tradition – that the one God before whom we bow is a trinity.   How do we, as Christians, speak of God?  We speak of God as a trinity.

The concept of the trinity is a gift to us, not from the pages of Scripture itself.  Try as we might, we will not find the word ‘trinity’ in the pages of the Bible.  Rather, it is a doctrinal formulation -- and a word -- that comes to us from our ancestors in the faith, from the tradition of the Church.  

Which is not to say that the trinity is an unbiblical concept.  Rather, it was as Christians wrestled, together, with the claims and implications of the Gospel narratives, with their acknowledgement of both the beauty and the brokenness of creation, with their understanding of the person and work of Christ, and with their experience of the Holy Spirit, that they came – over the course of the first few centuries of Christianity -- to articulate their understanding of God as a presence eternally co-existing as a trinity.

It took hundreds of years, and some of the brightest minds in the history of human thought, to come up with this articulation of God’s nature – and both its internal theological and intellectual stability -- attests to the enduring power of this particular understanding of God.

But our familiarity with this word – the trinity – and our casual use of it, including the almost unthinking way that we usually mumble through our assent to some doctrinal formula about God being Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is unfortunate.   Rather than opening us to the great mystery, we use the term in a most static and formulaic way – and sometimes, we even use this concept to test the validity and legitimacy of another person’s faith.  Sadly, there have been times, in the history of the Christian faith – including by some of our own ancestors in the reformed tradition – when those who have questioned or even doubted the doctrine of the trinity have been persecuted, and even killed, for those doubts.  Let us be resolved that never again shall we allow a debate about words about God to be the reason for violent conflict between humans.

So how can we speak of God?  How can we speak of this mysterious and majestic presence whose power filled Isaiah with woe and with an awareness of his inadequacy?  How can we speak of this triune God in a way that does not descend into the unthinking and dogmatic certainties that have been demonstrated in the church and in other religious traditions?   How can we speak words about this God whose Word awoke the uncreated, whose Word walked among us, whose Word triumphed over death, and whose Word summons us into the eternal embrace of the living God?  How can we speak of God?

The great American preacher William Sloane Coffin once offered a piece of advice to preachers and to Christians generally.  “When you say something that is both true and painful, say it softly…Say it…to heal and not to hurt.  Say it in love.” 

We might be wise to apply a similar approach to our words about God.  When we say something about God that is both bold and mysterious, perhaps we might seek to say those words humbly.  Perhaps we might offer our words about God with the intention of healing and not hurting, with the intention of speaking in love and bringing encouragement and grace, even to those with whom we disagree.  Perhaps we might speak about God in ways that will seek to share what light we have with others, rather than using our language and our formulations about God as opportunities and even as criteria for judging and condemning other people’s ideas and beliefs.  Perhaps, like Isaiah, our words about God should begin with an awareness of our own limitations, our own inadequacies, our own sin.

But let us not be silent.  Let us speak about God -- humbly; compassionately; with the intention of healing, nor hurting; with the intention of sharing light with fellow travellers on this journey of life.

For when we learn to do so, we might just find ourselves joining with another traveller on that road, whose words were sometimes bold, always true, and filled with compassion, with humility, with gentleness, with grace and with peace – as in when he said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Let us speak of the One who uttered those words, and about the mysterious Trinity who he revealed to us, with the same gentleness, the same humility, and the same compassion that he lived when he walked among us – so that we, and all we encounter, might find our burdens lightened, and our weariness replaced with rest for our souls.

Amen.