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Today's Scripture
Isaiah’s Cleansing and Call
1 It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. 2 Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3 They were calling out to each other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies!
The whole earth is filled with his glory!”
4 Their voices shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire building was filled with smoke.
5 Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7 He touched my lips with it and said, “See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.”
8 Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?”
I said, “Here I am. Send me.”
9 And he said, “Yes, go, and say to this people,
‘Listen carefully, but do not understand.
Watch closely, but learn nothing.’
10 Harden the hearts of these people.
Plug their ears and shut their eyes.
That way, they will not see with their eyes,
nor hear with their ears,
nor understand with their hearts
and turn to me for healing.”
11 Then I said, “Lord, how long will this go on?”
And he replied,
“Until their towns are empty,
their houses are deserted,
and the whole country is a wasteland;
12 until the Lord has sent everyone away,
and the entire land of Israel lies deserted.
13 If even a tenth—a remnant—survive,
it will be invaded again and burned.
But as a terebinth or oak tree leaves a stump when it is cut down,
so Israel’s stump will be a holy seed.”
*Isaiah 6, NLT
Wisdom Words
The person of noble heart
acts spontaneously
and will avoid the wasteland,
the world of "Thou Shalt."
*Joseph Campbell. A Joseph Campbell Companion.
Stand firm, therefore, and think what providence has been working on your behalf. We take an example from human life since we still live in such a manner. Suppose a king came upon a certain poor person, very sick. He is not embarrassed to treat his wounds with healing medicines. And when he brings him to his palace, he clothes him with the royal purple and the diadem and shares his table with him. In a similar way the heavenly King, Christ, came to suffering man and healed him. He made him a companion at his royal table. And this he does, not by forcefully constraining man's will, but by attraction he establishes him in so great a dignity.
*Pseudo-Macarius. "The Fifty Spiritual Homilies" in Pseudo-Macarius: The Fifty Homilies and the Great Letter. In "The Classics of Western Spirituality." Trans. and Ed. George A. Maloney, Preface by Kallistos Ware.
Wisdom Story
I sensed a vocational calling at age fifteen to the clergy. I am still not surprised at the early call, for I had been a very spiritually-sensitive youth. There had been clear signs of the coming call, including when a little boy using our huge flower bed surrounding the mammoth oak that hovered over our old frame home as a pulpit. After several months of painful and confused seeking, with tears and, also, fears for forfeiture of my soul eternally, and frequent visits to the altar on Sunday mornings at our little, rural chapel, there occurred a breakthrough.
I talked with my parents about this inner summons. My mother was mostly silent, but agreeable; my father was supportive if the call was genuine, but he affirmed he would not want me in the clerical vocation unless truly by Divine call. He was well aware ~ not I in my youthful naivete ~ of the difficulties within such a vocation.
Next I went to my pastor. He gave his support. So the only thing left was a sure discernment of the calling. I alone could ascertain that and through prayer ~ at least that is how God worked with me.
On a Sunday morning, during the first part of the Worship, I walked outside. I stood alone and prayed that if it was the Divine will for me to accept the calling, during the invitation ~ which followed the sermon and offered congregates opportunity to respond to the Holy Spirit's leading ~ God would confirm in me the calling. I resolved if that happened inwardly then I would walk forward and declare acceptance of the call.
During the invitation I was under strong impression that the calling was for me. I stepped forward to make that public. I was relieved, I was at peace, for clarity and resignation had arisen; a journey full of joy and pain undreamt by me had begun.
That Sunday was over thirty-two years ago. Frequently I have returned to that confirmation-day; it has served as an anchor. Without the memory I do not believe I would still be in the vocation. That day serves more powerfully for me than the day of ordination. In a way that I cannot describe, I feel within me, even bodily, the calling came directly by the Holy Spirit's inspiration, while my ordination was a confirmation of it and mediated through the Church. I respect ordination through the Church in confirming the call; however nothing can replace that meeting of the call from Spirit and the moment of saying "Yes" in response.
If there comes a time an institution or anyone decides my call inauthentic, no such, however deserving of respect, can remove from my mind and heart the joy of that "Yes" to a summons that finally is God's gift, the contours of which the Sacred Spirit decides, not humans. If it fits in an earthly situation ~ as in the earthly church ~ , good, if not, God be honored in and above all. Indeed a raid was launched against my calling by a fundamentalist cliche of confession Christians. Their launch failed, partly for the authenticity of the call was proven in my response to their attacks. Character validates one's call, not slyness of pious rhetoric joined with ravings of beastly attack.
So what twists and turns, what agreements and disagreements, I might face ~ as I have already ~ cannot be determinative of a continuing and spontaneous resignation to discover God in God discovering my True Self through the particularity I am in the Body of Christ.
Comments
Isaiah, following a cleansing, is prepared to say "Yes." He invited his "Yes." This is unlike other biblical callings, when the Divine personally, directly addresses the one being called without initiative by the one under call.
Isaiah overhears the call. His response is an enthusiastic, freely-given "Here I am, send me!" Of course he had no idea what he was getting into ~ though he gets a glimpse before the end of the narrative ~ or that he would become likely the most highly-esteemed of Jewish prophets, notwithstanding possibly Moses. And anyway Isaiah, like those with the Spirit of the Call, had no interest in becoming famous ~ popularity-pride is contrary to calling.
Isaiah's call serves as a pattern of all calling to vocation, for both laity and clergy ~ for called are we each.
God has placed a specific summons for vocation upon us each. This summons includes the potential of exercise of varied spiritual gifts. I received a pastoral call and a vocation as a writer. These gifts, along with other ones, are a complex that I can refer to as my vocation. And I am aware that some gifts, like pastoral, can take other shapes than what usually is meant by being a pastor. And a shape of calling can change over time.
This call is the continuation of the Grace infused in and through us at baptism into Christ. We do well if we ~ even if we must go through a period of heartful, confused, and painful struggle to discern the call ~ gladly to say "Yes." And we, like Isaiah, might overhear the call before directly receiving it. The preparatory time can be confusing and disorienting and is itself part of a prior purging ~ the struggle itself is part of the preparation for response.
If we say this "Yes," that response arises from us personally. While we are divinely called to serve through the Church and for all others, and our faith group will serve to validate that call and authorize its exercise in ordination, the call itself is intensely personal.
Today I can say the call has brought some heights and depths into my life. Heights of love and bliss, depths of grief and confusion, along with some moments of felt-despair. However I cherish my "Yes" more than ever before, that "Yes" as a naive and zealous lad. This journey has been a true Love affair with the Mystery of Christ that touched my heart and said, "I claim you for my own, Brian."
I did not hear the call as some "Thou shalt." Recall Campbell's words:
The person of noble heart
acts spontaneously
and will avoid the wasteland,
the world of "Thou Shalt."
I do not hear the following of Christ in the ways that the Divine ordains me daily as a mandate I cannot escape. There is a freedom of response to the initial call to follow Christ, as Pseudo-Macarius says: "In a similar way the heavenly King, Christ, came to suffering man and healed him. He made him a companion at his royal table. And this he does, not by forcefully constraining man's will, but by attraction he establishes him in so great a dignity." This same "attraction" is the initiation into the call to any vocation. Therefore the calling is a continuation of initial conversation to the Way of Christ. There is no discontinuity in motive, process, or response. Really this is one Act; the vocation is implicit already in the call to follow Christ.
In Love, which means in Christ, the Holy Spirit and the human are married in an infusion of oneness. Unformed but nascent within that wedding is the call to wholeness and complete self-loss, whereby we say with gladness and gratitude, "Yes, Lord, I will go."
Then we walk, even if as alone and wondering where the "Yes" will lead us. Not knowing the "where" and "how" is part of the loving-loss of self to find Self, a loss that might entail much courage.
This loss of knowing few in our got-to-know culture may be ready to bear, even for Christ. Possibly however God will use us in ways mostly in which we have no clarity on how God is using us, only that God keeps confirming that He is using us. Possibly this inner companionship is the only Truth that can keep us established in a calling within such a profane culture and oft profane church ~ "profane" in the sense of practically cut off from the conscious union and infusion with the Spirit, a marriage of self and Triune God implied in the remembrance of our Baptism.
Reflection
In what ways are you living out both the call to Christian Life and the call to vocation?
What is the vocation you are living to follow Christ in the particular way the Holy Spirit calls you?
What spiritual gifts do you use to fulfill that calling? Are you willing to be true to that calling even when confused about where it is and where it is leading?
Would you be willing to surrender how you are living that call to fulfill it in another way the Holy Spirit might lead you to?
For Brian's on-line audio sermons, go to www.wherethelightshines.org and select Pastor's Corner; on the following page is his weekly sermons given at Christ United Methodist Church, Punta Gorda, FL.
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For replies and biographical information, and submission to "The Light Shines" daily devotionals ~ a ministry of Christ Community United Methodist Church, Punta Gorda, FL, see next page:
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