Isaiah 6: 1-8 Psalm 29
Romans 8: 12-17 John 3: 1-17
Grace and peace to you, from God who created us and called us by name, from Jesus who redeemed us, and from the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide. Amen.
So, here we are, Ellie, Ben, and Kelsey…at the end of two years of rigorous and sometimes torturous confirmation classes…right? C’mon admit it…they weren’t that bad. I’ll bet if you asked many of the adults in this room about their confirmation classes they’d tell you stories about memorizing the entire small catechism and being questioned before the congregation the night before they were confirmed. Right? Of course, they’d also probably tell you stories about walking uphill both ways to school in eight feet of snow.
But to offer a little bit of perspective — around the time when you were baptized people were excited about two little movies you might have heard something about: Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, and another little film called the Matrix.
Let’s think about those movies for a minute. In George Lucas’ Star Wars film we go all the way back to the beginning of the Star Wars story…to the Genesis if you will. We meet a young Anakin Skywalker before he became a Jedi…in fact he’s just a young slave boy who seems to be unusually strong with the powers of The Force.
And then there’s the Matrix….where we learn that most of life isn’t life at all but merely figments of the imagination of just a few remaining human beings.
With your lives beginning around movies like these and moving onto others not that different, it shouldn’t be that much of a stretch to imagine this scene.
Quiet on the set! The scene opens with a throne, high up…and a God like being in it so large that it’s robe is long enough to fill, well, say this entire church. Flying all around are seraphs….now seraphs are not angels by any means, at least not like we think of angels. But they are heavenly beings if you will, in the way that they are not of this world. The seraphs have six wings….so when they fly above the God they cover their faces with two wings, their feet with two wings and they use the other two to fly. And when the seraphs talk…there’s smoke and fire and everything shakes, especially the thresholds…the door frames. The seraphs, which are more awesome than Lucas or Spielberg or anyone can dream up….call the God Holy. Then, just when the scene is THAT BIG….one of the seraphs flies up to the flaming altar, takes a coal from it with a pair of tongs he’s been hiding, and flies down to you…to you…Ben….to you Kelsey….to you…Ellie and touches your lips with the coal, tells you all of your sins are forgiven. Suddenly the God talks from the throne and asks “Who Will Go? Whom Shall I send?”
What are you going to say? What’s your answer going to be?
This is not, as you’ve probably figured out by now, another action movie. It is, the reading for today from the prophet Isaiah. But it’s as incredible, even more incredible than anything we’ll ever see on the big screen. Because what we get to glimpse in this scene is the true nature of God. And this God is not some benevolent old white guy with a long beard sitting on a cloud. With this vision from Isaiah we get a sense of the enormity of God…of the transcendence of God…of the other-ness of God. If Jesus is God-with-us…this God on the throne with the robe that fills the temple is God-much-bigger-than-we-are-and-what’s-up-with-these-seraphs.
It’s interesting that Isaiah chooses to note, specifically, that the thresholds are shaking. Because those thresholds were entry points to other places. The thresholds would get them from here…to…there.
You are at that age when you are going to start experiencing a lot of thresholds…places that get you from here…to…there. Liminal spaces, they are called. You’ve already moved from grade school to middle school and high school is around the corner, then college, then…well, you get the idea. And where you will kneel in just a few minutes is another liminal space. And no, it doesn’t mean you ‘graduate’ from Sunday School (sorry) or that you know all there is to know about your faith now. What it means is that the promises your parents and sponsors made on your behalf when you were baptized are now going to be yours to make. You get to decide. And here’s WHAT you get to decide. It’s the answer to this question….Whom shall I send? God would like an answer.
Because here’s the thing…the world was created to be the most beautiful, wonderful, incredible, sustaining place. It was created to nourish and nurture all life. It was created to be a reciprocal place…where your goodness would benefit another and their goodness would benefit another and its goodness would benefit another….and then, well…you get the idea. It’s like the idea of the ripples in water and how they expand out and get wider and wider.
Only…and I’m guessing this comes as no surprise to you, it hasn’t exactly turned out that way. Instead there is injustice and oppression…there is violence and greed….there is poverty and sickness. There isn’t a cycle of reciprocity unless you count revenge. What was created for beauty and sustenance is ugly in so many ways. It’s enough to make six winged seraphs flap about with their hands over their mouths and enough to make God express an opinion with thunder and fire and earthquakes and this question….to you….Kelsey…to you….Ellie….to you….Ben. Whom shall I send?
And just in case any of you think you are off the hook….oh no. You are not. Because it’s a question for each of us, every day. Every moment. Every time we make a decision…to ignore that bully at school or on the train or at the office or in our homes or to confront them. To turn a deaf ear to the racially charged joke or to speak against it. Every day, every decision….to litter, to help, to hurt, to speak up, speak out, stand up, sit in silence, lend a hand, push back, reach out, step away….whom shall I send?
To be honest, some days I want to suggest that God send the next candidate. Because I’m not sure, some days, that I am bold enough to do everything that needs to be done. Can I get an Amen? But here’s the thing, when you were baptized you, we…all of us, received the Spirit. And it was not a spirit of fear, but of adoption. We were born from above…so to speak…from that place where God sits and all of those seraphs fly around. And we belong to God. Because God chose us. It is that awesome. It’s better than Spielberg or Lucas or any filmmaker could ever imagine, although, certainly some have tried. And because we are born of that spirit, we don’t have to ever be afraid that we aren’t enough. Because we are. You are. All of us. But on this day, Ellie, Kelsey, and Ben we stand with you to hear you say that you believe in Jesus. We are going to hear the Creed that you wrote…what you believe to be true about your faith. And then, just like we did when you were baptized, we are going to promise to support you. From here on out. No matter what. And we’re going to promise to pray for you. And then we’re going to pray that God would stir up the gift of the Holy Spirit in your life….for faith and power and patience.
Because like ripples in water….your lives, washed in the waters of baptism, will touch this wondrous but broken Creation. Every single day. They always have, but now, on this day, God is on the throne and there a bunch of freaky looking seraphs flying around and things are smoking and you….you….Ellie, Kelsey, and Ben are standing in the doorpost. God has a question: Whom shall I send? Can you….can we….all of us….answer with Isaiah? Here am I…send me?
Amen.
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