Homily In the year that King Uzziah died
Our text from Isaiah
- 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.
- as if in the background the music: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory."
- unclean lips
- live coal that cleanses
- "Here am I; send me!"
Call it sleep
A novel with the title Call it sleep utterly captivated me in my youth1. The main character, David, is a young Jewish immigrant growing up in a strange land called New York City in 1907. In the most vivid writing I had encountered at that stage of my life, David’s inner searching for the meaning of his new life, his relationship with his father, the significance of his Jewish faith was seared into me as I identified with much of his odyssey.
It’s perhaps not happenstance that I use the word “seared”, because the young David in the novel is focused on the uncleanness around him in the slums of the city, and on his own unworthiness of his father’s love and of the demands of his religion.
This passage from Isaiah is the frame of several scenes in which David is nearly electrocuted at the tracks of the subway.
Holiness is encountered and it nearly kills him. The encounter with holiness it seems is dangerous.
“Holy, holy, holy” every time we celebrate the Eucharist
When I was in seminary my teacher emphasized his own view that if there is anything sung at the celebration of the Eucharist it is this passage, the Sanctus. Perhaps it is the heavenly hosts, the seraphs around the throne, that indicate that it ought to be sung.
It is one of the places in the liturgy where I very often raise my hands, as if in recognition that perhaps the angels are singing and God is before us sitting on the throne.
This passage from Isaiah appears twice in the Sunday readings.
Once every Trinity Sunday
Somehow pointing to the unspeakable holiness of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Once every 3 years on Epiphany 5 in year “C”
Midway through the season of Epiphany. A season shaped by the growing manifestation of the true and deep reality of who Jesus is.
The passage also appears as one option in the ordination of a priest.
- I felt like I had some inkling of what that meant. Then I was ordained and I learned I didn’t have a clue.
- I’m here because you as a congregation are anticipating calling a priest to be your rector.
- Perhaps the passage is read here because of its association with the Eucharist.
- I have always identified with the way in which a newly ordained priest is (at least normally) rather enthusiastically saying to the people of the church around him, “Here I am! I’m ready.”
It makes it all the more ironic when the passage goes on to relate what God wants the person to say. The message is to be addressed to the people and it is:
- Why do you listen but don’t comprehend?
- Why do you look but don’t understand?
- This is going to be the ruin of your cities and your houses.
It’s no wonder that a priest later in life might ask, “Why was I so enthusiastic at the beginning?”
Holiness comes with danger as well as great attraction. It draws us to it. But it can kill us.
The 3-fold “holy, holy, holy” appears twice in the Bible
- here in Isaiah
- And in the final book of the Bible, Revelation 4:8
Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”
As in Isaiah, there is a throne with One seated on it. That throne is surrounded by 24 thrones with 24 elders sitting on them. In the center, near the one throne are 4 living creatures, and they are singing 24/7 – yes, they’re singing what we call the “Sanctus”
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is coming.”
That’s more reason, I guess, why we should be singing the sanctus at every Eucharist.
What is this “holiness” of which we speak?
What is this purification that we must go through before we are ready to speak and do what God has given us to do?
We hear the words, maybe even frequently use them, but do we have a sense of what they signify? What the import and impact on us and our lives might be?
Earth is crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees
Takes off his shoes --
The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
In the eyes of the beholder
Jesus responded to the inquiries of Andrew and Simon in the first chapter of John, by saying, “Come and see.” They gave up everything to follow him. They had seen holiness and it made all the difference in their life.
When the centurion turned to Jesus for help (Mat 8), he looked at Jesus, I suppose, the same way someone looks at me when they approach me asking for some money so that they could buy some food or gas.
In Matthew 27:54 a centurion looked at Jesus dying on the cross, saw an earthquake, and was greatly afraid, he said, “Truly this was the Son of God.”
The centurions and the disciples looked at the same person, the same holiness and responded by changing their lives.
Is it something we recognize when we see it?
Or do we generally walk past it without seeing or hearing?
On March 18, 1958, Thomas Merton was running errands in downtown Louisville when he had an experience that would change his life and influence countless others. The spot is marked with a historical marker, the only one that I know of in the United States that marks a mystical experience.2
Merton described it this way in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
As we leave this sanctuary today,
may we go forth with the anticipation and the conviction that we are about to encounter the holiness of God. It may come in the form of an electrical spark in a New York slum. It may come from a person in need or suffering. It may come from a stranger or your nearest friend.
But that throne is out there as much as it is in here. If you have ears to hear and eyes to see and a heart to embrace – you will find it.
Footnotes
https://www.grin.com/document/7665 Isaiah story in the novel. N.B. the “coal” as a purifying (not a dirty) role in Isaiah. http://dgmyers.blogspot.com/2009/11/call-it-sleep.html exploring the relationship of the novel with modernist and Jewish themes.↩
https://www.spiritualtravels.info/spiritual-sites-around-the-world/north-america/kentucky-a-thomas-merton-tour/thomas-mertons-mystical-vision-in-louisville/↩
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