“When Worship Happens”

Isaiah 6:1-8

June 11, 2006

St. Paul United Methodist Church of Little Rock

The great theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, tells a parable, a story of sorts about what happened one Sunday morning with a community of ducks who waddled their way to a worship service. I know that it is a stretch to think of ducks having their own community, their own church and their own preacher, but you’re used to this kind of thing from me.

The community waddled in the front door, were greeted by the duck ushers and given a worship bulletin. Their pastor (a duck too, of course) stood in the pulpit, read a scripture lesson and then started the sermon. The sermon was great that day; it was so eloquent and powerful in its own way. On this particular day, the preacher spoke about the power of God. He said that God had given all of the ducks wings with which to fly. “With these wings”, he said, “there was no God given task that they could not accomplish. With these wings, there was no where that they could not go. With these wings, why they could even soar to the greatest heights and into the presence of God himself.” Now it wasn’t their custom to do this, but throughout the sermon, several of the ducks shouted out, “Amen.” Others were more quiet and nodded in agreement with the things their preacher said. In this church, there was an altar. Several of the ducks went to the front to give their lives to God. When the worship service had ended, several of the ducks talked about what a great message they had just heard. Now hear this. St. Paul, don’t miss this. After the ducks shook their preacher’s, uh, wing, with the sermon about flying to the heights in their hearts, they waddled home.

This story, a parable, is supposed to get you to thinking and this is a good one to get us started this morning. Now we’re not ducks, but we do tend to be creatures of habit. If we are not too careful, we will waddle out of here today the same way we waddled in here, unchanged and unchallenged. We tend to do the same things every week. We sit in the same pews. By the way, when I was the Associate Pastor at First Church, Jeanie Burton and the evangelism committee came up with this great idea, Swap Your Seat Sunday. The idea was that on this particular Sunday, you were encouraged to sit some where other than where you usually did and talk with someone that you had not talked with before. Here is what happened. The people on this side of the church sat on that side of the church. The people on that side of the church sat on this side of the church. So they were sitting with the same people, just on the opposite side of the Sanctuary.

We sit in the same places. We follow the same order of worship (and that is my fault), one that we know by heart. We listen to a scripture lesson and then a sermon that we are sure is intended for someone else! And we don’t really expect all that much. We come because we’ve always come. We come because some how we find comfort in the familiar. We come, as some people have said, for a little spiritual sustenance for the upcoming week.

But sometimes it happens. Something happens. It is unplanned. It is unrehearsed. You won’t find it listed in the order of worship. It is uncontrollable. Somehow in the middle of the worship service, worship happens!

Sometimes it happens because of the grandeur of music. A piece of music like Widor’s Toccata can stir the soul. Or maybe it is an anthem sung by the choir. Our choir is going on vacation after today, for four weeks. I will miss their leadership in our worship service!

Sometimes it happens when a scripture lesson is read. Someone following along or listening to the words recognizes their life in the story. A new hope is born. Sometimes it happens in the sermon, believe it or not! One of the greatest compliments that I have received as a preacher is not, “Preacher, that was the best sermon I ever heard!” but this one, “Preacher, I felt like you were talking just to me this morning.” I nod my head when that happens and thank God for the moment. Sometimes worship happens in the silence, or in the prayer. One of the things that I have learned is that some experiences can’t be described; they can only be experienced.

Maybe that is what is happening in our scripture lesson for this morning taken from the sixth chapter of Isaiah, the story of Isaiah’s call to speak for God. Isaiah tries his best to describe the indescribable. Preachers and prophets who feel called often tell their story sometime after the call comes. That is the way that it was for Isaiah. After he retired, he wrote down the things that happened in his life. One of the first things that he wanted to do was to include the story of his call.

There is some debate as to whether what happened in our eight verses was a vision or a religious festival complete with drama. Frederick Buechner, one of my favorite authors, describes the temple scene this way. “There were banks of candles flickering in the distance and the clouds of incenses thickening the air with holiness. And there was God, whose robe filled the Temple. There were winged creatures shouting back and forth the way excited children shout to each other when dusk calls them home. And the whole vast place started to shake beneath his feet like a wagon going over cobbles, and he cried out, ‘O God, I am done for! I am foul of mouth and a member of a foul mouthed race. With my own two eyes I have seen Him. I’m a goner. I’m sunk.’ Then one of the winged things touched his mouth with fire and said, ‘There, it will be all right now.’”

There are several things that I want to say to you today. Here is the first. Sometimes God’s presence is all around us and we feel it. It is powerful and moving. Turn to the story of Jacob and you will see that he was running from his brother’s anger. Along the way he stopped for the evening. With the stars as his blanket and a rock as his pillow, he sensed the presence of God. Come morning he made an altar and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

The presence of God can happen anywhere, at any time. For Isaiah it happened in the Temple. For Moses it happened on a hill side. For Elijah it happened in a mountain hide out. For Saul, it was on a bounty hunting mission to Damascus. For the world it happened in a barn with the distinctive smell of cows all around.

Sometimes God is all around us, in ordinary things, in ordinary people. The presence of God is not always sensational or extra ordinary. Most of the time, God’s presence comes in common times. God can be seen in the sunset just as much as God can be seen in the worship service. God can be sensed in the concert hall just as often as he can in the prayer. What is more important is our willingness to see God in what is happening all around us.

Part of the problem, I guess, is that we are content. We are happy with the way things are. We are happy with our jobs, with our families, with our faith. We have gotten comfortable. We have a routine. To be sure, we need God, but only once and a while, to clean up things for us. We certainly wouldn’t want God to point out our faults and our short comings. Worship is fine as long as it makes us feel good about our lives.

Which leads me to the second thing that I want to say to you today. The natural reaction, in fact, the biblical reaction to the presence of God is unworthiness. Moses asked God to send someone else. Jeremiah said, “I am only a boy.” Isaiah yelled out, “Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and yet I have seen the glory of God.” John said (and by John I mean me), “Lord, I could never write a sermon, much less deliver one. You want me to do what?” Every week, when I stand to speak for God, I feel overwhelmed and unworthy. Some how God’s grace is stronger than that feeling.

I have been reading again John Grisham’s book The Testament. In part it is the story of a lawyer named Nate. In one scene in the book, Nate goes into a chapel in a third world country. A young, (I guess the preacher) came in, played some on his guitar, read some scripture and

began teaching. Grisham writes, “The young man was praying, his eyes clinched tightly, his arms waving gently upward. Nate closed his eyes, too, and called God’s name. God was waiting. Nate repeated the list, mumbling softly every weakness and flaw and affliction and evil that plagued him. He confessed them all. In one long glorious acknowledgment of failure, he laid himself bare before God he held nothing back. He unloaded enough burdens to crush any three men, and when he finally finished, Nate said, “I’m sorry....please help me.” Nate felt the baggage leave his soul. With one gentle brush of the hand, his slate had been wiped clean. He heard the guitar again. Instead of seeing the young man, he saw the face of Christ, dying for him. A voice was calling him, a voice from within, a voice leading him down the aisle. It was one thing for God to forgive his astounding array of iniquities...God couldn’t be calling him. He was Nate O’Riley boozer, addict, lover of women, absent father, miserable husband, greedy lawyer. He was dizzy. The music stopped. He quickly left the chapel. As he turned, he glanced back to make sure that God hadn’t sent someone to follow him.”

It is natural to feel unworthy in the presence of God. It takes courage to answer some kind of claim that God has on our lives. But that is what Isaiah did and that is the third thing that I want to say to you today. I want to point out that somehow Isaiah was able to overhear the heavenly conversation between God and the angels. God asked, “Who will it be?” With charred lips, Isaiah said, “Me! Send me!”

You see there is a call of God in all of our lives. The call may be to speak for God, but don’t get caught up believing that God only calls preachers. God has a claim on all of our lives. Some are asked to teach. Some are asked to pray. Some are called to care.

Let me close with this. Tony Compollo tells of meeting Nancy, a woman who responded to God’s grace. Nancy is in a wheelchair. Each week, she puts an advertisement in the newspaper that reads, “If you have a problem, call me. I am in a wheelchair. I seldom get out. I’d love to talk about our problems.” Nancy spends most of her day on the telephone, talking to more than thirty people in a given week.

When Tony asked her how she came to be in a wheelchair, she told of trying to end her life. Instead of dying, she ended up in a hospital. One night, the voice of God clearly said to her, “Nancy, you have had a crippled soul and a healthy body. From now on I want your soul to be healthy.” That night she gave her life to God. She knew that if her soul was healthy, she would have to help other people and so she does.

No one so touched by God can remain still. No one who knows the grace of God can be silent. No one who hears in their heart the divine call for service can do anything else than to say, “Here I am! Send me!” My prayer is that you won’t waddle out of here this morning.

(Special thanks to the writers of Homiletics magazine. I used several of the ideas from the publication in this week’s sermon. Thanks also to the writings of John Grisham. Just when I think that I am reading something for enjoyment, a powerful story touched my heart).