Sunday 16th February, 4 before Lent

Here I am Lord, is it I Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if you lead me, I will hold your people in my heart.

You probably know this hymn. Written in 1981, Here I am Lord quickly became a global hit for the Dan Schutte, a member of the St Louis Jesuits in America, from the album Earthen Vessels, which I’m told outsold Elton John’s Ice on Fire, and has found its way into every Church of England hymnbook published since. It’s a modern classic. Here I am Lord, is it I Lord? I have heard you calling in the night.

I nearly put it down for us to sing today. Nearly. In the end my courage failed; the director of music is a very reasonable man but we had it twice towards the end of last year and if I overplay my hand I am in serious danger of being on the receiving end of a raised eyebrow. So we’ll wait a couple more months until he’s forgotten.

Anyway, I nearly put this hymn down for today because of our first reading, from Isaiah chapter 6 which tell of the prophet being lifted into a vision of the heavenly presence of God, ending with the lines ‘And 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!’’. Dan Schutte echoes these words and turns them into his famous ditty about being sent out to do something vague, but to do it nicely- I will go Lord, if you lead me, I will hold your people in my heart, and so on.

The trouble though, and another reason it’s not on the list today in the end, is that it doesn’t get what’s happening in Isaiah 6 quite right. This isn’t just a passage about heaven, not really, or vocation, about being chosen to go out in the service of the Lord. Isaiah’s being chosen to be God’s messenger is important, but it isn’t the whole story. To understand that we need to go to the beginning of the chapter.

It begins with the description of the prophet Isaiah’s heavenly vision, ‘In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, sitting on a throne, high and lofty… and I said, woe is me, 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’s the first part that’s really important here, the bit we can miss so easily. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.

You see, the writer of Isaiah isn’t placing King Uzziah into the narrative here to add a bit of historical ballast, letting us know that this is about the year 750BC. No, he’s there to make a point. Uzziah was the 10th King of Judah, and had been crowned when he was just 16 years old. He was, as is so often the way, a brilliant king. To start with.

He listened to his prophets, he inspired the army to great military feats, he pushed back the borders of Judah, he brought prosperity and peace to the land.

But then he got carried away. Uzziah got ideas above his station, thought he could get rid of the priests that served in the temple and go into the presence of God to offer incense on the altar himself, in contravention of the law that only the priests of the tribe of Levi could do this.

It is a fearful and dangerous thing to enter into the presence of God.

But Uzziah forgot that, thought after all he’d achieved that kings and God could look each other in the eye, pass as equals, you know, so into the temple he marched with his incense and his status and his ego all trailing behind him. And, as the second book of Chronicles tells us, he was promptly struck down with a deadly disease and died soon after. Uzziah’s problem was a failure of humility. Which is why it is important that Isaiah tells us he had his vision of God the year that Uzziah died.

Uzziah presumed he could march in and offer incense; Isaiah is gifted a vision of the presence of God, but instead of saying, great let me join in, he falls to his face and says, ‘woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, Lord of hosts!’. It is only after he has been cleansed, the fire of the hot coal touching his mouth, blotting out his sin, that Isaiah is ready to answer God’s question, ‘whom shall I send?’

Isaiah’s vision of heaven is not a comforting one, there is no cheering chorus in G major to accompany it. Isaiah gives us fear, the pivots of the thresholds shaking, the awesome presence of the Lord of hosts, the searing heat of God’s forgiveness. Whether you are king or cobbler, to follow the call of God is first to be changed. Our need for humility before God is what Isaiah’s vision is all about. It is the beginning of vocation, the beginning of true relationship.  

On the face of it, the Gospel reading from Luke couldn’t be more different. This is no heavenly vision, just a bad day at the office for some fishermen who are cleaning their nets when Jesus walks by and tells them to put out again, into the deep water. But Luke’s call of the first disciples, different to Mathew, Mark and John’s, is I think deliberately set up to give those with ears to hear an echo of Isaiah. While everyone is astounded by the miraculous catch of fish, distracted by the abundance of the miracle that unfolded in front of them, Peter’s reaction is the same as Isaiah’s- he recognises who it is that has climbed into his boat, who is truly is, falls to his face, and says ‘Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!’.

If you read Luke’s Gospel through you’ll see that this is one of his key themes; true discipleship begins with humility. Each true encounter with Jesus, when people have seen past the glitz and the glamour of the crowds and the miracles, begins with a profound understanding of the need for humility in the face of this extraordinary person. It is the seed of true discipleship- the willingness to be changed by following Jesus.

Each Sunday as we come to receive the sacrament, and to hear the word of God, we are called to refresh our discipleship, to be honest about our sin, and then to hear the words of Christ’s forgiveness that not only calls us to stand and follow him, but also to sit and eat at his table. Every week we are invited again to receive the gift of life from the only one whose invitation makes us worthy to receive it. To renew our discipleship, to eat and to follow. In humility let us approach the throne of his grace, ransomed, healed, restored and forgiven. Then we’ll be ready to sing again the words of that hymn: I will go Lord, if you lead me, I will hold your people in my heart.