Isaiah 6:1-13

William F. Schnell

June 21, 2009

   Among other things, we are lifting up the International Council of Community Churches as is our custom every year around this time.  Our congregation is a charter member of the Council, indeed was a member of a predecessor organization that merged in 1950 with a similar organization to become the present Council.  One of its first presidents was a pastor of this church.  Its first female president was a member of this church.  Our congregation has a long and rich history with the Council that continues to this day.  In a few weeks Rev. Horak, Bob Harris and Elaine Duncan will represent our congregation at the Council’s Annual Conference—this year in St. Louis. 

   Since we support the council with our financial and human resources, one might wonder what exactly the Council does for us.  One little thing among many big things is that it publishes booklets like this one: Introducing the International Council of Community Churches.  I am sure that you have all read it—several times.  Maybe not.  Maybe very few people read this kind of stuff.  The title of our message for this morning is, “Preaching When Nobody’s Listening.”  Today we are going to explore if there is a point to doing just that.   

   One of the distinctive features of member churches of the International Council of Community Churches is that they draw their membership from a wide variety of church backgrounds.  Very few of us were born and raised in a Community Church.  Most of us came from other denominational backgrounds.  In contrast, most Catholics were born and raised Catholic, or they married into the faith tradition.  The same goes for Baptists, Lutherans and so forth.  There are exceptions to the rule of course, but the exceptions prove the rule.

   This distinctive of Community Churches, combined with their relatively tolerant approach to theological differences, has left them vulnerable to those who would change them into something they are not.  Whereas no one would think of going into a Catholic Church and suggesting they do away with the mass, or going into a Baptist Church and suggesting they start baptizing infants, some folks have no problem going into a Community Church and seeking to make it less tolerant. 

   In other words, some folks will refuse to extend to others the charity that is extended to them in this family of faith—which is the undisturbed right to follow the Word of God according to the dictates of their own consciences.  They want to impose their theological beliefs, and patterns and practices of worship, on everybody else as a test of membership or a requirement for leadership.  You have to wonder why somebody like that doesn’t just find a church that already reflects their theological persuasion rather than changing some church into something that it is not nor ever has been.  It is simply a recipe for contention and strife.

   That is why I try to nip that sort of thing in the bud these days—to preserve the peace and harmony that we currently enjoy in this place.  And do you know how I do it?  I pull out this pamphlet and share a few statements from it with those who need to hear about our historic identity.  Take, for example, the first sentence from the Introduction: “It is the desire and declaration of the Community Church Movement that we can have unity with diversity and follow the call of Jesus ‘That they may be one.’  In this we reflect an impulse that has always been a part of the Church, from the time two or three first gathered in Christ’s name.”

   Our inclusiveness not only goes back to 1950, but back to Christ himself who freely fellowshipped with those of the Samaritan faith tradition, and whose followers welcomed into their fellowship Jew and Gentile alike.  Or how about this statement under the heading of Major Tenets: “Certainly a major tenet of the Movement and its Council is that unity requires acceptance and celebration of diversity.  We are a quilting of congregations and persons from varied traditions—Pentecostal and Catholic rites, Free Church and Reformed, Mystical and Orthodox—and we have found our variety to be a God-bestowed gift.”

   Yes, the proclamation of this booklet has been invaluable in preserving the historic identity of this congregation on more than one occasion while I have been your pastor.  It may not be accessed all the time, but when it is needed it is really needed.  Your generous contributions today in the green framed envelopes will help further that needful proclamation especially in these tight budgetary times we are all struggling through.  It is important to keep the proclamation alive even when nobody’s listening.   Why?  So that it will be there when people have ears to hear it. 

   This is the lesson of our text for this morning.  It is an account of the calling of Isaiah the prophet.  It is a difficult calling he is receiving.  Isaiah is being called to proclaim the Word of the Lord to a people who are not interested in hearing it.  The Lord says to Isaiah, “Go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’  Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.  Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (Verses 9-10).

   The people to whom Isaiah is being sent don’t want to be healed because they refuse to acknowledge they are not well.  They do not want to turn back to God because they think they know better than God what is in their best interest.  They do not want to hear the truth about themselves or see the terrible reality about where they are heading because they are definitely heading for no good.  Right now they are living in the Promised Land, but because of their sin they are about to be exiled from the Land of Promise to the Land of Bondage.

   What a terrible calling the prophet Isaiah is receiving.  No wonder he answers, “For how long, O Lord?”  And he answered: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, until the Lord has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken.  And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste.  But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land” (Verses 11-13). 

   The people of Judah may not want to hear Isaiah’s proclamation now, but later may be a different story.  Later, after they have been exiled from the good life and reduced to bondage--after they have been humbled and their hard hearts softened—maybe then they will acknowledge their sin and need for God.  Maybe then the prophesy of Isaiah will reach a people whose eyes and ears are open to the truth.  Maybe then they will turn from their sinful ways and turn back to the God.  Maybe then God can liberate them once again and return them to the Land of Promise.  And of course that is exactly what happened because Isaiah was faithful to his difficult in preaching when nobody was listening.

   Any dad, speaking with the voice of experience, who has tried to share a little hard-earned wisdom with his adolescent child, knows about preaching when nobody is listening.  The eyeballs roll, the exaggerated sighs are heard and the terminally annoyed look all say, “I am not hearing a thing you are saying.”  Or, worse yet, they do hear what you are saying and it makes their chin quiver and their eyes water and their voices break in the most manipulative way they can muster to say, “What really hurts is that you don’t trust me.” 

   That is when we respond with, “It’s not that I don’t trust you, honey, it’s that I don’t trust your friends”—which is the biggest bunch of parental baloney in the book.  Of course we don’t trust them.  We didn’t trust them to play in the traffic when they were two.  We didn’t trust them to play with loaded guns when they were six.  Why should we trust them with things like sex and drugs?  Of course we don’t trust them.  We love them too much to trust them with dangerous things that can seriously harm them.

   They may not want to hear what the old man has to say, but I can guarantee you two things: 1) If you do say what has to be said, the message will pierce their thick skulls and implant itself in their brains despite their best efforts to ignore it, and 2) If you don’t, it won’t.  They may not want to admit it but they know who has had their very best interests at heart since day one.  Who knows when that little seed you have planted will germinate?  It may be in the heat of passion, it may be at the height of peer pressure, it may be when that drunken friend tells them to get into the car that a warning light goes off that causes them to diplomatically decline.