The Very Rev. Dr. Hilary B. Smith

St. Paul’s on-the-Hill

Winchester, VA

February 7, 2010; The 5^th Sunday after the Epiphany

Readings: Isaiah 6:1-13; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11.

What is Holy?

The account of Isaiah’s encounter with God in the temple invites us to consider the holiness of God and what the holy moments of our lives have been. In recognizing and celebrating the holiness in and of our lives, we find our mission from God.

Isaiah’s vision of his encounter with God was an encounter with God who is other…so amazing as to be distant from us in a sense. The call of Isaiah is wrapped in the mystery of the holy. So awesome is God that only the hem of God’s rope is visible to Isaiah.

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts,” the mysterious seraphs sing to each other. In Isaiah’s vision, the holiness was key. It was the holiness of God, and Isaiah’s awareness of God’s holiness that led to Isaiah’s sense of his lack of holiness.

Nevertheless, God calls Isaiah to the difficult job of bringing God’s word to people who will not understand. It is an unwelcome task to be a prophet in most times and circumstances—prophets being those who call the people to account and often challenge them to seek the will of God more than they are currently doing.

Even though Isaiah is “a man of unclean lips,” God provides way forward: the seraphs (seraph is translated either as “burning one” or “snake”) bring a burning coal and touch it to Isaiah’s mouth. The fire in this case does not destroy but rather purifies (this is a vision after all), making it possible for Isaiah to answer the call from God.

Who is this God who is so holy that we cannot even see all of God’s being? God in Isaiah’s vision is much like God in the encounter with Moses on Mount Sinai…God cannot be seen by just anyone, but only Moses…whose face shines after the encounter, as a result of being near the holiness of God. This way of describing God focuses on what we call the transcendence of God—that God is so great as to be beyond our comprehension.

The Episcopal Church used to focus on that way of experiencing God by, for example, having the altar positioned so that the priest would stand facing away from the people. The idea here was (and is still in some churches) that God is up there somewhere and the priest and people are all facing God in worship and adoration. There is value in this way understanding our relationship with God, but it can be severely limiting if it is the sole way of understanding the One we call holy.

In our church, and in most Episcopal Churches today, the altar or holy table is positioned so that the priest can face the people and this speaks to the presence of God among us…right here with us…in our world…our world that reflects God’s glory.

God is great. But God is also with us. “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. The earth is full of God’s glory! We experience God here and now, and we experience the divine, the holy, in situations that may not, often are not, explicitly religious. What we start to find as we consider the holy moments we have know is that all of life can express holiness to us.

To be in the presence of the Holy is intense but it is also not so separate from us who are made in the image of God. We are created to perceive what is holy and to order our lives so as to share in it as much as possible.

The idea of holiness does not come easy to modern or post-modern people. For holiness does not mean being perfect but being set apart from the everyday, being set apart for God. But ironically what we find as we enter this way of thinking about our God, our world, and ourselves, what we find is that we see the holy all around us. Holiness is not necessarily found or perceived when all is going well. In fact, it is in times of great pain, such as being with a person who is suffering or dying, that we know we are in the presence of what is holy. Everything else is put into perspective and the holiness of the time captivates us. It can be, and often is in struggle that holiness is found. 

It is by encountering the holy that we know ourselves. After all, we are created in the image of God, in the image of the Holy One. It strikes me that when we are creative as God is creative, the Creator, we are part of what is holy. Perhaps that is way the birth of a child is such a holy moment…when the baby God and people have created together is born! In less dramatic ways, but very meaningful ways, the act of creating takes place all the time…creating a meal, creating a work of art, creating a home, taking part and being a partner with God in creating a relationship, the list goes on and on. What have been the holy moments in your life? We have all experienced God even if we did not at the time name that holy moment as an encounter with God.

As in Isaiah’s temple vision, hear God say to you, “who will go for me?” Who will go into the world to name and celebrate what is holy? In a very real sense, God has sent us all on this mission; ours is a mission to see and to celebrate what is holy, thereby being prophet of God. Amen.

The creation of this sermon was inspired by Isaiah’s vision in the Temple and by Vienna Cobb Anderson’s book, Holy Faces, Holy Places, Manakin-Sabot, Virginia: Dementi Milestone Publishing, 2008. dementi@aol.com or (804) 784-5151 for information or to obtain copies of the book.