All of our readings today, as we approach the end of the Christmas cycle of the church year, a cycle that includes the season of Epiphany that is now nearly concluded, in one way or another focuses on discipleship. God’s glory and power have been revealed definitively in the man Jesus, and now as a result of that revelation, as a consequence of the glorious manifestation of God’s presence among us in Christ, God calls us to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.

Call us? to be his witnesses? Why would God call on us to represent him? We are no Isaiah. We are no Paul. We are no Peter or James or John. Yes, these figures were all flawed, but they were also great men. They made their mark, and it’s their greatness that counts in the end. We have become so used to looking past the flaws to the greatness, past the bemishes to the impact the great ones make. In this age of “investigative journalism” (isn’t all or most journalism “investigative”?), we are used to seeing our celebrities and public figures warts and all; and while we shake our heads at the warts, we really don’t let the flaws hinder our adulation of the great ones. We really are not that worried about the flaws; it’s the greatness, the effectiveness, the panache, the mark, the impact, our flawed heroes and heroines make--that is what we look for, and that is what counts in our estimation. We too are flawed—we know all too well that we are flawed--but are we great? That’s the question. And the answer is that, no, we are not great. We are well aware of the fact that we are really quite small. We know that our effectiveness is limited—very limited—circumscribed and compromised. And so who are we that God should call on us? Who are we that Almighty God should make his Word and will known to the whole world through us. Who are we that God should address and condemn the forces of sin, evil, sin, and death through us? God will speak through us, but our words are mostly idle and inadequate, mostly misleading and confusing, and more often than not the things we say are just plain wrong. That God should have called the likes of Isaiah and Paul and Peter and James and John to be his witnesses, as flawed as they were, only magnifies the gap, actually the yawning chasm that exists, between God and us.

One modern commentor [Barth] on our passage from Isaiah that basically echos Luther’s observations on the same passage, and he put it this way: “What shatters and seizes Isaiah in the face of the exalted King…is a recognition, which pierces asunder to the very joints and marrow, of the total disparity and discrepancy between the being and rule of [God]…and himself….The contrast is a mortal blow….It is to be noted that [Isaiah] does not speak of the unclean heart, but of the unclean lips of himself and his people. It is thus clear to him from the very first that what he has seen and heard demands to be expressed and proclaimed. It must go out as a human word on human lips, to be sounded forth and heard…among all [people] throughout the earth. But he knows of no human mouth which is able and worthy to form and express that which corrsesponds to the matter. He must confess that he is a member of the community and people in which there are only unclean lips which contradict rather than correspond to the matter. He knows that what he has seen and heard must be expressed and yet cannot be expressed by a human mouth. It is in view of this dilemma that he cries: ‘Woe is me! For I am [lost].’”

God’s word must be spoken, but human speech is totally indadequate to the task; and yet it is precisely to this task that God has called us—called us, who are by nature and by definition such inadequate spokespersons. Woe are we! for we are a people of unclean lips.

It is important that we ponder this sobering reality for at least a moment or two, because in our culture we tend increasingly to approach such matters far too glibly and with incomprehending ease and nonchallance. We reckon that it is actually no big deal to speak God’s word, that anyone and at anytime can do it justice, that no experience is necessary, and further, that we can embellish and reformulate and twist and shape this God-given word according to our own individual tastes, prejudices and predilictions, which we do on occasion, blithely unaware that thereby we are adulterating, perverting and trivializing the very Word that is nothing less than a matter of our life and death.

So, a little dose of Isaiah would not hurt us a bit. Rather than being so cluelessly eager or so careless with regard to how we handle the Word of God, perhaps we might benefit from the realization that we are in the same position as the prophet: Woe are we! for we are a people of unclean lips.

But God knows with whom he is dealing, and nevertheless he is insistent: “Then [Isaiah] heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’” The candidates are the most unlikely. Paul admits that he, as a persecutor of the church of God, was absolutely unfit to be an apostle, and yet by the grace of God Paul worked harder on behalf of the gospel than any other follower of the risen Lord. And Jesus knew exactly whom he was calling to be his disciples: fishermen who could not catch fish, like Peter, who fell down at Jesus’ knees saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Yet undeterred, Jesus said to him, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people”—and the fishermen left everything and followed him--like Isaiah, who, responding to God’s call said, “Here am I; send me!”

Human speech is inadequate to the task of speaking God’s Word, but that is just what God demands; and the human beings whom God chooses to be his spokespersons and witnesses are also inadequate to the task, but God chooses just them to represent him and his saving gospel to the world.

And here we sit, gathered by the Holy Spirit, whether we are tuned in to that fact just now or not, to hear and respond to God’s word and summons: distracted and harried, carrying heavy burdens (i.e.,with a lot of baggage), sinful, depressed, worried, too young, too old, too busy, too idle, unprepared, sick, with a lot of questions that still need to be answered, apprehensive, inadequate, over-achievers, under-achievers, not-quite-settled-down, too settled and too comfortable, anxious to move on, stuck in a rutt, unprepared, untried, unenthused, inarticulate, impatient, ill-equipped. Yet this is the motly crew God has selected to be his followers, spokespersons, ambassadors and representatives, his witnesses, evangelists, prophets and disciples. This is the motly crew that, with the help of the Spirit, God places at the forefront of the cosmic battle against sin, death and the power of the devil; the motly crew God calls to speak God’s very own word of judgment and hope to a world very much in need of both; the motly crew whose lives and behavior and choices and priorities and judgments will be a model and a foretaste of the coming Kingdom of God; the motly crew who like John the Baptist is given the task of pointing the world to its Redeemer, Lord and King.

The succeess of God’s word, its reception or unreception by those to whom it is proclaimed, is not up to us; it is up to God to bring to pass what he promises and to instill in us what he commands. Still he wants our hearts and our wills, our bodies and our souls, our lips and our hands and our feet so that at the end of the day, like Paul, we may say that “it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

Or, as Isaiah finally had to declare:“Here am I; send me!” As the universe was created by one word from the mouth of God, so will a new heaven and a new earth come to pass by means of that Word that brings the saving presence of Christ crucified and risen from the dead, the personal presence of him the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end—and we—we of all people-are witnesses and heralds of these things. May our prayer be that of the Psalmist: “You will make good your purpose for me; O Lord, your steadfast love endures forever; do not abandon the works of your hands.”

-Amen-