The ordination sermon for the Rev. Kevin Schubert, Class of 2007, given by Dr. Steven Bishop, Assistant Professor of Old Testament, on January 22, 2008, at
St. Matthew's Church in Austin

“In the year that King Uzziah died”. It sounds like a throwaway line doesn’t it? Perhaps it is only a historical marker, a way to pinpoint a particular year or day in Isaiah’s life. But I want to suggest to you that it means more than this.

The death of the king means regime change. It means uncertainty for the future. With the death of the king, the future for Isaiah, had become a big question mark. He had a lot riding on King Uzziah’s reign. Uzziah, you see, had been successful in insuring the protection and prosperity of Judah and Jerusalem. Uzziah had made all the right moves socially, militarily and religiously.

Anointed king when he was sixteen, he ruled for fifty-two years. In that time he silenced Israel’s traditional enemies the Philistines. He built new cities in Philistine territory. He conquered neighboring nations and made them pay tribute to him. He built a massive army and invented new weapons of war. In modern parlance, he even secured the borders of Judah.

What’s more, he improved farming conditions in the land by building cisterns and extending the agricultural possibilities of the land.

Religiously, he had his own private prophet to instruct him in the fear of God. Judah was on the rise after years of decline and his success was a sign of God’s favor. But in the year he died no one could say with certainty what would happen next.

In that moment of uncertainty about the future Isaiah has a vision. Some suggest that the vision is an antidote to Isaiah’s over-confidence in a mortal king. Saying in effect, “Look God is still on the throne.” Others see it as coming at the right life-moment for Isaiah. A moment when he is open to God’s call upon his life. To me it represents the latter. And I bet that many of you have had one of those moments. It may not have been precipitated by something as tragic as the death of someone who meant a great deal to you. It may have been in a quieter, more mundane moment, one in which you were snapped into another world, a world dominated by God’s glory and possibility for a future. For some it comes gradually, through various life-moments and the doors of God’s temple slowly open to reveal the glory of God. However it comes for you, it is a moment when your life is laid bare before God.

The details of the vision in the temple are extraordinary yet Isaiah’s description of them is succinct, yet powerful. The heavenly attendants who fly in the temple cry out to one another “Holy, Holy, Holy is Yahweh Sabaoth; the whole earth is full of his glory.” What comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘glory’? What exactly is the world full of when it is full of God’s glory?

Although etymologies are usually not the best way to understand a word, here it is interesting that the Hebrew root of this word ‘glory’ is ‘heavy’, ‘weighty’. God’s presence is a weighty thing, a heavy matter. To have glory means to have weight, importance, seriousness. When Kevin is ordained tonight he will have hands laid upon him. Not just laid upon him but pressed upon him by the clergy and I’ve been told that the clergy are heavy handed. He will feel the weight of their hands pressing upon him, symbolically representing the heaviness, the seriousness, the weight, the glory of the God he has chosen to serve.

In Isaiah’s vision holiness and glory go together. The proclamation of the seraphim accentuates the otherness of God and the gravitas that surrounds God by virtue of that holiness. It is certain death for a mortal to enter the presence of the Holy and Isaiah recognizes that immediately and confesses his impurity. And as quickly as he confesses a seraphim applies the remedy and his sin is burned away. And just as quickly there is a divine interrogative. “Who shall I send, and who will go for us?”

It is a double edged question. It is one of both selection and acceptance. Who is fit for the task? Who is ready to take on this work?

Then the other edge of that question: Who is ‘willing’ to go? Who is willing to say ‘yes’ to God? The church has identified Kevin as one called to the ordained ministry. He has been prepared both in his experiences in life and through his formal formation for ministry. Tonight a journey that began a long time ago will culminate in his ordination to the priesthood. We are all here because this is a great and holy moment.

There is one more thing. The reading for tonight ended with Isaiah’s acceptance of God’s call on his life. However, we missed the sermon God gave to Isaiah. That sermon provides a glimpse into what it means to accept this call.

Put simply, Isaiah is to go and preach what people don’t want to hear. To be sure, being a priest is about caring for God’s church in pastoral support, prayer and service, it is about having compassion on those who are harassed and helpless and it is also about proclaiming a message that resists the contours of culture. Isaiah went on to resist and be resisted by those with whom he worked.

When he heard the saber rattle of war, he resisted the king’s plan to make alliances rather than trust the God of Hosts. When he saw the rich exploiting the poor and trampling the needy, he urged a return to the ethics of a holy God. When he felt the shallowness of worship by those who couldn’t wait to get it over with so they could go on with their real business, he reminded them that God is “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

Jesus said, “Pray to the Lord of harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” We are grateful tonight that this prayer is being answered, once again, in the ordination of a priest. But we must also remember that we all have harvest work to do. Through our baptismal covenant we have become laborers in God’s harvest. As you already know, it is hard work out there, so before you go, take Isaiah’s hand and step back into that throne room and witness the glorious holiness of God and be awed that we are all called into God’s holy service.