First Step

Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:8-10

The first step is admitting you have a problem. Isaiah starts right off with this. He lists that his lips are unclean because he is from an unclean lipped people.

You might have to know the setting of Isaiah. There was high anxiety in the kingdom of Judah. Israel itself is split into two kingdoms and the second one has been conquered by the Assyrians. Judah thought it would be next, or thought if they just ignored them, God would help them. God always got them out of the tough scrape.

This is a time when the commands were lost, the book or scriptures were lost. The people thought they could live anyway they wanted. They were God's chosen. Nothing can happen to them. So they would go to worship and come out and kill their neighbor or take things from them, or cheat them in business, or call in a loan early. They would ignore widows, of orphans, strangers, and reap the whole field instead of leaving the edge for those who needed it. See, this is the call of God, to look out for those less fortunate.

Judah had forgotten all of this and God is looking for someone to tell them their wrongs. How God feels that they have strayed so far from what God imagined they could be. Even in the face of danger. After all they were to tell the story of their liberation from the Egyptians, this is why they took care of the least because they were to remember.

So, Isaiah answers the call. He admits he isn't any better than anyone else in Judah, but he is willing to be sent. He is willing to speak. God reveals in the next verses that even though he speaks God's word many will still not believe. Isaiah does it anyway.

We like to think we are better than the old testament folks. We always say how cruel and brutal they were. Yet we can't admit our own fault today in ignoring the least. Those cast out by society. As we look at how many states are passing anti-trans legislation. As we watch people be told they are sinful and we don't admit our own. We are better, more holy, more right and then we forget the commands to love those marked as unclean because we ourselves are unclean.

This is at my he heart of Isaiah. It is tough language and tough to hear our own condemnation in it. We would like to be better. Yet better is not the goal. It's he heart or love which God has for all. Even those we mock, even those we don't see, even those we ignore those are the ones we are to see, to take in, to remember we are not perfect and remember they are a part of Gods family as well. Shutting them out does nothing but show how very little we have come to know the Divine love meant from the beginning of time.