“Lessons Taught, Lessons Caught: Thanks be to God for Metaphors”

“Lessons Taught, Lessons Caught:

Thanks be to God for Metaphors”

Fifth Sunday of Epiphany, Year C, February 9, 2025 rm

Isaiah 6:1-13        Luke 5:1-11

First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho

Pastor Andy Kennaly

To share experience is a very difficult art, because one experience cannot be replicated or taken in exactly the same way by those who receive what is shared. The best we can come up with to help express, for example, aspects of God, qualities of God we’ve experienced in our lives, is by using metaphor, analogies, and story. It’s one thing to try and talk about God, as if God is an object, separate and observable, and another thing to share our experience of God, which gets closer to the reality that God is Subject and not object.

The people who wrote the books which now form what we call The Bible knew this well, and the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament utilize narrative as a tool to not only communicate through story the what, but more importantly the who and the why. Often, the story is not literal, actual, or historical, but a literary device used to communicate larger truths or deeper wisdom.

We can glean for ourselves the idea behind our answers to the question of what different does it make as we read stories that have echoed through the ages, narratives that point to God’s grace as they catch people at different levels of understanding and interpretation.

We come alongside the prophet Isaiah, and he says he saw, that is, he has a vision from the entrance of the Temple near the altar of burnt-offering. As he enters the Temple in Jerusalem the veil is pulled back, not in terms of a curtain, but in terms of being able to see divine glory beyond the physical realm of our experience on Earth.

This vision is given to Isaiah in the year King Uzziah dies, probably around 759 BCE. Commentators really enjoy commenting on this passage as they share information, such as how Isaiah lives through the last 20 years of Uzziah’s reign, which is very showy with a materialistic focus, yet inward corruption is common. Some scholars suggest that for over 50 years, Uzziah is king, and the country is powerful, militarily successful, and industrious. Others point out that Uzziah profanes the holiness of the Temple, and is likely in the process of dying from leprosy. There’s a sub conversation about whether he dies physically, or socially in terms of simply being cast out from power as mainstream society rejects him because of his disease; dying to the world, so to speak. For Isaiah, after such a long, politically stable and prosperous time, some point out that it is natural for society to wonder what its future holds when its leaders become corrupt and compromised.

We’re given a vision of a throne, in the Temple, High and Lofty, like royalty lifted above the common people. Some commentators say the high and lofty phrase refers to the throne, not the Lord, while other commentators say it’s not the throne, but God who is above all creatures. Others Christianize this Hebrew Scripture, saying this is the exalted Christ, after the humiliation on Earth. Lots of variations, many interpretations are possible, some more informed than others!

Also, the word, Temple has a quality, or character to it, which equates the palace of the great King of kings. Instead of Yahweh or Jehovah, the names for God used earlier, here the name, Adonai, carries a royal quality.

As God sends Isaiah to the people, instructions are given, which can also be interpreted on different levels of meaning. “Go and say to this people: ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.’ God tells Isaiah to “Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, or listen with their ears, or comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.”

On one hand, the people are used to looking around and seeing prosperity, sensing security, hearing how good things are. Those messages are to be released because they are not ultimate. Also, as the Babylonians come from the north and bring destruction, the people will see devastation and hear messages that strip them of their humanity as they are killed or enslaved. As they lose everything, this is also to be released, because their pain is not what defines them. What Isaiah is told to share, and how he is supposed to share it involve a geopolitical awareness, a social aspect, and a religious identity.

There is another way of looking at these verses: through a stance of prayer.  These instructions are also very similar to the practice of Centering Prayer, of contemplation, and learning the art of letting go as one becomes more familiar with seeing without your eyes, seeing through the eyes of the heart as an organ of spiritual perception. Closing your eyes and ears, this is an invitation to go inward; dulling your mind, this is another way of saying release your thoughts.

The same is true for that closing image of everything becoming destroyed: cities in waste without inhabitants, land desolate, everyone sent away, far away, only a vast emptiness in the midst of the land. Even the small remaining terebinth shall be burned.  A terebinth is a type of tree like a pistachio tree and cashew tree, which was a source of turpentine, so it would likely burn very well. The other images show the oaks cut, with only a stump remaining. Oaks are sturdy and strong, hardwood that grows very slowly, and yet they are cut and gone, and “the holy seed is its stump,” for the holy is found deep within. On the one hand, this is what happens when the Hebrew people are hauled off into exile and their cities and farms destroyed as the Babylonians invade, plunder, enslave, or kill. On the other hand, once again, this is a spiritual assessment of removing all distraction as you focus on what is most essential, the inward seed of God’s Presence. What seems like nothing is actually spaciousness filled with promise, with a core of divinity that cannot be destroyed.

In Luke the disciples leave everything and follow Jesus. This story of fishing on the Lake of Gennesaret, which is another name for the Sea of Galilee, which is a freshwater lake in Israel 700 feet below sea level. The invitation of Jesus has imagery built right in of going deeper, which is also a metaphor pointing into our hearts. Peter has excuses, he skims along the surface for so long, afraid that his sin is a limiting factor in experiencing Christ in his midst, and yet we see messages of encouragement, “Put out into the deep waters, and let down your nets for a catch,” and also “Do not be afraid.”

Contemplation is another name for experiential faith.  As we meditate or pray, we do what Isaiah says, we turn and are healed. To live a contemplative life is to practice the Presence of God in and through all things. We too can learn that our true identity is not our pain, not our wounds, not our suffering; our call is not toward despair but promise, not filled with fear, but transformed through reverence, awe, and wonder. We are called to go deep, to trust that in the depths of life and soul we meet God, who abundantly loves us.

We still need to deal with geo-political situations, such as a whole list of things from climate change and the warmest January in recorded history after the hottest year on record, to nuclear weapons and militarization; these along with the standard seductions of prosperity and the obscurities of corruption. Martin Luther King, Jr. labeled the top three issues to face in America as materialism, militarism, and racism. Like Isaiah going to the Temple for solace, we too, have many things that seem foreboding in our world, both on a grand scale and in our own lives.

As Jesus invites us into a Larger mind, a deeper Consciousness, the active Presence of Love, we are invited to allow God room to work, to transform our hearts and change our vision in ways that shape our actions from a stance that is grace-filled and Christ-centered. We come alongside the Psalmist who says in Psalm 138, “I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart.”

There are many lessons taught in the Bible, but even better, there are many lessons caught in our lives as we give ourselves to follow Jesus. Thanks be to God for metaphors, for the Bible, for ancient stories which point beyond themselves to share lessons, of life held in God’s grace and glory. As we learn to let go of all that distracts us from God’s Presence, may we be filled with grace for the journey, and hope like Isaiah found as he discovers God’s throne room is all the Earth and we can live with joy. Thanks be to God, and may God be glorified, NOW, even as forever. Amen.