Undone and Sent: Isaiah's Call to Fragrant Justice

He doesn't do that either. This isn't any kind of apology. Isaiah doesn't apologize. He doesn't think his actions have been exposed and hurt someone. He feels like his very self has been exposed, and he confesses. It's not apology, it's confession. He's not admitting what he's done. He's acknowledging what he is, and he's acknowledging the systems that he's part of. I am a man of unclean lips, and I am from a people of unclean lips. [00:38:38] (31 seconds)  #ConfessionNotApology

What does this mean for our reaction to injustice after injustice that is piling up in our streets? How do we see this beauty that's supposed to leave us exposed and without excuse? How do we experience that loving gaze that covers us and restores us and invites us to free the captives, and restore the desolate places, and give voice back to the silenced. [00:46:26] (24 seconds)  #GazeThatRestores

In Isaiah's vision, god's glory spilled out of the inner sanctum and filled the temple and shook its foundations. But at the day of Jesus' crucifixion, the curtains in the temple that held God's glory in ripped apart and let it out, and the whole earth shook. Isaiah just saw a vision of God's glory, a vision of God's gaze, and it put a commission on his life to turn an abusive society into something that is more pleasing to God. [00:49:23] (32 seconds)  #GloryForSocialChange

And then God tells him, depending on your translation, that his iniquities are forgiven, or his sin is purged. Most translations say forgiven, or atoned, or purged. The Hebrew word literally is covered, like the Seraphim are covered by their wings. Isaiah felt exposed like humanity in the garden after the fall, and God being rich in mercy and love covered him. [00:42:29] (27 seconds)  #CoveredInMercy

So right here at the start, Isaiah's vision begins with the thing that the temple is supposed to just be hinting at or symbolizing, or the thing the temple is supposed to just be giving him and his people a vague sense of suddenly being made plain, and literal, and real, and full right in front of him. And Isaiah's immediate reaction to this isn't to celebrate it. It isn't to say, like, oh, I'm so lucky to see this. He says, woe to me. I am undone. [00:33:50] (32 seconds)  #UndoneByGlory

When Isaiah, a man of fairly high position, a court historian, a man with access to kings, a man who sees the excesses of the new aristocracy around him, and probably avoids adding to it, who probably feels good about keeping his own hands clean in this environment. When he sees the king of heaven, all of his pretenses, and his knowledge and his skill and his accomplishments and his self congratulations fall away. Compared to this, his lips are as unclean as anyone else's. Isaiah sees the glory of God, and he has nothing to say for himself or for his people. [00:36:52] (41 seconds)  #StrippedOfPrestige

He doesn't even offer a good apology, the kind you give to people you really care about when you've hurt or upset them, the kind where you kind of admit what you did, and you take ownership of it, and you apologize for doing it, and you acknowledge the effect that it had on the other person, and you listen to what they have to say about what what you did did to them, and then you commit to better behaviors toward them in the future, whether they let you back in or not. [00:38:10] (29 seconds)  #OwnershipOverExcuses

Isaiah rolls into this chapter with a lot of reasons to feel better about himself than he does about the people around him. A lot of reasons to maybe even feel self righteous in the face of injustice. But here, we see that beholding God, beholding something real and solid, not this flesh that melts away, brought him to a place of utter humility and utter humiliation. The very things he was proclaiming against others half a chapter ago, woe to you, he has to turn back against himself now and say, woe to me. He's undone, but he's also restored. [00:39:09] (44 seconds)  #BeholdAndBeHumbled