February 9, 2014
Isaiah 58:1-9
“Here I Am”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
Several years ago a member of the congregation gave me a gift of an old book that bears in it a whole lot of the history of the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton. The book is the pulpit edition of the 1933 Presbyterian hymnal (the hymnal intended to be kept here and used by the preacher). It is signed by Charles Erdman and with his inscription he presents the pulpit hymnal to the church in May of 1934. The history tells that May of 1934 was when Dr. Niles was installed as the pastor to follow Dr. Erdman. So you see, it is the 1933 pulpit hymnal given by Charles Erdman to the church in May of 1934 for Frank Niles to use as he began his ministry. The most interesting part of the book, however, is that in 1960 Mary Krimmel, the organist and director of music, marked all the hymns with margin notes and dates they were sung in worship. 1960 was when Dr. Meisel came to be the pastor. So one can conclude that Mary Krimmel marked the pulpit hymnal to assist the new pastor in picking hymns.
The margin notes included a scale of familiarity to the congregation: FF fairly familiar, F familiar, Q quite familiar, N not familiar. But Mary Krimmel provided a second note, a scale of rating the hymn; 1 “what joy”, 2 “ok”, 3 “must we?” , 4 “oh no!. So, the fun ones to find, are the ones the congregation knew very well that Mary Krimmel didn’t like. For instance, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” is marked F for familiar, and 3 for “must we?” “Abide with Me” Q for quite for familiar, 3 for “must we?” To be fair, I had to look harder through the hymnal for a 4, “Oh no!” But I found one marked Q for quite familiar and 4 for “oh no!” “I need Thee, O I need Thee, Every hour I need thee…”
So I share this pulpit hymnal and all its commentary as I stand before you because I am going to boldly confess to you I have some “oh no” and “must we?” hymns too. One of them is the hymn “Here I am, Lord”. I know, I know, many people love it; especially at ordinations. “Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if you lead me, I will hold your people in my heart.” There is an odd voicing to the hymn. The verses are sung from the perspective of God’s voice and the refrain is the one being called by God. The hymn communicates a rather emphasized or pronounced, I would say uncomfortable sense of self with a theology of call not much experienced these day. “Here I am Lord. I heard you calling in the night!” And the tune, well Noel ruined that for me a long time ago when he pointed out it sound a lot like the theme from the Brady Bunch. So to use the language of a judge on American Idol, “it’s a no for me.”
The scripture text behind “Here I am Lord” is the call of Isaiah, from the 6th chapter. That text tells of the seraph touching the prophets lips with a live coal as the voice of the Lord says “whom shall I send and who will go for us?” And Isaiah responds “Here I am; send me!” Here I am. Fast forward, then to the 58th chapter of Isaiah, and the phrase comes back. The words, they ring a bell. Here I am. But this time, it’s not the prophet talking, It is God. “Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help and the Lord will say, “Here I am.” Well, that’s a different hymn all together, isn’t it?
Shout out! Do not hold back! Lift your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Day after day they see me…as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God…”Why do we fast but you don’t see, O God? Why humble ourselves but you don’t notice?”….Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and you oppress your workers. You fast, only to quarrel and fight. Is this what I the Lord, choose? Is this the religious practice I want, the spiritual disciplines I call for, the piety I expect? A day to humble yourself, a day to bow the head, a day to dress for repentance, clothing yourself with sackcloth and ashes, a day to wear your Sabbath finest? How can you be so concerned about looking religious when there are people in your community who are hungry? How can you take such a posture of worship all the while casting seeds of bitterness amongst yourselves? Why are you so concerned with public displays of piety, and posted tablets of the tradition, and prayer in public places when so many people are poor? How can you go through the motions of worship when people are suffering?”
“Is this not the fast I choose; to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” Your own kin. The naked, the homeless, the hungry, the working poor, people of a different class, the refugee, the single parent child, the one trying to survive on minimum wage, the illegal immigrants, Part of your own family. You can’t hide from your own kin.
In the midst of such devotion, where piety has legs, where worship gives birth to a ceaseless care of the other, where worshippers serve as midwives of the very kingdom of God, in in the midst of such devotion, right then in your worship, the promise is that God will go ahead of you and God will go behind. When you call upon the Lord, the Lord will answer. When you cry for help, the Lord will say “Here I am.” So remove the yoke of selfishness that hangs among you, shatter that idol that convinces you that worship is about what you get out of it, or how you feel, or what you like and don’t like. Stop pointing the finger at what you think is wrong with the community or with the world or with “them”, so easily speaking of evil in others different than yourselves. Instead, offer food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, attend to the hurting and speak for those long silenced and reach out to the dying and lift up the trampled and advocate for those who have little chance. And when you need help with that, when you do that, when your life together is about that, then you call out, you cry out, then, I will say here I am, says the Lord! Here I am, that Here I am, Q for quite familiar, and 1 for what joy.
When a candidate is ordained to be a teaching elder, a minister, in the Presbyterian Church, the order of worship calls for someone to give a charge to the ordinand. Such a charge is a sending of sorts into the ministry of Jesus Christ. Typically it includes scripture and often comes from someone a bit weathered with the experience of ministry. Usually the charge comes right before everyone sings “Here I am, Lord.” there ought to be such a charge when new members are received; a charge when folks older than infants are baptized, a charge at confirmation. Sending and sending, sending the priesthood of all believers into the ministry of Jesus Christ. And instead of singing, “Here I Am Lord,” we ought to sing the Lord’s Here I am.
You remember at the very end of Matthew’s Gospel, the Easter story in Matthew, when the angel appears to the women at the tomb. “Do not be afraid, I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. He has been raised. Come and see and then go quickly and tell. And tell them he is going ahead of you to Galilee.” When the Risen Christ greet them, he told them “Don’t be afraid, go and tell them to go to Galilee. I will see them there.” In Galilee; Galilee were so much of the ministry of Jesus happened. Go to the place of ministry and I will see you there. Go to the place of your ministry, the resurrected One has gone before you. Go, in your servant hood, in your ministry, in your witness, you will see and experience the presence of Christ. There, there, God will say, “Here I am”
The baptismal waters; our anointing and our charge, our sending, the waters roll down the steps and the aisles, carrying you right out to the streets. For at your baptism you were ordained to the priesthood of all believers, commissioned to a life of service in God’s name, and in response to the love of Jesus Christ. And this, this is who we are and our worship life, it never stops here. Our roots are firmly planted in our delight in the Lord, and our reach of compassion, it is the very reach of Christ. We believe in the God who gave us life. The God who expects the hungry to be fed and the poor to be cared for and the oppressed to be set free. The God who forever sanctified such acts of compassion and the work of justice and the call for righteousness. God sanctified such servanthood in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus, who healed the sick, and cradled the children, and touched the outcast, and knelt down with the sinner, and ate with those everyone hated, and embraced the grieving, and challenged the rich and threatened the powerful.
Q for quite familiar and 1 for what joy. You and I, we, are mid-wives of the kingdom of God in our midst; called to a life of worship that forever redefines piety. That’s who we are. God is calling you to be the hands and the feet and the face of Christ. And when we need help with that, when we are about that, when this is all about that, God says, “Here I am.”
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