Here Am I, Send Me

“‘The swiftest horse cannot overtake a word once spoken’…. A Chinese saying … take it to heart.” So begins Tom Gordon’s story about Georgina, a student in Mr. Bannerman’s English class.1 The students all called Mr. Bannerman “Proverb Professor,” because of his frequent use of proverbs to drive home his counsel to them. That day, the subject was gossip. On other days Professor Proverb had expressed gratitude for a volunteer (“One volunteer is worth two pressed men”), noted when the class arrived at a similar conclusion from different starting points (“All roads lead to Rome”), or announced a new topic in the syllabus (“There is one thing stronger than all the armies of the world; and that is an idea whose time has come”). Often he would challenge the students to search out the origin of a proverb. Of course, his advice went in one ear and out the other for most of the students, including Georgina.

Until the day that Georgina learned she had done badly in the practice exams for the A-levels, the final exams needed in the UK for high school graduation and university entrance. There were surely extenuating circumstances, but even so Georgina dreaded the proverbs Mr. Bannerman would fling at her (“‘You’ve made your bed, so you can lie in it’ … English – 16th century,…”; or “‘Sow much, reap much; sow little, reap little… Chinese’ – you understand what I’m getting at?”). She nervously stepped into his office. To her surprise Mr. Bannerman was sympathetic and helpful. He told her about someone who had visited a wise teacher. “You have to be born again,” the teacher had said. The visitor didn’t get it: he knew that no one could be born again physically. “No,” the teacher had said, “You have to be born again on the inside, you have to begin again from the inside out.” Mr. Bannerman then said to Georgina, “Of course the visitor was confused and had to go away and work it all out. And you can do the same. You can start again from the inside, you can get another chance. You’ll see. Now I know you students call me ‘Professor Proverb,’ and really, I don’t mind. I quite like it. And since I know that you were expecting a proverb, here’s one to help you remember that you can change, you can start again, ‘Fall seven times, stand up eight …’ Japanese – 7th century …”

Transformation from the inside out. As we enter the long growing season following Pentecost, today’s readings give us some clues as to how God’s transformation of us might happen. For some of us, God’s transformation begins with an overwhelming experience of God’s glory and transcendence, a mystical experience, if you will. Often such experiences happen at worship, at times and in places when we know instinctively that we are in God’s presence. Isaiah had a vision of the hem of God’s robe – about all any mortal could see of the incomprehensible, unknowable, mysterious God and survive. Utterly shattered by the experience, Isaiah was painfully aware of his own and his people’s sinfulness. In the twelfth century Hildegard of Bingen similarly experienced God’s presence in especially intense ways. Julian of Norwich, through her visions, sensed more deeply God’s love for us. Francis of Assisi was called to a life of holy poverty by a vision in the Church of San Damiano. The first time I knelt at the altar rail of an Episcopal church, I felt as if I had been struck by a bolt of lightning. A friend of mine walked into an old church, breathed in the scent of the incense that had seeped into the wood there over the centuries, and knelt down in the pew, knowing he was in God’s presence.

For others of us, God’s transformation is more gradual. In a night of confusion and doubt, we approach Jesus, but, like Nicodemus, we don’t understand what he has to say: the message seems garbled – or lost in translation! We question Jesus and hear only more riddles, then perhaps even a long speech! Perhaps we may sense that inner transformation is possible, but we’re still doubtful and confused. Yet, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we begin to work things out. Jesus’ words take root in us, gradually begin to flower, and eventually bear fruit. Both ways of transformation are common and valid. In a lifetime, many of us will experience God’s presence in both ways, perhaps more than once. For, as the designation of this Sunday as Trinity Sunday reminds us, God is transcendent, wholly mysterious other, God is incarnate Word, i.e., God with a human face, and God is Holy Spirit, God living within us. Whatever way we need to encounter God, God will come to us – of that we may be sure. And we may be sure that God’s encounter with us will produce growth and fruit.

Growth and fruit: God’s working of our transformation, whether shattering or gradual, always has a purpose. Like Isaiah and Nicodemus, we may be disoriented by our encounter with God. But, God willing, we are also reoriented and ready to be remade into God’s instruments. Isaiah’s response to God’s commission is immediate: “Who’s willing to speak for me?” God asks. Isaiah doesn’t consult a soothsayer, or his family, or his financial advisor, or his discernment committee, nor does he ponder the pros and cons of responding to God. He just blurts out, “Here am I; send me!” Some of us have had that experience: we open our mouths and say, “I’m thinking of …” and off we go, led into a merry dance by the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, perhaps we are more like Nicodemus. It took Nicodemus longer to accept God’s commission. He disappears from the story we hear this morning, but he turns up two more times in John’s Gospel, first to defend Jesus against the charges of the rest of the religious leaders, and then to anoint Jesus’ body after Jesus’ death. We don’t know Nicodemus’s fate after that, but we can guess that his life was never the same after that first conversation with Jesus. Perhaps the same is true for some of us. After our first encounter with Jesus, we know that God has called us, but the Holy Spirit has to work in us a while before we can see what our gifts and abilities are, before we can understand just what God has commissioned us to be or do.

Today we have a God-given opportunity to let God continue our transformation as Jesus’ friends and disciples. During the coffee hour we will, through a very user-friendly, non-threatening exercise, ponder our spiritual gifts and the ways in which God might be leading us. The focus of most of today’s exercise will be on our individual personal gifts. But I’d like to plant a few seeds of a different kind. I’d like us to begin thinking about our transformation as a parish community. This parish has existed in this county since at least 1841. This building has stood on this spot since 1858. What should we be offering this county? How might we be distinctive as Episcopalians in Gallia County? Yes, we have a distinctive liturgy. On May 29th, those following the Church calendar celebrated the first Book of Common Prayer, which came into use on Pentecost, June 9, 1549. Largely the work of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the Book gave the English church, and ultimately the entire English-speaking world, new offices through which clergy and laity alike could enrich their spiritual lives and felicitous translations and paraphrases of the old Latin Mass. Might God be helping us to transform this gift, so that we may speak more clearly twenty-first century people?

We also have a proud tradition of service and outreach. The Church of England and the Episcopal Church have long histories of serving the needy. In England, nineteenth-century “slum priests,” moved by their devotion to Jesus in the sacrament of communion, went out into the poorest neighborhoods. In the East End of London, long a working class and immigrant area, St. John’s Bethnal Green still has a lively ministry to drug addicts and prostitutes. In this country at the turn of the twentieth century, lay people like Vida Dutton Scudder founded settlement houses. Religious communities like the Community of the Holy Spirit and the Community of the Transfiguration founded schools, nursing homes, and retreat centers. Parishes in this diocese minister to the homeless, provide worship services for those in nursing homes and mental hospitals, feed the hungry, support overseas ministries, care for the earth, and advocate for the poor. This our legacy too. Yet I wonder: is God transforming our heritage of service? Might God be leading us, as Episcopalians, to some new work in Gallia County? Into what kind of a Christian community is God waiting to transform us? Where do we need to change in order to become even more effective instruments of God in this place and time?

My brothers and sisters, the good news is that God continues to work in us, through us, and among us. God continues to work God’s transforming power on us. Holy God, holy and Strong One, holy and Mighty One, You give us life, you give us love, you give us yourself; help us to give our lives, our love, and ourselves to you. Amen.2

1. "Starting Over," With an Open Eye (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2011), 205-08.
2. David Adam, Traces of Glory (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 1999), 82