The prophet Isaiah saw a vision of God sitting on a throne. There were angels all around, singing God’s praises. And God’s power filled the temple and made the earth shake beneath Isaiah’s feet. And Isaiah felt completely unworthy. Isaiah felt impure, unclean, too deeply flawed to stand face to face with God. “Woe is me!” Isaiah cried. “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes now see God.” One of the angels touched a lump of coal to Isaiah’s lips. With this ritual act of cleansing, the angel proclaimed Isaiah restored, recreated, freed from the mistakes of the past. He was to no longer feel unworthy. God was reconciled with Isaiah, and God created him worthy and of infinite value. Standing face to face with God wasn’t a moment of judgment. Instead, Isaiah’s encounter with God was the moment of freedom from his own sense of shame and guilt. Once he was freed from his unworthiness, Isaiah immediately spoke up and accepted God’s call to be a prophet. Once he left behind his feelings of inadequacy, Isaiah was liberated to choose the path that God had set for him. Isaiah no longer saw himself unworthy, but important and capable of doing God’s work in the world. “Here I am; send me!” Isaiah cried.

I think it’s unfortunate that popular culture perceives churches as places of judgment. It’s sad that the church has given people good reason to dismiss the Christian community as self-righteous and full of condemnation. Churches have earned the reputation for trying to convince people that they’re sinners. There’s an old communion liturgy in our hymnal that we don’t use often anymore. And it includes a prayer that says, “We are unworthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table, O Lord.” One of my seminary professors referred to this as worm theology. This type of thinking teaches that we are to God as worms. We are dirty and distasteful, and it’s only by God’s immense grace that God can stand to allow us to continue to exist. Too often, this has been the message of the church. The church has been filled with words to convince people that they’re sinful and broken. The church has communicated to those outside our doors that they aren’t moral enough, straight enough, clean enough to merit a place in our pews. But we inside the church, with Godlike tolerance, will welcome them in order for them to see how deeply messed up they are. But I don’t think we need to convince anyone that they’re flawed. We all know the moments of courage that we’ve avoided, the acts of compassion that we’ve left undone, the expressions of kindness that we’ve failed to do because we were wrapped up in our own self-centeredness. We don’t need to convince anyone that the world’s filled with bad choices, hurtful words, hateful acts, and too often we participate in them or condone them or permit them to go unchallenged. This isn’t news that the church must convince others to accept as truth. We all know it. The hard part, the real work is in our reconciliation - in the healing of our woundedness and the restoration of our sense of self-worth. The Good News of Christ that the church was commissioned to deliver isn’t that we’re all unworthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under God’s table. That doesn’t sound like good news at all. The Good News that Christ taught us to share is that whatever we’ve done that makes us think that we’re unworthy, God sets us free from the baggage of our guilt and shame. God doesn’t heap more condemnation upon us when our own hearts condemn us for our failings. The Good News is that God sets us free to recognize the priceless treasure that we are. God liberates us from being held hostage to our shame for our past mistakes. Our Creator zeros out the columns; God restores us to balance; God reconciles us in order that we may recognize the important work that we are capable of doing. And through the hard work of reconciliation, Christ calls us to remember the unfailing love that God has promised us each step along our journey.

I recently read a story about one of the premier preachers in this country. Fred Craddock told this story about when he and his wife were on vacation, traveling through Tennessee. One night they found a quiet little restaurant, where they looked forward to a relaxing, private meal together. While they were sitting at their table waiting for their food, they noticed an old man walking from table to table, visiting with everyone. Craddock whispered to his wife, “I hope he doesn’t come over here.” But the man did come to their table, and introduced himself as Ben Hooper. And when he found out that Craddock was a teacher of preachers, he said, “Well I’ve got a story to tell you,” and he pulled up a chair and sat down at the table. He told Craddock and his wife that his mother hadn’t been married when he was born, so growing up in rural Tennessee was rough. Since he didn’t know who his father was, his classmates had a name for him, and it wasn’t a nice name. He was taunted as a child. Ben used to show up late to church and slip out early in order to avoid the judgmental stares of the others. But one day when he was about 12 years old a new preacher came to church. And this new preacher said the benediction so fast that it caught Ben off guard, and he was stuck walking out with the crowd. He felt every eye in the church staring at him, judging him, condemning him. Just as he got to the door, just before he could make a break for it, he felt a big hand on his shoulder. He looked up and saw the new preacher looking right at him. “Whose boy are you, son?” the preacher asked in that Southern way of placing a person by the family that they come from. Ben felt the old weight settling on his shoulders. He felt shamed. He couldn’t say anything. Here, even the preacher seemed to be putting him down for not having a father. But as the preacher looked down at him, the preacher began to smile a big smile of recognition. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I know who you are. I see the family resemblance. You are a child of God.” And with that he slapped him on the back and said, “Boy, you’ve got a great inheritance. Go and claim it.” After telling Craddock this story, Ben Hooper said, “That was the most important single sentence ever spoken to me.” And then he got up, shook their hands, and moved on to the next table to greet old friends.

Our job isn’t to convince anyone that they’re sinful and unworthy in the sight of God. The church’s job isn’t to condemn anyone. We can assume that people know better than we ever will the guilt and shame that they carry with them. Our job is to tell the Good News, that God will reconcile us, start us over, remind us that we are treasures sculpted by the loving hand of our Creator. We aren’t held hostage by our mistakes. We aren’t doomed to eternal guilt for the moments when we have caused harm or failed to do good. God promises to reconcile us, to return us to balance, that we may learn from the past but not allow the past to rule our future. We are valuable and beautiful, and it isn’t the certainty of our faith or the perfection of our choices that assures us our place in the family of God. Our place is assured because we’re all already part of the family of God. Our place is assured because God has called each of us to claim our inheritance, to accept the challenge to do God’s work of love in this world. We know that we belong because there’s work for us to do in order to extend mercy and show kindness and demand justice as God has called us to do. May we have the courage to set aside our feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy. May we accept the freedom and power God gives us to reject what is destructive and to claim that which is good. May we have the courage to answer God’s call boldly. “Here I am! Send me.” Amen.