Epiphany 5
Isaiah 6:1-13/Luke 5:1-11 

⁸ Then I heard the voice of my Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me."  ⁹ And He said, "Go, say to that people: 'Hear, indeed, but do not understand; See, indeed, but do not grasp.'  ¹⁰ Dull that people's mind, Stop its ears, And seal its eyes -- Lest, seeing with its eyes And hearing with its ears, It also grasp with its mind, And repent and save itself. I asked, “How long, my Lord?”-  Isaiah 6:8-10 (The Tanakh)   

The prophet Isaiah is a messenger of hard news.  Taken up into the divine presence, the prophet and the entire prophetic enterprise, is given authority to hear and proclaim a message of God’s purposes for God’s people. The message is not consoling, but disturbing. Those who anticipate the voice of a fretless parent will be shocked to hear instead the judgment of an almighty king. What Isaiah is given to say is haunting: instead of knowing there is only ignorance; instead of sight there is only blindness; instead of wholeness there is only fragmentation. This is what the people are to hear; this is how the people are destined to live: without the security or assurance of the God of their ancestors. Lest the people absolve themselves from their own waywardness, God instructs Isaiah in a comprehensive vision of human undoing. How long, my Lord is the only question Isaiah can muster. How long?