A ten year old boy and his eight year old brother were constantly getting into trouble. Their parents were at their wits’end. In desperation, they decided to take their boys to see the minister. The minister asked if he could talk to the boys separately. The eight year old boy was called into the minister’s study first. The minister looked him straight in the eyes and asked, “Young man, do you know where God is?” The boy’s eyes widened, but he made no reply. Raising his voice a little, the minster asked him a second time, “Do you know where God is?” The boy’s eyes widened further, but again he made no reply. Exasperated by his silence, the minister shook his finger and said forcefully, “Young man, do you know where God is?” At this, the boy jumped up, bolted from the room, ran down the hall and out the door with his older brother in hot pursuit. The two of them ran all the way home, climbed into a closet, and shut the door. In the darkness, the older boy asked his younger brother, “What happened in there?” The eight year old answered, his voice trembling, “God is missing, and they’re blaming it on us!”

          Could it be that God is missing - in our lives, our homes, our society, even in our churches - and that we, church members, and especially ministers, are somehow responsible? I don’t mean that God has gone away, but that we have forgotten God, ignored God, and gone about our business without reference to God, as if we were on our own.

          Many of you will remember the headline in the Herald a couple of weeks ago: “Taking God out of the United Church.” If you didn’t read the article, you might have thought that the United Church is considering a motion that we remove all reference to God from our Creed and Manual. Let me assure you that this is not the case, thank God! Kathy McKay, Don Church and I attended the Annual Meeting of  Maritime Conference last weekend, and I think they would agree with me that God is alive and well in the United Church.

          The article was about an unorthodox United Church minister, Gretta Vosper, who has written a book called With or Without God: The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe. She is eager to welcome into the church people who have no faith background, and feels that the name “God” scares people away. I think we’re all eager to welcome people who have no faith background into our churches, but it doesn’t make sense to stop talking about God in church so as to make them feel comfortable. The apostle Paul talked about becoming “all things to all people” in order that he “might by all means save some,” but I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean ceasing to speak about God. I think it’s important that we continually re-think and re-imagine our concept of God, and that we use many names for God, “Mother “ or “Parent” as well as “Father,” “Holy One,” “Life-Giver,” “Great Mystery.” But church is about God, and the main business of the church is to keep referring people toward God.

          Emerging Spirit is an initiative of The United Church of Canada aimed at reaching out to Canadians aged 30 - 45 who are not currently part of any faith community. Emerging Spirit research has shown that many in this age group are longing for God. I quote from the Emerging Spirit Journal, Living the Welcome: “The thirst of those who may be willing to enter ... into conversation with us is not for a gathering of nice people or a tidy theoretical framework for life.. They seek a witness to where God may be found. ... The questions are basic: Can you tell me where I might find God? ... Can you tell me of a time when God found you?”

          Today is Trinity Sunday, a day on which we are invited to ponder the mystery of God, and reflect on all the different ways in which we know God. We know God as Creator, Source of life. We know God as One who came among us in Christ. We know God as the Spirit that blows through us and through the world. Today we will focus on the first lectionary reading, from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. This reading was chosen for Trinity Sunday for two reasons. First, because of the threefold doxology, “‘Holy, holy, holy,’” which is the refrain we say as part of the Great Thanksgiving Prayer before communion. And second, because God speaks in the first person plural: “‘who will go for us?” In our reading from the 6^th chapter of Isaiah, the prophet tells of his life-changing encounter with the living God. He describes how he found God, or rather how God found him.

          Isaiah goes to the temple one night to worship. As he stands in the darkened chancel, peering through the portals of the smoke-filled sanctuary, toward that innermost chamber called “the holy of holies,” he sees a vision of God. Now I don’t think scripture is saying that this is what God looks like. This is a  vision. In his imagination, Isaiah sees God enthroned as High King of heaven. Above the throne he sees the seraphim, flaming beings of light. Trembling with holy terror, he hears them singing hymns of praise, proclaiming the utter holiness of God and God’s glory which shines throughout the world, revealed to those who have eyes to see. Their thunderous song echoes throughout the temple, causing the very foundation stones to shake. Then the place is filled with holy smoke, and the vision of God is obscured. It was only a fleeting moment, but in that moment, God revealed Godself to Isaiah, and Isaiah knew that he stood in the very presence of God, the Holy One, ruler of creation.

          “God reveal your presence,” we just sang. And I believe that deep in our hearts we long for God to reveal God’s presence to us. We hunger and thirst for God; we yearn to experience God’s presence. And that is why we keep coming to church, Sunday after Sunday, even though only one in five Canadians regularly attend any place of worship on a weekly basis. Not long ago someone said to me, “I come because I feel close to God here.” We come to church not just to see our friends and neighbours, not just to sing our favourite hymns, not just to hear some good advice about how to live. We come not even just because we want to know more about God. We come because we want to know God: not just to understand the concept of God, who is beyond human understanding anyway, but to experience God; not just to hear about God, but to hear God. And do you know what? In a book I started reading called Beyond the Worship Wars: Building Vital and Faithful Worship, Thomas Long says that is what worship is about: “worship is what happens when people become aware that they are in the presence of the living God. .... ...at the heart of worship is an encounter with the living God....”

          The good news of today’s reading from Isaiah is that there is a God who is living and real, a God who wants to encounter us even more than we want to encounter God; a God who is seeking us even more earnestly than we are seeking God; a God who is always striving to reveal God’s presence. In the words of writer Frederick Buechner, words that have touched my soul: “There is a God right here in the thick of our day to day lives, who may not be writing messages about deity in the stars, but who in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world.”

          As the momentary vision of God is obscured by the smoke, Isaiah suddenly becomes conscious of himself, and of the awful consequences of having seen a sight forbidden to mortals. The Hebrews believed that anyone who looked upon God would die. Having seen a glimpse of God’s glory, he is overwhelmed by the “wholly otherness” of God, and his own sense of unworthiness and sin in God’s presence. In the darkness that engulfs him, he cries out his confession: “‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips....’”

          In the presence of God, the “Wholly Other One,” we realize our own sinfulness. We become personally aware of the truth that “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Sin is not just the bad things we say and do, but the good we fail to do. It means failing to be the people God created us to be; falling short of God’s purpose for our lives.

          One day a friend of writer C. S. Lewis commented that some of the atheists he knew were some of the very best people he had ever met. Lewis was unimpressed. “No wonder atheists are good people,” he retorted. “They must be good. They have to get everything right. They don’t believe in a God who forgives.”

          “The Christian life is not based upon our need, or even our possibility of getting it all right. The Christian life is based upon the forgiving, receiving, therefore emboldening and encouraging love of God in Christ,” comments Professor Will Willimon. “The Christian life is dependent upon a God who forgives, otherwise it is nothing but failure when we get it wrong, or gross self-deception when we try to lie to ourselves that we have gotten it right.”

          Isaiah’s confession is scarcely uttered before forgiveness is on the way. In his vision, one of the shining seraphs flies to him, holding a live coal from the sacred altar. Did you ever have your mouth washed out with soap because you said something bad? Imagine having your mouth scorched with fire! Isaiah imagines the seraph searing his mouth with the burning coal and offering an assurance of pardon: “‘This has touched your lips, and now your guilt is gone, and your sins are forgiven.’” Isaiah was wrong. He isn’t lost; he’s found - found by the seeking, saving love of God; purified by the transforming fire of God’s forgiving grace. Forgiven and transformed, Isaiah is able to hear the voice of God calling, “‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’” He discovers that God has a purpose for his life. No wonder his mouth had to be purified! God wants him to be God’s messenger: a voice through which God speaks, an instrument through which God works.

          God has a purpose for your life and mine. Wonder of wonders, God calls ordinary, unworthy people like you and me to be God’s messengers; to be instruments through which God can speak and act. Calling, or “Vocation is a matter of being called by God to use whatever God-given talents you possess to be a vessel of God’s grace in whatever arena God happens to place you at that moment in your life,” says Nancy Conklin who is both a lawyer and a United Church minister.. “In both arenas, the church and the law, I have been called by God to live out my core identity as an advocate for others.”

          On hearing God’s call, Isaiah replies, “‘Here am I; send me.’” He offers himself to God to be used in God’s service.

          In his book on worship, Tom Long writes: “because we belong to God, we need to join ourselves in community with others to give ourselves away to God, to offer our lives to something larger than ourselves, something that provides meaning and lets us know that our lives count for something of ultimate value. .... ...what people need is to offer themselves - their energies, their work, their play, their relationships, everything - to God. .... ...to enter life’s great sanctuary and symbolically to place themselves on the altar.”

  Sermon:        ARE YOU MISSING GOD?

 Look at the order of service, particularly the headings, in your bulletin. Today’s passage from Isaiah has helped to shape our Sunday worship. We gather as God’s people, seeking to draw near to the One who is unspeakably holy. God reveals God’s presence, and we sing of God’s glory. We confess our sin and are assured of God’s forgiveness. Then we are ready to listen to God’s word for us. Hearing God’s call, we respond by offering our prayers, our money, and ourselves to be used in God’s service. Then we are commissioned to go into the world as instruments of God’s purpose, blessed with the promise of God’s abiding presence.

          We may be missing God, but God is not missing.. God is with us and God goes with us into the world God loves. We are not alone. Thanks be to God. Amen.