Do you ever get nervous in church? I don’t mean nervous like the people in the Lyle Lovett song who get worried when the preacher yaks too long. I mean nervous as in “Not safe.” I get nervous in church sometimes, and not just because I have to perform. I’ve been hurt before. I never know what somebody might say to me that could keep me up all night. I suppose that’s normal for most people in the places where they work. Maybe it’s normal for all human gatherings from families to football games, but you just don’t expect to be hurt at church, you know?

I’ve had it easy compared to some. I know a few of you have had some terrible things happen to you in church, of all places. We had a woman visit here several years ago told me, “I love you people. You’re what a church ought to be. But I won’t ever be back. You see, it smells like a church in here: the hymnals, the different perfumes people wear, the candles…. Just walking in here brought back such painful memories for me from when I was young, I got sick to my stomach. I left religion behind a long time ago, and as much as I like your church, it’s just too painful to me to come back.”

A lot of people don’t feel safe in any church because of what God’s people have done to them, and that’s a shame. I think, of all places, the church ought to be a place where every person can feel safe from abuse, whether physical, emotional, sexual or verbal. You may not know, we have a safety team who quietly and gently stroll through the building on Sundays while we are here to be sure the property will be safe for everyone who comes. Most churches do, but of course, they can’t control what we say and do to each another. That must come from a mutual relationship of love and trust and the great care we take intentionally to support one another. We must always remember many of our congregants have been hurt and are still sensitive, and out of affection for one another and gratitude for the grace we have received we must be especially careful with the words we choose and the way we use them.

We can patrol the hallways and set a guard on our lips, we can be sensitive to each other and especially caring, but there is another danger in the church we cannot avoid because it’s intrinsic to being church. It arises by the very nature of what we come here to do. I am talking about the danger of encountering God when we gather to worship. I remember a meeting in my office with some leaders from our Open Circle group a year or two after we took the stand to be a welcoming and affirming congregation. David Stahl said, “We want our church to be safe for everybody!” I almost levitated from my chair. “The church is not safe!” I insisted. I was almost shouting. “Don’t ever say our church is safe!” Of course, he was thinking of our need to be safe from each other, and from those people who use God’s name to abuse God’s children. But I was thinking of the story of Uzzah, who touched the ark of the Lord’s presence without permission and fell down dead (1 Sam 6:6-7). I was thinking of the warning in Hebrews 10:31: “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!” I was thinking of Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And I was thinking of Bible stories like the ones we hear today where an encounter with God changed a person’s life forever.

Isaiah the priest comes to lead worship at the Temple on an ordinary Sabbath. It’s like every other Sabbath, well, except good King Uzziah has died recently, and the death of a King is always a tight passage. It means the surrounding nations are sure to raid across the borders, to test the strength, the abilities, the resolve of the new leader. Everyone is wondering how capable the next King will be and feeling a little insecure. So Isaiah probably comes to the Temple that day a bit preoccupied with politics. But otherwise, it’s just another sleepy Sabbath in God’s house and he begins to go through the motions of the liturgy just as he has on a hundred other Sabbaths, not expecting anything unusual to happen, not expecting anything much to happen at all.

Suddenly, everything changes. In a moment of – is it sight or insight? - Isaiah sees Yahweh, God of the Hebrews, the Lord of hosts, enthroned in splendor. Isaiah always believed God was present in the Temple. Everybody believed that. But they could not see God with their eyes. This day, Isaiah’s eyes are opened. He sees the Lord “high and lifted up.” God is so big, so majestic, the mere hem of God’s robe fills the wholeTemple. Angels hover, crying out “Holy!” “Holy!” “Holy!” like some kind of cosmic warning buzzer. The earth shakes and smoke fills the Temple and Isaiah freaks out. “Oh my God!!” he says. “I’m toast! I’m a trash talker hanging with trash talkers and I just saw God Almighty with my own two peepers. I’m gonna go blind! My tongue’s gonna fall out! I’m gonna die!” One of the angels with a pair of tongs flaps over and grabs a hot coal from the altar – their altars had live coals on them – touches it to Isaiah’s mouth. We don’t know if he wants to purify his speech or just get him to shut up, but s-s-s-s-s-st! The angel says, “It’s okay; you’re forgiven.”

The story is an outline of what always happens in authentic worship whether you label it “liturgical,” “traditional,” “contemporary,” or “emergent,” whether you sit in an ornate sanctuary with soft music playing on the pipe organ and incense slowly rising to the roof or stand in an old a-frame shack and clap your hands to the beat of a honky-tonk piano. In worship we meet God. And when we meet God the first thing we naturally feel is terror. We recognize God’s majesty and our fragility. We realize God’s holiness and our sinfulness. We feel God’s love and our selfishness. And we are afraid. But with this awe, with this reverence, with this holy terror – and not without it – and never before it – we experience grace. We are not consumed. We are not destroyed. We are forgiven. We are restored. This is the experience of true worship Isaiah had on that ordinary Sabbath long ago.

But that is not the end of worship. It’s not just about grace, y’all. It’s also about calling, and that is why I say this God we meet here is so dangerous we ought to be hanging “Caution: Beware of God” signs all over the building. After he sees God, after he feels God’s majesty and holiness, after he feels his insignificance and sinfulness, after he is forgiven and restored, Isaiah hears a voice. He hears a voice louder than the angel’s, big as the sky, thundering out across the Temple: “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” And then, silence…. A deafening silence…. Isaiah says, “I, uh…I’m here… uh, send me!” And from that day on the priest becomes the prophet, speaking truth to power, speaking the word of the Lord to Kings, and his life is never the same. All of this, on an ordinary Lord’s day. And that’s why I say, this God is dangerous. This God changes lives. This God calls people and sends them on a new mission to do the work of God.

It’s not an ordinary story but it’s not all that extraordinary either. All through the Bible: this God surprises people. They’re going dully about their days when suddenly, God shows up and sends them spinning off in directions they never expected to go, doing things they never expected to do. Abraham and Sarah. Moses. Samuel. Deborah. David. Ruth. Amos. Jeremiah was just a kid. Mary was a teenager. Matthew. Peter and Andrew. James and John. Paul. None of these people started out to be a big shot superstar scripture writing Spirit guide. But one day, when they weren’t particularly expecting it, this God got hold of them, and they were never the same again. Take the story of Nicodemus who came to Jesus secretly, in the middle of the night. He didn’t expect anything dramatic, but Jesus told him he needed to be born again. See what I mean? You come into the presence of this God, there’s going to be an invitation, an exhortation, a call for you to do something or be something new that wasn’t in your original plans.

And it’s not just a Bible story. We’ve seen it happen in our own lifetime. No matter how we try to domesticate God with our doctrines and rituals, no matter how we try to institutionalize God in our sanctuaries and systems, no matter how we try to rationalize God down to our size, manage and control God as a good idea or a warm assistant to our success, this God has a way of breaking loose and wreaking havoc. Just when we think we’re in control, God takes control. Just when we’ve got everything planned, God has a different plan. Just when we think it’s safe to get near the water, God drowns us in the baptistery and raises us to new life.

I know we prefer to worship the nice God, the easy going, grace-giving, almost-nothing-ever-really-bothers-me-much bothers God. But the God we meet here is more dangerous than that, this God of the Bible. A holy God. A God of righteousness and justice. The God of “the kingdom and the power and the glory” to whom we pray. This God has the power to free an addict from the idol that’s killing him. This God can heal a marriage, hold partners to their covenant commitments. This God can lead enemies to forgive one another and become true friends. This God can change your life. And this God can call you up and send you out to places you had never planned to a work more important than the path you had chosen.

We don’t like some of the scary ways other Christians like to describe God. We don’t believe in that God. We don’t think we need to fear God because God is cruel and hateful, because God loves some and hates others. We don’t believe God gives us permission to abuse anybody in God’s name. We think God loves us each and every one of us, but that can be a pain sometimes because we have to accept the hard truth that God loves people we don’t even like. One of the reasons we need to beware of God is that God will confront our prejudices (and we all have our pet prejudices). But we also need to beware of God precisely because God loves us. And love is scary! Love is demanding. God loves us as we are but will not leave us as we are. God wants our best, our all. Such a God is not an easy friend of our every desire.

A God worth our worship is not to be taken lightly, not to be taken for granted. I know it’s easier to worship a nice god who doesn’t trouble us much, a warm, fuzzy teddy bear of a deity, mainly an idea, a projection of our own better nature who blesses whatever we want to do and says, “Have a good time!” But such a God isn’t good for much, either. Has little power. Inspires no great sacrifice. People don’t plant churches, build hospitals, face down injustice, speak truth to power, and risk their lives for a God like that. I can’t imagine why anybody would even bother to get up on Sunday morning and drive downtown to worship a God like that.

But no, the God we worship is worthy of our praise. The God we worship deserves our respect. The God we worship has the power to forgive you, heal you, help you. But you better be careful all the same. You never know what this God might ask of you. So I invite you to the Lord’s table today, which Paul warns us never to take lightly, because You-Know-Who meets us at this table. I invite you to participate in the grace of this God in this time and this place. But watch out. This God might just change your life for good. So come to the table, if you dare. May we pray?

O Lord, On this ordinary Sunday morning we gather at the supper of our Lord like those first disciples, not knowing what will happen next, not knowing what it will mean for us, not knowing what you might call forth from us. But we meet you here, a little nervous and very hopeful, that you might be the God we need with the power to change our lives so we might change the world in Jesus’ name. Amen.