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Angela Tilby: ‘Send me’ is not a call to self-fulfilment

23 June 2023

A NEW crop of deacons are starting their ministries in the next two weeks. Many of them will hear, as the first reading at their ordination service, the temple vision of Isaiah 6, with the Lord “high and lifted up”, the fiery seraphim, and the call: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

Many will earnestly and prayerfully echo the response: “Here am I, send me.” We know very little about the “Isaiah” who wrote this, although he supplies a date: “In the year that King Uzziah died”. In verses following the vision (and not usually read), the prophet is warned that his mission will be largely unsuccessful (vv.9-13).

Before the prophet is sent to preach disaster, he is separated out and purified. The burning coal cauterises his lips, and he reports himself “undone”. In today’s language, we might say that he has experienced a profound and disorientating loss of self, and it is this that sets him free to speak for God among “a people of unclean lips”. Apart from that, the prophet’s personal history is beyond our knowledge.

Those being made deacon will have been through a process of discernment and training. They will have told their personal stories many times, describing their “faith-journey”, and they will have been encouraged to become aware of their gifts and limitations.

I often hear ordinands say things such as “God told me that he wanted me because I am me”; “He wants me just the way I am.” For many, the ordination service will bring a strong sense of personal affirmation. We will, no doubt, see the familiar photos of new deacons beaming with joy, and even jumping about. I was in such a daze when I was deaconed in Ely Cathedral that I could hardly find my way back to my place. Ordination, for some, is a healing of past wounds.

Yet, I think we should be wary of interpreting “send me” as “send me.” The experience of today’s ordinands is a long way from the mysterious anonymity of Isaiah’s call, and his acceptance that his mission would fail.

As religion withers from society, we should stand apart from the sentimental individualism in which “I” and “me” indicate an autonomous self, whose preferences and boundaries are sacred in themselves. A more authentic Christian spirituality acknowledges that we progress by self-emptying humility rather than self-assertion.

The Isaiah of the temple vision was not embracing any kind of personal fulfilment. Yet, his fidelity has helped to form our faith today. Ordained life requires freedom, and freedom involves a progressive purgation of both self-pity and pride, the deadliest of sins. Rowan Williams, in a recent address at the Conference of European Churches’ General Assembly, in Tallin, Estonia, suggested that the true subjects of the Beatitudes were those who were not “prisoners” of their own stories.

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