A Live Coal
[The message I shared at First Friends Meeting on May 26, 2024 for Wess Daniels’s recording celebration}
Isaiah 6:1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and the hem of God’s robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above God; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of God’s glory.”
The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
Dear Friends, we're here today to celebrate the recording of Wess Daniels. And this is a cause for celebration! This recording has been a long time coming, and it is a joyous event for Wess, First Friends, and the community of Friends that surrounds him. So many people are here and joining us in spirit to celebrate this recording.
And it is not something to take lightly. Being called by God is an awesome thing, something to approach with fear and trembling. A life of ministry can be painful, as we see in the story of Isaiah. At the center of the story is Isaiah recounting of how the seraph approached him holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar. He say the seraph touched his mouth with live coal to prepare him for this ministry
As I worked with this text this week in preparation for Wess's recording celebration, images of fire have come to me. This seems fitting for a Quaker recording: Early Friends believed that it was necessary to be purified by the Refiner's Fire. For these Friends, the Refiner’s Fire was part of looking to the Light of Christ within. This Inner Light would illuminate the ways that we resist God.
Margaret Fell said to friends, that God's presence “is a Consuming Fire to all that is not of [God].” This sounds like it might be painful, and it is! We believe as Friends that God may speak to or through any of us, and this refining fire is part of the preparation for that call.
The story of Isaiah in this passage has a lot to say about how God calls people. This is a classic prophetic call narrative.
Traditionally, a prophet’s call includes a divine confrontation, an introductory word, a commission, an objection, reassurance, and a sign. We see these elements in Isaiah's call. He has an encounter with God, sitting on a throne. The seraphim provide the introductory word, singing about God's holiness. Isaiah objects, saying, I am a man of unclean lips. The sign comes from the seraph touching the coal to Isaiah's lips.
Then when God asks, Whom shall I send? Isaiah is able to answer the call, saying, Here am I; send me!
Wess Daniels has also received a call from God. I said at the beginning that this recording has been a long time coming: Wess has been in ministry among friends for 24 years. And his call came before that.
When Wess was in high school, he heard an audible voice during a worship service, saying, "I want you to become a pastor."
Wess's response was immediate and clear: "No way. Absolutely not. Not interested. No thank you!"
Wess also bargained with God. He said, “You have to make me want to do this, but if you do, I will do it.” And that's exactly what happened. Over time, Wess felt himself being drawn to pastoral ministry. His heart had changed and he wanted to become a pastor.
Feeling called to ministry and being recorded are two entirely different things. When I have told people that Wess was in the recording process at First Friends, the immediate response has been, "He's not already recorded?”
Wess initially started the recording process when he and Emily were living in Canton, Ohio. He was pastoring at an Evangelical Friends Church there from 2000-2003. The yearly meeting Wess started this process with was Evangelical Friends Church – Eastern Region.
This yearly meeting had a top-heavy approach to recording. They wanted to make sure that their (predominantly male) pastors were on the same page theologically.
Wess got through the first year of the process. But he found that there was a growing division between himself and the yearly meeting because he was openly calling himself a Quaker and drawing on Friends’ teaching.
When Wess decided to go to Fuller Seminary, his recording committee put the recording process on hold. They said, "We don't know if you will come back and if you do, we don't know what state you will come back in."
The next time that Wess was in the recording process was while serving as pastor of Camas Friends Church in Camas, Washington from 2009-2015. In the spring of 2014, Wess said yes to officiating the first same-sex wedding in the Northwest Yearly Meeting. This was an Evangelical Yearly Meeting known for its anti-LGBTQ stance
Wess’s “yes” was affirmed by the elders of Camas Friends, but yearly meeting leadership saw it as a "shattering." So his recording process could not go forward in that yearly meeting.
In 2015, Wess and his family moved again, this time to Greensboro. Wess started a new chapter of his ministry at Guilford College as the Director of Friends Center
When pastors preach on this passage in Isaiah, they usually end where I did today, with God asking who to send and Isaiah saying, “send me”
It feels good to end there, inspiring, right? And it means that we don't have to grapple with what comes next.
God tells Isaiah to say to the people, Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.
And when Isaiah asks, How long, O Lord? God responds, Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate.
This goes on until only a stump remains, and the holy seed is its stump.
This is a difficult message! And it makes sense that the prophets weren't very popular when they said things like this.
Wess has also felt called to give difficult messages, whether it is acting in defiance of yearly meeting leadership or speaking truth to power at Guilford.
The necessity of death has been central to his message to Friends, echoing the words of Jesus in John 12:24: Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Wess made this prophetic statement: “Our commitment to protect and police the boundaries of Quakerism has led to a loss of the very center of our tradition.” He added that we must be “committed to the living and present Christ among us at all costs,” even the death that leads to new life.
You may be wondering at this point if I think that Wess has a prophetic call. In churches and seminaries, we sometimes differentiate between pastoral or priestly vocations and prophetic calls. But this passage in Isaiah shows us that the two are not as separate as we might think.
Although this is a prophetic call, the vision takes place in the temple. The singing and the incense are part of a worship service. Wess has felt called to pastoral ministry and he has been called to prophetic words and actions. One thing we know for sure is that God may call us to unexpected places! And Wess has been faithful in following that call.
So this is the third time that Wess has been in a recording process, and I guess third time’s the charm! It's a recording remix, to use one of Wess's favorite terms. And Wess is not the only one saying yes to this call.
You, the people of First Friends Meeting and Friends in the surrounding community, have also been faithful in listening and discerning Wess’s call to ministry. By recording him, you are saying that you have observed his ministry and found it to be fruitful. You are pledging to provide support and accountability for Wess as he continues in ministry.
And you are declaring the kind of people you want to be: people who support and blow on the coals of ministry.
We have been in a time among Friends where many Friends do not support ministers. Friends have been good at saying no to those who rise up in ministry, telling ministers that they have the wrong politics, or gender, or orientation.
I believe we're coming to the end of this time of failing to support ministry.
Early Friends felt the fire of the Holy Spirit in them and among them, and that fire is still available to us now. We see it in our friend Wess, and in First Friends Meeting.
I give thanks to God for the live coal that you are nurturing into a flame. Know that there are many who are watching you and who will help carry this flame forward.
Amen
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Sources
Marcelle Martin, The Refiner’s Fire
C. Wess Daniels, As The Seed Falls: Building a Generative, Convergent Quakerism
Gene M. Tucker, “Isaiah,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Volume IV, 226-231 (2015)
Photo by Andrey Andreyev on Unsplash