Dan Schutte

Dan answered the knock at his door. It was his friend asking a big favor. He was planning an ordination service and wanted Dan to write a song to accompany the theme of Isaiah 6. “When do you need it?” Dan asked. His friend apologized for the short notice and said he needed it Saturday (it was already Wednesday). Dan must have a hard time saying no. Even though he was just getting over a nasty bout with the flu, he agreed to give it a try. Dan Schutte (1947-), a 31-year-old grad student at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, had long been drawn to God’s call in Isaiah 6, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” and Isaiah’s response, “Here am I. Send me.” Just the same, writing a song in a span of three days would take an act of God. Dan prayed, “God, if you want me to do this for my friend, you’re going to have to help me.” He was still making last-minute changes when he took the song to his friend the night before the ordination. Dan still had doubts about whether the song was worth the effort. Dan’s friend and the congregation responded enthusiastically. The following summer, Dan and a group of Jesuit singers gathered to record the song. Dan’s original refrain differed slightly: “Here I am, Lord. Here I stand, Lord. I have heard you calling in the night.” His fellow Jesuits gently let him know that Isaiah’s response to God’s call in the song seemed overly confident and self-assured. Sure, Isaiah answered the call, but he also expressed shock that God would choose such an unworthy candidate, “Woe is me. I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips” (Is. 6.5). But he knew his friends were right, so he changed the second phrase into a question, “Is it I, Lord?” The song alternates between God speaking the verses and Isaiah answering in the refrain. This same God who created “sea and sky” (verse 1), “snow and rain” (verse 2) and “wind and flame” (verse 3) is also the One who hears “people cry” (verse 1), who bears “people’s pain” (verse 2) and “tend[s] the “poor and lame” (verse 3). The 1981 hymn, “Here I am, Lord,” has crossed the great divide line between Protestants and Catholics. We all seek to be people who answer God’s call: