Sunday, February 9, 2025
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Sent
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 Mighty One, the Supreme of all!” 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 Holy One saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me.
The silent burning coal of God’s mercy and justice awaits those who will be touched, those humble and lonely watchmen who insist on what God insists on. Or think they do. We are not, any of us, magicians to know the future, knowing what others do not. It’s God we can turn to, as best we can.
The headlines are grim.
Things do not look good for the nation;
you rightly foresee doom.
You yourself are also a mess,
a liar among liars.
Yet a hot coal of love
has singed your unworthiness away.
Now you are sent: given to this world,
your lips glowing with that grace,
to bear that forgiving flame,
to bear the love which—
to ashes with unworthiness—
chooses people.
You are sent to bear peace in the chaos,
blessing despite the riot, hope in the gloom.
Your words will not sway history;
the collapse will come. But speak
the Word of love in the time of danger,
and they will welcome your words of love
among the ruins.
Speak, then.
Don’t let the tragedy discourage you:
it’s the reason you are sent.
Amid the shouting and weeping,
proclaim in word and deed
the unrelenting gentleness of God.
You are sent into the falling darkness
to be light on the long, long path home. – Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Paul wrote to his Corinthian church soon after his visit, after he planted the church in less than fertile soil, and not long after his personal transformation on the road to Damascus.
Through this gospel you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you. For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures; that he was buried;that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
Paul carried his gospel directly from Jesus, a gospel that would transform the world … but not in Paul’s lifetime. He would lose his life like so many other martyrs in the midst of persecutions grotesque and horrifying to the Christians who stuck to their guns (not guns, they were invented by the Chinese a thousand years later). Stuck to their swords, their shields, their helmets of salvation.
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for you have heard the words of my mouth. You have made great above all things your name and your promise. All the kings of the earth shall give thanks to you, O Lord, when they hear the words of your mouth. Do not forsake the work of your hands.
Me, I move from position to position, never certain. Certainty, in fact, often seems like the only thing I must not be. Who am I to know the truth, this created one, the truth as God knows it, as God made it, as God accomplishes it? I desire not to know the moon, any moon, which only reflects what God creates, but instead to know somehow God himself, as best I can.
In the sight of your angels, I will sing your praises, Lord. By the grace of God, I am what I am.
(Isaiah 6, Psalm 138, 1 Corinthians 15, Matthew 4, Luke 5)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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