...I am, you are

We are called to be God’s prophets, speaking for the truth and right,

Standing firm for godly justice, bringing evil into light.

Let us seek the courage needed, our high calling to fulfill,

That we all may know the blessing of the doing of God’s will.

---Thomas A. Jackson, 1973

Prophet. When I see the word, my mind goes to oracles, seers, fortune-tellers, or at least future-tellers. Some guy dressed in outrageous rags with a more outrageous hair-do, straight up giving the king the business. Same dude, few days later, found tossed off the city heights or ripped limb from limb ‘under mysterious circumstances’. Is that your mental image, too? This does not sound like a highly sought-after gig, my people. 

In actuality, the word means something less spectacular, and more applicable to our lives today. A prophet is one who speaks a fresh word from God for the world. You see my meaning? We could all be called to be prophets, listening to the guidance of God as we share a fresh message of hope to the world. We could be the ones called to envision and embody the reign of Christ in the world. We could be the ones called to speak hope to despair. Strength to fear. Love to apathy. Welcome to mistrust. Plenty to scarcity.  Sound daunting? It does to me, too. But our help and courage comes from our close relatedness to Jesus and his message.

Prophets. I am, and you are. All of us are called. And family…we have these voices for a reason.

...I have been afraid

Lo! the hosts of evil round us scorn thy Christ, assail his ways!

Fears and doubts too long have bound us, free our hearts to work and praise.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of these days.

---Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1930

Careful now. Before we go seeing monsters under every bed, and bogeymen around every corner, let’s be clear-headed. When the hosts of evil scorn Jesus and his ways, what ways exactly are they disregarding? What are Jesus’ defining ways? I am going to go out on a limb here, and say that anytime you saw Jesus speak for the voiceless, stand with the invisible, lift up the lowly, welcome the outsider, or free the oppressed, it was then you were seeing the ways of Christ.

And if that be true, the hymn’s next line is put into beautiful, and perfect, and fearsome context for us. Because, my friends, I have been afraid. To speak up in the face of hate or disregard. I have doubted. Whether I was strong enough to stand up. Whether it would be worth it. Even (God forgive me) whether my stand would be fully understood and appreciated. Fears and doubts have silenced my speech and frozen me into inaction. I have not walked in Jesus’ ways.

Well, I checked, and there is no way Harry Emerson Fosdick, the prominent progressive pastor who penned this hymn, and John Mayer, popular singer-songwriter, could have been best friends. The dates just don’t line up. But, folks, let me tell you, I think they would have shared a groovy moment of synchronicity over some of their writing and personal philosophies. Because here is a verse of Mayer’s song Say:

            Even if your hands are shaking

            And your faith is broken

            Even as the eyes are closing

            Do it with a heart wide open

            Say what you need to say

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage. To say what we need to say.

...for ALL the saints

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,

Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

And hearts are brave again and arms are strong.

Alleluia!

---William Walsham How, 1864

Some weeks just wear you down. Your good intentions are misconstrued, your to-do list is filled with “didn’ts”, your best effort isn’t good enough. The half-inch or restoring rain is forgotten in months of choking drought. The dream job you studied for and fought to land has turned into the shackles and chains that threaten to drag you under with the weight of stress and pressure. The last-minute, miracle touchdown drive is replaced in memory by your opponent’s last-second pass-that-defied-logic, and you lose…again.

What keeps me coming back to this place, week after week, when the world doesn’t always make sense? It’s the song I hear in the distance, peculiar to this place---this place filled with the spirits of those gone on before, and the spirits of those in the pew next to me. The song is one of triumph; and our hearts, mine and yours, are brave again, and our arms are strong.

Just in time to tackle another week in the real world, strengthened by the song I hear in this place, among these saints.

...are we God's people?

We are God’s people, the chosen of the Lord,

born of his Spirit, established by his Word;

our cornerstone is Christ alone, and strong in him we stand:

O let us live transparently, and walk heart to heart and hand in hand.

---Bryan Jeffrey Leech, 1976

Bryan Jeffrey Leech presents, in this text, a beautiful vision of what the family of God can be. The ideal presented to us here is one worth aiming for, a glimpse of what heaven might be like. So much truth is bound up in the last line of this first verse: “Let us live transparently, and walk heart to heart and hand in hand.” The combination of these three aspirations would invigorate any church, and are worthy goals.

To walk heart to heart is to act with unity of motivation (different from a uniformity of action), to be guided by a similar vision of Christ’s call to love the world for his sake. To walk hand in hand is to meet others where they are, and to journey with them as we all grow in faith, without leaving anyone behind.

Ah, but how then would we live transparently? This would require the courage and trust to believe that others were capable of dealing with knowing your life --- your failures and fears, your hopes and dreams, your darknesses and your shinings --- and accepting you with love.

Can we dare to bare that much of ourselves? Can we care for others who do the same? Are we God’s people, or are we not?

...bound too long

Lo! the hosts of evil round us scorn thy Christ, assail his ways!

Fears and doubts too long have bound us, free our hearts to work and praise.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of these days.

---Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1930

Careful now. Before we go seeing monsters under every bed, and bogeymen around every corner, let’s be clear-headed. When the hosts of evil scorn Jesus and his ways, what ways exactly are they disregarding? What are Jesus’ defining ways? I am going to go out on a limb here, and say that anytime you saw Jesus speak for the voiceless, stand with the invisible, lift up the lowly, welcome the outsider, or free the oppressed, it was then you were seeing the ways of Christ.

And if that be true, the hymn’s next line is put into beautiful, and perfect, and fearsome context for us. Because, my friends, I have been afraid. To speak up in the face of hate or disregard. I have doubted. Whether I was strong enough to stand up. Whether it would be worth it. Even (God forgive me) whether my stand would be fully understood and appreciated. Fears and doubts have silenced my speech and frozen me into inaction. I have not walked in Jesus’ ways.

Well, I checked, and there is no way Harry Emerson Fosdick, the prominent progressive pastor who penned this hymn, and John Mayer, popular singer-songwriter, could have been best friends. The dates just don’t line up. But, folks, let me tell you, I think they would have shared a groovy moment of synchronicity over some of their writing and personal philosophies. Because here is a verse of Mayer’s song Say:

            Even if your hands are shaking

            And your faith is broken

            Even as the eyes are closing

            Do it with a heart wide open

            Say what you need to say

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage. To say what we need to say.