Tags
1 Peter 2:9, Genesis 12:3, Good Shepherd, Isaiah 51:4, John 10:11, John 20:21, Mission, Psalm 57:9-10, Psalm 65:5, Sacrificial love, The faithfulness of God, Witness
Day 22: Sunday in the Fourth Week of Lent
Psalm 57:9-10
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
….I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is as high as the heavens;
….your faithfulness extends to the clouds.
We are closing borders and turning away from others. My neighbor opened her apartment door as I was heading up the stairs the other day – the apartments face each other at the landing – and I called out for her to step back. She didn’t, at first, so I said “six-feet” (we would have been shoulder to shoulder, otherwise, as I unlocked my door and she locked hers). She answered, “I’m healthy,” (but that isn’t the issue) and all I thought to say was “I’m high risk.”
I wasn’t happy with my response. The reason for our distance is to protect others, not ourselves – but concern for myself is what came out. I wasn’t wearing my clerical collar at that moment, but surely she’s seen it. It was a bad witness.
This is not our calling. We are not witnesses of self-preservation but sacrificial love. We share a vision of a good world created in love and embraced by God even in its brokenness. Our sacred book tells us again and again of God’s concern for the vulnerable and forgotten, and it’s most definitive act is the ultimate act of self-sacrifice: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11)
We share a commission as ambassadors of mercy. We are sent to the ends of the earth to proclaim God’s faithfulness and love. The risen Christ breathes on his followers and says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” and conveys the authority to declare the forgiveness of sins. At the end of Matthew’s Gospel is the commission to make disciples of all nations, teaching what Christ has taught. The prophetic word of judgment and grace is directed to all nations. God’s teaching is a light to the nations. The psalms declare God is “the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.” God is the creator of all, whose purpose is to bless all the families of the earth.
And we are the agents of that blessing: “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)
And so we bear testimony among all nations. We speak and do grace to all peoples. We lift up the fallen and shelter the forsaken and share the bread of the eternal feast – and we sing, for the faithfulness of God is as high as the heavens.
Gracious and ever-present God,
whose mercy knows no bounds,
and whose arms are ever open to your world:
Grant us courage to spread your light
And make us joyful in your service.
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Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2016_Summer_Paralympics_opening_ceremony_139506180943275728597264.jpg Tasnim News Agency / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)