As I was listening to a (good) sermon on Hebrews on Sunday, I got distracted, like I do. I fastened on to a tiny fragment of Hebrews 11:33, “…who through faith … shut the mouths of lions.” There’s a lot of lions about these days, powerful people whose mouths are open to speak hatred and destruction, who seek to harm poor people, oppressed people, ‘foreign’ people. May the prophets of our generation (you and I??) have the faith to say the words that will deflate the hate. It seems to me that one of the effects of social media is to keep people in touch only with those who are similar to them. The so-called urban liberal elite share plenty of jokes about Trump’s hair, but that’s a waste of time, and does not answer the real concerns of those who are not members of the in-group.
Also, from Sunday’s lectionary…
Jeremiah 1:4-10
1:4 Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” 1:6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” 1:7 But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. 1:8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.” 1:9 Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. 1:10 See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
…again, faith makes the difference. I still struggle to believe this sometimes, but it seems that faith really can change us from quivering blobs of jelly into prophets.
God, give us faith…
Give us more faith,
faith to open our mouths,
faith to speak of what we know,
to discover what we do not yet know,
to believe that the world can be better.
Another picture from LEJOG. This is in Caithness…
