A new section of this book is titled: 'In-forming Mystery.'
We are asked to "be there" close to God's mystery even if we cannot completely understand. In Isaiah's call narrative he glimpses the Holy; he gets close enough even to overhear God's conversation (Isaiah 6). There are heavenly creatures, six-winged seraphs, and the immensity of God is palpable. The hem alone of the robe of the Holy filled the temple - just the hem! Isaiah knows without hesitation that he has a language problem. He does not, he cannot, speak their language. He has unclean lips and he lives and talks among others who have unclean lips. His new prophetic vocation is made possible by the fire of hot coals pressed to his lips. Isaiah's brush with Divinity not only entitled him to speak in God's name, but it compelled him to do so. Isaiah's proximity to God changes what he can do and say and hear and be. He simultaneously runs up on both the limits of his language and the horizons of God's mysterious power to transform.
We are people of 'unclean lips' - and unclean most everything else. And yet, God draws us to God's side to be a part of the action that claims a part in the unfolding of God's way of being in the world and for all of humanity. In that drawing in, we are shaped and we are given all that is needed to wrestle with the life of this empowering Reign and to announce its presence to a world that may not want such a life and a world to come into being. What a grand scene. What an awe inspiring place in which to make our place for life. The grand mystery of God is meant to be a part of the wonderful common and stumbling lives that we enter each day. Prophetic life is not something outside the life of all of us. It is a part of our life that has been touched by this mystery in such a way that we cannot help but see the vision all around us. That is part of the transformation that moves Isaiah and even now moves us. Our God - as strange and odd that may sound to our modern minds - is still the one that gives vision to life so that all of humanity continues to be called into the fullness of God's image - into that Peaceable Reign - into that loving presence - into that unfolding glory.
Connection: There is a grand mystery. And yet, it is handed to us. It is the beauty of lives broken and unclean and yet holy and blessed. We must remember the whole story or else we really lose a piece of how we are in the image of God.
Though you seem to be so far off, O God, you shake us up no matter where we are. Even when we hid from you and crawl into ourselves, you reach in and open our eyes and mouths and lives with the power of your loving presence. We give you thanks - again. Amen.
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