​Called as partners in Christ's service, 
called to ministries of grace, 
We respond with deep commitment
fresh new lines of faith to trace. 
-Jane Parker Huber 
Used by permission. OneLicense.net # A-709014

It is always that last line that has been the phrase that sticks out to me. Tracing the work of something is often how we learn--we mimic what somebody else has put forth first. In 2018, I wrote a concerto for two saxophones and wind ensemble for a friend of mine who wanted such a piece that he could perform with his first saxophone teacher. I focused a lot of it around one saxophone beginning each melodic line in the same way as the other saxophone but each line veers off in a new direction. Unfortunately, his teacher passed before they were ever able to realize this piece. 

God gives us new lines of faith all the time. Sometimes through people with the boldness to look beyond what has been and is to what could be. Sometimes through circumstances and opportunities to reach beyond the safety and comfort of the walls of this building. But what is always clear is that the people God calls are not called into a place of comfort. How many prophets could not understand why God called them -- I  don't have the skills to do that -- people aren't going to listen to me -- and all the other excuses they tried to give. God didn't call them to speak like someone else (sing like someone else, play like someone else). God doesn't call us into the ease of simply tracing, but the anguish of forging new lines. 

God calls us to forge new lines of faith, but just as with those melodic lines in my concerto, those new lines don't come from out of nowhere. They begin from a place of tracing (recognizing what is good in that line being traced) and veering off to reach new places while retaining what is essential to the line in the first place. 

Are we ready to forge new lines of faith? Or are we too enamored with what makes us comfortable? 

Marshall

In this week's lesson from Luke, we encounter Jesus reading parts of Isaiah from a scroll, parts that were prophecy about what the Messiah would do: proclaim good news to the poor, setting prisoners free, giving sight to the blind, etc. 

You will see that theme running through the hymns this week, stated in different ways by the different authors of these hymns. In John Bell's "The Summons" he poses question essentially coming from Jesus throughout the Gospels and with the last verse gives what our response should be. The third verse directly speaks to some of the things addressed in the Isaiah text, but it is always this line that I think of as the highlight -- "Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen." Imagine what is asked there and what an immense call that is, and to do it without the thought of being recognized for that sacrifice. 

Amanda Udis-Kessler in "Church Is More than Just a Building" extends the tasks that we see in that scroll from Isaiah to being what the church is and does. I especially like the ending phrase "It's our work toward a world made new." Rusty Edwards phrases it in a manner that has always caught my attention. While he focuses more on praising Jesus for doing all these things, he begins with the phrase that is the title of the hymn "Praise the One Who Breaks the Darkness."

So, church, how do we break the darkness by shining our light? We do those things in that scroll from Isaiah, not alone, but as a church we "kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen."

Marshall 

Psalm 139 carries with it this sense of intimacy with God---that God knows us better than we know ourselves.

Howard Helvey really captures that sense of intimacy in the dialogue between the choir and the violin in "Lord, Thou Hast Searched Me." Bernadette Farrell captures that in the words she chooses in the song "O God, You Search Me" to take this psalm into language more useful in today's society: "Before a word is on my tongue, Lord, you have known its meaning through and through." What an image! And yet, what a scary thought. For an introvert like me, the idea of even having someone be that close is something straight out of a horror movie, yet as Farrell writes later: "For the wonder of who I am, I praise you: safe in your hands, all creation is made new."

Let that sink in and maybe become a mantra -- "For the wonder of who I am, I praise you." 

Marshall