Fire on the lips and sighs in the soul

I was fascinated last week by John’s questions for the journey about what language we speak.  It was Pentecost last Sunday, with lots of celebration of fire and wind and the HS  touching our youth in their confirmation…and the Spirit helped people talk in languages that weren’t natural to them.

On Monday Lisa asked me if I wanted help getting rid of all the decorations, balloons and ribbons and so on, since Pentecost was over.  And I read todays readings – the psalm with its flames of fire (ie lightning) and Isaiah 6 with its burning coal—and realized no.  Pentecost isn’t over; we are Pentecost people, and  our language is important.  What we speak with our lips matters. The fire keeps on going.  The spirit keeps empowering,  God keeps calling. 

First the psalm, the song of the thunderstorm, where the poet realizes that God is present in the very creation that scares the heck out of us.  God’s incredible power in creation is recognized, and it immediately leads to recognizing our human smallness.  In the force of a tsunami, what’s a mere human being?  God’s power leads us to realize our smallness: majesty and humility, and that leads the poet to seek strength and blessing…to understand that something much bigger than me is unleashed in the world, and I need what that Something has to offer.  You are awesome God, bless me with peace.

Then there’s the Isaiah text.  God experienced in awesome splendor in worship leads to an understanding that we, like Isaiah, are pretty messed up.  I am a person of unclean lips says Isaiah.  In the face of God’s majesty, I’m pretty puny.  Not a comfortable realization for us today—we are very used to thinking well of ourselves.  Sin’s not a particularly popular concept these days, used as we are to establishing and raising self esteem.  But, fact is, we’re not so great.  We fail.  We screw up.  We say and do stupid and unhelpful things, sometimes even illegal things.

Isaiah has this vision that when he realizes he messes up more often with words than anything else, and God has something much greater than he to offer  (I am a person of unclean lips)—God comes to him with hot coal to touch his lips, a wonderful image of cleansing and transformation – so he can be freed to answer the call God has, who shall I send?

There is nothing quite so humbling as sitting at Annual Conference on Thursday and Friday, making smart alec sassy remarks only half under my breath, beside Alice, who has looked at this text with me on Tuesday at SLB sits beside me and mutters in my ear hot coals on your unclean lips Margaret.  My anger at the injustice, my cynicism of the denomination, my failure to listen to God speaking through unexpected people, all come out in the lips.   Fire on the lips.  Forgive me God and move me forward.

Guard your lips, says Saint Benedict.  Watch what you say.

Positive words spoken may help a child move forward in trust

Words of confession spoken, and words of forgiveness received may heal a relationship

Caring words may soften a hardened heart into love

Prophetic words may move a church out of its comfort into its call

Daring words spoken out against injustice may transform a home, a school, a community, a world, into peace

Unspoken words, unuttered in silence at another’s side, may open a soul to the hope of God

Fire on the lips.  Watch what you say.

Third in the trinity of texts is a favorite from Romans: when we do not know what to pray the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words

This has to be one of my favorite pieces of scripture.  Our journey often takes us deep into places where words will not do.  Where words cannot even form.  Where hurt or fear is so strong our lips cannot even say words. When language fails us.  I know its hard for you to think that I am ever stuck for words.  But I am.  And at that point, like in the psalms awesome awareness of creation, and the prophets understanding of God’s majesty, I can do nothing myself.  I can only say I trust God.

All these texts talk of the power of God.   The power of God to transform our lives… with the psalmist, God’s power to strengthen and bless us with peace… with Isaiah God’s power to cleanse us and make us whole, to guard our lips and call us into ministries of justic….and with the Romans, God’s power to know us deeply and work in us when we are at our wits end.

This is the awesome God we trust our lives to.

May our lives be touched  by God’s awesome power, causing us to praise and seek strength and peace

May our lips be touched by God’s fire of forgiveness and healing, freeing us to speak the language of love and justice

And may you develop such closeness with God that the sighs of your soul may be God-breathed, so when your lips cannot speak, you heart may still know it is beloved. 

Amen.