A Word from the Lord
Have you ever had a longing that could only be satisfied if you followed it? The longing itself is clear, but the why, what or how might be a bit cryptic. I have wondered if that is a pure, unaltered, holy and loving word from the Lord. One of my favorite questions growing up was to ask couples I encountered how they knew that they were to be together and inevitably I would hear, “We just knew.” I would wait on the edge of my seat for another response and yet most of the time I would hear the same thing, “We just knew.” It’s not that I doubted their love or questioned their decision, but I wondered where such certainty could possibly come from. It wasn’t until my junior year of college that I experienced that same kind of certainty, that longing that I could not avoid. I was skeptical that such clarity would ever come my way- that was until I stepped onto the campus of my seminary, the Pacific School of Religion. My pastor had been bothering me for an entire year about attending the ministry as vocation weekend and I put him off until he bought me a ticket and demanded me to go. I still remember it so clearly. It was dark by the time I hauled my luggage to the top of the hill and there it was- that feeling in my stomach. It was a moment I will never forget because, “I just knew.” It washed over me and pulsed through me. And it seems that it was my version of “a word from the Lord.” It was a word just for me and perhaps it came to me in a way that only I could understand. I wasn’t sure exactly what the ramifications of my “word” would be. I didn’t know how I would pay for it. I didn’t know what my family would say or even how to explain what I had experienced. I just knew that it was a word from God, sent just to me, etched on my heart in a way that only the one who created me could give.
I always thought that a call to ministry would require a vision, or thunder that spoke, or a burning bush, but it seems God likes to get right inside of us and convincing me with clouds of thunder might have sent me running the other direction. It was clear and muddy at the same time, but it was a holy longing.
I know that I am not alone. I have heard stories from friends, family and colleagues of sort of cryptic messages that landed right smack dab in the middle of their souls. Some would chalk it up to instinct or gut, but because God came to us in human flesh, in Jesus of Nazareth, it isn’t all that odd that God just might offer us a holy word in the same way- right in the very core of our being, in our flesh.
I visited an orphanage in Quito Ecuador in July of last year. The American family who runs it is not shy about sharing that they just knew that was what they were supposed to do; they just knew that their yearning was a “word from the Lord.” And often these “words” are more like an insatiable longing than an actual word. It seems that calling us with a deep yearning is the only way to make sure there is little doubt that the pull is inspired by God. When these “words” land right in us, they are clearly just for us.
When speaking about the sometimes murky messages God sends us Frederick Buechner writes, “His words to us are always veiled, subtle, cryptic, so that it is left to us to delve their meaning, to fill in the vowels, for ourselves by means of all the faith and imagination we can muster God speaks to us in such a way, presumably, not because he chooses to be obscure, but because unlike a dictionary word whose meaning is fixed, the meaning of an incarnate word is the meaning it has for the one it is spoken to, the meaning that becomes clear and effective in our lives only when we ferret it out for ourselves.” It seems that these words are meant specifically for the people to whom God gives them, they are holy and fragile, which is perhaps why the prophet Jeremiah was so angry. Words from the Lord are to be held tenderly, shared graciously and spoken faithfully.
A word to us is sometimes meant for us, to be discerned by us and loved by us. Speaking on behalf of God is risky business indeed. For we know too well what horror has occurred from those who claim to be acting on a word they heard from God. Susan B. Anthony famously wrote, "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." And that is what the prophet Jeremiah said to the political leaders of his country. He was angry at those who were falsely speaking on behalf of God. The author writes, “Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully.” Let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully.
But all of this leads me to wonder how we as followers of Christ faithfully live out God’s words to us? What do we do with words, with the holy longing spoken just to us? Perhaps one answer is that God has “words” for us individually and God has “words” for us as a church. And maybe this is the place where God’s words to us are breathed to life. Maybe God’s word for the church is a holy composition that we can only read when each of our own “words from the Lord” are added to the page. It is in Christian community that we can dare to follow our own words, our own longing. God offers a word just for us and here the community holds it with us, affirms it blesses it and returns it to us.
When Moses heard a significant “word from the Lord,” you know the Ten Commandments, God asked him to bring Aaron with him. And I wonder if that was to make sure the word was spoken faithfully, to make sure that the word actually reached the community. When God offers a word to us, we are invited to take it in and also to dare to put it in the hands of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
I have already begun to hear stories of this community sharing individual “words” that when put together, formed a spectacular portrait that is still unfolding. One person heard a “word” to seek God’s ministry of pastoral care and shared it with another. Off they went, putting God’s words into the light, joining God’s work of radical love and care. Maybe the question for us is not whether God has a word for us, but whether we will dare to breathe that word into this place, this community of faith. The prophet proclaimed, “Let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully.” We each have a word etched on the tablet of our heart and maybe it is when we dare to share it here, that it can be a living word- a word that dances, a word that serves, a word that loves. A word from the Lord is within us, will we dare to speak it to life to build the church God imagines? Amen.
Frederick Buechner. Listening to Your Life (New York: HarperCollins, 1992) 4.