And Isaiah said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
The seraph touched my mouth with the live coal and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
“Here am I; send me!” We may feel unworthy, like Isaiah did, like we don’t have anything to offer. We may feel unclean or sinful, but God calls each of us through our baptism to be God’s instruments in the world today.
That live coal has touched us in our baptism and our guilt/shame are taken away; the Spirit of God is in us, waiting to pour into this world by how we use our gifts, in what we say & do.
A Quaker pastor remembers the insight he learned from a woman who was part of the meeting (his church) that he once pastored:
"[This] elderly woman had committed herself to works of mercy. As I got to know her better, I was astounded at the many ways in which she had blessed hurting people. Though her income was modest, she lived simply so she could give generously. Though her many commitments kept her calendar full, she still found time to be present for those who needed comfort. The longer I knew her, the more I marveled at her charity, given the scarcity of her resources. Because of her humility, she was reluctant to talk with others about her own accomplishments. But one day she let slip the principle that guided her life, when she said to me, 'Little is much when God is in it.'
"I have thought of that many times since, appreciating its truth more and more as the years pass. Little does become much when love is present. Love does magnify our works. Jesus knew this. He knew even the smallest gesture of love could transform the darkest situation and so fully committed himself to divine love that we are still awed by his life. Believe me when I tell you this: We can be like him, and like all the other God-bearers our world has known... We can be like him when we say yes to the Divine Presence that is also in us, as thoroughly as we are able. As we do that, our lives, and the lives of others, will be transformed. God's joy will be in us, and our joy will be full." [From The Evolution of Faith: How God Is Creating a Better Christianity by Philip Gulley.]
Little is much when God is in it.
Those Quakers understood that call to love and to service. And God will be there.
“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And she said, “Here am I; send me!”
Gino Bartali was a famous Italian cyclist, a household name, as the champion of the Tour de France of 1938. In 1943, when the Nazis came to Italy, a large community of Jews had fled to Florence, where the rabbi there turned to the cardinal of Florence. And the cardinal turned to Bartali and asked for help to smuggle the Jews out of the country via monasteries.
So, Bartali got on his bicycle, and becomes a de facto bike messenger for a network that ran between Florence and Assisi — about 110 miles apart — which helped refugees get fake papers. He would collect photos of the refugees from the monasteries and safe houses where they were taking shelter. And then he'd bike the photos to a father/son team in Assisi, who were printers and could make actual fake identity papers that the photos would be attached to.
"Bartali was a great person to participate in this secret network in this way because he was one of the few people during the war years who had relative liberty to move around," says McConnon. "He still trained on his bicycle, so he could be seen in the countryside in Tuscany and Umbria." And if he got stopped, well, he could just say he was training for his next race. He hid the fake papers and photographs in the bike frame, the tube, underneath the seat and in the handlebars.
This was risky, of course. He was married and had a young son. His diaries from the wartime years, express his anxiety. His family knew some of what he was doing, as he was also hiding a Jewish family in his house. But they didn't know the full extent. Near the end of the war, someone tipped off the authorities and Bartali was brought before the secret police, who knew something was up, even if they didn't know what.
Prisoners were tortured in plain view and Bartali sat there for three days in the HQ. "But after three days, when they took him out to question him, one of the aides to the head of the secret police said, 'Look, I can vouch for this man. If he says he hasn't done anything wrong, you should let him go,'" says Jacoby.
Bartali was released. It wasn't until his older son was in his 30s that Bartali told him any of this. It stayed a secret to everyone else for decades.
Archival footage from 1985 of Bartali saying in Italian, "I don't want to talk about it or act like a hero. Heroes are those who died, who were injured, who spend many months in prison." He's estimated to have helped at least 800 Jews escape the Nazis… (http://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2018/02/23/the-goat)
Little does become much when love is present.
Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And Bartali said, “Here am I; send me!”
Today is the Sunday when we honor the Holy Trinity, which celebrates the many ways God makes his presence known in our lives, in the manifestations of his love in our lives and our world and invites us to look with a new awareness to behold God in our midst. As the Gospel of John reminds us:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” And we are now sent out in Jesus name, like Gino Bartali, and the Quaker woman, and all those who through the Spirit bring that love into the world.
May this holy day of the Trinity reawaken our senses and our consciousness to behold God's love in our lives, in our making the little into much that is holy and sacred, knowing God is with us. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment