Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Psalm 88:12 again

Here's the verse as it appears in The Book of Common Prayer 1979:

Will your loving-kindness be declared in the grave? *
your faithfulness in the land of destruction?

Here's an edit of what I said about it on another blog:

How blessedly amazing it is that God breathed these words into Scripture. What terrible agony he must have allowed to "inspire" the Psalmist to such words, yet here they are as God's Word written.

They cause us to butt up against the reality that the church is too much about divvying up the satisfied and attractive, when the body of Christ really should be walking around in "the grave and place of destruction," preaching Jesus to the people there - the people so marginal or crushed that more time to live is just as bad as time running out.

Like many clergy, the church did not "breed me" to walk into that place, and so in many ways I retard the growth of Christ's body. It is as though I must find a way of repentance which lets me respond to Psalm 88:12 with, "Here I am! Send me!"

First I need that coal to touch my lips.

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