On Sunday, we set out on a journey with Jesus through Luke’s gospel. Over the coming weeks, we will wander through the quasi-spiritual, biblically familiar, yet religiously apprehensive land of the Samarians. Along the way, we will listen to Jesus speak in parables and prayers so that we might learn the how and heart to be faithfully speaking of Jesus.
In preparation for entering the more normatively secular Samaria, Jesus wants his disciples to realize that the way they speak to others, especially about God, is often from a place of judgment, condemnation, bitterness, and ultimately, unacknowledged blindness (see Luke 6:27-42). From such a heart, the words we use, even words about God, don’t bear the fruit of faith that we desire (see Luke. 6:43-45). Rather than cultivating freedom and flourishing (see Luke 4:18-19, & 6:28), the words we use keep us bound and bind others, keeping others and God at a distance. So, before we can go out speaking of Jesus, let’s acknowledge, as the prophet who Jesus quoted to begin his ministry did, that we are “a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:1-7) as we pray in expectation of “clean hearts” being created in us (Psalm 51:10).
Let’s pray together these words, adapted from the Tell It Slant study guide.
Father, you use your Word so well to reveal yourself—your kindness and generosity to the ungrateful and evil, your mercy toward sinners, and impatience with the contemptuous. While your Heart is revealed in your words, Father, I find myself using words to hide, conceal, misdirect, deceive, tear down, and make things abstract. I am a person of unclean lips.
Teach me a new way of using words so that I may be more like the Word, who spoke and new life came into being. May the words of Jesus the Word, by your Spirit, breathe new life in me and through me into your world. Amen.