And then there are the catalogs that come with all the cute graphic t-shirts.
At least half of these catalogs are from stores I have either never heard of or never set foot in.
I don't look at all the catalogs, but...I do look at a lot of them, just to peruse what's out there.
Today was no different. Not one piece of mail I needed, but 5 catalogs. As I flipped to the last page of one I just happened to notice the postal instructions from the company. "Please deliver to Current Resident." The words 'current resident' were underlined, as if to highlight the fact that it could possibly be to the benefit of the company if the magazine ended up in the hands of an unintended recipient.
Which, of course...it would be, because as soon as it lands in an unintended recipient's hands, the company has broadened it's marketing base.
Never bought a lego set in your life and you love Volkswagen Bugs...we have just the thing for you! A lego baby blue VW bug.
Companies know that every magazine that goes out has the potential to reach one new person. They know their words don't go out with no return...even if they don't see the return right away. Someday a person may be looking for a frog hose holder or a lego pirate or a self-scooping kitty liter box. You just never know...
Which brings me to God. Yes, I know cat boxes, legos, frogs, magazines and God are an unlikely combination.
But, hear these words from God found in Isaiah, "So shall my word which goes forth from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."
Unintended recipients seem to be what God is all about. Wherever the Word lands, God says, God can do something there. I'm thinking that God would almost rather have the Word read by a bunch of people who have NO IDEA what they are reading or hearing, rather than a bunch of people who went to seminary, who can debate dogma and theology on blogs and in classrooms.
Yes, proper teaching and preaching and exegesis are necessary.
But even when we screw it up (which we will) that doesn't mean that the Word returns empty or does nothing - that would be a fairly low and flat view of what the Word of God can accomplish. What we view as unintentional or accidental or mis-delivered may just be the means through which God will work.
If God's word can work through Pharaoh and Saul, then I'm fairly certain the religious and denominational and racial and ethical and sexual lines we've drawn aren't going to stop the Word of God from accomplishing all that God intends.
Which brings me to my primary point of pondering...
If the magazine marketers intension is mailing to whoever so that people will buy from them...
Then what's God's intention?
Isaiah's words don't actually say.
Maybe we're not supposed to know. Did you ever think of it that way? I mean...of course, we want to know, we think we know, but we do not fully know the mind of God, even as we are given the mind of Christ, as Paul says.
Sure, we know a lot about what God's ultimate intentions are for the world and mostly those intentions are related to restoration of relationships between God and humanity.
But wouldn't it be interesting to trust that God sends the Word out...and then see what good came come from it rather than just deciding whether the way it's proclaimed or interpreted is right or wrong.
I hear enough about the fundamentalists and the liberalists; the ELCA Lutherans and the Missouri Synod Lutherans; the evangelicals and the protestants; the spiritual, but not religious and the religious and sorta spiritual...
Really?
How about listening to how they've experienced the Word of God in their lives and in their worship and in their vocations and honoring that. Because even if you don't agree with them, with us, with me...God is still at work and promises to accomplish something.
One cannot (well, they can, but it doesn't make it true) deny the glory of God working in unexpected places or ways. If it's God, it's God, even when it doesn't fit in our dogmas and theologies. We can't say God's Word can transform our lives and save the universe...basically do anything, and then say but we better keep a close eye on it otherwise it will fail to accomplish God's mission.
It is not up to us to control God's Word. It is up to us to share it as much as we possibly can, in as many places as we possibly can, in as many ways as we possibly can.
What we deem as unintended recipients or inconsequential interactions, God may see as current residents, who happen to be in the right place at the right time.
The Word promises to return to God full. That filling up may just take a bit of time sometimes, especially when we end up spilling things on the ground. But the Word made a promise to God to return full so that we might all dance in the light of God, so that the trees might clap their hands to the music of God, and so that the all might join in the song the God is conducting.
"So shall my word which goes forth from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. I will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." Isaiah 55: 11-12
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