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Listening, Doing, and Knitting My Heart to God

February 17, 2024

Isaiah 58:9b-14    |    Psalm 86:1-11    |    Luke 5:27-32

“Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth;
knit my heart to you that I may fear your Name.”

Today’s readings speak to how we live into God’s way, how every act great and small can make a difference. I was struck by the countless ways the prophet in Isaiah spoke to how we can be a part of bringing God’s light into the darkness – building, nurturing, restoring, feeding, clothing, caring, repairing, sharing, and more. How amazing that these same actions mirror the ministries, behaviors, and responses that we call for today in addressing the human, cultural, and political challenges across nations and peoples, and amongst our neighbors and loved ones. God clearly wants us to take responsibility, to act. These are the ways to find delight in the Lord. It sounds simple, yet, both the prophet and the psalmist acknowledge that we too often find ourselves divided between God’s way and all else that weaves itself through our day to day lives and experiences.

In the psalmist’s lament, the call is made for God to hear us, to answer our call for mercy and guidance. At the same time, there is the implicit understanding that God will answer, will be there in our times of trouble. So, as I read and re-read these verses, I found myself thinking that perhaps more attention might be focused on God’s constant presence and call to share the light … that, in fact, we listen in earnest, we respond with love, we act to fulfill God’s way. And there’s the rub, what do we do? What does this look like exactly? Listening to the words of the prophet and Jesus’s lesson in Luke gives us a glimpse.

When Jesus called, Levi immediately got up and followed him. Levi went on to host a banquet for Jesus, inviting tax collectors and ‘others’ otherwise judged as sinners. After being criticized for consorting with these ‘others’, Jesus’s response was that he was here to save the lost, not the righteous. Jesus asks us to go where we might not be comfortable, to reach out to those who are lost or in need no matter their circumstances, and help lead the way to truth, love, and life in Christ. It may be as simple as listening to someone’s story, sharing food with a stranger, making eye contact with or smiling at someone on the sidewalk, or as challenging as trying to see that spark of the divine in someone who repels us. Too often the noise of difference, status, comfort, ‘our way’ (individually and collectively) … well, as the psalmist reminds us, these things get in the way. They separate us from God’s way. So, my take from today’s readings is to focus more on listening to God, discerning the answers to how I might do God’s will, and pray that I come that much closer to knitting my heart to God’s way.

Deborah Collins