This is your baptismal covenant,
both promise and challenge:
You all are my servants, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon you;
you are to bring forth justice to the nations.
You need not cry or lift up your voice,
or make it heard in the street.
Be so gentle so as not to break a bruised reed
or quench a dimly burning wick.
Faithfully bring forth justice.
Do not grow faint or be crushed:
the time will come
when you all have established justice in the earth,
and far lands wait for the mercy you embody.
Thus says God, the Holy One,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
I am the Holy One,
I have called you in righteousness,
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
—Isaiah 42.1-9
God, for the sake of your deep desire for the world,
may I receive your Spirit,
practice justice, and do your will. Amen.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
January 10, 2020