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A reading from Paul's letter to the church in Corinth , the 13th chapter, it's lengthy. You'll likely fade in and out to hear all 13 verses, but it's a nice repetition and insistence on the word

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love. So we'll show for Barents if I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love. I'm a noisy gong or a clanging Cymbal, and if I have prophetic powers and

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I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if

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I hand over my body so that I may boast , but do not have love, I gain nothing . Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

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It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice and wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things hopes all things endures

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. All things love never aunt. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge , it will come to an end. For we

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know only in part and we prophesy only in part . But when the complete comes the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a

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child. I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly , but then we'll see face to face now.

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I know only in part and then I will know fully even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope and love abide these three. And the greatest of them is Love. Holy wisdom

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, Holy word. Well, it is so good to be here with you this morning. I have only one correction to the introduction, which is that uh, in 1991 I was a 20 year old

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woman who began her seminary career in this institution. And after a brief bible study on the lawn, I came into the chapel for worship and discovered, um, that I had brought a visitor with me

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into chapel. It was at Austin Seminary that I came to know the power, the passion of the texas fire ant. Yeah, yeah. I bring you greetings from the first Presbyterian Church of Waco where

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I've been for the last 2.5 years. It's a great joy to be so close to a presbyterian seminary . I enjoy the space of the chapel And in these days the chapel remains a place in my mind

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of solace and refuge. Even when I-35 will not allow me to make my way to it. I want to thank President Wardlaw for inviting me to be a part of the worship service. And thanks to

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paul hooker for so graciously hosting me. It may be true that there is nothing like love to open the gateways to perception, the gateway of the eye , the ear, the mind that can become so

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mired in the challenges of life. It is ironic in the first instance, even the most articulate language , the most intentional communication. And believe me, I know about this. The mother of three kids

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, the most intentional communication, the most articulate language cannot release the human being to a new understanding, like the ethereal energy of love and particularly christ's love . It is surely the foundation from which all important

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insight and revelation emerges. Love comes first. But I, for my part, I have not always recognized the order. It is a timeless matter, for the Corinthians have lost track too love. Then

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the articulate intentional communication of the Gospel in 13 paul backtracks to remind the Corinthian community of the right order of congregational life love than interpretation. Communication. Now there's something a little different going on in the call

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of Isaiah, but I think it's not unrelated while paul is addressing love explicitly. The coal narrative of Isaiah is much more nuanced and cryptic. I think it quite interesting and I did not, I struggled

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to understand it. So for a while I held the hand of Patricia toll, who's old testament scholar at one of our sister seminaries, Louisville tall characterizes Isaiah as so eager in the lineup of profits that

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it may be less appropriate to refer to this section of scripture as a call narrative and more accurate to refer to it as a commissioning of an eager volunteer . Even in his eager ST, Isaiah confesses inadequacy

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. And so we enjoy the four verses of preparation . Cold to the mouth is certainly the first symbolic move of preparedness. But interestingly, the passage continues with the cryptic words go and say to the people

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listen, but don't comprehend look, but don't understand is the profit really to go and literally say don't comprehend and don't understand if so, he does not do it in the ensuing chapters. Instead, Isaiah

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, as early as the next Chapter seven will speak a message of comfort and hope to the king. So then how are we to understand the Lord Lord's insistent description of a people who are lacking understanding toll

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has her opinion about this and it was very helpful to me, but mine is a little different than hers. I think it might be a little bit these, this voice of God, that Isaiah,

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here's after the coal is to the lips. I think it might be a little bit like the instruction given by a mentor to a new pastor. Don't try to move people prematurely, love them, meet

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them where they are, don't be offended by the mired sensibilities in this way, Isaiah is prepared and he can engage his eagerness, he will speak, but he will do it from a position of love

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and he will meet people where they are now preparedness for loving communication is still the order of the day . In 20 years of ministry. I must confess that I continue and struggle mightily to integrate love and

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communication. For many years I have made my way for ill or for good to the pulpit. Yeah , I am happy to report to you that I understand that my relationship with the pulpit, this particular

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place, it is not the only place where love and communication of the gospel happen, but it is a particular ritualized place for us. I am pleased to report to you that my relationship with this pulpit

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has grown over the years but is still far from perfect. I have grown in that I no longer understand, it is simply a physical space in a sanctuary for ritual and liturgy. I now also understand

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it as a spiritual and liminal place, holding the love of the body of christ and attempting to communicate the timeless gospel of christ. At this point in my journey, my love for the pulpit manifests itself

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as a midweek struggle where grace and rigor our friends and if I can endure its discipline, communication in love becomes possible, hum Political hope So. Now I just want to talk to you about what that

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feels like for me. Right, there's a nice elevation to this pulpit in there. I mean, it's good. Yeah, I mean, if it's a not obvious to you, the architecture of the

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pulpit respects the elevation of the gospel, architecture of the pulpit respects the elevation of the gospel, but it serves a nice secondary function, particularly if it's liminal midweek space. And that is that you've got

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a great view of the pew, I can from an elevated pulpit and they are all elevated. See who's missing, see who sits with a broken posture , see who is so full of joy that the

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organized worship is sort of irrelevant. Yeah, you can see a child slip from the seat to sit on the floor. You can see a face fall , you can see a person go to sleep.

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You see it all from the elevated pulpit at the mid week place the pastor is encouraged, called to be educated to be a learned person from the Pew , from the people, very wise pastor once said

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to me, if you fail to learn from the people, you will have nothing to say in the pulpit. So the elevated pulpit lets you look out into the state of the Pew, know who you

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need to visit in their homes, know who you need to see in the North Tex know who you need to work with in committee structures, know who you need to make your way to, to be

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a faithful service. You know, it's sort of like an updraft right of light and salt that informs the coal. Don't be offended Isaiah, that they are mired, love them where they are and then

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all pulpits have a great architecture for gripping. Yeah , I mean, for a long time I would get into the pulpit on sunday morning and I would think to myself, don't hold on, don't touch

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it, stand free of it. But when I let the pulpit into my mid week, I realized there is a reason to hold on the thing the pulpit, the midweek pulpit is more like a crucible

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than anything I know outside about high school scientific laboratory , right? There's a reason to hold on midweek . What we do all week in preparation for the sunday pulpit is we sit with the scripture and the

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job with the scripture. If we have received the updraft of salt and light from the pew and loved it. The job with the scripture is to love it by God, to be interested in it,

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to be interested in it. It's the thing that no harm political resource can do for you, so that the midweek pulpit holds on to Leslie and says , I'm not going to let you go until you

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love the scripture, until you find the pulse in it that speaks particularly to you. So Leslie, when you find that pulse point, you can ask your questions, you can do your wrestling, you

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can do your discovery for yourself that you are the first one transformed by the scripture right now and then the courage to say what has happened to you. She's not always right. Not always appropriate, but

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it is also not jargon and they cannot fall asleep when you confess it and let me be brief if there is an updraft and there is a reason to hold on. There is from this midweek place,

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the potential for momentum. Mhm. For outside the sanctuary is the world that christ loves. The Children who love christ the Children who for all their criticism and absence from the church, continue to be intrigued

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by it. You won't find a person in your ministry who's not interested in the church. And so from this place, having received the updraft of the salt and the light, having held on within the

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crucible of transformation, there is the privilege and the thrill That the gospel and the body become one and move out into a world that move out into a world, not particularly in need of anything, but

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seeking all things. You should be suspicious of what I suggest, because the midweek pulpit is not only privilege, it is agony and there's nothing nothing better . It's a sort of pulpit love. I can't