Isaiah 40:21-31

Epiphany 5 – Year B

Isaiah 40:21-31

Let's back up a bit to verse 18: "To whom will you liken G*D, or what likeness compare with G*D?"

Whatever you have chosen to listen to, to attend to, sets the relationship between yourself and G*D, yourself and Neighbor. Our tendency is to set our sight too high or our expectation too low. We give G*D credit for more than G*D would do and we discount G*D's presence in our routines and patterns. And so we aggrandize ourselves as G*D's special agent and interpreter or experience ourselves as disregarded and lost.

To be called out to play with Neighbor G*D, to soar and dive, invites us to face our realities and throw out the high and low bids for recognition and simply pick up the ball of life rolled to us and toss it back. It is always the right time and space to play catch, even when what we perceive as a Nerf ball tossed our way turns to a raw egg half-way here or our return of a wicked backhanded sliced tennis ball morphs into a badminton shuttlecock. The funner the game the less weary we be. Calvinball lives where eagles soar, kids run, and the faint walk on.

As Mary Poppins puts it: "In ev'ry job that must be done there is an element of fun – you find the fun and snap! The job's a game." And here we have been Jane and Michael finding every excuse for not doing our tasks. Remember the Doxology has been sung – so, Play Ball!