Confession of St. Peter
[Go to Mission St Clare for an online version of the Daily Office including today’s scripture readings.]
Today’s Readings for the Daily Office:
Psalms 66, 67 (morning) // 118 (evening)
Ezekiel 3:4-11
Acts 10:34-44
In today’s first reading, the prophet Ezekiel gets a serious pep talk. God warns Ezekiel that the people he has been sent to are hard-headed and stubborn-hearted. Yet Ezekiel is well-equipped to butt heads with them: “See, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads. Like the hardest stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead.”
Are you going head-to-head with anyone today? While we usually seek a course of mutual listening and open-heartedness, human interactions sometimes take a different form. Hard-headedness isn’t always a desirable quality, but when it comes to exercising a prophetic ministry against a majority position, a hard forehead might be an asset.
At least a hard head protects our most powerful and vulnerable organs–the mind and the heart that open us to God’s transforming love. If we are facing injustice or a tough calling today, may we find our foreheads as hard as flint, shielding our hearts and minds from further blows.
Lora Walsh blogs about taking risks and seeking grace at A Daily Scandal. She serves as curate of Grace Episcopal Church in Siloam Springs and assists with education, young adult ministry, and campus ministry at St. Paul’s in Fayetteville, Arkansas.