“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
For some people, the word “enabling” gets a bad rap. Those who treat alcoholics or substance abusers often speak of “enablers.” “Enablers” are family members and friends who, thinking they are helping, actually make it easier for alcoholics and abusers to continue their abuse. Enabling behavior often involves rescuing an alcoholic or abuser from the consequences of addiction, thus allowing the person to comfortably continue in unacceptable or destructive behavior. In order to help, well-meaning family and friends must give up their enabling behaviors in order for the alcoholic or abuser to start down the road to recovery. Sometimes people who have had bad experiences with the church think of the church in this way, i.e., as an institution that has enabled negative and destructive behavior, from which they must dissociate themselves in order to be healthy. You’ve probably even met people who call themselves “recovering” ex-Christians. In fact, googling the phrase “recovering Christian” will turn up over 15 million pages!
More recently, the word “enabling” has begun to regain some of its positive connotations. For example, a company named Enabling Technologies provides Braille embossers for the blind. The Enabling Devices Company develops “assistive technology for people with disabilities” and provides such products as a jumbo remote control and a harness to help lift a heavy service dog. Many business networking companies include the word “enabling” in their name.
In his letter to the Christian community at Philippi, St Paul assures his hearers that God is enabling the church in this second, positive way. God, he assures them, is at work among them to create a true community grounded in Christ. Today we have had the second lesson from this letter, and we will hear it twice more, next week and the following week. Most likely Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians from prison in Rome, probably in the early’60s, i.e., towards the end of his life. He had probably founded this Christian community in the largely Roman city of Philippi about ten years before, and scholars think that the Philippians may have been his favorite community. Part of his reason for writing them is to reassure them about his own situation and to thank them for their gifts to him through one of their members who had visited him. The letter has a particularly joyful theme. We will hear that joyful note especially in the familiar words of our lection for two weeks from now: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
Yet Paul has another concern: the ability of the community to reflect Christ through their bonds with each other. At the end of the letter he will allude to two of its leading women, who were apparently at odds with each other. So Paul, as he often does, grounds the specific instructions he will give in a deeper understanding of the work of Christ. Here, Paul urges his hearers to participate in the life of Christ, the life they have begun with their baptisms, by living together in unity and humility.
In the stirring words of a poem or hymn that the Philippians might already have known, Paul offers them Jesus as the supreme model of humility. He who was God’s own Son was content to be born as a human being and to endure an agonizing death on the Cross. Paul also assures his hearers that Christ’s saving action, his death on the Cross, has initiated the salvation of the entire world and the restoration of order and wholeness under Christ’s lordship.
It is hard to overestimate the astonishing claim that Paul makes here. First, he reminds the Philippians of Christ’s divine status by using the same word, which we translate as “Lord,” that the Greek version of the Old Testament uses for God. Second, and even more important, Paul is writing as a Roman citizen to other Roman citizens, i.e., to people whose culture venerated Caesar as Lord. In contrast to everything that their culture tells them, Paul triumphantly proclaims that “at the name of Jesus – not Caesar – every knee should bend,” and that “every tongue should confess” that Jesus Christ – not Caesar – is Lord. Most astonishing of all, Paul assures these Roman citizens that, as baptized members of Christ’s body, they can trust that God is at work in them, and that God has empowered them to cooperate with God in the working out of God’s will for the world.
My friends, Paul is also writing to us! We too been enabled by God “both to will and work for [God’s] good pleasure.” We too have been baptized into Christ’s body. God is at much at work in us as God was in the church at Philippi – even in our small parish on the Ohio River! Let me underscore that: the good news we hear here is not primarily for us as individuals. It is for us as a community: the “you” here is plural. The Christian life is not a solo pursuit – even for anchorites. It is a life lived in community. So Paul assures us that God is enabling the work of our parish, and that it is as a parish that we are called to work for the salvation of the world. How do we do that? Even if we trust that God is at work here, how do we cooperate with God in this work?
I’d like to offer a way of looking at our life together in terms of our behaviors as a parish, our practices, the ways in which we open ourselves to God’s leading. Vital living parishes are more than just a collection of individuals who happen to like Episcopal liturgy. Rather, like monastic communities, they are intentional about communal life, and they have ideals towards which they strive, not only on Sunday but every day.
As some of you know, we are completing an application for a grant from the diocesan Commission on Congregational Life. This group supports parishes that are truly pursuing vital missions. We have had such grants for two years and hope for yet another. As part of the application process, the Commission points to the seven Hallmarks of Healthy Congregations developed by the diocese. I’d like to share them with you. The first hallmark is a clear sense of identity. For myself, I believe St. Peter’s has a strong sense of identity. As I said in our application, “We are a small community of people committed to living out our baptismal ministry by growing in our relationship with God, worshiping and organizing ourselves according to the Anglican tradition, and sharing our love of God with the community around us. We are open and inclusive, genuinely and consistently welcoming all into our space.”
The second and sixth hallmarks are radical hospitality and extravagant generosity. For me, our welcome of anyone who comes inside our sanctuary and our support of Loaves and Fishes and Dry Bottoms exemplify our commitment to this hallmark. The third hallmark is inspiring worship. Worship is almost a given, for it is through worship that Christ is especially present to us, enabling us to grow spiritually and binding us together. We have a lovingly cared for sacred space and dignified worship in the Anglican tradition. And we also have a “growing edge.” We are deeply grateful to Nancy for all that she does for us musically. Yet, we too need to join the “faithful” and begin making our songs “exalt his reign?”. Can we figure out how to do that?
For the fourth hallmark, intentional faith development and formation for discipleship, Deacon Carolyn and I have committed ourselves to two new opportunities for spiritual growth: four sessions on the practice of prayer and ongoing Wednesday evening study of Scripture. Will anyone come with us? And the fifth hallmark, adventuresome, risk-taking mission and service? What might such adventurous mission and service look like for us? For example, does anyone want to help plan a mission trip? Finally, I do believe that we reflect the seventh hallmark, accountability and collaboration, in our partnering with other churches and in our many connections to the diocese.
The Hallmarks of Healthy Congregations do not exhaust all that we are called to be as a parish. As we worship together, we are called to be a community of prayer. As we learn together, we are called to be a community that is enriched by sacred Scripture. As we serve others, we are also called to do so with humility, grace, and unity. We are called to put aside animosities and conflicts that fracture our community and make it difficult for us to witness to God’s love. We are called to “have the same mind” in us that was in Christ. Most important, we are called to trust that we are not alone, that God is at work in us, both as individuals and as a parish, and that God is transforming us all more and more into Christ’s likeness.
O God, we give you thanks for the invitation that you make to us every day and every hour. We know that you are at work in us. Guide us as a community that we may be joined in heart and mind with you and all your faithful people, so that together we may truly show forth your praise. Amen.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Put Your Trust in God
Do you find the image of God in the story of Israel’s deliverance from the Egyptians at all jolting? Consider this: in the Gospel passage we just heard, Jesus charges the disciples, and by extension us, to forgive those who wrong them “seventy-seven” times, i.e., an infinite number of times. Then, in an absurdly exaggerated parable, Jesus reminds them of the importance of forgiveness in the life of a Christian community and suggests that we truly accept God’s forgiveness of us when we extend forgiveness to others.
Or consider this: our reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, our last reading from this letter for this liturgical year, reminds us that the God revealed to us in Jesus welcomes all comers. Christian communities can – and should – allow for a variety of theological perspectives and spiritual practices. If we all belong to Christ, Paul admonishes us, we are to refrain from judging each other.
But the God whom we meet in the Exodus story? Is that the same God whom Jesus called “Abba?” Is that the same God to whom each of us will be held accountable for our welcome – or lack of welcome – of one another? Is that violent God our God?
The story of the deliverance of the Israelites at the Sea of Reeds is a foundational story, for Jews and for many Christians. For good reason, African-American theologians have especially identified with the story of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian oppression. Even so, this story raises profound questions – at least for me. To begin with, did God grieve over the deaths of all those Egyptians? Sure, we hear the story from the point of view of an oppressed people who finally and miraculously triumphed over those who oppressed them. Even so, what about all the Egyptian lives lost? And what of the women whose husbands, sons, and brothers rode in those chariots whose wheels became clogged in the mud, and who were swept under as the sea returned? Did God not care about them?
Secondly, is God a tribal God? Does God really favor one people over another? Many fundamentalists of all faith communities would say, “Absolutely.” Many of today’s Israelis, who believe that Israel may use any and all means to ensure its self-preservation, would agree wholeheartedly. Similarly, those in Muslim nations who limit the freedom of Christians to practice their religion would agree, as would members of the Taliban and ISIS, who promote the most rigid possible forms of Islam. As would Christians who believe that those who favor their brand of belief and practice are saved, and assure those of us who disagree with their literalist interpretations of the Bible or tradition that God hates us, and that we are damned. Is this the God to whom we have committed our lives?
And finally we might ask, “Is God really a warrior God?” “Warrior” is certainly one of the images for God that recurs in the Hebrew Bible. However, because Jesus consciously rejected military power, even refusing to be crowned as a king, many Christians feel profoundly uncomfortable with military imagery and with the notion of God as warrior. Some refuse to sing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Some squirm when they hear Paul’s command, in the portion of the letter to the Romans that we heard last week, to “put on the armor of light.” Even worse for them is to hear him instruct the Ephesian Christians to “take up the whole armor of God,” including the “belt of truth,” the “breastplate of righteousness,” the “shield of faith,” the “helmet of salvation,” and the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (6:13-17). Is God a militant God?
There are no easy answers to these questions. The book of Exodus is one of the most ancient in the entire Bible. The story we have just heard comes from at least three sources, which were probably only edited and put together after the return from Exile in the 6th century BC. Apparently, the rabbis were also troubled by our first question, of whether God grieved for the Egyptians. Indeed, there is a Midrash, an interpretation, that God rebuked rejoicing angels saying, “While my creatures are drowning in the sea you would sing a hymn?” According to the rabbis, this rebuke showed that God does not rejoice in the death of the wicked. In answer to the second question, of whether God is a tribal God, much of the Hebrew Bible suggests that God cares for all people. For example, Psalm 117 enjoins all nations to praise God. The prophet Isaiah reminds us of God’s promise of unity among nations. “In the days to come,” Isaiah says, “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob” (2:2-3). Those who chafe at the notion of God as warrior point to the promise spoken by the prophet Micah: “He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore….” (4:3).
Despite our questions and reservations about the God of the Exodus story, despite the alternative images of God that Scripture provides, this text is included in our lectionary for a reason. Its purpose is to remind of some important truths about the God whom we profess to worship, truths we might sometimes wish to forget. To begin with, the story witnesses to God’s power. Yes, God sometimes comes to us as a “still small voice.” Yes, God cares for us as a mother cares for her children. Yes, we can know God as friend and companion, and as the power working within us for transformation. But, at some point, we also must acknowledge that the Holy One, the Incomprehensible Mystery that created and grounds the cosmos, is also a God of immense power, power that can both act on our behalf, even working miracles, and power that can work against us when we in the wrong.
Secondly, this story reminds us that God stands passionately on the side of justice. The Israelites who crossed the Sea of Reeds were an oppressed people, forced into slavery by the wealthy and powerful Egyptians, whose leadership was determined to do everything necessary to maintain the status quo ante. This story forcefully reminds us, with unforgettable imagery, that the God of Israel, the God of Jesus, the God of Paul, and our God, is a God who uses all of God’s power to work for justice on behalf of those who are oppressed. No wonder enslaved Africans found this story so full of hope and promise!
And finally, this story reminds us that we are called to trust in God. What did the Israelites do after they had crossed the sea, after they had been saved, and after they “saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore?” “So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and his servant Moses.” The Israelites acknowledged God’s immense power, put their trust in God, and came to understand fully that Moses was God’s designee, God’s trusted instrument.
And what of us? We may not have crossed the Sea of Reeds, but we too stand where the Israelites stood. We too are called to trust in God’s great power, to trust that God will be on our side in our fight for justice and peace, even when we are weak and unarmed, even when we fight against great worldly powers. Can we do that? My brothers and sisters, we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses,” who have trusted God to be with them when they stood on the side of justice. We are instructed by the witness of many who, despite their lack of military hardware, have gone out against mighty powers ranged against them.
Abraham Joshua Heschel was a descendant of rabbis and a lecturer in philosophy in Warsaw, Poland. Six weeks before the Nazis invaded Poland, Heschel managed to escape to London. He eventually made it to the U.S. where he had a distinguished career as a professor of philosophy and a scholar of the Hebrew Bible. His book on the prophets is still widely read and is considered a classic in the field. However, Heschel was much more than a dispassionate scholar. He took seriously the witness of the Scripture that he studied. Hearing God’s call to join God on the side of justice, he became a forthright proponent of Civil Rights. In March, 1965, Heschel “prayed with his legs” by joining Martin Luther King on his historic march from Salem, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery. Unarmed and defenseless, along with King and others, he faced down dogs, fire hoses, hostile police officers, and jeering crowds. Bearded, white-haired, wearing black horned-rimmed glasses, Heschel fulfilled his deep life-long commitment by marching with those who truly trusted that God would liberate them, just as God had liberated the Israelites.
We have only to look around us to see God similarly at work, companioning the weak, the unarmed, and the oppressed, in their struggle for justice. Are we with them? Do we trust God to lead us? If the Exodus text has any meaning for us, let it continue to remind us that God is powerful, that God cares for all people, that God shows up on the side of the weak and powerless, and, most important, that God calls us to work in partnership with God to bring about liberation for all.
Or consider this: our reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, our last reading from this letter for this liturgical year, reminds us that the God revealed to us in Jesus welcomes all comers. Christian communities can – and should – allow for a variety of theological perspectives and spiritual practices. If we all belong to Christ, Paul admonishes us, we are to refrain from judging each other.
But the God whom we meet in the Exodus story? Is that the same God whom Jesus called “Abba?” Is that the same God to whom each of us will be held accountable for our welcome – or lack of welcome – of one another? Is that violent God our God?
The story of the deliverance of the Israelites at the Sea of Reeds is a foundational story, for Jews and for many Christians. For good reason, African-American theologians have especially identified with the story of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian oppression. Even so, this story raises profound questions – at least for me. To begin with, did God grieve over the deaths of all those Egyptians? Sure, we hear the story from the point of view of an oppressed people who finally and miraculously triumphed over those who oppressed them. Even so, what about all the Egyptian lives lost? And what of the women whose husbands, sons, and brothers rode in those chariots whose wheels became clogged in the mud, and who were swept under as the sea returned? Did God not care about them?
Secondly, is God a tribal God? Does God really favor one people over another? Many fundamentalists of all faith communities would say, “Absolutely.” Many of today’s Israelis, who believe that Israel may use any and all means to ensure its self-preservation, would agree wholeheartedly. Similarly, those in Muslim nations who limit the freedom of Christians to practice their religion would agree, as would members of the Taliban and ISIS, who promote the most rigid possible forms of Islam. As would Christians who believe that those who favor their brand of belief and practice are saved, and assure those of us who disagree with their literalist interpretations of the Bible or tradition that God hates us, and that we are damned. Is this the God to whom we have committed our lives?
And finally we might ask, “Is God really a warrior God?” “Warrior” is certainly one of the images for God that recurs in the Hebrew Bible. However, because Jesus consciously rejected military power, even refusing to be crowned as a king, many Christians feel profoundly uncomfortable with military imagery and with the notion of God as warrior. Some refuse to sing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Some squirm when they hear Paul’s command, in the portion of the letter to the Romans that we heard last week, to “put on the armor of light.” Even worse for them is to hear him instruct the Ephesian Christians to “take up the whole armor of God,” including the “belt of truth,” the “breastplate of righteousness,” the “shield of faith,” the “helmet of salvation,” and the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (6:13-17). Is God a militant God?
There are no easy answers to these questions. The book of Exodus is one of the most ancient in the entire Bible. The story we have just heard comes from at least three sources, which were probably only edited and put together after the return from Exile in the 6th century BC. Apparently, the rabbis were also troubled by our first question, of whether God grieved for the Egyptians. Indeed, there is a Midrash, an interpretation, that God rebuked rejoicing angels saying, “While my creatures are drowning in the sea you would sing a hymn?” According to the rabbis, this rebuke showed that God does not rejoice in the death of the wicked. In answer to the second question, of whether God is a tribal God, much of the Hebrew Bible suggests that God cares for all people. For example, Psalm 117 enjoins all nations to praise God. The prophet Isaiah reminds us of God’s promise of unity among nations. “In the days to come,” Isaiah says, “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob” (2:2-3). Those who chafe at the notion of God as warrior point to the promise spoken by the prophet Micah: “He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore….” (4:3).
Despite our questions and reservations about the God of the Exodus story, despite the alternative images of God that Scripture provides, this text is included in our lectionary for a reason. Its purpose is to remind of some important truths about the God whom we profess to worship, truths we might sometimes wish to forget. To begin with, the story witnesses to God’s power. Yes, God sometimes comes to us as a “still small voice.” Yes, God cares for us as a mother cares for her children. Yes, we can know God as friend and companion, and as the power working within us for transformation. But, at some point, we also must acknowledge that the Holy One, the Incomprehensible Mystery that created and grounds the cosmos, is also a God of immense power, power that can both act on our behalf, even working miracles, and power that can work against us when we in the wrong.
Secondly, this story reminds us that God stands passionately on the side of justice. The Israelites who crossed the Sea of Reeds were an oppressed people, forced into slavery by the wealthy and powerful Egyptians, whose leadership was determined to do everything necessary to maintain the status quo ante. This story forcefully reminds us, with unforgettable imagery, that the God of Israel, the God of Jesus, the God of Paul, and our God, is a God who uses all of God’s power to work for justice on behalf of those who are oppressed. No wonder enslaved Africans found this story so full of hope and promise!
And finally, this story reminds us that we are called to trust in God. What did the Israelites do after they had crossed the sea, after they had been saved, and after they “saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore?” “So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and his servant Moses.” The Israelites acknowledged God’s immense power, put their trust in God, and came to understand fully that Moses was God’s designee, God’s trusted instrument.
And what of us? We may not have crossed the Sea of Reeds, but we too stand where the Israelites stood. We too are called to trust in God’s great power, to trust that God will be on our side in our fight for justice and peace, even when we are weak and unarmed, even when we fight against great worldly powers. Can we do that? My brothers and sisters, we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses,” who have trusted God to be with them when they stood on the side of justice. We are instructed by the witness of many who, despite their lack of military hardware, have gone out against mighty powers ranged against them.
Abraham Joshua Heschel was a descendant of rabbis and a lecturer in philosophy in Warsaw, Poland. Six weeks before the Nazis invaded Poland, Heschel managed to escape to London. He eventually made it to the U.S. where he had a distinguished career as a professor of philosophy and a scholar of the Hebrew Bible. His book on the prophets is still widely read and is considered a classic in the field. However, Heschel was much more than a dispassionate scholar. He took seriously the witness of the Scripture that he studied. Hearing God’s call to join God on the side of justice, he became a forthright proponent of Civil Rights. In March, 1965, Heschel “prayed with his legs” by joining Martin Luther King on his historic march from Salem, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery. Unarmed and defenseless, along with King and others, he faced down dogs, fire hoses, hostile police officers, and jeering crowds. Bearded, white-haired, wearing black horned-rimmed glasses, Heschel fulfilled his deep life-long commitment by marching with those who truly trusted that God would liberate them, just as God had liberated the Israelites.
We have only to look around us to see God similarly at work, companioning the weak, the unarmed, and the oppressed, in their struggle for justice. Are we with them? Do we trust God to lead us? If the Exodus text has any meaning for us, let it continue to remind us that God is powerful, that God cares for all people, that God shows up on the side of the weak and powerless, and, most important, that God calls us to work in partnership with God to bring about liberation for all.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Love One Another
“The commandments … are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Last month, the actor Robin Williams hanged himself. He was only sixty-three. Six months ago, the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died of a drug overdose. He was only forty-six. Both men were richly talented, highly acclaimed actors. Robin Williams excelled at both zany comedy and moving drama. Who can forget his portrayal of the cross-dressing Mrs. Doubtfire, or of Patch Adams, the physician who healed his patients through deft use of comedy? Philip Seymour Hoffman gave us men of fierce intelligence, whose lives tended to end in crime or tragedy. His portrayal of Günther Bachmann, the brooding German intelligence officer in his last film, “A Man Most Wanted,” is truly riveting. Yet both of these men, at the peak of success, were also depressed and addicted to drugs. Both died at their own hands.
Writer Daniel Clendenin suggests that both suffered from what he calls “spiritual poverty.” “’The biggest disease today,’ Mother Teresa once said, is more spiritual than physical. It’s not ‘leprosy or tuberculosis,’ she observed, ‘but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference toward one’s neighbor who lives at the roadside assaulted by exploitation, corruption, poverty, and disease.’”1
Do we, as followers of the Risen One, have any responsibility for Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman and for others like them? Should we care about those who, despite, or perhaps because, of their great professional success, are so disconnected from God, themselves, and those around them that the path of self-destruction seems the only viable option? And what about those closer to us, our neighbors on this piece of the planet, who may also be lonely, sick, or grieving; must we be concerned about them?
Our passage this morning from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome clearly – at least to me – calls us to care for both those like Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman and those closer to us. We’ve been hearing passages from this long letter for several weeks. It is the last letter that Paul wrote, and, in some respects, the entire letter is about how to love. In the first eleven chapters, Paul explores the question of loving God, trying to get his arms around all that God has done for us in Christ. Now, in chapters twelve through fourteen, he deals with what was a more difficult task for many early Christians: how to love other people, especially those of other ethnicities, social class, or gender.
As a Jew, Paul understood God’s covenant with the Jews, which now, through Christ, included the Gentiles. Paul understood that a covenant is a two-way agreement: God has made promises to humanity, and humans have responsibilities in turn. Paul understood that keeping the law was the way that Jews, and now Christians, uphold their part of the covenant. Initially, of course, the covenant included only Ten Commandments, the ten which had been given on Mount Sinai during the forty years’ trek in the desert. As the community pondered how to apply the commandments to specific and changing situations, the laws multiplied. By the time of the compilation of the book of Leviticus, there were 613 of them. And, actually, the process has continued to the present day, as the rabbis continue to figure out how to apply the law to the circumstances in which Jews now live. Needless to say, the same process is at work in secular law.
Despite the pondering and the multiplying of the law to cover new circumstances, the underlying principle of the law is always the same: loving our neighbor is the way we show our love for God. In laying out the Jews’ obligations toward God, Leviticus clearly states this principle: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” (19:18). We hear its echo in Jesus’ statement of the great commandment in the gospel of Mark: “The first [commandment] is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (12:29-31), or as the 1928 Book of Common Prayer put it, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
The charge to love our neighbors is a constant theme in Scripture. Paul restates it in his letter to the Galatian Christians: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (5:13-14). The writer of the letter of James reminds us, “You do well if you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (2:8). The writer of the first letter of John tells us clearly, “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” And even beyond Scripture, early Christian writers continued to remind us of our obligation to love others. Writing in the sixth century, for example, Maximus the Confessor declared, “Blessed is the one who can love all people equally, thinking good of everyone.”
Is “loving our neighbor” easy to do? If it were, all would have haloes! In some ways, the 613 commandments were easier to keep. At least they were concrete and told pious Jews what to do and not do. Loving their neighbors as themselves was much more difficult. No wonder the gospel of Luke depicts the scribe asking Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In writing to the Roman Christians, Paul was perfectly aware of how difficult it was for them to give up their self-absorption and focus on the concerns others. Having been a pious Jew himself, he knew perfectly well how difficult it was for them to not look down on, condemn, or enslave those who differed from them in social class, gender, faith community, or ethnicity. And he knew well how difficult it was to compromise and to forgive old sins and hurts.
BUT here’s Paul’s good news: the Roman Christians could love their neighbors as themselves, because of God’s great self-giving love for them, because a new day was already dawning through the death and resurrection of Christ, because through the Holy Spirit working on them from within, God was already transforming them. And what should their response be? To dress appropriately, i.e., to lean on God, and to fix their intentions on following God’s call, rather than automatically succumbing to the demands of their own egos or of the surrounding culture.
My sisters and brothers, this is still our call, to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” And the good news stands: we too are empowered to follow God’s commandment. We too are called to give up our absorption with self and fix our intentions on the needs of others. And, by virtue of our baptism and our inclusion into Christ’s Body, God’s transformation of us has already begun. We too have been created and are sustained by God’s continual self-giving. We too have a true model of self-giving love in Jesus’ death on the Cross. We too are included in his resurrection. We too can rely on his promise that the Holy Spirit is now at work in us.
Does loving our neighbor require heroic deeds of us? Scottish writer Tom Gordon tells the story of the “red letter day,” when the Queen visited a factory. He ends the story with a poem entitled, “Special.”
“I always knew it was a special day
when my neighbour baked a cake.
I knew she’d baked a cake
because she always brought me a piece –
well, living alone,
and never having baked anything in my life,
she knew I appreciated home baking.
And I would always ask her,
‘What’s the cake for this time?
What’s the special day?’
And, over the years,
I’d had a share in family occasions,
and anniversaries,
and homecomings,
and leavings,
and celebrations for coming back again,
and big birthdays,
and little birthdays,
and retirements,
and babies being born,
and Scotland winning the grand-slam at rugby,
and Labour winning an election.
I would always ask her.
And I always got my share.
And I always enjoyed my cake.
Then, one day, my neighbour baked a cake
and brought me a piece,
and I asked her, as usual,
‘What’s the cake for this time?
What’s the special day?
And she said, ‘Nothing.’
And I asked, ‘Nothing?’
And she said, ‘Well, nothing
really ...’
And I said she’d have to explain.
And she said that she’d just felt
she should bake a cake and share it with me,
because she liked being my friend –
and it was good to be alive!
And I said, ‘Oh!’
So we shared my neighbour’s cake –
and we both agreed it was a very nice cake,
because it was shared by friends
on a
very
special day.”2
In the end, loving our neighbor does not require heroic deeds. Mother Teresa reminds us that, "In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love." Love God, love your neighbor. God asks no more of us – and no less.
1. http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml, For Sunday, September 7,2014.
2. "A Red-Letter Day,” Welcoming Each Wonder (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publication, 2010), 243-44.
Last month, the actor Robin Williams hanged himself. He was only sixty-three. Six months ago, the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died of a drug overdose. He was only forty-six. Both men were richly talented, highly acclaimed actors. Robin Williams excelled at both zany comedy and moving drama. Who can forget his portrayal of the cross-dressing Mrs. Doubtfire, or of Patch Adams, the physician who healed his patients through deft use of comedy? Philip Seymour Hoffman gave us men of fierce intelligence, whose lives tended to end in crime or tragedy. His portrayal of Günther Bachmann, the brooding German intelligence officer in his last film, “A Man Most Wanted,” is truly riveting. Yet both of these men, at the peak of success, were also depressed and addicted to drugs. Both died at their own hands.
Writer Daniel Clendenin suggests that both suffered from what he calls “spiritual poverty.” “’The biggest disease today,’ Mother Teresa once said, is more spiritual than physical. It’s not ‘leprosy or tuberculosis,’ she observed, ‘but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference toward one’s neighbor who lives at the roadside assaulted by exploitation, corruption, poverty, and disease.’”1
Do we, as followers of the Risen One, have any responsibility for Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman and for others like them? Should we care about those who, despite, or perhaps because, of their great professional success, are so disconnected from God, themselves, and those around them that the path of self-destruction seems the only viable option? And what about those closer to us, our neighbors on this piece of the planet, who may also be lonely, sick, or grieving; must we be concerned about them?
Our passage this morning from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome clearly – at least to me – calls us to care for both those like Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman and those closer to us. We’ve been hearing passages from this long letter for several weeks. It is the last letter that Paul wrote, and, in some respects, the entire letter is about how to love. In the first eleven chapters, Paul explores the question of loving God, trying to get his arms around all that God has done for us in Christ. Now, in chapters twelve through fourteen, he deals with what was a more difficult task for many early Christians: how to love other people, especially those of other ethnicities, social class, or gender.
As a Jew, Paul understood God’s covenant with the Jews, which now, through Christ, included the Gentiles. Paul understood that a covenant is a two-way agreement: God has made promises to humanity, and humans have responsibilities in turn. Paul understood that keeping the law was the way that Jews, and now Christians, uphold their part of the covenant. Initially, of course, the covenant included only Ten Commandments, the ten which had been given on Mount Sinai during the forty years’ trek in the desert. As the community pondered how to apply the commandments to specific and changing situations, the laws multiplied. By the time of the compilation of the book of Leviticus, there were 613 of them. And, actually, the process has continued to the present day, as the rabbis continue to figure out how to apply the law to the circumstances in which Jews now live. Needless to say, the same process is at work in secular law.
Despite the pondering and the multiplying of the law to cover new circumstances, the underlying principle of the law is always the same: loving our neighbor is the way we show our love for God. In laying out the Jews’ obligations toward God, Leviticus clearly states this principle: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” (19:18). We hear its echo in Jesus’ statement of the great commandment in the gospel of Mark: “The first [commandment] is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (12:29-31), or as the 1928 Book of Common Prayer put it, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
The charge to love our neighbors is a constant theme in Scripture. Paul restates it in his letter to the Galatian Christians: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (5:13-14). The writer of the letter of James reminds us, “You do well if you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (2:8). The writer of the first letter of John tells us clearly, “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” And even beyond Scripture, early Christian writers continued to remind us of our obligation to love others. Writing in the sixth century, for example, Maximus the Confessor declared, “Blessed is the one who can love all people equally, thinking good of everyone.”
Is “loving our neighbor” easy to do? If it were, all would have haloes! In some ways, the 613 commandments were easier to keep. At least they were concrete and told pious Jews what to do and not do. Loving their neighbors as themselves was much more difficult. No wonder the gospel of Luke depicts the scribe asking Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In writing to the Roman Christians, Paul was perfectly aware of how difficult it was for them to give up their self-absorption and focus on the concerns others. Having been a pious Jew himself, he knew perfectly well how difficult it was for them to not look down on, condemn, or enslave those who differed from them in social class, gender, faith community, or ethnicity. And he knew well how difficult it was to compromise and to forgive old sins and hurts.
BUT here’s Paul’s good news: the Roman Christians could love their neighbors as themselves, because of God’s great self-giving love for them, because a new day was already dawning through the death and resurrection of Christ, because through the Holy Spirit working on them from within, God was already transforming them. And what should their response be? To dress appropriately, i.e., to lean on God, and to fix their intentions on following God’s call, rather than automatically succumbing to the demands of their own egos or of the surrounding culture.
My sisters and brothers, this is still our call, to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” And the good news stands: we too are empowered to follow God’s commandment. We too are called to give up our absorption with self and fix our intentions on the needs of others. And, by virtue of our baptism and our inclusion into Christ’s Body, God’s transformation of us has already begun. We too have been created and are sustained by God’s continual self-giving. We too have a true model of self-giving love in Jesus’ death on the Cross. We too are included in his resurrection. We too can rely on his promise that the Holy Spirit is now at work in us.
Does loving our neighbor require heroic deeds of us? Scottish writer Tom Gordon tells the story of the “red letter day,” when the Queen visited a factory. He ends the story with a poem entitled, “Special.”
“I always knew it was a special day
when my neighbour baked a cake.
I knew she’d baked a cake
because she always brought me a piece –
well, living alone,
and never having baked anything in my life,
she knew I appreciated home baking.
And I would always ask her,
‘What’s the cake for this time?
What’s the special day?’
And, over the years,
I’d had a share in family occasions,
and anniversaries,
and homecomings,
and leavings,
and celebrations for coming back again,
and big birthdays,
and little birthdays,
and retirements,
and babies being born,
and Scotland winning the grand-slam at rugby,
and Labour winning an election.
I would always ask her.
And I always got my share.
And I always enjoyed my cake.
Then, one day, my neighbour baked a cake
and brought me a piece,
and I asked her, as usual,
‘What’s the cake for this time?
What’s the special day?
And she said, ‘Nothing.’
And I asked, ‘Nothing?’
And she said, ‘Well, nothing
really ...’
And I said she’d have to explain.
And she said that she’d just felt
she should bake a cake and share it with me,
because she liked being my friend –
and it was good to be alive!
And I said, ‘Oh!’
So we shared my neighbour’s cake –
and we both agreed it was a very nice cake,
because it was shared by friends
on a
very
special day.”2
In the end, loving our neighbor does not require heroic deeds. Mother Teresa reminds us that, "In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love." Love God, love your neighbor. God asks no more of us – and no less.
1. http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml, For Sunday, September 7,2014.
2. "A Red-Letter Day,” Welcoming Each Wonder (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publication, 2010), 243-44.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
I Have Observed the Misery of My People
“I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry…. Indeed, I know their sufferings….” Who is God for you? Is God for you Aristotle’s unmoved mover, a God who is totally uninvolved with this world? Perhaps you resonate with the Deist’s Watchmaker God, who, after setting the world in motion, now leaves it tick away on its own. Our opening hymn pictured God as “enthroned above,” maintaining his kingdom on “Zion’s sacred height,” surrounded by the “great archangels” but seemingly uninvolved with humanity. Is that God for you?
To be sure, God is the source of all being, the Great Mystery, the totally incomprehensible Holy One, transcendent at the theologians would say. Yet the God of the story of the calling of Moses shows us a God who is totally different from the unmoved mover or the watchmaker. Last week we heard the story of Moses’s birth to a Hebrew woman. Despite Pharaoh’s order to the Hebrew midwives to kill all male infants, Moses instead was hidden and then adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter into the royal household. Seemingly aware of his ancestry as an adult he murdered an Egyptian overseer who was abusing a Hebrew worker. He then fled to Midian, where he subsequently married the daughter of a shepherd.
Now we catch up with Moses. Out tending his father-in-law’s flocks, he has an extraordinary vision of a flaming bush. Writer Bruce Epperly relates the story of a gathering of rabbis who pondered the question, “Why was the bush burning but not consumed?”1 They considered different possibilities. Finally, one said, “It was burning and not consumed so that one day, as Moses walked by, he would notice it.” Notice it he did, and through that miraculous sign, a chain of events was set in motion that would forever define the history of the Jews.
Even so, ultimately this is not a story about Moses. In one sense, stories in Scripture are never solely about the humans in them, interesting as they may be. Stories in Scripture always reveal to us something about God, about God’s nature, and, more important, how God relates to us. Although it was composed centuries before the Word became flesh in Jesus, this story is no different, for it reveals to us a God totally different from the unmoved mover or the watchmaker God.
To begin with, this story reveals to us a God who communicates, who uses every available place, or object, or person to connect with human beings. The bush was aflame precisely because God intended to capture Moses’ attention. Second, and more important, this story reveals to us a God who notices. The God who captured Moses’s attention through the flaming bus is personal, dynamic, changing, and, most important, demanding. This God knows what is happening in the world. This God has heard God’s people’s cries. This God has heard God’s people’s prayers and felt their pain. This God is ready to respond, to deliver God’s people from injustice and oppression. This God is anything but aloof, unchanging, and impassive. Rather, this God is lively, talkative, and passionate. This God receives as well as gives. This God is moved by the injustice of the world and intimately knows the world’s joys and pains.
The story of the calling of Moses also reveals to us a God who expects humans to do God’s work in the world and empowers them to do it. “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt,” this God says to Moses. Of course, Moses, like most humans, comes right back at God with objections. Never mind that Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s household and is most likely on intimate terms with all the royal political players, to say nothing of Pharaoh himself. “Who am I,” he says to God, “that I should go to Pharoah and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” We too might wonder why a stranger to his own people and a murderer on the run is a suitable candidate for leading the Israelites. But the Holy One doesn’t explain the choice of Moses. Instead, God promises to empower Moses. “I will be with you,” God replies. When Moses and the people return to Mt. Sinai, he will see for himself that God has accomplished God’s work of liberation through this most imperfect of possible actors.
Moses hasn’t finished with his objections. He pushes God a little farther. “When I want to prove to people that I’m an authentic leader,” he says, “whom shall I say has sent me?” God’s answer has tantalized people ever since. “I AM Who I AM,” God says. And further, “Say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” The Hebrew words can also be translated, “I will be who I will be.” In other words, God is ultimately holy mystery, who exists but cannot be known. In effect, God says to Moses the most that humans can bear: “You will know me by what I do.”
Is this your God? The bush is still burning. When do you know yourself to be on holy ground? Where are your “thin places?” Does God provide signs for you, so that you too might turn aside and “look at this great sight?” Can you ever stop, take off your shoes, and know that God is revealing Godself to you? How would you know that God is revealing Godself if you never turn off the TV or look up from your smartphone? Ultimately, if we are to hear the God we say we trust and believe in, we too have to look for the flaming bushes in our world and then “turn aside” to actually look at them. Then we have to let God do some of the talking. The pursuit of silence, in meditation, or even in the five minutes before you get out of bed, is one of the “deepest disciplines of the Spirit,” as we let go of our own concerns and let God’s concerns seep into our consciousness.
The bush is still burning. God continues to reveal Godself to wherever we are. Writer Kent Nerburn reminds us that “Spirituality is far more than religious practice. It is a cast of mind, a leaning of the heart, a willingness to see the divine mystery in all people and all things.” It is a way of seeing that allows us to see the sacred traces wherever we look. Our task, “as surely as performing acts of worship, is to find these sacred moments, hallow them with our attention, and raise them up as a celebration of the mystery of life.”2
Do you trust that God is the one “to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid?” Are you confident that God knows us intimately, and that God loves us passionately? Does God love all of humanity? Do you believe that God sees the oppression of God’s people? Is God there when people are unjustly murdered and executed? Was God standing with James Foley or Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin? Does God see the suffering of the refugees who have fled Syria and Iraq? Does God weep when God looks down on Gaza? Do the victims of AIDS and the Ebola virus stir God’s heart? Does God abhor human trafficking?
More to the point, do you believe that God calls and empowers you to partner with God in delivering God’s people from oppression? The bush is still burning. Do you hear God’s call? Can you hear God say to you, “So come, I will send you?” What are your objections when you hear God’s call? How easy it is to answer God as Moses did, “Who me? Who am I that I should do as you ask?” How seductive it is to think that we must know more about theology or Scripture or worship or politics or budgets or anything else before we can answer God’s call. The truth is that God needs us all, whoever and wherever we are. God had no need to explain God’s use of an imperfect human being like Moses to carry out God’s plan. God promised to accompany and empower Moses in the work of liberating God’s people. So God knows all our strengths and weaknesses, our failures and accomplishments. So God promises to accompany and empower us in the work to which God calls us.
Who is God for you? Is God for you divorced from the world, uncaring, uninvolved, the watchmaker or unmoved mover of old? If you are a follower of Jesus the Christ then your God is the living God of Scripture, the God who reaches out to us and calls us, the God who hears the cries of suffering humanity, the God who empowers us to respond to those cries, the God to whom, we can say with all our hearts, “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.”
1. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/livingaholyadventure/
2. Ordinary Sacred: The Simple Beauty of Everyday Life (Novato, CA, New World Library 2012), quoted in Synthesis, August 31, 2014, 3
To be sure, God is the source of all being, the Great Mystery, the totally incomprehensible Holy One, transcendent at the theologians would say. Yet the God of the story of the calling of Moses shows us a God who is totally different from the unmoved mover or the watchmaker. Last week we heard the story of Moses’s birth to a Hebrew woman. Despite Pharaoh’s order to the Hebrew midwives to kill all male infants, Moses instead was hidden and then adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter into the royal household. Seemingly aware of his ancestry as an adult he murdered an Egyptian overseer who was abusing a Hebrew worker. He then fled to Midian, where he subsequently married the daughter of a shepherd.
Now we catch up with Moses. Out tending his father-in-law’s flocks, he has an extraordinary vision of a flaming bush. Writer Bruce Epperly relates the story of a gathering of rabbis who pondered the question, “Why was the bush burning but not consumed?”1 They considered different possibilities. Finally, one said, “It was burning and not consumed so that one day, as Moses walked by, he would notice it.” Notice it he did, and through that miraculous sign, a chain of events was set in motion that would forever define the history of the Jews.
Even so, ultimately this is not a story about Moses. In one sense, stories in Scripture are never solely about the humans in them, interesting as they may be. Stories in Scripture always reveal to us something about God, about God’s nature, and, more important, how God relates to us. Although it was composed centuries before the Word became flesh in Jesus, this story is no different, for it reveals to us a God totally different from the unmoved mover or the watchmaker God.
To begin with, this story reveals to us a God who communicates, who uses every available place, or object, or person to connect with human beings. The bush was aflame precisely because God intended to capture Moses’ attention. Second, and more important, this story reveals to us a God who notices. The God who captured Moses’s attention through the flaming bus is personal, dynamic, changing, and, most important, demanding. This God knows what is happening in the world. This God has heard God’s people’s cries. This God has heard God’s people’s prayers and felt their pain. This God is ready to respond, to deliver God’s people from injustice and oppression. This God is anything but aloof, unchanging, and impassive. Rather, this God is lively, talkative, and passionate. This God receives as well as gives. This God is moved by the injustice of the world and intimately knows the world’s joys and pains.
The story of the calling of Moses also reveals to us a God who expects humans to do God’s work in the world and empowers them to do it. “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt,” this God says to Moses. Of course, Moses, like most humans, comes right back at God with objections. Never mind that Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s household and is most likely on intimate terms with all the royal political players, to say nothing of Pharaoh himself. “Who am I,” he says to God, “that I should go to Pharoah and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” We too might wonder why a stranger to his own people and a murderer on the run is a suitable candidate for leading the Israelites. But the Holy One doesn’t explain the choice of Moses. Instead, God promises to empower Moses. “I will be with you,” God replies. When Moses and the people return to Mt. Sinai, he will see for himself that God has accomplished God’s work of liberation through this most imperfect of possible actors.
Moses hasn’t finished with his objections. He pushes God a little farther. “When I want to prove to people that I’m an authentic leader,” he says, “whom shall I say has sent me?” God’s answer has tantalized people ever since. “I AM Who I AM,” God says. And further, “Say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” The Hebrew words can also be translated, “I will be who I will be.” In other words, God is ultimately holy mystery, who exists but cannot be known. In effect, God says to Moses the most that humans can bear: “You will know me by what I do.”
Is this your God? The bush is still burning. When do you know yourself to be on holy ground? Where are your “thin places?” Does God provide signs for you, so that you too might turn aside and “look at this great sight?” Can you ever stop, take off your shoes, and know that God is revealing Godself to you? How would you know that God is revealing Godself if you never turn off the TV or look up from your smartphone? Ultimately, if we are to hear the God we say we trust and believe in, we too have to look for the flaming bushes in our world and then “turn aside” to actually look at them. Then we have to let God do some of the talking. The pursuit of silence, in meditation, or even in the five minutes before you get out of bed, is one of the “deepest disciplines of the Spirit,” as we let go of our own concerns and let God’s concerns seep into our consciousness.
The bush is still burning. God continues to reveal Godself to wherever we are. Writer Kent Nerburn reminds us that “Spirituality is far more than religious practice. It is a cast of mind, a leaning of the heart, a willingness to see the divine mystery in all people and all things.” It is a way of seeing that allows us to see the sacred traces wherever we look. Our task, “as surely as performing acts of worship, is to find these sacred moments, hallow them with our attention, and raise them up as a celebration of the mystery of life.”2
Do you trust that God is the one “to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid?” Are you confident that God knows us intimately, and that God loves us passionately? Does God love all of humanity? Do you believe that God sees the oppression of God’s people? Is God there when people are unjustly murdered and executed? Was God standing with James Foley or Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin? Does God see the suffering of the refugees who have fled Syria and Iraq? Does God weep when God looks down on Gaza? Do the victims of AIDS and the Ebola virus stir God’s heart? Does God abhor human trafficking?
More to the point, do you believe that God calls and empowers you to partner with God in delivering God’s people from oppression? The bush is still burning. Do you hear God’s call? Can you hear God say to you, “So come, I will send you?” What are your objections when you hear God’s call? How easy it is to answer God as Moses did, “Who me? Who am I that I should do as you ask?” How seductive it is to think that we must know more about theology or Scripture or worship or politics or budgets or anything else before we can answer God’s call. The truth is that God needs us all, whoever and wherever we are. God had no need to explain God’s use of an imperfect human being like Moses to carry out God’s plan. God promised to accompany and empower Moses in the work of liberating God’s people. So God knows all our strengths and weaknesses, our failures and accomplishments. So God promises to accompany and empower us in the work to which God calls us.
Who is God for you? Is God for you divorced from the world, uncaring, uninvolved, the watchmaker or unmoved mover of old? If you are a follower of Jesus the Christ then your God is the living God of Scripture, the God who reaches out to us and calls us, the God who hears the cries of suffering humanity, the God who empowers us to respond to those cries, the God to whom, we can say with all our hearts, “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.”
1. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/livingaholyadventure/
2. Ordinary Sacred: The Simple Beauty of Everyday Life (Novato, CA, New World Library 2012), quoted in Synthesis, August 31, 2014, 3
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