Joy to the World –Spiritual Blessings for All -- Lectionary Meditation for 2nd Sunday after Christmas

Jeremiah 31:7-14


Ephesians 1:3-14

John 1:10-18

Joy to the World –

Spiritual Blessings for All

As we meander toward the end of the Christmas season, which according to the commercial calendar began more than a month ago, if not sooner. The carols have all been sung, the presents opened, unacceptable presents have been returned, the trees and decorations have started to come down, and we have begun to focus on the coming new year, when all things become new. The liturgical calendar, however, won’t let us move on quite yet. Yes, according to the liturgical calendar we’re still in the season of Christmas. The texts for this second Sunday of Christmas (unless you decided to skip this day and move to Epiphany a few days early) speak in one way or another of the spiritual blessings that God has chosen to bestow upon God’s people, and the Ephesian letter and the Gospel of John root these blessings quite directly in the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, as the prophet Jeremiah says to us – sing for joy and make your praises heard.

The Gospel lesson for the first Sunday after Christmas for this year comes from Matthew 2:13-23, a passage that speaks of the slaughter of the innocents and the flight of the Holy Family into exile in Egypt, from which they later return, bypassing Bethlehem and heading to Nazareth in Galilee. This theme of returning from exile appears in the Jeremiah passage, where the prophet invites the remnant people of Israel to sing for joy and make their praises heard, as they call out to God, asking that God would save this remnant. In answer, the prophet says, the Lord will bring the people home from the land to the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Everyone, the blind, the lame, the expectant mothers and those who are in labor at this very moment, yes a great throng of people will return to the land. And the message is this – God will be with them – continuing the message that we heard from Isaiah 7 in a previous Sunday – and God will lead them along streams of water (so they don’t thirst) and God will make their path level so they don’t stumble. Again, don’t you hear in this word from the prophet the promises that were heard during the Advent season, as we heard the story of the one who would prepare the way of the Lord. Now, it is the Lord who will prepare the way for God’s people to return home, and then will serve as the shepherd for this people, protecting and delivering them from the hand of the ones who are stronger than they. And again, in response, the people will shout for joy from the highest points and rejoice in the bounty of God. Yes, they will embrace the blessings of grain, new wine, olive oil, and flocks and herds full of young animals. Their land will be one of blessing, a well-watered garden. In that moment there will be no sorrow and the young and the old will dance with gladness. In that day of blessing, God will “turn their mourning into gladness.” Comfort and joy will replace their sorrow and the people will be satisfied. The blessings spoken of here are more material than spiritual, but the question of the day, as we await the coming of the magi bringing gifts, do we not need the material/physical blessings as well as the “spiritual ones?”

As we stand here with the people of God, rejoicing in God’s outpouring of blessings, we turn to the Ephesian letter, and standing right at the heart of this passage is a strongly worded embrace of predestination – or so it seems. In him, we’re told, God has chosen those whom God has predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in accordance with God’s plan. This is an extremely dense theological passage that requires much reflection, in large part because it speaks so strongly about election and predestination. For this meditation, I’d like to leave that discussion to one side (see my Ephesian Bible study, pp. 14-15, for a fuller discussion of this issue), and focus more on the opening line of verse 3, which calls on the reader to praise God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, because God has “blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” The word about being destined – I prefer that form than the use of the word “predestined” – is rooted in this promise that God has chosen us for adoption to sonship in Christ. That is, we are heirs with Christ, of the full blessings of God, which comes to us as a result of God’s grace that includes forgiveness of sins. One of the key points in the Ephesian letter is that in Christ the mystery of God has been revealed, that God had chosen before the world began to bring Jew and Gentile into fellowship, with both peoples being made heirs of God in Christ, so that all might receive the blessings of God. It is, therefore, not a message of exclusion, as if God had chosen to bless some and not bless others, but that God had in mind an expansive sense of love and grace, and that sense is revealed in Christ, and it is sealed, so says the author of this letter, through the Holy Spirit, with which we have been sealed – a deposit guaranteeing that we will receive (redeem) our inheritance as God’s possession, to the praise and glory of God.

When we turn from the Ephesian letter to the prologue of John we move from one theologically dense work to another, though John 1 has a poetic sense to it. This lectionary passage places the first nine verses in parentheses and begins in earnest with verse ten, a passage that invites us to consider the one through whom the world came into existence. Interestingly, while the NIV uses the masculine pronoun in verse 10, the Common English Bible continues the train of thought from verse 9, and speaks of the world coming into existence “through the light.” But, as is often true in life, the world didn’t recognize the light when it came into the world. But, our theme that we’re following here has to do with blessings, spiritual blessings that come to us as a result of our engagement with the living God.

It would seem that the first and foremost blessing is the right to be born children of God, something that happens not because of blood or human desire, but from the decision of God. Consider the Ephesian letter which speaks of God’s election, God’s choice, in adopting us as God’s heirs/children. It would appear that the same theme is present in this text, though here the gift of God comes to us through the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us. Even though we may not have recognized the light at first, for those who are willing, they will see the glory of this one who became flesh, whose glory is that of the father’s only sun, one who is full of grace and truth. This grace comes into the world through the Word (Light) made flesh, and it is this one we remember here in this moment that reveals to us the true nature of God.

As we move from Christmas into Epiphany, a move that continues the theme that began with Christmas, the sense that God has made God’s self known in our world. It is appropriate that this liturgical movement comes at the same time as the secular calendar moves into a new year. As we contemplate this new year, we can do so knowing that the one who is our shepherd goes with us, bringing the light of God into our lives, so that we might experience every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. What better gift could one one receive at Christmas? And the proper response to this gift is to give thanks and praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Thoughts for the Day after Christmas

It's the day after Christmas, which this year fell on a Sunday.  I write this late in the afternoon, having shared in worship (read the story of Barrington Bunny from Martin Bell's Way of the Wolf)  and watched a Lion's football game (the won the game at Miami, by the way).   It's a day to sort of sit back, relax, and reflect.  But, even as our culture has now moved on to the next "holiday," which is Valentines Day, we shouldn't let the Christmas season go quite yet. 

I probably needn't remind everyone that the 12 days of Christmas don't end on Christmas Day, but actually begin there.  I say, I shouldn't have to remind folks, but perhaps it is required.  So, what should we do with these 12 days?  How do we keep alive the message of the incarnation in all its mystery?

I recognize with Borg and Crossan that there is much in the infancy narratives that is parabolic, but what does this mean?  Does it mean that the entire story is mere metaphor?  At the same time, do we have to become hung up on proving every aspect of the story for it to be true?  Is there not something more here, something in between metaphor and factuality?  That is, in what way should we understand the church's historic confession that in this person we call Christ we meet both a truly human person and the living God?

Gloria in Excelsis Deo -- A Sermon for Christmas Eve

Luke 2:8-20

Shepherds are tending their sheep in the hills near Bethlehem, when to their surprise a choir of angels gathers in the heavens and begins singing Gloria in Excelsis Deo. What a treat that must have been! After all angelic visits don’t happen every day, and it can get a bit boring sitting out there in the fields in the cold of night.

In the spirit of angelic visits, J.B. Phillips tells a wonderful story about the day when a senior angel takes a new recruit on a tour of the cosmos. This rookie angel is quite impressed by the grandeur of the cosmos – who wouldn’t -- but then, as they walk through the multitude of galaxies and stars, the older angel points out a small insignificant star and the planet that orbits around it. To the young angel, this "small rather insignificant sphere turning on its axis . . . looked as dull as a dirty tennis-ball.” Why would this senior angel point out this plant? It seemed so insignificant and unimpressive in light of what she had just seen in her tour of the cosmos. In spite of his first impressions, the guide leaned over and said, look closely because this is the "visited planet."

"You mean, visited by . . ."

Yes, the senior angel replies, it has been "visited by our young Prince of Glory."

Now this news made no sense to the young angel. Why would the Prince of Glory stoop to visit this little planet?

The senior angel replies: it's not for us to know the reason, but remember, God isn’t impressed by size or numbers.

"Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that he stooped so low as to become one of those creeping, crawling creatures of that floating ball?" Yes, said the senior angel, but God would prefer that you not call them "creeping, crawling creatures."

The increasingly skeptical rookie angel, couldn’t see the wisdom of this, and so the mentor takes the recruit back on a little tour of the past so that the younger angel could witness the glorious event described for us by Luke. As they watched this scene from above, they saw a tiny, but intensely bright, light shine in the midst of the darkness, and then they watched as the light was extinguished. The younger angel turned to the older one and asked, why would these creatures do such a stupid thing as to kill the prince of glory? But, then to his amazement, a bright blazing, radiant point of light emerged on the planet. That, said the senior angel is the resurrection of the prince of glory. What a glorious sight it was to behold, but the story isn’t over yet.

Watch said the older to the younger.

As they looked, in place of the dazzling light there was a bright glow which throbbed and pulsated. And then as the Earth turned many times little points of light spread out. A few flickered and died; but for the most part the lights burned steadily, and as they continued to watch, in many parts of the globe there was a glow over many areas.

"You see what is happening?" asked the senior angel. "The bright glow is the company of loyal men and women He left behind, and with His help they spread the glow and now lights begin to shine all over the Earth."

"Yes, yes" said the little angel impatiently, "but how does it end? Will the little lights join up with each other? Will it all be light, as it is in Heaven?"

His senior shook his head. "We simply do not know," he replied. "It is in the Father's hands. Sometimes it is agony to watch and sometimes it is joy unspeakable. The end is not yet, But now I am sure you can see why this little ball is so important. He has visited it. He is working out His Plan upon it."

"Yes, I see, though I don't understand. I shall never forget that this is the visited planet." [J.B. Phillips, "The Angel's Point of View," in Behold that Star: A Christmas Anthology, edited by the Bruderhof, (Farmington, PA: The Plough Publishing Company, 1996), 2-9.]

The angels sing Gloria in Excelsis Deo that night because the Prince of Glory has visited our planet. In visiting our planet in the person of the babe of Bethlehem, God brought into the open the promise of peace and joy for all of creation. It is as Isaiah declared:

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us;

authority rests upon his shoulders;

and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isa. 9:6 NRSV)

But, the end of this story has yet to be written. As the senior angel said, only God has foresight to know where this story is leading. We don’t even have the same vantage point as the Angel, for we can’t look down upon the flow of history from above. All we can do is join with the Prince of Peace in the work of spreading the joy and the love and the peace that is embodied by the Christmas event. It is our calling as followers of the one whose birth we celebrate this night, to participate in spreading the light of God around the globe.

Tonight we will light our candles and sing "Silent Night" and then go into the world as light bearers with the song "Joy to the World" upon our lips and in our hearts. Like that littlest angel, we may not understand the “hows” and the “whys,” of God’s ways, but let us not forget that this is the visited planet, and that God has chosen to visit us in the one who was born the babe of Bethlehem. Therefore let us join the angels and boldly sing boldly: Gloria in Excelsis Deo!

Born of the Virgin Mary -- Thoughts for Christmas Eve

The idea of the virgin birth or the virginal conception runs contrary to our modern understandings.  It is, we might say, simply myth and legend, and not uncommon in the day and age in which the idea itself was born.  A child born without a father -- a nice cover for an unexplained pregnancy.  I understand the skeptics take on this -- from a pure historical or scientific sense, it doesn't make sense.  But what about the theology inherent in the confession.  Is there something in this confession that  we need to hear?

As I'm finishing up for tonight's service, at which time I'll be celebrating with the congregation the mystery of the incarnation, it is a good to think about these things.  And so I turned to Karl Barth for a moment.  Barth wasn't afraid to wrestle with issues like this.  And in the  Dogmatics in Outline he writes:

If we wish to understand the meaning of 'conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary', above all we must try to see that these two remarkable pronouncements assert that God of free grace became man, a real man.  The eternal Word becomes flesh.  This is the miracle of Jesus Christ's existence, this descent of God from above downwards -- the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.  This is the mystery of Christmas, of the Incarnation.  At this part of the Confession the Catholic Church makes the sign of the Cross.  And in the most various settings composers have attempted to reproduce et incarnatus est. This miracle we celebrate annually, when we celebrate Christmas.

If I to grasp this miracle should will, 

 So stands my spirit reverently still.  

 Such in nuce is God's revelation; we can only grasp it, only hear it as the beginning of all things. (Dogmatics in Outline, p. 96).

The question raised by Christmas concerns our willingness to receive a message that God has truly visited this planet.  We may not understand the nature of this conception and incarnation.  It may go beyond our comprehension of "the facts."  But this need not lead to a denial that the incarnation, the visitation of God in the form of a human cannot and did not take place.  The further question then is this:  if we have been visited by God, how does that message translate into the way we comport ourselves as human beings? 

God is with Us -- A Lectionary Meditation

Isaiah 7:10-16



Romans 1:1-7


Matthew 1:18-25

God is with Us!

Every year we hear cries from the populace demanding that Christ be put back into Christmas. In the minds of many there is a conspiracy, perhaps by a cadre of elite secularists, who are intent upon stripping Christ out of Christmas. But if Christ is at risk being removed from Christmas then it’s like that the culprit is the very ones who are making the demand. That is, our participation in the commercialization of this sacred feast of the incarnation is what is pushing the true message of Christmas out of the picture.

If we would attend to the voice of Scripture we would hear a message that is summed up in a name – Emmanuel, which is translated “God with Us.” The prophet told the king that God would provide a sign – a young woman would bear a child and she would call this child Emmanuel. And many centuries later, a gospel writer picked upon this prophetic word and reads the story of Jesus in light of it. The one, who, according to Matthew, is named Jesus because he will save his people, fulfills the promise that God would be with us. Therefore, as we watch the blue and the purple of Advent give way to the liturgical white and gold of the Christmas season, and as the hymns transition from a message of expectation to one of fulfillment, the message of God’s presence begins to make itself felt.

This message that God is with us permeates the three texts for the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Two of them speak of a young woman/virgin who bears a child as a sign that God is in our midst. Paul doesn’t speak of the birth of this child but does affirm the gospel message that comes down from the prophets of old, that God’s Son, who is descended according to the flesh from David, has been declared the Son of God through the resurrection. Before I engage more fully these three texts I’d like to add into the mix a statement made by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his lectures on Christology given in Berlin during the 1930s. He notes that the two stories of Jesus birth and baptism stand together, with one concerning itself with the presence of the Word of God in Jesus, while the other is focused in the coming of the Word of God upon Jesus. He writes that “the manger directs our attention to the man, who is God; the baptism directs our attention, as we look at Jesus, to the God who calls.” He then goes on to say:

If we speak of Jesus Christ as God, we may not say of him that he is the representative of an idea of God, which possesses the characteristics of omniscience and omnipotence (there is no such thing as this abstract divine nature!); rather, we must speak of his weakness, his manger, his cross. This man is no abstract God. (John De Gruchy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Witness to Jesus Christ, pp. 116-117).

The texts for this Sunday take us directly into the Christmas story, and they remind us that the Christmas story, indeed the gospel story, isn’t the story of an abstract God-man.

The first word comes to Isaiah and is delivered to King Ahaz of Judah, who is told that God will give him a sign, but the king in a bit of false modesty declines the opportunity to test God’s faithfulness. But the prophet will not be put off, and so God will give him a sign anyway, and the sign will be this. A young woman will bear a son, and she will name him Emmanuel, which means “God with Us.” And before this child reaches the age of understanding good and evil, the land controlled by the kings whom Ahaz dreads will be deserted. In context, this is a word of hope to the people of Judah. The young woman could be Ahaz’s wife, and thus the mother of Hezekiah, or she could be Isaiah’s wife, for Isaiah speaks of his own children as “signs . . . from the Lord” (Is. 8:1). Although it’s easy to get caught up in the debate over whether Isaiah 7:14 is speaking of a virgin or simply a young woman without any reference to her sexual experience, if we do this we miss the point – God has offered a sign in the person of a child, a sign that reminds us that God is with us.

Before we move to the gospel lesson that builds upon Isaiah’s word of promise about God’s faithfulness in dealing with Judah’s enemies, we must stop and attend to Romans 1:1-7. Here in this opening section of Paul’s great letter to the Romans, in which he affirms his own call to be an apostle so that he might deliver the gospel that had been promised ages before through the prophets. This gospel concerns God’s son, who though descended from David in the flesh (note there is nothing here about an extraordinary birth), but who is then declared Son of God through the Resurrection from the dead. And the calling to which Paul has been called is to bring the Gentiles into a position of obedience “for the sake of his name,” for they belong to Jesus Christ. Again the text lends itself to debate. One wonders whether this emphasis on the resurrection being the point at which the Son of David becomes Son of God could signal an adoptionist Christology. That is, God chooses to adopt Jesus as his son – either at baptism or in the resurrection. But as Bonhoeffer reminds us these events are all connected and thus fighting over whether this is an adoptionist perspective again misses the point – God us chosen to be present in Christ.

And so we come to the gospel lesson, wherein Isaiah’s “young woman” gives way to the Septuagint’s translation of the Hebrew almah into the Greek parthenos (virgin). The message is this. Joseph was going to put away his betrothed because she was pregnant, and apparently he was the father. He was a kind and gentle man so he didn’t take the option of putting her away publicly. But as he contemplated this action, an angel appears in a dream and tells him: “fear not,” go ahead and get married to Mary, just as you planned, for this child is from the Holy Spirit. The focus isn’t on the how, but on the sign. This young woman, not yet fully married, and probably very young is pregnant, and that means she has broken her vows (or, more likely had been raped, perhaps by a Roman soldier). Joseph was fully in his rights to set her aside, but he was a good and gentle man and so he chose not to do so, and now the angel gives him further instructions. Get married, have the baby, and name him Jesus (Yeshua), for he will save the people from their sins. He will do this to fulfill the word of Isaiah, that a “virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they will name him Emmanuel.” And so it happened, and Joseph refrained from engaging in sexual relations with his wife until the son was born, and they named him Jesus. The message once again is this: “God is with us.”  And because God is with us, there is hope, even a world full of darkness -- as Matthew's gospel quickly reminds us in the story of the slaughter of the Innocents.  But that text is still ahead of us.  Now, the message is this:  Fear Not!

There is much going on in these texts that require our careful attention. They have a powerful message of God’s abiding presence, not in abstract form or in typical human power relationships, but rather in weakness, as Bonhoeffer points out in a manger and on a cross.

Which God did Jesus Incarnate?

I hope that the title/question got your attention and got you thinking? 

Advent is quickly fading into Christmas.  This Sunday I'll be preaching from Matthew 1, Matthews version of the announcement of Jesus' birth, and we'll sing more Christmas than Advent hymns.  But as we prepare ourselves for the Feast of Christmas, a day on which we not only exchange presents and enjoy a hearty meal, but consider that God has become present to and with us in Jesus Christ, what we call incarnation, enfleshment, what is the nature of this God?

This is a significant question raised by John Dominic Crossan in his recent book on the Lord's Prayer that is entitled The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of The Lord's Prayer (personal note, my book on the Lords' Prayer that is just coming available tracks in similar directions as Crossan regarding the prayer).   Near the close of the book, Crossan notes that the biblical story portrays God in both violent and non-violent ways, and quite correctly he notes that this isn't an OT/NT divide.  Because there are these two very stark differences in portrayals of God in both Testaments, we have to make a choice.  As we look at Jesus, what kind of God does he incarnate?  

Crossan writes:  

Confronted, as we are, by tandem visions of both a nonviolent and a nonviolent God throughout our Bible, we simply ask ourselves another question.  Is Christ the incarnation and revelation of a nonviolent or a violent God?  Since Jesus the Christ was clearly nonviolent (thank you at least for that correct judgment, Pilate), we Christians are called to believe in a nonviolent God.  (The Greatest Prayer, p. 187).

As we get ready to celebrate the feast of the Incarnation, we're posed with a serious question, and the way we answer that question will likely have important implications as to how we live out our faith. 

 

There's Still Hope -- A Lectionary Meditation

Hosea 1:2-10


Colossians 2:6-15

Luke 11:1-13

There’s Still Hope

Persistence – that is the message of Jesus’ parable in Luke 11. Just after teaching the disciples an abridged form of what we know as the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells a parable about a man who wakes up his neighbor at midnight so he can feed a friend who has dropped by unexpectedly – in the middle of the night – and is now hungry. In that culture, if someone drops by, you feed them, but what do you do when the cupboard is bare? You go knock on your neighbor’s door – sort of like Sheldon knocking on Leonard’s or Penny’s door (Big Bang Theory). The neighbor might not get up and help out from friendship, but if you knock long enough, well then perhaps the neighbor will give in, get up, and get the bread. Of course, God isn’t like that neighbor who has to be pestered into helping.

One of the stanzas of the Lord’s Prayer speaks of forgiveness – something that we often approach God desiring. The concern that is present in the minds of many is whether God will be receptive, and what that will require of us. In the parable, the suggestion is – if we ask, it will be given to us – so there is still hope.

Hope is something that appears absent from the Hosea passage. It’s the 8th century, Jehu is on the throne of Israel, and the situation is not good. The people of Israel have been playing the whore and have flirted with the gods of their neighbors, choosing to reject God’s ways. So, God sends another prophet into their midst – Hosea – and God decides to illustrate the troubles Israel faces by directing Hosea to marry a prostitute. Being the obedient one that he is, Hosea marries Gomer and with her he has three children (though since she is a prostitute you can never be sure that the children are his). Each child has a name that reflects God’s displeasure with the northern kingdom of Israel. The first is Jezreel, a son whose name reflects God’s decision to take the kingdom of Israel at the valley of Jezreel. The second child is a daughter named Lo-Rahama, whose name suggests that there will be no pity or forgiveness for Israel (though God will forgive Judah – at least for now). Finally, there is a son, Lo-Ammi, whose name signifies God’s judgment — “You are not my people, and I am not your God.”

The Hosea passage is so full of hopelessness and judgment. God has decided that enough is enough. Having acted as a prostitute, the nation has followed after other gods and lords, and so God will allow them to suffer the consequence. Having had enough, God is casting them off on their own. Only the prophet offers a sliver of hope in verse ten. We hear this word of restoration, this promise that Israel will be like the sand of the sea – too many to count – and though once called “Not My People,” now they will be called “Children of God.” The hope lies in the restoration of the whole people, as Judah and Israel are gathered together, taking possession of the land once more under one head (vs. 11). There is hope yes, but difficult times remain. Perhaps then the key is in Jesus’ parable – be persistent – persevere – hold on to the one who gives good things to God’s children.

The Colossian passage draws everything together. It is a call for the children of God to hold fast to Christ, in whom we are to be rooted and built up. There is a warning here – reminiscent of the word to/through Hosea. Be careful about whom you listen to – philosophy, empty deceit, human tradition. You can see from this list that the author of this letter is writing to Gentile Christians who are struggling to make sense of the differences between the gospel and the theologies of those outside the faith. Instead of attending to these other voices, listen for Christ. Listen to him because it is in him that the fullness of deity dwells bodily, and it is he who reigns over all rule and authority. Again we see the echoes of Hosea – there is hope, but you must put your trust in God who is revealed in Christ.

In Christ, we are circumcised spiritually, putting off the flesh – the way of the world. It is in baptism that we identify ourselves with Christ, our sins and trespasses being buried with him, and then raised again, the power of death no longer hanging over us, as we embrace God’s purpose through faith. In Christ, the legal record that has hung over our heads is cleared, having been nailed to the cross.

What do we make of this message? Especially we who take a more progressive view of God and God’s relationship with creation? We may be troubled with Hosea’s use of his marriage as prophetic example – and God’s command that he do so. We may like the promise that if we ask God, then God will respond because God has to be a better parent than any human parent – but does that mean that God is like a vending machine, giving us whatever we want without any discernment? And then there is Colossians, which could be taken in an anti-Jewish way.

But however you deal with the particulars, there is a promise here, a promise that there is hope of reconciliation and restoration. God is good and faithful and will make a way for us to experience a restored relationship with God and creation. Central to the promise is the statement that in Christ the legal slate is wiped clean. It may be that we must first repent – turning from the way of “whoredom.” In another passage from Luke, we get the idea that repentance is involved in this process (Luke 17:1-4). Repentance, of course, is not groveling before God, grinding our knees into the gravel. Instead, it is a decision to walk faithfully with the God who offers us peace and reconciliation. It is a decision to live differently – even if we stumble and require forgiveness time after time. Still, there is that word of hope!

Reposted from:  [D]mergent -- a new Disciples oriented blog, for which I write this weekly reflection