What a fool

"The fortunate thing here, again, is that God’s coming reign does not depend on us at all. God is at work for justice even when we are not. God loves and cares for all humanity even when we dehumanize and discard one another. God’s way of bringing justice is to join our suffering and redeem it, even when we suffer and visit suffering on one another. That is what we learn from Jesus way of being in the world.

And it is precisely this one who calls us and inspires us to follow this new way; just as God called people to resist oppression and form free societies here and elsewhere in the world; just as God called people to resist oppression with non-violence that lead to change in South Africa and India abroad, and in our cities and towns during the civil rights movement in our own nation over the last century. Those who lead these movements were people who understood that violent responses to injustice only breeds more violence and injustice. God’s way is to follow another path to freedom as oppression’s root cause, death, is made impotent by the resurrection of Jesus. The only question left is will we have the faith to participate in that freedom now? Or will we fail to see it and only hope and wonder why God is not answering our prayer the way that we want? In this case our persistent prayer is not about getting justice the way we want it so much as to connect us to God’s way of being in the world and to make us a part of his coming reign, which indeed is coming swiftly.

As they carry me to my grave one day, you might say, "He was crazy to believe all that time. What a fool." Maybe so. But the widow never turned away, never gave up, never lost heart. Neither will I. Neither will you. Amen.      "

http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/predigt.php?id=526&kennung=20071224de