Loddon Mallee UCA Presbytery Blog
The confessional apostle
presents us with a candid view
of his struggles; of his continuing battle
with what he calls the flesh.
Aware of his failures
to the point of despair, but not quite;
he turns his pain into a celebration
of the grace revealed in his Lord.
The apostle does what so many have done
in the two millennia that have elapsed
since he wrote his letters;
he exaggerates his depravity
in order to make larger the grace,
forgetting that his Lord’s generosity
already has no limits.
I remember, in my youth, hearing stories
of people whose alcohol-plagued
and morally-degraded lives
were miraculously turned around
in testimony to the gospel;
and momentarily wishing that I, too,
could speak of such a gutter-to-glory
transformation. But grace
is proven in many ways; our humanness
is always a number of notches less than perfect,
and each one of us depends
upon the generosity of others,
including our strange God.
It is unnecessary to imagine
that we are worse than we are,
and it is foolishness to pretend
that, of ourselves, we can do nothing right.
Grace still abounds, and we should celebrate
kind and loving acts wherever we find them,
whether or not they are done consciously
in the service of God.
The child asks the question
for which his father has no answer,
save that his strange and fearsome God
will provide. And in the end, we,
along with the unquestioningly faithful man,
discover a hapless ram caught by its horns
in a thicket; providentially available
to be offered up in place of the child.
We all heave a sigh of relief,
assured that this terrifying deity
has a heart and is still worth worshipping;
only testing.
It was never God’s intention
that the boy should be killed;
only testing.
It was never God’s intention
that a rampant humanity
should dominate and abuse;
only testing.
It was never God’s intention
that humankind, elevated to the position
of planetary supremo
should mortgage our children’s future;
only testing.
It was never God’s intention
that the obscenely wealthy
should buy and sell the poor;
only testing.
It was never God’s intention
that the anxious and the fearful
should trample on the rights of the foreigner,
and that the plight of the vulnerable
and the stateless should be so carelessly disregarded.
Only testing.
http://www.sarahlaughed.net/sermons/trinity/You know always in your heart that you need God more than everything; but do you not know that God needs you -- in the fullness of His eternity needs you? How would humanity be, how would you be, if God did not need humanity, did not need you? You need God, in order to be -- and God needs you, for the very meaning of your life. ... There is divine meaning in the life of the world, of human persons, of you and me.
