The lead piece is from "Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris. In this book she takes many of the words and images of the faith and attempts to put some reality and life to them.
CHOSEN
The last paragraph of this chapter reads: In the suspicious atmosphere of the contemporary Christian church, it is good to know one's ground. When others label me and try to exclude me, as too conservative or too liberal, as too feminist or not feminist enough, as too intellectual or not intellectually rigorous, as too Catholic to be a Presbyterian or too Presbyterian to be a Catholic, I refuse to be shaken from the fold. It's my God, too, my, Bible, my church, my faith; it chose me. But it does not make me "chosen" in a way that would exclude others. I hope it makes me eager to recognize the good, and the holy, wherever I encounter it.
It chose me! One of my favorite ways of dealing with people who want to exclude others from the full life of the congregation is to return to the baptismal font. For most often, those who are being excluded by others who claim to be protectors and gatekeepers of the faith have been brought to the water and had the Word of covenant spoken to them. Did God make a mistake...to baptize those who we want to now exclude? No! Could it be that we forget who it is that chose me and you...even if you and I would chose not to be chosen together!?! Imagine the witness and the power and the life that would be among us if we would accept the fact that God chooses more than me...and my own kind. Imagine if Jesus had limited his view of those with whom he would sit at table and those for whom he would go all the way to death and back in order to give life abundantly.
Connection: This is not easy to walk through. It takes vision that is beyond what we want and are able to see on our own. That is precisely why our God who chooses us also promises to send the Holy Spirit - that breath of life that can overcome all our limited ways of seeing one another and God's reign. It may be difficult...but let us rejoice in the fullness of God's choice for us!!!
Lord of New Life, as we stumble into this day be our guide. When we find it easy to settle in our ways of exclusion and judgementalism, burst open our lives that we may breath from your life giving breath that promises a wholeness in life and community that we too often forget or ignore. Amen
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