From William C. Placher’s “Narratives of a Vulnerable God”
…God is the one who loves in freedom. It is love freely given that defines God, and that love then implies a certain kind of power. Whereas, if it is power that defines God, then at best one could hope it will be tempered by mercy – but then again, maybe not. Christian talk about God ought to start with love, not power, and introduce the language of power only in the context of love and only in a way that keeps challenging and subverting it by way of reminder of how easily it might be misunderstood.
What a wonderful base line for the beginning of the Reign of God: It is love freely given that defines God. And then to go on to say that the power of God is power that comes from that love. Within all the nit picking that goes on in churches about who can or cannot be a part of us or…how one must live to be a part of us, there is this power within the Church that comes only from God’s love – a love that is freely extended…no conditions…no qualifications to meet ahead of time…no promise of meeting any, eventually. Love…FREELY given. Having said that, what do we – the beloved – become within the embrace of such action by our God? We rest within a power that has no equal in the world as we know it. This is the strange and alien place in which we live as the beloved of God. For now…we are free – also – to love as the one who loves us without end.
Connection: It is this radical “being loved” by God that is the power of our life available to us today. O my, how will that shape us? How will that turn our heads from one place to another? How will the path of this day not follow merely what is…but seek out an adventure of new life?
Thanks be to you O God, for in your loving you create new life and by your love you empower us to step forward into that life. There are so many ways we are pulled within our world and yet you continue to call us down one path – your unbounded and radical love. Pull us by your Holy Spirit along your way. Amen.
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