Wednesday,12 November, 2003

We begin with pieces from “Ethics” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.



Whoever knows God in (God’s) revelation in Jesus Christ, whoever knows the crucified and risen God, (that person) knows all things that are in heaven, on earth and beneath the earth. (That person) knows God as the ending of all disunion, all judgment and all condemnation, as the One who loves and as the One who lives. The knowledge of the Pharisees was dead and barren, but the knowledge of Jesus and of those who are allied with Him is alive and fruitful; the knowledge of the Pharisees is disruptive, but the new knowledge is redemptive and propitiatory; the knowledge of the Pharisees is the negation of all true action, but the knowledge of Jesus and of His own consists solely in action.



The one who know God in Jesus is free to participate in the whole creation without fear. Fear comes from a place other than the empty tomb. Fear disrupts. The most important part of that disruptive nature of fear is the way it disrupts our own hearts and how it can turn us away from the God who is know as the crucified and risen God. For we begin to turn from the One who is “the ending of all disunion, all judgment and all condemnation” and we turn to family opinion…to what we claim to know…to what we suspect…to how we would want the world to be created. What a burden! To follow Jesus is to take on a light load…for it is not a stack of “this and that” (do this…do that…think this…think that) – it is to stand with Jesus as the invited guest at the great banquet and begin to live as though that is our status and our hope.



Connection: At one time or another during the day we all stand with fingers pointing – judging. What would happen if the judgment we make would be simple the judgment made by the merciful Lord of All, “You are my beloved, forever and ever.” Imagine how we would be looking at the world and what we would begin to do to be a part of the potential creativity and newness within this day.



Pull us into your gracious Reign, O God, because we will try every way we can to run from you and pick the kind of world we want for ourselves and make it all look so right and good and proper. Encourage us; make us bold, so that we will rest, alas, in your promises alone. Amen.