This week's Devotions are written by Vicar Steve Bond.
More from Hauerwas’ “Only Theology Overcomes Ethics”, in which the author dialogues with Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson…
A Christian, according to Jenson, is someone whose nation and polity is the church, so the “baptized person must be the only available paradigm of human personhood.”
Before any other entity can claim or label us—as Democrat, Republican, American, old, young, rich, middle class, poor, blue- or white-collar—we are claimed by God and made part of the community of believers, a body that crosses all other barriers. That also means that all other allegiances are subordinated to the our faithfulness to the God who is supremely faithful to us, and that all other hopes offered to us pale in comparison to the hope offered us by God.
Connection: In a time and situation where many forces want to label us (as blue or red states, for example), we can face this day knowing that God has first laid claim to us and that other labels do not have power over us. And what’s more, we are freed and empowered to risk loving, to risk vulnerability, because we are always claimed by God and belong permanently to God’s family.
Gracious God, help us to trust you promise that we belong. And trusting, let us live this day witnessing to your sure promise in action and speech
1 Peter 2:9-10—“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
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