4 January 2005

From Jurgen Moltmann's "In the end, the beginning."



In writing about God's promises and our trust of those promises Moltmann writes:

Abraham and Sarah offer the primal image of this kind of trust, for according to Genesis 12 they left everything in response to God's promise that he would make of them a great people and a blessing for all generations of human beings. The departure of Abraham and Sarah from their home country, and the wanderings that followed, show that a divine promise doesn't just point forward to some far-off future, which we have to wait for; the promised future is already present in the promise itself, and mobilizes the people concerned through the hope it awakens.



The promise brings life that is able to see beyond today and to see how today is a part of what is to come. The promise is not based on our gifts and our talents. We are not asked to trust in our skills or our knowledge and then "pull ourselves up" into a better day. The promise is all about what our God plans to do and will begin doing with us right now. There is no promise that God will make me successful in the world...or keep me safe from harm. The promise is that God will take me...me as me...and create a life of faithfulness that will be unlike anything that is already in place around me. Abraham and Sarah were not invited into the promised future of God because they were "somebody." They were quite the opposite - nobody at all. God takes just such people and builds new life for them and, as you might expect, others.



Connection: Trusting that we are beloved of God and called into the life that new status gives us can make more of a claim on today than we might ever imagine. That's why we are always being called to live within that promise. Come and see what this life will be for you.



Lord, we do not know what it means to trust your gift of life and your invitation to follow. In Christ, Jesus, you show a way to move into this day. In Sarah and Abraham you flash before us lives that took seriously your promise for life as they left their home to live within your Reign. Encourage us to step forward and trust whose we are and what life we are given. Amen.