Let's hike up this notion the the law belongs to the "world" - Tuomo Mannermaa on Luther.
"Hypocrites," that is, those who want to become righteous through works, trouble themselves day and night, but "unskillfully," because "the law is not a source of either advice or refuge." Efforts to achieve salvation and find peace of conscience with help of the law - that is, through works demanded by the law - are works of "Sisyphus"... A hypocrite is "milking a billy goat" and "holding a sieve."
Isn't is something that so much of the face of the church is a face that is built, or a least attempts to build itself, on what it is able to do. We reject gays and lesbians because they "do not live and act like me." Odd. Some say they will not stay with a congregation or within a denomination if "those people" are given full life within the church. We literally say, "they must perform in a certain manner in order to be one of us." What an odd thought among us! More and more I think that we are a fear-filled community and when fear lead us and pulls us, we are not being pulled into the Reign of God. Rather, we are being pulled into the way of the world...the way of the law...that way that moves counter to the movement of the Lord of Life...who gives life away for the well-being of all...not some...not the good....not the righteous - for the Lord of Life is Lord of all...the Lord of the good the bad - the just and unjust...Lord of the unrighteous who are righteous only by way of the Lord who make us just like the Lord. What are we continuing to be? Yes, it is a club of well-wishers. Yes, it is a club of right-ones. Yes, it is a club of people who long to pat one another on the back and say "we are not like those people." And yet, the Lord of Life looks at the whole bunch of us...all of us...without exception...and the Lord of Life claims us and nothing separates us from that place within the Reign of God.
Connection: Whew! Don't limit the community. Keep it open and see what gift we will be handed by those we thought did not fit in with us.
Come, Spirit of the Living Lord, and release among us the power of your gracious Reign so that as we face the world, we will face it all with arms open - like yours...with lives made whole by the presence of the rest of your body that comes to us as our neighbor...strangers...outsiders...and the forgotten. Come, shape us into your living Reign. Amen.
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