This week we will continue to hear from William Willimon as he looks at "salvation as God's work" in his book "Who Shall Be Saved."
We would never know who God is if it were not for our having seen, touched, and tasted God's salvation in Jesus Christ (1 John 1:1). Though we could not come to God, god came to us in a stunning and peculiar act of salvation, and thereby showed us as much of God as we need to know.
I planned to continue with a longer quote but was quite caught off guard by Willimon's comment about God coming close and "thereby showed us as much of God as we need to know." This is again why it is so important to go back to the gospels to get our picture of this God who is with us. Do we need to have all the answers about how God created? It is more important to see how God among us lives within God's creation and the many ways God's being, in Jesus, is a relational event that cracks open the way in which we are to be truly human. I can sound like a broken record but when it comes to the way we honor and welcome and hold up others, we must go back to the story of God in the flesh. It is in that story that all separation is eliminated and there is to be one community - one household - one body - in which there is unending exhibition of love to the max. No excuses...no limits...no exceptions. So many of the churches arguments for drawing lines and becoming more gatekeepers than followers of Jesus will wash away.
Connection: What do you need to know about God that will abide with you through this day and help you to walk along the way of Jesus?
When you touch us with your presence, O God, we begin to see and feel and hear how our humanity is both a gift and a promise. Keep us along the way of your beloved, Jesus. Keep us within your power of new life that Jesus so vividly portrayed. Amen.
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