Friday 17 July 2009

Let's end the week with this piece by Willimon.

Willimon tells the story of the segment in "Crash" in which a police office abuses a woman in front of her husband and then at the end of the movie he is the one who saves her from a gas soaked car wreck.
Salvation is complicated because of the complicated trinitarian God who saves. We are saved by the one whom we despise. Unlike in Crash, we are saved not by the one who abused us, but the one whom we abused. The one whom we crucified in a desperate attempt to be left alone becomes our savior who refuses to be God without us. And in being saved we are also indebted, enlisted, and bound in discipleship to the one who has suffered because of us and yet suffered for us in order to save us. Our salvation by the crucified Christ thus presses upon us heavy responsibility to live with the risen Christ. His salvation makes our lives more complex than if we had not been reached to and embraced by him. Even now God is searching through the large collection of divine fishhooks for just the right lure to catch you in order to embrace you in order eternally to enjoy you.

I'm most caught by the final image of this piece: "in order eternally to enjoy you." I love it for at least two reasons. One is that God already enjoys us and therefore is always about catching us and wrestling with us and bringing us into the fullness of God's Reign...even now. The other is that God will eternally enjoy us no matter what comes...God's enjoyment does not end no matter how we deal with this pursuing love. If we reject it - there is God enjoying our run and continuing to tickle us. If we take it and hold it dear - there is God squeezing life into us and willing to be around for the grand laughter that is God's grace alive among us. This trinitarian image of God cannot be limited by the words we use in this name (father,son, spirit). Rather it is the notion of the fullness of God that never lets up...never stops making a way to our hearts...never retreats from us.

Connection: One way to enter this day is to consider that God enjoys us already as we move along the way. It may mean that we will be open to experience joy within all the ordinary parts and patterns of the day.

You bring joy to the world, O God. You tell us that we are a part of that joy and you enter into this joy as fully as is possible...and then, again. Remind us of this love you have for us so that we will begin to see how it unfolds within the life of your saints. Amen.