Tuesday 28 July 2009

Our focus continues to be on the Divine Abundance - William Willimon.

In these Bible stories a central character emerges. Unfortunately, well-meaning commentators have placed titles on the stories, subheadings in your Bible like, "The Prodigal Son," or the "Laborers in the Vineyard." Yet in reading the stories, we are surprised to find that all the stories are about God. They render an agent, a personality so that they ought to be called, "The Prodigal Father," or the "Ridiculously Gracious Farmer." Most of us have been conditioned to listen to Scripture anthropologically rather than theologically, asking, "How is this story about me?" Therefore, we need a general interpretive principle for reading the Bible: Scripture always and everywhere speaks primarily about God, and only secondarily, that then only derivatively about us.

It is in seeing these great stories the God who is "for us" that we are caught off guard and surprised and, I would say, thrown off of our base. The graciousness of our God is a ridiculous reality that cannot be handled easily by us. We all know that we live with conditions - ones put on us and ones we put on others. To have a love that is as unconditional and gracious as the God who we are able to see within the parables can confuse us and cause us to have to re-view all that we expect from God. Too often, we come at these stories expecting God to be too much like us. That means there is still love...but it is limited, that means there is grace....but it is limited, that means there is mercy...but that too is limited. We need to hear about the God who is as God would be - strange but down to earth...beyond our control and our games.

Connection: Just watch how easily God is turned into an image of us without letting the fullness of God's love show through. Stop and listen.

Continue to help us to let go of the way we would have your Reign come among us, O God. We will always try to turn it into our way and try to sell it as your way. It is by your Spirit that we are given the ears to see the vision of your Reign and hear the News that is eternally Good. Amen.