We continue on with Willimon's comments on Divine Abundance.
As we discovered after being assaulted by the parables of Jesus, salvation is not what we asked for. If we were merely projecting an eternal destiny for ourselves, we could have projected a more benign future than the one that meets us in Jesus! As Calvin said, the human mind is a permanent factory for idols that we find more agreeable than the Trinity.
Face it, we do have better ways to be saved... and we have any number of ideas about that from which we need to be saved. It's always a little bit more of this or a little less than that. There are good ideas that will suit us...there are reasonable expectations in which we can feel both comfortable and challenged...there are set guidelines that show a path to live and, though difficult at times, we like where we are going. Then...there is the Reign of God as it is spilled out for us in the parables. I used the image of being spilled out because when a parable is told, it is never neat and clean...it is a random dumping that splashes over everything we have been trying to keep neat and clean. The Reign of God is about a love that is not shaped by us...and that...becomes troublesome for all of us.
Connection: Who knows when thing might get spilled on us today...and who will bring about the mess.
When your Spirit whips around us, O God, we are not able to see what will come next. But you take us and move us no matter who we are and where we have been. You are our next...and we are blessed each time you pull us along with you. Amen.
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