Monday 14 August 2009

We carry on from last week with pieces Willimon places in the section called "Christ Triumphant."

The story "I once was lost but now am found" is the narrative that gives us a peculiar account of lost and found, a special responsibility to seek and to save the lost. If we want to come close to Jesus - and that's a good definition of a Christian, someone who wants to go where Jesus is - then we've got to go where he goes. Christians go to church in order never to forget that we were strangers and aliens out on the margins (Ephesians 2:19).

We are to never forget that there is not a line dividing us from them. Rather, we are those strangers at whom people point. Therefore, we are draw together to listen to the story of God's mighty acts on behalf of those pushed out to the margin. We were lost...and now found. Those who appear to us to be lost may be strangers, but that is where Jesus goes...and we - follow. When we worship, it is all about praising this God who abides with and welcomes home strangers and aliens so that no one will be left out and left alone. Worship is a gathering where the sign out front that says welcome is only the beginning of a welcome that does not end - ever. Our character is an active one. We are not saved as much as we are a part of a saving journey in which the one we follow becomes the life of those who follow.

Connection: When we abide in the margins and see ourselves as one of the marginalized, I wonder what that will do with how hospitable we let ourselves be?!

You find us, O God - and we are have our lives opened up to experiences we may have never entered. By your grace, we not only see ourselves with new eyes - we see all things anew. Continue to take us up into the welcoming vision of your Reign and to become the living welcome to others. Amen.