Hope and faith....again Willimon uses Karl Barth.
Barth puts into perspective the much-praised Reformation principle of "justification by faith." "Faith" - our response to God - is not in itself saving. Roman Catholics have spoken of our faith as animated by love whereas Protestants stress that faith must be exclusively initiated and constantly sustained by its object, Christ. Barth reminds us that the quality or the quantity of our love or our or our believing is not that which saves. Faith is not that which is undertaken by us but rather that which we undergo when the fact of Christ's work floods in upon us with undeniable force. Faith is a gift, pure grace, which is to say that it is miraculous.
I love the image of Christ's work flooding in upon us with undeniable force. Lately I have been taking note of experiences in which I am simply hit with something - something unexpected - something that interrupts...like a glass of wine the dumps over on a table. It makes a mess. This is also the experience of this flood of Christ's work. We are caught up in its spilling out all over things and making us make sudden changes. We do not decide to change. This spilling moves us...often before we have the opportunity to think about it. Move! A gift that simply takes us out of our path and our plans and delivers us into another way of experiencing the rest of the moment...and the rest of our lives. That is grace...it takes over and overwhelms and miraculously brings about life that was not anticipated even a moment ago.
Connection: We are in the middle of this spilling and the Spirit will always nudge us to look again or move...now.
Come, Lord God, and stir up our lives with your strange visitation. Be the Spirit that will not let us go and will always find ways to turn our head and our lives so that we will be a part of the faithful living within your Reign . Amen.
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