| Today I will begin with a new source for devotions: The Joy of Being Wrong - Original Sin Through Easter Eyes, by James Alison. As with many books I read, I am drawn to chapters even if it means I skip some. So today starts a run in the chapter "The Resurrection and Original Sin. If we get too tired of this - we'll move on. I have argued - that the epistemological starting point for any understanding of Christianity is the presence to the disciples of the crucified and risen Lord. That is to say: the only reason there is any Christianity at all is because of the resurrection. Any doctrine that does not, therefore, ultimately flow from the resurrection, as a development of its content and consequences, must properly be questioned as to its starting point and as to its validity. If such a doctrine cannot be show to ultimately flow from the resurrection, then, heeding Paul's monition in Galatians 1:8, it should be discarded. Too often, people say that we cannot 'prove' the resurrection and therefore, the Christian story is fabricated. It is easy to take issue with that comment. Then again, the story is fabricated. The story that continues to abound with life has been whipped up because of this event for which there are no photos and no 'neutral' witnesses. Instead we have human lives being transformed. We have a movement of nonviolence that takes its lead from the life that blossoms for everyone from this resurrection into new life. Is my witness today a fabrication. I guess it is. It is pulled together by stories I have heard and people I have known and life that I have seen take on a substance that is contrary to the patterns of life cut out of the fabric of the powers of the world. Is the life of resurrection fabricated? If this means that the shape of the life of the followers of Jesus count on the new reality of resurrection to be the way in which the day at hand will be entered, then yes. Some folks enter the day fabricating lives around their wealth or national politics. The followers of Jesus take all the things of our faithful living and we make sure that the resurrection to new life helps make sense of it all. I'm looking forward to what Alison will say to us. Connection: What are you using as you fabricate the life you are in right now? What is the primary fabric that keeps things together and defines the look of your life? Lord of the Resurrection, as you bid us to enter into life knowing of you power to make all things new, we are given a vision of life that is held together by hope. In hope, we take on a shape that appears like something more than what is. We long for that shaping power. Amen. Connection: So how does the congregation in the power of the Holy Spirit come alive when that power is to be manifest throughout the whole body - all responsible? Come, Holy Spirit! We are not the best at 'being church' and must always ask for your coming to be now in the midst of us. Come, Holy Spirit. Amen. |
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