End the week - from the beginning. Here are the past two days and today's piece.
Wednesday
In my faithful imagination, God is completely vulnerable from the beginning. Why take the time to create - why invest in something over which you are not going to want complete control - why call everything good even when everything is about to stumble? The love of God is vulnerable from the beginning. I don't think many folks like this kind of vulnerable God. This is a God who creates and then really takes a chance with us. From the beginning we can be and do as we please - and we do. Adam and Eve take the lead on this. They go ahead and eat. They go ahead and seek to take the wheel and drive things in the manner of their choosing. God does not put a fence around that 'special' tree in the garden. Rather, God seems to go off and take a nap. God is vulnerable to the ways we will go. And yet, even when we choose to be like God and spend each day of our lives trying to be in control of the world around us - and even the world of others - God remains vulnerable. This beginning vulnerability is the shape of God's relationship with us all along the way. At the beginning of each moment we are invited to trust in this God who is willing to be crushed by us - again. That invitation into the garden of 'trust in God alone' never ends.
Yesterday
We must remember that always - behind us - is our God who never leaves. God does not stay around trying to find out who is 'naughty or nice' - that's not our God. Instead when God is behind us, God is a place to rest - God is the power of life that gives us the opportunity to take off. When the love of God is the beginning, it is in place and it is immovable. That is what brings about all of creation in the first place. That love is the constant - the steady walkway. We may look out into this day and be frightened by what we see or the things we hear. That is quite normal. And yet, there is a part of our storytelling that says stay put - rest - breathe - remember. This is a moment for life to be shaped by what is handed to us before the day even began - not by what appears to be coming at us. The love of God as the beginning of things
We often hear of a wrathful God. A God who will do us in if we continue doing what we are doing. A God who whips up storms and illness and disease to break us of our bad ways. And yet, from the beginning our God is the God of Love. As noted earlier, it is a love that never lets us go - but a love that is willing to let us go so we can be us. That kind of love as a foundation allows for us to blow it and turn away from God and live as though we know nothing of this God of love who has been loving us from the beginning. The foundation of love never crumbles. It is never pulled out from under us. It is eternally present. In fact, it does let us go. It does let us screw up and thrown everything to the wind. But God - this God of love as the beginning of all things - does not act according to our actions. God lets us be. God lets us fall off the edge because we seem set on jumping again and again. So rather than sending us over the edge, God waits. I cannot imagine that kind of waiting - but God waits. Yes, we often find out that what we do - when we turn from our God - is that we stumble and suffer the consequences of what we are doing that is so contrary to this God who, from the beginning loves and beckons us into lives made alive by that love. But there - after jumping over the edge or simply running away from God's love - God waits to catch us and hold us and heal us and set us along the way of life that is reflective of God's love. That is love from the beginning. It is the encouragement for life no matter what the day sends us. It is the encouragement to face the day with a love that will not let the powers of the day take away our hopefulness and joy.
O God of love and new life, wander with us as we move into this day. We will be wandering and we will so often need your love to stand alongside us and guide us and remind us of who you have been and will be. Praise to you, O God. Amen.
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