God's love as beginning and end and now - is also the makings of the life that happens along the way. Once again each day of the week will be added to the next. Monday Sunday's text for the sermon was the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den - at least that is how the story is named. Unfortunately, if we only look at that amazing bit of rescue and faithfulness, I would suggest we miss much of the story. The beauty of the Daniel story is that it begins somewhere else in time. Yes, that time is always within the domain of the love of God, but let's go back to time as ordinary time - everyday time - the time we often wish would move more quickly and sometimes more slowly. There along the way within the times of life - Daniel's life in this case - stories were told. Imagine Daniel not as the man in the cave but the boy - the child - the teen - the young adult - hearing about this God as love. The stories would not be mere 'lessons' about what love means, they would be stories of God's faithfulness that could be seen within the way God's love inspired 'regular' folks to walk in the way of extraordinary love. The stories that we share in order to bring this love to life among us are stories in which we can see love changing life into something more like the living presence of God. I love those stories - I need those stories - I want to follow along the way of those stories. This is me speaking - not Daniel. In my faithful imagination though, Daniel was moved in a similar fashion. That is why he went up to pray three times a day. That is one way faithful people remember the unfolding reality of God's love. From there - from our active remembering - we are invited to face whatever beasts may come upon us along the way. It does not take much to remember the gift of life that is ours. It is life shaped by the love of God. That is how I would call it. By saying that, I tell myself that is what I inherit - that love. That is the substance of the life I take on as I walk through this day. When, in my faithful imagination, I envision a loving God pausing to take a moment to set humanity into the spin of the cosmos - and it is simply because of God's love that it all takes place - that is a power-filled moment. God as love is not for other things - it is the power that creates me too! Now within the whirlwind of God's creativity we each become an instrument of an ongoing creativity that expands the notion of this creative love. Here among us - you and me and those we call enemies - is how love becomes known as distinctive and real and relational. That is how God's love is meant to be. It is not a distant concept. It is a power that holds on - carries - walks alongside - dies with the rest of us - and then, somehow opens up life when there is no possibility of life at all. We are a part of that possibility. O God of love and new life, what will you make possible among us this day? Amen. O God of love and new life, be our hope and consolation. Amen. |
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