Wednesday, 1 September, 2004

This week's devotions are written by Vicar Steve Bond.



First, a word of introduction about what we’ll be using for devotions. The next week and a half or so worth of material will come from an essay by a Methodist theologian and ethicist named Stanley Hauerwas entitled, “Only Theology Overcomes Ethics,” in which he dialogues with Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson. That may sound like a lot of people’s thoughts packed into one day’s devotions, but it’s got a lot of good stuff, too. Let’s give it a whirl, anyway…



“Theology is thinking what to say to be saying the gospel….” Theology is therefore the ongoing activity of the church to explore the prescriptive grammar required by the presumption that to be known and to know the one God of all requires that the God Christians worship is the decisive fact about all things.”



That’s a mouthful! The point, however, is profoundly simple: God matters. And theology, rather than being solely the task of trained professionals, not to be attempted at home, is the call to all believers to work out in life how it is that God matters. What’s more, the character of the God we know if Jesus Christ re-orients all of how we live, speak, and act. Because we know God’s goodness and mercy in Jesus, and most clearly in his cross and resurrection, we are not bound by fears of being worthy enough to earn God’s favor or worries that God is uninterested in us, nor are we constrained by other people’s judgments about us. God’s claim on us is truer, God’s grace more real, and God’s love for us is fiercer than any other claims the world makes on us.



Connection: The claim that God matters at least means that before my own brokenness or other people’s assertions define me, Jesus has already re-defined me as his own. What would it look like if I lived this day in the freedom of knowing that God’s claims on me truly matter?



Gracious God, you have claimed us as your own before we knew you, and your love holds onto us through each day. Open our eyes this day to live in the freedom of knowing that before all else, you have made us your own daughters and sons. We ask it in the name of your Son, Jesus.



Romans 14:8—“If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”