This week: God as resurrection full. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com. Everything is 'full' - no empty spaces - not room for an alternative opinion or judgment. God as resurrection full is the announcement that puts to an end all of the religious talk that attempts to put a threat out to folks even as they try to talk about the graciousness of God. We all know that line. There is always a 'but' or a 'what if' or a 'it can't be that easy'. It is all that talk that draws people back to hear some sort of 'good news' that is only part of the story. God as resurrection full does not add a footnote full of conditions. Most often, evangelistic messages are run by the power of death rather than the fullness of resurrection that death cannot handle. That is why people are so frantic in their attempts to 'win over the world' before folks die or so that they can be a part of the 'right' end. Well, because God as resurrection full is the God who walked with Jesus through death and out of the power of death (everyday by the way) all the worry or pressure or sales job that some lay over the universality of resurrection becomes just noise - background noise that we can simply turn off and live within the faithful imagination of God's resurrection. Imagine what would happen if religious folks (Christian religious folks) were liberated from their vision of resurrection as not enough to put death and hell out of the picture. Just wondering. O God of love and new life, let your resurrection power lead us and hold us and secure us for life that boldly dismisses death and its treasured images. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as resurrection full. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com. To understand God as resurrection full means that we must have a grand imagination that is informed by the power of resurrection even when the power of death is looking us in the face. Imagine resurrection - life that is - even when death appears bigger than life. It is not life as we already have it. It is life as full as God shapes life. Therefore, we do not see it completely yet. God as resurrection full is pulling us into that life so that in each day - in each encounter with death - in each of the games death lays on us - we begin to find life that death really cannot touch - resurrection life. We come out as new people and death comes out looking different to us. God as resurrection full is that place in which we can rest because death is not invited onto the blanket of resurrection where God holds a feast of a luncheon for all who have been taken up into the grand imagination of God's Reigning fullness. O God of love and new life, shape our imagination and help us to move into that which is not yet - but that which contains the vision of your glory. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as resurrection full. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com. The resurrection reveal the power and reality of the living God. Death is has no power. God as resurrection full is the way we begin to imagine what is to come. By that, I do not want our heads to go off into the future beyond death. Let's begin with now - what is to come - now, and also forevermore. God as resurrection full has one shory line - life. This life is not one that we must live as though death is the master of the day. We live as though resurrection in all of its fullness is at hand. More and more I wonder if Jesus stepped into those crowded synagogues and into the homes of outsiders with the full expectation that the day is resurrection full. God as resurrection full notices the power of death attempting to do its duty as it always has but the response to such power is to act as though it is not the power of the day. God as resurrection full leaves no room for the many faces of death and all of the tools that all of us know how to use so well when we are a part of death's domain. O God of love and new life, fill us up again with the life you scatter freely throughout time and space. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as subverting violence. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com. God as subverting violence has no voice in the midst of the powerful of the world. God as subverting violence is active nonviolence. Nonviolence is a power that draws ridicule from the 'respectable' powers of the world because nonviolence is not out to defeat the other or humiliate the other or turn the other into a scapegoat. God as subverting violence chants an eternal "no" each and every time the powers of the world make victims out of others. This victimization can be on the battlefield - the football field - the classroom - the factory floor - the law practice - in our homes. Violence finds ways to make some people into victims and to cast blame that leads to more and more violence. God as subverting violence takes on the place of the victim and does not let that voice go unheard. Therefore, violence is always being exposed - even when it is the death of us. O God of love and new life, be our courage in the face of all the many faces of violence that attempt to win our hearts. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as subverting violence. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com. I don't think any of us like violence. The images of the people suffering through the gas attacks in Syria are frightening and disgusting. The many ways we treat the earth violently in order to make a life we can have on our own terms is also frightening and disgusting. God as subverting violence keeps reminding us that it is God's will that we heal and make well and be caretakers of the life of the world. That is often called shalom. God as subverting violence will always lead us toward the healing peace that heals relationships of all kinds. God as subverting violence resist violence - stand in its way - lay down in front of it - demand that it leave and leave now! Therefore, God as subverting violence is not a lecture. It is a life that works in a way that is quite contradictory to the violence that runs the world and attempts to run each of our lives - and usually does. When the peace of this God as subverting violence rules, it may seem awkward - odd - strange. We have become too familiar with the violence God continues to subvert. O God of love and new life, let your shalom rule and lead us. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as subverting violence. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com. The world builds itself up with some sort of violence. That violence - in one shape or another - keeps the world just as it is an just as those who have the power to rule are able to keep it for themselves. The result, there are those who are considered disposable. Whenever a person is considered disposable for the sake of people and systems that consider themselves worthy of being able to judge between what is good/bad or what is clean/unclean or any of those lines that are so easily drawn between us, violence erupts. God as subverting violence does not go along with the nametags the powers of this world like folks to wear. God as subverting violence invites everyone to the table - all folks - no numbers on the table. God as subverting violence is part of the endless task of dismantling all that the power of death likes to put in place. Bit by bit - moment to moment, God as subverting violence invites us to sit at the lunch counter in the deep south - cross economic lines to create friendships - love the people we are being told we cannot love. Unfortunately for the powers of violence and death, they will not accept that this God of ours invites us to love the makers of violence and violent systems so that new life will come to all - without coercion. O God of love and new life, keep us coming to the table of all hopefulness within your Reign. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | This week: God as subverting violence. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com. Violence will try to win the day. Unfortunately, it often does. In some shape, violence does the job of controlling how the world spins and how our lives so often go along with that spinning. God as subverting violence stands in the way of that spinning and becomes the power of life available in the shape of the victim. God as subverting violence is when the image of God becomes the crushed one who does not go along with the violence or the mob or the pressure to keep things just as they are. In this way, we are not denied the result of violence that take place simply to have its way for the victim of a violent system is one who has been violated by the powers of violence. God as subverting violence stands up with the victims and resists any attempt for the powers of the day to blame or diminish or destroy those people who have been cast in a manner less than those in power. God as subverting violence interrupts the 'party' of violence the world likes to whip up and for that, this God and all who follow will face consequences. Yes, death - but more importantly and more frustrating to the powers of death - a fullness of life that death cannot bring about ever. O God of love and new life, make us instruments of your acts of subversion and new life - instruments of peace, forgiveness, mercy, and justice. Amen. |
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