The Reign of God as reconciliation. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . The Reign of God as reconciliation is a reality in which people step in to reveal brokenness that must be addressed so that life will become whole and rich for all. We step in to ask for forgiveness and to announce forgiveness and then within that vibrant reality we start the new life that comes when there is the healing reconciliation that comes from forgiveness. The Reign of God as reconciliation is the direct interpersonal work that is needed to build bridges when relationships have become undone and it is the work needed to build new bridges when old ones have been dismantled or destroyed. It may sound like a waste of time and yet from this kind of work - this kind of love - this kind of character - we begin to see signs of healing and unexpected life - even God's shalom. It is simply amazing what happens whenever bridges are built or rebuilt and lives start to flow back and forth as though they are really connected and share something in common. O God of love and new life, help us be persistent and hopeful even when we cannot see the way our lives can be brought together. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | The Reign of God as reconciliation. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . The Reign of God as reconciliation is not going to look like a 'winning' team in a world that lives to win - to beat the other side - to take and have whatever it want from others. If fact, the Reign of God will be the people who often lose alongside the ones who are being beaten up by the ones who long to win the day. Usually, the powerful will take whatever they want from the less powerful. Those who live within the Reign of God as reconciliation speak up and expose the injustice or the abuse or the neglect so that in the light of day, all will see the violence of the world and the brokenness it manufactures. The Reign of God as reconciliation brings warring factions to the table because even when the war does not concern me or harm me, it harms our common humanity. Therefore, the work of the day is to provide the energy and wisdom and inspiration that will bring warring parties to a table of peace. At that table, the Reign of God as reconciliation takes care of the least and presses in on those who have most so that no one leaves needing to harm or destroy the other. When we reside in the Reign of God, we are gifted to act before war and before evil rule the day. We are gifted to see how things break apart among us. We are gifted to see how we all can move through a process of healing in which all sides will one day be witnesses to a new day. O God of love and new life, open our eyes and guide our hearts and make us those instruments of your peace that are busy changing the world. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | The Reign of God as reconciliation. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . The Reign of God as reconciliation takes place between here and there - always becoming something with a bit of newness around it. I may start out thinking and acting in one way only to find out that my actions do harm to the other. That happens everyday. The harm may not be great - but it is a sign of the brokenness that exists when I attempt to do things my way and forget about you. The Reign of God as reconciliation keeps us eternally aware of the way so many things are interconnected and because of that, there will be endless moments when the points of interconnection do not match up. To often that makes for a 'fight' or a 'war' or a 'separation' because the connections that help us live together are not nurtured and division seems to be the easiest way to live. The Reign of God as reconciliation keeps an eye on how things are connecting and how they are being broken and then, how there can be reconnection - reconciliation. Living in such a Reign means we are invited to see the whole world through a new lens that enable us to be witnesses to the brokenness and missed connections and then a part of the work that heals and peaceably resolves all of it. O God of love and new life, bring us together within the mess of brokenness that can make up our day so that we will live as residents of your Reign of reconciliation. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | The Reign of God as losing to death. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . The Reign of God as losing to death and yet, winning a life. The life is one that knows that all death wants to do is take away our life. Well, in the Reign of God as losing to death allows death to say and do all that it wants. We who live in the Reign of God simply acknowledge that is what death will do to us at whenever death is able. With that in mind - with that notion that we give up to death - in the sense that we let death play its games without us - we then turn into the life that is beyond death's control. Death cannot stop us from loving even when we are losing the battle for life. Death cannot stop us from being merciful even when we are losing to the powers that only know how to disregard others and overwhelm them. The Reign of God as losing to death is a smile that breaks out even as death comes to the end of the day and seems to have won the day. No power can take away that smile. O God of love and new life, keep within us the center that is your love that is sustained no matter what blows are handed us. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | The Reign of God as losing to death. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . The Reign of God as losing to death is once again what I see from the cross when the words 'Father Forgive them' are placed on the lips of Jesus. The power of death is winning the day and will win the day. Death will attract birds of prey and scavengers to the body. And yet, Jesus lives into those moments within a reality that death does not know. It is also a moment that the world does not know. Forgiveness is a reality even when we have lost the day to powers that have ruled us from the beginning of time. The Reign of God as losing to death is a living unto life in which death's range of powers is not able to stop the character of God's Reign from moving on - even when it is losing the games death knows so well. That is once again why the Reign of God is a domain of foolishness - nonsense. Death continues to eat away at us and yet, as we are losing the day, we live - we live - we live like ones who will not play as death tries to rule us. O God of love and new life, keep us close to you rule of love. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | The Reign of God as losing to death. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . The Reign of God as losing to death is Jesus 'dying in our face'. Showing us there is another way to live. It is not to show God how good Jesus was. The Reign of God as losing to death means death is a non-issue. Death cannot make the Reign of God act as a power that seeks death - plays death's games - enters into war - protects life at any cost. In Jesus we are shown that death and all of its power is not the realm of life we have been handed. So, why would losing to death have any pull or influence on us. Remember, we live only within God's Reign of abundant life. I wish that I could keep that in my heart and in my mind each day. Not only would my day be new - it would be part of what helps the day be new to others. Therefore, as all the followers of Jesus do not give weight to losing to death, our corporate (our bodily)witness will always continue even as death attempts to win the day. There is another way to live that let's death go on its 'winning' way but not without a witness to this life of God's Reign that is ours for the living. We have all seen or heard of people who have offered such a witness. It is always amazing. O God of love and new life, let your love pull us into life even as it appears that we are on the losing team. Keep us from the ways of death's domain. Amen. |
 | | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions |
| | | | | The Reign of God as losing to death. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . The Reign of God as losing to death is my way of using an idea of James Alison. He writes that Jesus' "losing to death was not done so as to please the Father, but rather so as to get through to us. It is we could not be unhooked from our addiction to death until we were shown that we could live as if it were not." Imagine that, living as death were not. We would not need to fight for our lives. If the powers of death flex their might, we already know that that might need not have power over us. Jesus' life never stopped short of living. He did not back away from the many faces of death - a death that seems to be able to wrap its hands around us and shape our lives. So in the face of that death, Jesus lives. Even when his living appears to be a losing to death on the cross, he is never overcome by death. I find that to be an outrageous way to look at the power of death. It is an upfront statement that says 'go for it death' - 'we are going to keep living even when it appears to the world that death has won the day.' That attitude - that way of looking at life - presents to the world another way of living that is able to embody the Reign of God even as death fouls the air with its attempts to win the day. It cannot win the day. O God of love and new life, it is just not in us to lose - we fight it - we even become it rather than lose to it. Free us from the many ways death is ready to grab us and hold us. Amen. |
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