equal
Faith in Action
By Linda Rex
September 8, 2024, Proper 18 | After Pentecost—In my personal faith tradition years ago, having the right theology or correct belief system was essential. In the extreme form of this belief and practice, exclusion of any group or person that did not agree with our faith tradition was the norm. Sadly, this meant that we were blind to how God was working with every person in this world and within other faith traditions.
Over the years, I began to see that there were huge flaws in what I believed and practiced in the name of obeying God and following what the Bible taught. Much of this was due to a desperate need for the Spirit to give me a new framework through which to view God and the Bible, a framework given to us by God himself. He gave us his Son, Jesus Christ, as the sole true interpreter and revealer of God and his will and his ways. When I began to see through the lens of Jesus Christ, everything changed, thanks to the Spirit’s gracious work.
When James addresses the issue of Christian faith and practice, he does so through the lens of Jesus Christ and all that Jesus is for us in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and in the gift of the Spirit. In order to read the book of James properly, we need to find the indicatives which undergird each of the imperatives or commands which the apostle gives us to follow. For example, in our New Testament reading for this Sunday, James 2:1–10, 14–17, the apostle James tells us that we are not to treat some people better than others when they join us in Christian fellowship. And he says that we need to be aware that our faith is empty or dead if it is not accompanied by actions which affirm its reality. These are the imperatives or commands James is encouraging us to put into practice.
But notice the indicatives or underlying spiritual realities behind these imperatives. He asks, “did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?” The royal law expressed in Jesus Christ—the lens through which we view all things—is that God in Christ was willing to lay down his life for us so that we could be with him forever. This is the God, the Lord Jesus, who while on this earth spent much of his time with the everyday people of his land, ministering to the poor, needy, and afflicted, both Jew and non-Jew. James tells us that, because of Jesus Christ and because of his own law of love written on our hearts by the Spirit, we treat every human being with dignity, respect, and kindness. The person may be different than us, they may be struggling, but they are our equals—as the apostle Paul says, we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In the Gospel passage, Mark 7:24–37, Mark tells two stories within the context of Jesus’ harassment by the leaders of his people. One is about a woman who was “a Gentile [a non-Jew], of the Syrophoenician race”—someone who the Jewish leaders would have avoided having anything to do with, even though she needed their help in freeing her daughter from demon possession. And, even though Jesus reminds her that his immediate focus is currently on his own Jewish people, she counters his initial refusal with a humble, yet bold remark about how even the pet dogs get the crumbs off the table. Touched by her faith, Jesus heals her daughter.
The other story is about a man who is deaf and mute that some people brought to Jesus to heal. Jesus shows the man what he’s going to do and then says, “Be opened.” In that moment, the man’s ears are opened and he is once again able to speak. Jesus tells the people who brought him not to say anything about his healing, since it would complicate Jesus’ ability to continue to do ministry in that area. But they become more and more vocal about it. And Jesus knows that this will only increase his persecution by the leaders of his people. And Jesus knows that the Jewish leaders of that day needed a new lens through which to view the people with whom God had given them the responsibility to lead and care for. They needed to get out of their religious box and begin simply practicing the law they knew by heart, to truly love their neighbor as themselves. Their faith in their loving God needed to be evidenced in the actions they took day by day as they encountered the different people in their lives, no matter their background, history, circumstances, religious affiliation, or race.
So, going back to our passage in James, we see that the people James writes to have the same issues that Jesus was up against during his time here on earth. The human tendency to put some people lower and some people higher is at work in this fellowship, and James calls them back to the spiritual realities of their faith in Christ. In the Triune oneness of Father, Son, and Spirit, there’s unique personhood, yet equality and unity. In the same way, this group of believers needed to start acting like the children of God they were, treating one another as unique equals who were sharing in the oneness which is ours in Christ by the Spirit. And when someone came into their gathering who did not fit any human category of value and worth, they were to still treat them as a beloved child of God, for in Christ, that is what they are. And here we find the impetus to live this out ourselves today, as God’s beloved children, who God, in Christ, stooped down to include in his own life and love, both now and forever. Who might God want us to include who we have previously excluded?
Thank you, Father, for going to such extent to include us in your life and love through your Son Jesus in the Spirit. Thank you for raising us up out of our poverty of evil, sin, and death, and for giving us the dignity and worth of being called your very own adopted children. Grant us the grace to value others with the same grace and worth with which you value us, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ and you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called? If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. … What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.” James 2:1–10, 14–17 NASB
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The Grace of Giving
By Linda Rex
June 30, 2024, Proper 8 | After Pentecost—As I grow older, I find that I am more and more aware of how far my actions and behavior are from my ideals and beliefs. One of the areas in my life where this is true is the area of giving.
In our New Testament passage for this Sunday, 2 Corinthians 8:7–15, the apostle Paul reminds the members in Corinth about a gift they had pledged to give their sister church in Jerusalem. The members in Jerusalem were suffering through some hard times, while their brothers and sisters in Corinth were prospering. Paul was encouraging the Corinthians to follow through with their pledge and to help their needy brothers and sisters.
What did the apostle Paul use as the basis for his request? He went back to the foundation of all our giving—the realization that Jesus gave all for us. The One who had everything—the Son of God who had all the benefits and blessings of eternal glory with his Father in the Spirit—left his abundance behind to join us in our broken human flesh. In Jesus Christ, the Son of God dwelt among humans as a human being, and experienced the poverty of our existence. He who had everything became poor, that in his poverty, we might be made rich. We find our spiritual wealth in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ and his gift of the Spirit. He paid the ultimate price, gave it all up, for our sakes.
In the light of this, Paul says that we are to give as we are able, to care for and help others. For what purpose? For the sake of equality. This is an interesting point. He doesn’t say that it’s wrong or bad to be wealthy, but that wealth provides an opportunity to help lift others up. Neither does Paul say that poverty is bad, but rather, it provides an open door for creating communion—a place where those who have can bless those who have not, to bring the two together in unity. The goal is not that everyone is the same but that each has what they need.
The divine Persons of the Trinity are each unique but are equal and yet are one. They created us as human beings to be equals. But inevitably, we find ways in which we elevate ourselves at the expense of others. We push others down, that we may be raised up. Our goal should not be to do this, but to follow Christ—the One who came down, lowered himself down into the place where we are, to bring us up to where he is in glory. This is the calling he has given each of us—to be turned outward, toward others, not to push them down or keep them beneath us, but to lift them up, so there is equality. We are designed to live as unique equals in union and communion with God and one another.
So back to my comment about ideals and actions. In this life, it is a real challenge to live this out. There are so many things demanding our attention, so many responsibilities, and so many opportunities. All around are possibilities, ways to spend our money, to use our time, and to occupy our attention. It’s possible to spend every moment from the time we wake up to the time we close our eyes in sleep attending to what’s right in front of us without ever noticing that all around us are people in need. It is so easy to be so self-absorbed that we never attend to the need that others may have to be lifted up into a space beside us, to share life with us, and to be included in the unity and oneness of our life in the Trinity.
And the greatest need of each and every person here on earth is to know that they are loved, accepted, forgiven, and included in God’s life and love. Yes, they have physical needs too. In Paul’s day, the needs the Corinth church helped with were food, clothing, and shelter. Their financial contribution ensured that their poverty-stricken brothers and sisters would have the basics of physical life. In the same way, we can look at the blessings the Lord has given us and find ways to enable those with less to have what they truly need.
It is Christ’s life in us by the Spirit who enables us to see those around us with new eyes, and to recognize opportunities to lift others up out of their need, to join us where we are. It is God’s Spirit at work in us who enables us to do this. Giving is a grace of the Spirit. Our ability to recognize a need and to actively work to fill that need, comes from God himself—the One who saw our need as poverty-stricken human beings, and came in Jesus Christ to lift us up to life with our Triune God, now and forever. How might we open ourselves up more completely to the indwelling Spirit, so that God can lift others up to share in the Triune life and love?
Thank you, dear Trinity, for your selfless generosity toward us in our brokenness and need. Thank you, dear Jesus, for generously offering yourself to us so that we might join with you in your life with your Father in the Spirit. Grant us the grace to love others as you have loved us, by being generous and helpful to those in need, in your name, Jesus, by your Spirit. Amen.
“But just as you abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge and in all earnestness and in the love we inspired in you, see that you abound in this gracious work also. I am not speaking this as a command, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity of your love also. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich. I give my opinion in this matter, for this is to your advantage, who were the first to begin a year ago not only to do this, but also to desire to do it. But now finish doing it also, so that just as there was the readiness to desire it, so there may be also the completion of it by your ability. For if the readiness is present, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. For this is not for the ease of others and for your affliction, but by way of equality— at this present time your abundance being a supply for their need, so that their abundance also may become a supply for your need, that there may be equality; as it is written, ‘He who’ gathered ‘much did not have too much, and he who’ gathered ‘little had no lack.’ ” 2 Corinthians 8:7–15 NASB
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According to Our Design
By Linda Rex
April 14, 2024, 3rd Sunday | Easter—Many years ago, I sat in biology class and listened to my instructor talk about how a plant grows. One of the students raised their hands and asked, how does a leaf know when it is done growing? I wondered this too, thinking to myself, how does a leaf know when it is supposed to stop developing? How does the plant know to stop growing that leaf and to start growing another one?
Not being a biologist, nor a teacher, my understanding of these natural processes is quite limited. But the simple understanding I came to that day was that written into the very being of the plant was the blueprint of its design. Because the cells of the plant knew its design, what it ultimately was to be, that is how they multiplied and developed together, to create a plant uniquely like the design written into its very being. As stems were formed, leaves grew, flowers unfolded, and seeds developed, each fulfilled its original design—unless something interrupted or twisted that process. Then the plant would not grow properly and would be flawed.
In the New Testament passage for this Sunday, 1 John 3:1-7, the apostle John says that each and every person on this earth has a unique design—to be the children of God. John says that not only, because of Christ, will we one day be God’s children, but that even now, this is our divine design. Created to live in right relationship with God and one another, humans were meant to love and be loved, to live in other-centered self-giving love within the divine fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Just as the unique equal Persons of the Triune God live in oneness and unity, each of us as unique, equal human persons were meant to live together in union and communion with God and one another.
To live in any other way than that in which we were designed to live, is to live in the way the apostle John is describing here when he says “sin is lawlessness.” The law of love—for Jesus said this was his command, to love one another as he loved us by laying down his life—is the law we were designed to live. This is our spiritual DNA so to speak. Jesus Christ has lived our life, died our death, and risen again, restoring us to our original design as the image-bearers of God we were created to be. Now we are to grow up into the fullness of who we are in Christ.
In this passage, note that Jesus Christ is the pure one, into whose purity we live. Jesus Christ is the righteous one, into whose righteousness we live. The truth of our human design is found in Jesus Christ—the only human, perfected and holy, who lives in face-to-face intimate communion with our Father in the Spirit, even now. Jesus invites us into that glorious embrace, and gives us his Spirit so that we can participate fully in it even now as we trust in him. It is Christ’s life of faith, his life of worship, praise, and prayer we participate in. He is the One we will one day look like, when we see him in glory. What a great hope this is!
Until that day when Jesus returns in glory and establishes the new heaven and earth, our human existence will be in this place where we are fully broken and sinful, but at the same time fully pure, accepted, forgiven, redeemed in Christ—our true life is hidden with Christ in God, as the Scripture says. Caught in this place where, in Christ we are already-but-not-yet all that we need to be, we live each moment in full dependency upon Christ. We are beloved children of our heavenly Father—so we live into that reality, trusting Jesus to finish what he has begun in us by his Spirit.
The good news is that Jesus Christ has done all that is needed for us to live in right relationship with God and one another now and forever. This does not mean that we live however we want. What it means is that we begin, by the Spirit, to live into the truth of our original design. We begin to simply be who God, in Christ, has created us to be. We allow God to live in and through us, for the sake of others, just as Jesus allowed his Father by the Spirit to live in and through him for the sake of us all. Whatever road this may take us down—and Jesus ended up going down the road to death and resurrection, for our sakes—we follow Christ, and allow his Spirit to finish what he has begun in us. We trust in God’s perfect love, and that what he has designed and forged into our human flesh will be perfected in us, just as it was perfected in Jesus Christ, in his life, death, resurrection and ascension, and in the giving of his Spirit.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for including us in your life and love, through your Son and by your Spirit. Enable us to see and know our original design, to be those who reflect your likeness, the other-centered self-giving love you are in your very Being. Forgive us for all the ways in which we corrupt and disrupt this divine design—we receive your cleansing and renewal, in your Son Jesus and by your Spirit, and ask that we may live into the fullness of all you meant us to be as your adopted children. Amen.
“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; …” 1 John 3:1–7 NASB
“Consider the amazing love the Father lavished upon us; this is our defining moment: we began in the agape of God—the engineer of the universe is our Father! So it’s no wonder that the performance-based systems of this world just cannot see this! Because they do not recognize their origin in God, they feel indifferent towards anyone who does! Beloved, we know that we are children of God to begin with, which means that there can be no future surprises; his manifest likeness is already mirrored in us! Our sameness cannot be compromised or contradicted; our gaze will confirm exactly who he is—and who we are. And every individual in whom this expectation echoes also determines to realize their own flawless innocence mirrored in him whose image they bear. Distorted behavior is the result of a warped self-image! A lost sense of identity is the basis of all sin! (… Sin is to live out of context with the blueprint of one’s design; to behave out of tune with God’s original harmony. It is to be out of step with your true sonship! … The root of sin is to believe a lie about yourself, which is the fruit of the “I am-not Tree”. This was also the essence of Israel’s unbelief that kept them trapped in a grasshopper-mindset for 40 years. …) We have witnessed with our own eyes how, in the unveiling of the prophetic word, when he was lifted up upon the cross as the Lamb of God, he lifted up our sins and broke its dominion and rule over us! To abide in him in uninterrupted seamless oneness, is to live free from sin. Whoever continues in sin has obviously not perceived how free they are in him; they clearly do not really know him. Little children, do not be led astray by any other opinion; his righteousness is the source of our righteousness.” 1 John 3:1–7 Mirror
See also Luke 24:36b–48.
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Battling it Out
By Linda Rex
One of the stories I remember from my early years was when I was just not getting along with my older brother. It seems somehow he always got the best of me in everything and I was always having to prove myself as an equal to him.
Being run off the Risk game in a few moves—well, I guess I could just find something else to do while my two brothers fought it out between themselves. Being bought off the board in Monopoly—well, it’s hard to take, but it’s just a part of the game. Being creamed in chess in just five moves—it’s humiliating, but I bore up under it—I knew the men in my family were really smart—I just wasn’t savvy in the same way they were.
But after a while it seemed like they could do everything better than me—play football, baseball, play cards. You name it. I could keep up with them pretty well, but for a while, there was this kind of competition between my older brother and me. In my heart, I wished there was just one thing I could get the best of him in.
One day we were barricaded behind couch pillows and were battling it out with rubber bands. I’m pretty sure he started it. I retaliated only in self-preservation. At least that’s how I remember it.
I seemed to always end up on the worst end of such battles, but this particular day, I had a secret weapon—I had found a very large, very nice rubber band. So I loaded up and let it fly, hoping it would hit its mark. It was a lucky shot, but I hit him in the soft part of his arm near his elbow—it smarted and even drew a little blood.
The satisfaction I felt at finally getting him back for all his harassment was dimmed only slightly and momentarily by the wrath of my mother when she found out what had happened. Rubber band fights were henceforth banned (again), and we both got in trouble for having had one.
I may have felt a secret glee for a few moments but ultimately I felt sorry for having hurt him, and decided I wouldn’t do it again. It was never my intent to hurt him. I just wanted to gain his respect and to get him to quit persecuting me. Quite honestly, I lost all interest in rubber band fights after that experience.
Looking back, I recall there was a time when I just could not get along with my older brother, and there was also a time when I just could not get along with my younger brother. I’m not sure why now, but it was just the way it was. We had to work out our differences between us—our parents could not resolve them for us, other than threatening us with dire consequences if we didn’t get along.
In later years when my children were about the same age, I began to understand a little better my mother’s perspective on the constant squabbles between me and my brothers. There was a time when my two children just could not get along, no matter how many discussions we had about how they were not to squabble and fight. It seems like learning to get along with one another comes with the territory of siblinghood.
What I didn’t know then, but I realize now, is the way we live with one another is meant to reflect the inner life of God as Father, Son and Spirit. There is a mutual indwelling, a oneness in diversity and equality, which we are to mirror in our relationships with one another. Fighting it out with rubber bands is obviously not the best reflection of the inner love and life of the One we are to mirror.
Some of the lessons I’ve learned over the years can actually be understood more clearly with this image in mind. For example, I learned that unity is not the same as uniformity. It is entirely possible for people to be quite different from each other and to still get along. The Father is not the Son and is not the Spirit, and the Son is not the Father or the Spirit—and I’m so glad they are not exactly the same but still are One in Being.
Just because someone in your family likes to place chess and is really good at it does not mean everyone else in the family has to like chess and play chess too. They can be quite good at watching you play chess and reading a book, and they can be getting along with you just fine while they do it. We are each unique—I am not you and you are not me, and that’s okay. It’s a hard lesson to learn. Sadly, I think there are nations and national leaders who haven’t quite figured this one out yet.
One of the other things I’ve learned about getting along with my siblings is to stop seeing people in over/under ways. What I mean is, we tend to put people either above us or below us, rather than seeing them as another one of us. We look at the well-dressed lady in the next aisle and think, “She’s really blessed—she must have a really easy life,” not realizing she is on her way to the hospital to visit her husband who is dying of cancer, and is barely holding everything together.
I don’t know how many times I’ve stood in line with a fellow who is in grungy clothes, has dirty spots on his face and arms, and thought inappropriate thoughts to myself. Over the years, I’ve learned that such men are often the most hardworking, good-hearted men I know—the farmers, mechanics, contractors, and plumbers—people who make and keep our homes and belongings running well. My unworthy thoughts were putting them down below me, rather than elevating them to a place of equality and respect. They are a reflection of the equality in the Trinity—they each have a place of love and service in God’s family.
I know the pain of watching my children squabble when they could not and would not get along with one another. No doubt this pain is a participation in the pain God feels when we refuse to and cannot get along with one another, whether as people in a family, church or organization, or as nations and races and cultures.
God has provided a way in his Son Jesus by his Spirit for each of us to live together in unity while making room for each other’s uniqueness and acknowledging each other’s value and worth. There is no reason for us to be taking pot shots at one another, discriminating against one another or demeaning each other in any way. We need to work out our differences, yes, but it’s a whole lot more pleasant to do it around the table with milk and cookies, than in trenches with grenades and artillery. And there’s a whole lot less regret and pain when we’re done.
May God by his precious Spirit teach all of us how to live with one another in the way he created us to. May his Son live in us, and come to be for us the Center in which we all gather together and live as One.
Abba, forgive us for our human proclivity to fuss and fight and to refuse to get along. Grant us the grace to forgive and to be reconciled with you and one another, as you have reconciled us all with you and one another in your Son Jesus Christ. Make us all of one heart and mind, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” John 14:20 NIV
“This is my command: Love each other.” John 15:17 NIV
Learning to Lament
by Linda Rex
Yesterday I began my section of the service by reading portions of some news stories about mass murders both here in American and in the world outside our borders. These stories effectively illustrate the brokenness of our humanity—the natural inclination of the human heart towards evil. One of the hardest things for us to admit as human beings is our proclivity toward harming ourselves and others.
It is easy to read these stories and say to ourselves, “I would never do anything like that! Not ever!” And yet, we find ourselves yelling at our children, crucifying their self-esteem, because they leave the milk out all night, or drop our favorite dishes and break them.
Listening to these stories may awaken a lot of feelings inside of us—feelings we often do our best to ignore, bury or dismiss by the flurry of a busy life. These feelings of devastation or grief at such great loss, or raging anger at such injustice can overwhelm us so much we find refuge in our addictions, or bury ourselves in endlessly new forms of entertainment. Or we may lash out in a violent rage, thereby perpetuating injustice and evil rather than ending it. Facing the reality of our broken humanity, and our own proclivity to harm others and to be unjust is hard work and requires a lot of fortitude.
I believe it would be a good thing if we each could learn and practice what is essentially a spiritual discipline. We need to learn to lament—to learn how to listen to the cry of our heart against evil, pain, and destruction, to allow it to speak to us about who God is and who we are in the midst of our brokenness, and to motivate us to participate in God’s work in the world to right such wrongs. Learning to lament can teach us how to encounter God and his Light in the midst of the very darkness which seeks to destroy us.
When we are made aware of or experience a devastating loss, a horrendous injustice, or a crushing inhumanity, we need to pause and pay attention to what is happening in our hearts. We need to lament. We need to stay in this place long enough to ask God—”How do you feel about this? Holy Spirit, enable me to see, to hear and to know your heart about this right now.”
The reason we lament is to come to a realization of what is going in our own hearts and how it mirrors what is going on in the heart of God. What you feel about these losses, injustices, and inhumane events—your pain, your sorrow, your anger, your desire to avenge the wrongs—this is a reflection of God’s heart.
And yet, how God deals with these things and has dealt with them is different than how we as humans believe things should be handled. And so we do not recognize God is at work in these situations. He is at work—he does not ignore any of this. But how do we know this is true?
First, I believe we have an answer in the prophetic word of Isaiah where he spoke about the Suffering Servant who was to come and who did come in the person of Jesus Christ. Look at what he wrote:
“He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face he was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” (Isa 53:2b-4 NASB)
We hear Isaiah telling us about the Anointed One, who was just like you and me, but was despised by the people around him. Often people say that God is the one who inflicted pain and suffering on his Son, but in reality it was we as human beings, who tortured and crucified Jesus Christ unjustly. Going on:
“But He was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?” (Is 53:5–8 NASB).
The Creator and Sustainer of all life and every human being took on our humanity and allowed us to pour out on him all our prejudice, anger, hate, fear, rebellion, and all those inner drives which divide us. Jesus walked as a lamb to the slaughter, silent, with no refusal to anything done to him. He took on himself God’s passion against sin by receiving from us all our hate, anger, fear, prejudice and rebellion and becoming sin for us, in our place.
God’s heart about all these things we are talking about is compassion—he enters into our brokenness and sin and suffering and shares it. He became the Word in human flesh (sarx), the broken part of us, and became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him, righteousness meaning we are brought into right relationship with God and one another.
The meeting place between every human being on earth is Christ, the One who is fully God and fully man, who tore down every wall between us in his incarnational life, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension. God has forged a oneness between all of us in his Son which is unbreakable—yet we experience none of it as long as we deny this reality.
God has already entered into our darkness, fully received our rage against him in his rejection, crucifixion and death, and has already translated us, taken us out of that darkness into his marvelous light, into his kingdom of light. God has already paved the way to our healing and wholeness as human beings by pouring out his passion against all that mars our true humanity, all our divisions, all those things which separate us by taking it upon himself in his Son.
One of the basic lies of the evil one since the beginning has been, you are separated from God and each other. And unfortunately, we believe him. God is one—a unity, a whole, in which each are equal yet diverse. God is love—dwells in perichoretic relationship of mutual indwelling. This is the God in whose image we were created. We were created to live in this way—to love God and to love our neighbor—this is who we are.
God knew beforehand in our humanity alone, we could and never would live together in this way, even though it was what we were created for. Abba planned from before time to send his Son to enter our humanity, knowing his Son would take upon himself the worst of all we are as humans, but in doing so his Son would by the love and grace of all he is, perfect and transform our humanity.
All that Christ forged into our humanity in his life on earth, his suffering, his crucifixion, death and resurrection, and ascension, is ours today and is being worked out in this world by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is at work right now bringing this perfected humanity and the kingdom life of God into real expression in the world. We see the Spirit most active in the universal body of Christ where there is true perichoretic love—we know Christ’s disciples by their love for one another.
You and I participate in the Spirit’s transforming work in the world as we respond in faith to his work in our hearts and lives. If you know what God’s heart is about all these things which are happening today—that God’s heart is full of compassion and concern and a desire to bring people together, and to help heal relationships—then you know how to participate in what God is doing in the world today by his Spirit to make things better.
God doesn’t do everything alone—he includes us in what he’s doing.
The reason things aren’t getting better but are getting worse may be because we are quenching the Spirit of God, we are closing our hearts to God’s power and will being activated in our circumstances. Sometimes we don’t listen to and obey the promptings of the Spirit to pray, or to say a kind word, or to help those in need, or to encourage those who are suffering. Sometimes we refuse to listen to the prompting of the Spirit who is asking us to forgive a wrong, to go make things right with someone we are estranged from. Sometimes we refuse to hear God’s call on our heart to intervene in a difficult situation and to act as a mediator.
And sometimes we refuse to set aside our own prejudices and expectations, and our own animosity against someone of a different culture, race, ethnic group, or belief system. We hold onto our grudges, our resentments, our anger, our sense of injustice instead of obeying God’s command to forgive. We feel we are owed something better.
But I ask you: What could anyone possibly owe us which would even come close to what we owe Abba after all we did to his Son when Jesus came to offer us life and we killed him? Nothing. Nothing at all.
Thankfully, though, God does not leave us in our pain, our brokenness, anger, resentment and sorrow. No, he meets us there. Our failure to live in love with God and each other is the very place God entered into in Christ. He meets us in our failure to live in love and says to you and to me: I am yours and you are mine.
It is God’s nature in our humanity by the Spirit which brings us together and joins us at our core humanity. Abba has declared his Word to us: “My adopted children, the whole human race, are diverse, yet equal, and are to live united, as a whole, as one body. They are never separated from me or each other.” Abba has sent his Son, the living Word, into our humanity to join us with himself and one another—this is our union with God and man. We are always united with God and man through Jesus Christ.
Abba has poured out his Spirit on all flesh so we might live together in holy communion both now and forever. The Spirit works out into all our relationships with God and one another this true reality of our union with God in Christ. This is the true reality of who you are and who I am. You are an adopted child of Abba, the Father, and he has bound you to himself in his Son, Jesus Christ, and to one another. The person next to you is also an adopted child. And the person you just can’t stand is also an adopted child, whether you like it or not, and whether they know it or not.
The Spirit’s work is to bring each person to an understanding and awareness of this reality of who they really are. You and I participate in that work as we respond to the Spirit’s inspiration to bring healing, renewal, restoration, forgiveness, understanding, and reconciliation. God has given us the ministry of reconciliation, for he has reconciled all things to himself in Christ Jesus. And by the Spirit we participate in that ministry in the world.
Let us through lamenting face the truth of our brokenness and the horror of our depravity. May we see Jesus meets us there in that place with his mercy and grace. May we understand Jesus has bound us together with God in himself so we are never to be separated ever again—we live in union with God and one another forever. And may we indeed find by the Spirit who dwells in us, we are reconciled to God and one another, so we have the heart of Abba and Jesus to make amends, to create community, to restore relationships with God and each other, and so we are able to experience true spiritual communion with God and one another.
The power of lament is the power of the gospel. The power of lament is the power of the Spirit to call us back to the truth of who we are in Christ, and the reality of our reconciliation to God and one another in the finished work of Christ. Let us respond to God’s call upon our hearts to be reconciled. As we live in this reality of who we really are, as God’s adopted children, in our diversity, our equality and our unity in Christ, we will find our world being transformed, healed and renewed.
Thank you, Abba, for your heart of love and grace which you share with us through your Son and by your Spirit. May your heart of love and grace which you place within us find full expression in every area of our lives, and in the world in which we live. Through Jesus and by your Spirit, we pray and we work to participate fully in all you are doing to bring healing, renewal, reconciliation and transformation to this world. Amen.
Our Life in the Trinity 