April Newsletter Column

Here is what I posted in our church newsletter this month:

During this holy season, we have been bombarded with more religious imagery and talk than in recent memory. Recently, we have heard the hoopla over the movie The Passion of Christ, the issue of gay marriage seems to be on the front pages of every newspaper in the city, and religious zealots of every flavor have been telling us what God thinks about these days we're living in. It seems everyone including Mel Gibson has an opinion of what God thinks and how God wants us to live. And yet, God works in ways so profoundly different from our perceptions that I believe we often do not recognize God's voice or we are unable to recognize when God is working right in front of us.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a mule, some people cried out “Hosanna!”, while others had no idea what was going on. Even those who recognized Jesus as something more were the first to later exclaim, “Crucify him!” Did they really understand who Jesus was in the first place? Regardless of what the people said to Jesus, their cries of both praise and shame had nothing to do with his journey or his desire to love them. In spite of them, Jesus went about doing his Father's business.

There are some of us who like to think that God does exactly what we think God “should do,” and yet are unable to grasp why this thinking is so dangerous. When we love others as God loves us, we are doing right. However, when we turn that around and suggest that God loves those whom we love and hates those whom we hate, we cross the line into blasphemy. I remember someone who said, “You know you are practicing idolatry when your God hates the same people you do.”

May this season remind us to discover God working around us that we might listen and live as God would have us to do. May we remain open to the truth that God works in many ways, both easily recognizable and in unique and unexpected ways. Let our prayer this season be, “Reveal yourself to me, O Lord, that I might see you at work and go about doing your business.”

With Grace and Peace to you,

Pastor Bo