What follows is this morning’s entry (July 22, 2011) from the journal of your truly after I happened upon a stained silver cup and other tainted silver that was my mother’s. It’s been stored away so long it’s all in need of some serious polishing.
God obviously was trying to tell yours truly something.
“We’re all broken people, living in a broken world, in need of the full measure of God’s love and grace and tender mercies”–that’s the core of my theology, and I say it so much to others in my ministry that I’m afraid I’m saying it by rote, like a child spitting out the ABC’s or something.
We are needy–very needy people, every last one of us, and myself most of all–because we are sinful and broken and weak people in need of the full measure of God’s love and grace and tender mercies. It matters not one twit in God’s eyes what our race or color or gender or faith affiliation or politics or sexual orientation, because we all were created by God in the all-important image of God, no matter how far we stray from God–consciously or not.
In fact, it’s the unconscious straying that keeps us all as people of faith so broken. It’s the inability to see for the log in my own eye. It’s the stain of pride and self-satisfaction that covers the divine image within. Even a silver cup can get so stained that it turns dark and covers the glint of the beautiful silver.
I love you God, I need you God, I praise you and thank you God for being the God of endless love and grace and tender mercies, and for giving me the opportunity every day, every hour, every minute, even this minute, to step back into line with your will for peace on earth and good will toward all others requiring and breathing the same air I require, regardless of how repugnant or off-putting or hateful I may find another who is different from me or thinks so different from me, even one who would persecute me even as I would persecute him or her.
God help me, a sinner.
I thank you God and praise you God for being the God of extravagant and endless love and grace and tender mercies.
