Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 14:1,7-8

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. …When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host ….”

Prayer

I love your freedom, Jesus. Your opponents watch you, yet you boldly walk into the places of their strength, unbowed by the fears of judgment and rejection that send me running from myself … and you.

With assurance you step into your future, knowing who you are and what are to do. You are ready, even eager to reveal the shape of a new age that reflects the healing purpose of the Loving Mystery who consumes you. Nothing else matters, and that passion will, indeed, consume all that you are. It will bring your destruction.

Hence, our fear, Jesus. We flee such perfect passion as your own, cutting our conscience lest you lead us to stand before others with nothing to commend us other than the promise of your nearness.

Yet, we are here, starting again, ready to learn and, we hope, to be captured by your word and Spirit and led into places unknown. And that makes us afraid. So we ask: Give us the freedom of soul to we who, so often, are enslaved by fears of judgment, rejection and futures our eyes cannot penetrate.

Fill us with the wild passion for God’s blessed reign that filled you. We know this will certainly lead us into fear and uncertainty, but we will also know you. And that will be enough for us, even as we walk into this new day on our continuing journey in you.

Pr. David L. Miller