Monday, February 13, 2012

Today’s text

2 Corinthians 4:5-6

It is not ourselves that we are proclaiming, but Christ Jesus as the Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. It is God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' that has shone into our hearts to enlighten them with the knowledge of God's glory, the glory on the face of Christ.Reflection

There is a oneness in Christian faith that transcends the dualism of our common patterns of believing. Typically, we imagine a god ‘out there,’ separate from ourselves. Just so, we place ourselves in the difficult position of trying to work up belief that this god is real, that he exists.

Faith becomes believing in the reality of this god. And if we get that far, we go on to ascribe things to the character of this god--goodness, forgiveness, care purity, judgment or whatever.

No matter what characteristics you ascribe this god remains distant, ‘out there.”

This is an exercise in spiritual apartheid. This god and I are separate, not together. I am here and this god is ‘over there,’ and I have to struggle to jump the broad divide between us.

With this god, we cannot share the intimate communion of those who feel and know--in utter simplicity--what is in the other’s heart.

I have little interest in this ‘out there’ god, although I surely believe that God transcends and is so much greater than us.

What I want … and what we are given … is so much better, and so much more lovingly intimate. For what we are given is not a what to believe in but a who to indwell our souls.

The glory of God shines in every morsel of creation and in the morning light of blessedly new days. This glory shines in our hearts--and in the face of Jesus.

It glistens in his every word and deed, in his glowing compassion and in his desire to enlighten human souls to the grace of the One whose love shines on good and evil alike.

We are invited by the Loving Mystery of God to look at Jesus, again and again, and to know … the beauty of his grace and the life that is in him … is the glory of God’s own heart.

In this knowing, we know one more thing.

The glory we see in him is alive also in us. That glory of God’s loving Spirit allows us to see God’s glory shining in Jesus … and in gentle morning light … and in the beauty of human souls and … well, you get the idea.

This is no ‘out there’ god. This is the Loving Mystery who is right here, awakening love in my heart and yours.

This One is as close as our breath, as near as the beating of our soul’s own loving. In this loving, his Spirit communes with our spirit, giving us close, intimate knowledge that the glory of God is the love that refuses to stay ‘out there.’

Pr. David L. Miller