I thank our God and Father for a chance to live with
brothers and sisters so willing to lean into the not yet promised us through
Jesus. That not yet of what I speak being a future lived plainly in the sight
of God and each other, a future with no more darkness. A future in which there
is no fear of pain and therefore no fear of intimacy. A future marked, guided
and upheld by the love of Jesus. A future whose foundation is the ultimate
ending of all grief and sorrow pain and suffering and most importantly the end
of all judgment, for I have come to understand of pain that it causes more of
it self and that in our being wronged by others the trail continues backward
with no end and without a singular culprit on which to place our blame. So now,
it is my understanding that God’s justice is to deal with this kind of doomed
cycle of pain and transgressing by the death of his son, which is ultimately
for us a sign or gateway by which we enter into a new life. We are welcomed to
enter into life founded on unwavering love, love in the face of distress, love
in the face of betrayal, love in the face of enemies, and love in the face of
death and by this kind of love the doom of this world can finally be undone.
All of this should suffice to say that I would like to live
as if this life that Jesus has opened to us is possible and I am glad to share
it with you all and whoever else may be glad to do so as well.
I commit first and foremost therefore to love, and pledge my
love to be like Jesus, to give grace as he did, to be interruptible as he was,
and to seek the heart of God as my greatest desire when I wake and when I
sleep.
Also I commit to a life of learning which in a sense may
very well be a life of failure. I am not sure if Jesus ever failed and if he
didn’t than to some extent I must confess I will endeavor to be like Jesus
without needing to BE Jesus or otherwise I think I miss the point of a savior.
I know that if for nothing else I am here with all of you to
learn to live into the things I have just mentioned.
How long I will be here I am not certain, but perhaps
certain that it will be determined by love. My love for you, your love for me,
but most of all the love of our Father as he enables me to be the message of
love and reconciliation found in Jesus. Perhaps this love will some day lead me
away. I think it is likely and I am sure when it does it will be a great
passion to share this life we have learned with others as a way of making sense
out of a two thousand year old story that at times is misunderstood and often
represented with very little relevance to it’s original message.
For out rule, and for this life, this is my hope.
