The bending of the
mind by the powers of this world has twisted the gospel of grace into religious
bondage and distorted the image of God into an eternal, small-minded
bookkeeper.
Brennan
Manning
________________________________________
Christmas is
coming
And in the
theology of merit the baby who comes
Comes to die
To be killed by a
god who is an “eternal small-minded bookkeeper”
It is not that
the cross and the death are not important
But they are
important in the context of Jesus’ whole life
If we believe
that God is love
And that God, as
the angels said, is “well pleased” with people
Those who carry
the diving image
And if God came,
to show us who God is
What God is like
Then the whole
life of Jesus is important
The birth, into
poverty is important
The attendants at
the birth, the lost and lowly are important
The normalcy of
his family, a carpenter and his wife, from a backwater town, is important
His ministry is
important
His teachings are
important
His acceptance of
all
His compassion
His kindness
His wit
His forgiveness
His ability to
heal and restore
All of that is
important
His willingness
to combat the forces of his day
The legalism
The hate
The greed and the
lust for power, is important
His choice to
face that hate and violence
With love and forgiveness,
is important.
Jesus showed a
totally new way of doing life
He showed that it
is by giving we receive
That by entering
pain, we find joy
That by ceding
power we find a new kind of power
That by including
and welcoming, rather than by excluding and judging, we honor God
He showed that
love is stronger than hate
And that by
dying, to self, to ego, to the need for power, to greed, to hate, we live
Yes the cross is
important
It was the final
act of selfless giving
But Jesus came
Not so much to
satisfy a vengeful God
As to reveal a
loving One
And to enable us,
as Sacred Children
To be conduits of
Sacred Love
Jesus came to
awake our hearts to Sacred Presence
To activate our
divine DNA
Jesus came to
make us people
Who do life a different
way
People whose
lives
As Sister
Margaret puts it,
“shout the
gospel”
Welcome to Advent
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