Topic: Grace

The resurrection has broken open many old certainties, and our ethics must now be grounded in the new things God is doing, characterised by radically inclusive love, rather than in the old restrictions.

As the victim of the ultimate in human evil, the risen Christ is the One who can offer the complete forgiveness, to us, and through us to the rest of the world.

God invites us to be immersed in another possible reality, to look at the world with the dark and contrary light that comes from the cross of Jesus.

What God has promised, God will make good on, no matter what the apparent obstacles, and our job is simply to set about cooperating with the promise-maker rather than with the obstacles.

God in Jesus Christ touches our grubby humanity to make it clean, so that human beings and human community might regain their colour, shape and original purpose.

The story of Jonah nurtures our own life of faith, revealing that God can work his purposes out even in and through people like Jonah and us.

Our faith is about grace – that God comes to meet us in the truth of who we are. God is far less threatened by the darkness in our lives than we are!

We worship our God with words and images from the imagination of human beings, believing that God can take even what we say and do speak to us in a voice nor our own and images not our own.

Jesus is opening our eyes and widening our focus to allow God’s ‘unbiased grace’ to break through.

It is only by letting go of our tribal need to define who is in and who is out, that any of us shall, in the end, show forth a kingdom which is from God.

If Abraham is our common father in faith, and like him we are justified and made whole by our faith in God’s mercy, then Christians, Jews and Muslims might find unity in sharing, humbly, in the wonder of that gift together.

Living as God requires may not make sense in the world, but God will make it worth our while.