Topic: Reconciliation

Jesus acted out the parables that he was telling in his encounters with people, expressing the nature of God who seeks after us and rejoices in our being found and restored. God invites us to be people like that.

When God accepts and gifts those who are supposed to be excluded according to our theology, then its time to change our theology to a rule of love instead of a rule of purity.

There is no such thing as a ritual-free space, and performed well or performed badly, rituals change things, change people’s lives.

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 we are committed to the way of Jesus more even than we are to each other, we will end up doing what is truly best for each other and for all God’s creation.

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.

Our worship is a part of a cosmic liturgy of praise to the One who was slaughtered in reconciling a suffering universe to God.

Christ is our high priest, the sole mediator between the world and God, but as the body of Christ we share in Christ’s task of reconciling earth and heaven.

Christian progressives must not despise those who feel insecure about change, and Christian conservatives must not despise those who take new ways.

Fights and divisions in the church are a sign of how far we still have to go, but if we don’t run from them, God will use them to mature us and grow our ability to love.

Our experience of being reconciled to God through Christ provides the inspiration and the model for the work of reconciliation across the various divides within our world.

The Holy Spirit, poured out on the church, opens pathways of communication, enabling the Gospel to break through the multiple barriers to our hearing. Barriers are also broken down to enable us to to communicate with one another and with God.