News - September 2023 RSS Feed

This month, with the grace of God, I will mark another birthday. As a gift to myself - and I hope to you as well - I want to reflect on the gift of God in Jesus. Let's start with a few verses from God's word.

“Repetition is the mother of learning,” so the saying goes. Today’s readings repeat and reinforce some themes that we have seen in recent weeks: personal responsibility; God’s sovereign mercy; God’s desire that sinners turn back to him and be saved. The Collect today expresses this beautifully: “O God, who manifest your almighty power above all by pardoning and showing mercy, bestow we pray, your grace abundantly upon us and make those hastening to attain your promises heirs to the treasures of heaven.”

“Let us make God in our own image…” No, wait a minute, that’s not how it goes! It is, in fact, the other way around. But so often our tendency is to think of God in our human terms and categories. The readings today highlight this point with great clarity: God defies human reasoning with his mysterious mercy.

We all want justice. We demand our rights. We want to get everything we deserve. We expect to receive what we are due. Until, of course, we are pulled over for doing 72 in a 55. Then we want all the mercy we can get! Actually, we usually want strict justice for others and compassionate mercy for ourselves. The premise of today’s readings is simple: Nobody deserves God’s mercy, but God grants it anyway and expects us to go and do likewise with one another.

Don’t you just love to get corrected? Isn’t it great fun? Don’t you wake up each day just hoping someone will correct you? If you answered “yes,” you just might be the only one around! I don’t think the rest of us like it too much. However, because we are members of a fallen race, prone to weakness, error and sin – we all need correction. The Old Testament prophets, including Ezekiel in today’s reading, were commanded to warn and correct the people to whom they were sent. Today’s gospel presents a plan or program of how to handle differences and disagreements among believers.

"The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Those words are used as witnesses take the stand in a courtroom. But in every aspect of life, we need the truth, expect the truth, and depend on the truth.