July 9, 2009

So take a look at this pretty cool prayer that was the devotional reading this morning on www.upperroom.org/daily:

GOD, no offense,
but most of us are like Paul,
never having met you face-to-face.
Instead, we have hints, followed by guesses,
from when someone became Christ to us —
when we least deserved and expected it.
You have an incredible collection of disguises.
Amen.

- W. Paul Jones
An Eclectic Almanac for the Faithful

How true this is! I'm always aware that Jesus speaks in the Gospels about the kingdom of God in simile and metaphor (parables), using "like" and "as". Such incredible things cannot be understood by us directly. But how often I forget that our experience of Jesus, and how much more the Godhead, is in metaphor and disguise now. That wasn't the case for the disciples. Perhaps that is our challenge. We not only have to find examples for what God's kingdom is and is to be, but also for Jesus himself. Maybe that's part of where that craze of "WWJD" came from.

But indeed like the prayer says, I have experienced Jesus so often in the lives and love of others. I think that's part of the reason why Christians are called to live in community. To say we worship a God who loves us but to be without loving relationships is to miss something not just about our neighbor but also about God.

I also have to admit I like the line in the prayer, "God, no offense, but..." If you rewrote most of the Psalms into modern language, I suspect they'd start that way! Of course they'd end with something like, "But of course, God loves me..."

Off to look for God's disguises today.