A comment left by Pam on my last post got me thinking more deeply about the need to communicate the love of God. Pam said;
"I wish that everyone could read this story who says things like 'People need to know they are sinners; everyone thinks God loves them, no one thinks they are a sinner'. I've occasionally met someone who thought they weren't a sinner, but usually people need to hear that God loves them."
Like Pam I meet very few people who need to be told that they are sinners, they may not use that exact word, but they carry within them a deep sense of brokenness and unworthiness. Some cover it up with bravado shouting defiantly to the world "I'm alright really, I dare you to tell me I'm not!", while others wear their brokenness openly. Some may mask it with addictions, whilst others plunge into depression.
A conversation only this week highlighted for me the way that we too often get it wrong, we assume that people are rebelling against God. In a culture where it hasn't occurred to a huge percentage of the population that God is either relevant or interested in them that is a ludicrous assumption to make, even Christians need to know that God loves them. Again in response to May's storyI received this;
"I wanted to write to you tonight and thank you for your blog... I only read today's entry about May and then another about the Prodigal Son and they both deeply resonated with me.
Although I have spent most of my life in the church, I have recently over the last year been discovering how little I understand about how much God loves me..."
That message resonated as deeply with me as May's story had touched its author; I too understand too little about the God who loves me. Too often I have been slow in approaching him and putting voice to much needed prayers because the thought of approaching a God who I know to be, and preach as a God of love has filled me with dread!
Why this dread? First because I do and always will carry within myself a sense of my own brokenness, and second because to often I see a caricature built through my imagination by remembrances of unhelpful conversations. People who have declared that women have no place in ministry and therefore I am a sinner, people who have declared to me that Christopher's heart condition is the result of my own sin. I am very glad that these grace killers do not know the extent of my brokeness and sinfulness, it would keep them busy for a long time with accussations!!! But I can say this, these grace killers have more often whilst trying to be helpful by turning me towards repentance achieved the opposite and pushed me away.
This morning as I read from the first two chapters of Marks gospel I saw again the God whose love drew me to faith, a God who revealed in Jesus accepted sinners and touched the unclean. Jesus drew grumbling criticism from the Pharisees because he chose to eat with the tax collectors, his response;
"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."(Mark 2:17)
I am a sinner, I accept that, but it is the sinners that Jesus chose to be amongst, it was the sinners who were open enough and broken enough to receive his message and his touch of love and healing. Yes repentance needs to be very much a part of my ongoing life, BUT, before I can be released to repentance I need to know a place of safety and acceptance in the arms of a God who loves me more than my wildest imaginings. A God who accepts me as I am and who draws the best from me is a God I want to follow. This God calls me beyond myself into a new way of living and being, s/he does call me to leave my ways behind and to walk in Her/His ways....
S/he calls me to unforced rhythms of grace, and I make no apologies for quoting my favourite verse of scripture again;
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (Matthew 11: 28-30)
God wants us to live freely and lightly, Jesus promises not to lay anything heavy or ill fitting upon us... May had been burdened all of her life by a sense of unworthiness and guilt, an encounter with the God of love set her free from that. May was 82; people should not have to wait that long.....
May the message of the Church always be seasoned with grace and love....
