A Fresh Perspective

The sacred storywriter tells us that Moses prays, “Show me your ways, so that I may know you.” This is, I believe, the universal longing of the human heart. One ancient interpreter of the faith said, “The heart of man is restless until it finds its rest in God.”   Of course, not everyone would identify this existential angst, this missing element in our lives as a longing for God. In fact, it’s usually disguised as something else. We might think that the something that is missing is something in our marriage or our vocational career or in our friendships. We might think of something physical or material or emotional – rather than spiritual. And I’m sure there are things missing in those areas of our lives, because none of us have it all together do we? So I am not suggesting that every need, every longing, every bit of angst we experience is spiritual. But all these other longings and needs are echoes of our greatest need of all, which is spiritual. It is the need to consciously c...

Isaiah 55 reads as an invitation for anyone to share in the fruits of God’s new creation, the new world God is creating. The blessing is offered to anyone who will receive it. “Everyone who thirsts come to the waters” cries the prophet. God chose Israel to share that message. Not to be a people who thought of themselves as better than others, but a people called to offer life giving water to all the peoples of the world. One of the New Testament readings listed for this Sunday, which we did not read, is Romans 9:1-5. In that text Paul speaks of his passion for the Jewish people, his own people, and he enumerates a number of things that set Israel apart – that constituted Israel a chosen people – the covenants, the Torah, the tradition of worship of the one God, and ultimately the Jewish Messiah. However, the privileges and advantages of being the covenant people of God were never intended for Israel exclusively. In the Isaiah text God’s steadfast love is not intended for just on...

  “. . . who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). When a baby is born into a family, that baby obtains a name by birthright. Obviously, the baby doesn’t know that right away, but that’s who she or he is. We are children of God even if we have not learned that yet or claimed our identity. Sophie, my granddaughter (will be four in June), went through a stage, where if I said, “Sophie, you’re silly,” she would say, “I’m not silly, I’m Sophie Jordan Griffith.” How silly of me not to know that. She’s Sophie Jordan Griffith. She knew who she was. When it comes to our true self and our identity in God, not all of us know who we are. We are all children of God by divine birth. We did absolutely nothing to effect that birth. Our spiritual claim to be children of God has nothing to do with human belief, wisdom, or accomplishment. There are no doctrines to believe, no rituals or religious deeds to perform, no spiritua...