I know God as persistent Parent, loving Father and nurturing Mother.
I believe God is the womb of life and source of being, whose Triune relationality provides the foundation for the interconnectedness of all life. Beyond the reaches of time and space, God spoke creation into existence and continues to generate new beginnings today. God is both wholly other, and ever-present. From the smallest particle to the largest galaxy, God intimately forms and reforms the world of nature. The source of life calls all creation good. God created human beings, and gave us the title “caretaker.” Our first responsibility is to safeguard all forms of life, and our ultimate end is to glorify God. Every human being is created in God’s image; we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” In God’s eyes, there are no outsiders. All of us are united as children in the same family. We fail to recognize this fact. We hide from God’s love, and sin enters the world. Ignorance, anxiety, and brokenness lead us to set up boundaries between ourselves and others. We find ourselves held captive by our own mistakes and failures. We desperately hope for more than halfhearted gestures toward corporate morality. We long for meaning and significance. We are oblivious to our limitations, but recognize our need for redemption.
I know God as a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew named Jesus, in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. I believe God came out to the world as radical and all-inclusive love in the person and work of Jesus, who is Lord. In his life, Jesus of Nazareth identified with the servant class. He spent his early years as a refugee in a foreign land and lived outside of traditional family norms. He declared himself to be our sibling, and aligned himself with the least, the last and those who would be called lost. In his death, Jesus the Christ served as humanity’s scapegoat; becoming a victim of society’s need to assign blame. His boundary-defying way of being terrified and offended both the comfortable elite and the colonized masses. He was tortured and killed by a powerful few who stood to lose from a reorganization of the prevailing social order. They pronounced a sentence of capital punishment; their method of execution was an imperial cross. Yet, an impossible possibility was realized as he hung upon it; a weapon of death was remolded into a symbol for eternal life. He plunged into the depths of human sinfulness, but he did not remain there. In his resurrection, Jesus the Christ broke the chokehold that sin and death have on the world. He met us at the intersection of worldly scarcity and gracious abundance; revealing a way out of despair’s dark shadows. He took the very notion of captivity captive and broke every yoke of oppression. In his coming again, Jesus the Christ will bring a Word of justice, liberation, and reconciliation. Weapons of war will be remolded into instruments of peace. Nation will no longer rise up against nation. The borders that separate humans from one another will be broken down. The hope of salvation will be realized; love will win.
I know God as ever-present Spirit, faithful Advocate, and Kindler of prophetic fire. I believe the Holy Spirit is the life’s breath of the Christian church. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, all members of Christ’s body are united in the sacrament of Holy Baptism and equipped to taste and see the real presence of Christ in Holy Communion. The Spirit inspires the Holy Scriptures and empowers the universal church to hear in them the Word of God. The Spirit evokes faith and provides strength, support, love, and comfort to individuals and communities by destroying the dichotomy between justice and unity; carving out space for all of God’s children within the covenant-community. As our Advocate, the Spirit pleads the case for love and forgiveness; even when the world seems bent on mutually assured destruction. As the one who kindles the prophetic fires of justice, the Spirit breaks down closet doors and enables us to come out as followers of Jesus the Christ. Wherever voices are silenced, and peoples are oppressed, the Spirit issues an unapologetic cry for freedom. The Spirit works in and through the church while remaining unbound by it. We do not carry the Spirit out into the world. The Spirit confounds our narrow imaginations by leading us into unexpected encounters with the work God is already doing beyond our doors.
Great is the mystery of faith; I believe, help my unbelief. Amen.
Last edited in September 2019 when approved by the Committee on Ministry of the Presbytery of Western North Carolina.
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