God acts in History

Sunday July 25th, Genesis 18: 20 The LORD said, "Abraham, I have heard that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are doing all kinds of evil things. 21 Now I am going down to see for myself if those people really are that bad. If they aren't, I want to know about it." Try as we might, we don’t convince God to our way of thinking, God checks things out personally. What usually happens is that our way of thinking comes more in line with God’s plan for us. Try as it might, and contrary to what some in the business believe, the church is not the final word on God’s judgment, or it’s blessings either, that too is up to God personally. When the Catholic leaders say that women’s ordination is a sin on par with priest that molest children, (see previous post in this blog) it has more to do with power and politics than with purity of the Gospel. Remember that whole, in Christ there is no East or West, no male or female thing? Having said that, it doesn’t mean we don’t bring our concerns to God, quite the contrary, that should be a part of our being every waking moment, as well as a lot of the sleeping moments. What often changes is not God, but rather our perception of who God is and what God wants. Through prayer, things do change for the better, and often times that includes our part in it.

God acts in history and in your and my brief histories not as the puppeteer who sets the scene and works the strings but rather as the great director who no matter what role fate casts us in conveys to us somehow from the wings, if we have our eyes, ears, hearts open and sometimes even if we don’t, how we can play those roles in a way to enrich and ennoble and hallow the whole vast drama of things including our own small but crucial parts in it.

Fredrick Buechner, “Telling Secrets” pg.32