The Unfolding Plan of God
Isaiah 2:1-5
Matthew 8:5-11
Most mornings I make the mistake of checking the news before I am fully grounded. I read about acts of aggression . . . hostility among races . . . mean tweets that exaggerate facts and belittle others. If I fall too deeply into the hole, despair knocks on the door.
Scripture always resists despair, but is completely realistic about our human situation. The words of prophet and Gospel-writer alike address a fractured world, while also chasing after alienated humans with hope for a reconciled world. The final word is not fracture and alienation, scripture insists, but oneness, healing, and compassion. The world is not a forsaken garbage dump in which good things miraculously happen; rather, God is at work in and around the world in mercy, to bring all things to wholeness. In the words of those who follow the path of Ignatius of Loyola, God's project for the world is to bring all things to oneness. And God is somehow present in all things to bring God's vast project to fruition.
Of course, there are wars and divisions, competition and conflict, racism and sexism, lands and peoples who are plundered. But the work of God is about healing and saving those who are caught in the grip of conflict, destruction, and unjust systems.
The work of God is about restoring the earth so that vegetables and fruit, oil and wine, might feed and refresh all people of the world.
The work of God is about using creativity and ingenuity to fight disease and to create just systems of government for our communities.
The work of God is about compassion, sharing with those who struggle in famine and flood, through hurricane and wildfire.
The work of God is about stepping across divisions between haves and have-nots, using power and authority for giving fullness of life, not diminishing life.
Advent proclaims the truth of our current reality, but also the vision toward which God is working. Our world is being made still, as you and I still are being made. And God is in the making, the unfolding, even now.
The birth of Jesus into the world is part of the unfolding plan of God.
For Reflection:
In what part of life are you most tempted to despair? What helps you to recognize when you are in a place close to despair?
Above I shared with you a partial "litany" of what I sense God is about in the world. Write your own litany, or statement of what you feel God is about in the world. You might begin each line with something like: "The work of God is about __________."
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