God, is your grace the gift I most need? It can be too easy, when life is not terribly hard, to begin to believe the illusion that I earned it somehow.
If earned, then I can also slip into the idea that this life of mine is the pinnacle, a sure sign of your favor. And then, dear God, I have lost touch with you. And when I lose touch with you, I can ignore that I was created to be in community and am not a self-sufficient island.
I can be unappreciative of Jesus’ persistent welcome to those who live on the margins, his social largess. I can come to believe I don’t need you. Can it be God, that grace pierces as well as heals?
Can your grace remind us who blithely go on while so many suffer, that even we are included in your embrace? Forgiven? And called to a new way?
God, your grace is a mystery and your greatest gift. Humble me with gratitude. Save me.
This message is adapted from the column “Amen!” by Catherine Malotky in the January/February 2017 issue of Gather. Today is the sixth Sunday after Epiphany. The readings are Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Sirach 15:15-20 (alternate); Psalm 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37.
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