LRC, Houston - the weekends-free church in Houston, Texas

I am so glad that I’m not in a “worthiness” contest- at least not any more. Unfortunately the church has been caught up in hierarchial achievements, vestments that let everyone know just how high up the pecking order one has attained, and pompous adjectives that go before our names to make sure all know just “how great we art“. I’ll take grace, amazing grace any day!

I am so glad for David! You know, the Old Testament David who committed adultery.

He not only committed adultery, he sent her husband off to war to be killed. Now there’s a man’s man for you. He’s just the person that Jesus could be the son of and follow as the second Messiah. Okay, enough messing with you. But, the truth is most people simply can’t handle GRACE! We are all accepted and affirmed!

Walter Brueggermann calls God’s use of the common person and even the seedy segments of society as the “scandal of particularity”. By that Walter is directly addressing the church that wants to only elevate the righteous, the pure, the holy, as if there was such. Even Jesus wouldn’t fall for that trap. His response to such accolades was that “There is none Good, except God teh Father alone.”

Why Jesus? Why 2,000 years ago? Why a Jew? Why, why, why?

To which there is no answer other than it’s God’s choice, His freedom, and His will to do that which is in His plan and purpose. Who can understand how David could be so elevated for sleeping with Bathsheba and then allow for her husband, Uriah, to be killed. But, God’s love just kept reaching out to David just like the love of Jesus kept reaching out to the unexpected, the woman caught in adultery, the tax collectors, and me!

We just need to lighten up and start loving!

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you are. The amazing grace of God totally eclipses any act or attitude that we might harbor. Just enjoy it. Maybe even be thankful for it. Amazing grace it totally amazing indeed!