About time for a recap...

Now, at this point, what do I believe?

That God created everything that is. That God created out of his inescapable nature which is love. Love is not an abstract quality but a requirement that God enter into releationship with that which is loved. So God must be in relationship - first expressed in the idea of the trinity - then in the reality of creation. God created all that is, to be in relationship with him, the nature of that relationship is love.

God has intelligence, intentionality, purpose. God is love. So God has some of the attributes we think of as belonging to a person. He is personal.

Humanity, created in his image (with personhood, free, requiring love and needing to love), turned from that love and sought to be self-created. Humanity's purpose is to be in relationship with our creator, the nature of that relationship is love.

God is self-limited by his love - he cannot enforce relationship without destroying the freedom of humanity, without freedom there is no love.

But humanity's rebellion against God is continually matched by God's reaching towards humanity, expressed most profoundly in the incarnation. God became human in the person of Jesus, in order that the separation between humanity and God be ended.

Through the person and work of Jesus it is possible to enter directly in to relationship with God.
Humanity continues to attempt self-creation, creating religions, some with Jesus, some without, that separate - then encountering the living god and the religions fall apart.

Jesus overturned religion. Jesus died, not as a substitute sacrifice to appease a blood-thirsty god, but to end all sacrifice. Jesus died, because for humanity to enter into relationship with God we must die to our (separate) selves - only a perfect person can be willing to die to self - imperfect (sinful) humanity can never do that for itself - so God (in the person of Christ) does it for us. That is grace. That is love.

Jesus overturned all idols. Humanity's idolization of itself. Religion. But we continually re-erect the idols. While Moses was on the mountaintop meeting with God, the people melted down their jewelery and made a new god. While Jesus invites us to the mountaintop to meet with God, we continually create new idols to keep ourselves from him. We will do anything to keep ourselves away from God, including creating elaborate theologies and ecclesiastical practices to convince ourselves we're seeking him, while in reality hiding from him.

Jesus left us no writings, no instructions, no rule-book. What words we have are second, third hand, long after the event, filtered by the theologies of the writers. Paul's mindblowing experience of the risen Christ, that exploded the Jesus movement across the mediterranean, has been reduced to idols and used to separate and control.

Jesus left us the comforter, the Holy Spirit. He left us a relationship and power - not a rule book. God did not write the new testament and speak no more. God is still creating us, still creating and still speaking. But most of the time his voice is quiet. If we were to really hear his voice, really see him, we would be struck dead instantly, our freedom instantly extinguished. But he created us free, once we freely surrender we are tranformed and can begin to glimpse (now through a glass darkly, then we will see him). From sin to resurrection is a messy, confusing passage, half dark, half illumined, full of dangers and traps, full of mistakes and pain, full of ecstacy and bliss. It's inevitable that we make the journey, but God leaves us free to decide when to make it.

Creation is not finished, it will never be finished, it cannot be finished - because God is love and must always bring new things into being so he can love. Love expands, eternally.

By their fruits will you know them. "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law." Gal 5:22-23

All religion need to be subjected to this test. What is the fruit?

One New Humanity

"But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we have access in one Spirit to th Father." Eph 2:13-18

Ah, here is is, heart of the gospel. Christ unites us to himself, to each other, to the Father. Not in some symbolic, theoretical way, but by the power of the Spirit.
I've been so gripped by the call of Christ to follow him, so dismayed by the narrowness of the church. Then in rapid succession the revelation that God loves all of his church, but does not necessarily agree with them. Last night hearing the above text preached, I realized that the job of the church is constantly to burst out of the boundaries we put around it - including the bounds of the bible.