Grounded in Grace... Again!

Starting last night and continuing for the next four Thursday nights members of the St. Nicholas community are gathering to read a collection of sermons by Martin Luther King. The title of the book we are reading is Strength to Love.

This is not a history class on the 1960's. Our goal is to mobilize love in our own lives.

Last night one of the many important questions we discussed was how to love in the face of what we perceive as evil. And how can we love when others perceive us as evil? (Just a normal summer evening theological conversation at St. Nicholas...)

This afternoon I came across some words that speak to this question.

"The church is always better at loving than at judging... [W]e have to judge. We have to arrive at decisions, and we have to sort things out, and we have to criticize, and be prophetic in various ways.

But, the prophet's role is always to be grounded in grace. Ant that's the fundamental message.

If we get that one right, other things are more likely to follow. If we don't get that one right, then nothing else will follow.
I'm convinced of that. That's the fundamental thing."

Rev. Dr. J. Philip Wogaman as quoted on page 234 of Adam's Gift

In the end (yes, and in the beginning) we are grounded in love thanks to the grace of God. All of our hope, all of our strength, all of our possibility is a gift that comes directly and unconditionally from God. Grace alone gives us the strength to love.

I know what you're thinking, "what a typical Methodist response!"
So sue me.