Words, words, words. How we rely on words to explain everything, Words, however, can serve to define the boundaries of our imagination, even of our faith. We can get tangled in words to define not only who we are but what God is. And, for centuries, theologians have tried to use words to explain the unexplainable.
This is not to say that words are useless, but that we should understand their limits. In the fourth century, our faith was almost torn apart by, literally, one iota, a Greek letter used in an early confession that attempted to define the boundaries of God and God’s relationship to Jesus of Nazareth who became the Christ.
As we consider the meaning of the faith we profess, we should pay attention to how Jesus used words, not to limit us but to expand and broaden our vision of what it means to live as the people of God. Jesus combined words with a response to the people who needed his healing touch. Shouldn’t that be the model for us rather than the words of those who would delimit our understanding of faith.
Prayer for the Day
As we enter a season of earlier sunrises, open our eyes to your light,
And help us to look through the windows of your majesty;
Bring us a new vision of your world, full of possibilities,
One of a faith that knows no boundaries.
Create in us, O God, a willingness to respond to the world
As did the One who lived beyond limits,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.
- Howard Thurman, theologian of nonviolence (1899-1981)
The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us.
- Dorothy Day, social activist (1897-1980)
No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.
- Jesus, as quoted in Mark 2:21