You have been treated like an Outsider
by people who thought of themselves as Insiders—
though that was nothing but human discrimination.
You know what it’s like to feel distant from God,
aliens to the community of the Beloved,
with no confidence that God is there for you—
nothing to root your hope in.
But Jesus has no Outsiders:
in Christ’s self-giving love we’re all brought in.
Christ is our peace.
In the embodiment of God’s love
both “insiders” and “outsiders” are in.
Christ has broken down the dividing wall between us,
the cruel illusion that we are different.
Love has no requirements, no merit, no deserving,
so there aren’t different categories—just the beloved.
Christ’s self-giving love, that we see on the cross,
isn’t just for some people,
but for everybody, all of us together,
reconciling us all to God and making us all one Body.
What died on the cross was the notion
that some people are better than others.
Love establishes peace
between those who think they’re insiders and outsiders.
We all breathe the same Spirit that is God.
So you are not strangers or aliens,
but members of the family of the Beloved,
members of the household of God,
which is built on the foundation of ancestors before us
who lived in love and faith,
with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone.
In Christ we all are joined together in an organic whole,
growing into God’s holy temple, God’s home—
so God lives in us.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
July 15, 2021