Just finished reading an article in today's Washington Post on Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, author of a NY Times bestseller Pastrix: the Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint. go to sinner and saint, ***Nadia, as she is affectionately called by thousands of followers, is an unusual representative of the clergy and at first will strike many as terribly 'out there'. In fact, she is about as 'in here' as one can get: a solid explicator of both Jesus and Luther's perspective on the faith. I think it's the tattoos and possibly her "vocabulary" that throw folks off.
Which leads me to the title of this short reflection. There are many who believe that the grace of Jesus is open only to those who, once having found Jesus, start to look like the rest of us. We want to protect Jesus from those saints if in fact anyone would call them saints.
I suspect that middle class white church members maintain an underlying desire for those folks to clean up their act and be useful to the church. In truth, just like you and me, they are being called by Jesus to be a part of God's mission on the earth. We are called to be on God's mission team: a mission of grace and forgiveness and resurrection for the entire creation. I would pray that this is our congregation's mission as well - to bring resurrection and radical love into the lives of others.
***BTW we are gathering folks who would like to read Nadia's book Pastrix and talk about it over coffee, etc. Interested? Let the office know at 458-1481.
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