Abounding in Steadfast Love and Faithfulness

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Texts:

Psalm 86

1 Samuel 9:27—10:8

2 Corinthians 6:14—7:1

"But you, O LORD are a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.  Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant; save the child of your serving girl."

In today's readings, Saul is annointed king by Samuel and 2 Corinthians exhorts us to not have fellowship with "outsiders."  Neither one, for me, communicates the core of what it is to be a person of faith.  Saul, appointed by God's prophet to be king, seems to remain faithful to God for about one chapter.  Again and again, the outsiders in the biblical narrative are utilized by God; the care for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger have fallen by the wayside in favor of a more pure view of the church.

The Augsburg Confession (the confessional document for the Lutheran Church) states that the true church is where the "Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered," and not the place where we determine who is "in" and who is "out".  God continually comes to the unworthy, "Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man," (so said Simon Peter in Luke's Gospel), welcomes the stranger, and binds up the brokenhearted.

The place where the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered is the place where both of these are received as gift; where we come together as stewards of the mystery and not as purveyors or consumers of religious goods and services.  The church isn't about us and what we can do.  It is about God and what God has done.  It is the place where we behold the mystery of God's steadfast love and faithfulness, where we witness the miracle of the resurrection, where we come together not as strangers and aliens but as brothers and sisters.