Abiding

Today, we are reminded that we abide in Christ. 

How often we forget: when we allow worry, prejudice and fear to guide our decisions, where Christ tells us not to worry, not to judge, and not to be afraid.

How often we stand in the way of the Spirit's radical freedom coursing through our lives, preferring to stay in the boat when we have been invited to step onto the stormy seas.

How often we feel too small and insignificant for Christ's word to be a word to us, for us, preferring the poker-chip wafer and shot-glass of wine to the abundant feast that Christ provides for us.

How often we dream small, imagining "just enough" in an economy of limited goods, when Christ has given us overflowing life, inviting us to abide in that life, embracing and taking root in the goodness that we would prefer earn than receive.

How often we allow bad news to tell a greater truth than the Good News. Today, the Bad News holds out its half-truth reality, sensationalized so that we pay attention, so that we can distance ourselves from the reality, so that we can pretend that the problem is "out there" in the world's failure to abide in Christ when, in all reality, the problem is frequently "in here" in our heart's failure to recognize that, as those who abide in Christ, we are called - no, driven - out into the world God loves to work for justice and reconciliation for all. 

How often we forget we are called to proclaim light in the face of darkness, hope in the face of despair, and dream in the face of our greatest fears.

The fullness of our joy does not come when the world is made safe, when prejudice is banished, when fear subsides; the fullness of joy comes in the moment that we step out, living faithfully in to the abiding-in-Christ that beckons us to live in the world as-if: 

As if our courage tells a greater truth than our fear.

As if the darkness cannot quench the light.