Are you the one?

Last week our marriage ministry group met for its monthly meeting and talked about the gospel text for the next morning (Matt. 11:2-11). The conversation swirled around issues of transformation. Do we see it? Can we hope for it? Maybe it’s much smaller than we imagine? Or larger? I actually couldn’t get myself much into the conversation for some reason. I really wanted to talk about what it means to have Jesus come with a vision of power utterly unlike what we expect, but I just couldn’t say that well enough for anyone to pick up on it. Now I’ve found — in my much belated weblog reading — that Mary Hinkle has a very nice post on that text. One line in particular really captured me:

Now surely God hates and judges human sin. God hates human sin because God loves our neighbor and the rest of creation as much as God loves us and anything that hurts the neighbor or the earth therefore torques God out of shape.

I like that turn of phrase -- "anything that hurts the neighbor or the earth therefore torques God out of shape." But what does that mean to those of us, middle class, white, American, etc., who are surely conscious of all the ways the structures we're embedded in are "torquing God out of shape"? To whom do we turn to confess, to reconcile? Mary goes on to reflect on how cramped our vision of God is. And I think that may be my problem. That my imagination right now is too cramped, too conscious of my own sinfulness and human fallibility, and not sufficiently faith-filled to remain hopeful about the advent of the reign of God -- here now already and yet not yet here. Sigh. I think my prayer right now goes back to that wonderful song -- "shepherd me O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life." I need to be shepherded back into hope and a sense of the reign already breaking in amongst us.