Liturgy 083: A White Bearded Moralist and the Mascot of Progress

Sixth Week of Eastertide

Lectio Divina

But they did not recognize him.
Luke 24:16

My idea of God is not a divine idea.
It has to be shattered from time to time.
Clive Staples Lewis

---

Prayer

God of Wounds and Wonder,
You are not the god I was taught to expect.

Not the white-bearded moralist in the sky,
nor the sentimental deity of children’s stories,
nor the mascot of progress and revolution.

You are stranger than I imagined…
a gardener mistaken for a ghost,
a scarred man passing through walls,
a prophet sending your people’s enemies to preach repentance.

You are resurrection,
but never a return to what was.

So unmake me, God.

Unmake my tidy categories, my safe critiques,
my adolescent contempt masquerading as insight.

Unmake my fantasies of a pure church,
a correct theology,
a movement I can control.

Meet me not in the realm of certainty,
but in the ache of transformation.
In the holy middle of now and not yet,
of faith and wound,
of silence and fire.

Let your risen body—wounded still—
become the site of my reorientation.

Let my own wounds open not to despair,
but to grace that interrupts me.

I don’t need a god I can carry.
I need a God to carry me
in the sorrow and liberation
of my unknowing.

---

Blessing

May the God you do not expect
walk beside you unnoticed.

May your wounds become doors.
May your theology become compost.

And may the kingdom surprise you
in the least likely place…
within.

In the Name of the One
Who Invites You to
Seek His Face

Amen