[I'm using some model dinosaurs my brother and I made when we were kids.]
The point of the sermon is to make the connection between how I have looked after the models all these years because I made them, and how God intends to keep everything that God has made as well. Not lose any of it. That's the point of Jesus.
Points to emphasise: I made the models, a lot of time and effort, painted them etc., and I have carefully kept them in this box all these years. As I have moved from house to house, carefully they have been moved as well.
Parallel: God made everything, carefully, loves everything, and does not intend to lose any of it. In fact, God wants to bring it all home, back to God. That is why God sent Jesus.
I am a bit confused by what you mean "God wants to bring it all home" where is that home that you refer to?
ReplyDeleteI guess what I'm getting at and wondering is, can God lose the creation or a bit of Creation in the first place? And if so where does it go?
Surely, Creation is always found in God and so can not be brought back to God. It can however, not be in a right relationship with God.
I know this is a kid's talk so maybe I'm getting confused by the simplicity but I'm just wondering some of this theology.
I'm not thinking of an acutal place, but place as a metaphor. God is somehow else not just somewhere else. But, as you say, 'in God' is a good way of thinking of it. Jesus came to take everything that is to a new and more intimate level of relationship with God. So the metaphor of 'home' is useful here. And can God lose some of creation? Godforsakenness must be taken seriously, although in the light of the godforsaken Christ even this lostness changes shape more than a little.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why I am reluctant to use the metaphor of 'home' is that we are already 'home'. One of the great Revelations for me in the past year was actually removing the Gnostic tendencies in my own faith and realising that Heaven is not home but that Earth is Home. The problem is not that the Earth is not where we are meant to be but that we've made it a dump and it is in desperate need of a fix up job! Which is why the best interior and exterior decorator became human! So at one level I agree in the metaphor of 'home in God' but that this home is actually where we already are not somewhere else. The issue of Godforsakenness is that we rejected the designer and creator of our home. Which is reminding me of the Sydney Opera house which only recently brought the architect back to finish the Job! An amazing place but it was complete it was finished. Just my thoughts!
ReplyDeleteI think we are at home on earth. But we are still yet to be home in the metaphorical sense being used. The whole of creation is yet to find its final and complete end, and home is a good metaphor for this. It is not meaning a different place, but a new and deeper relationship with God. Included in the divine life itself.
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