I believe

I believe in God, the Father who speaks the spark of Life in to the world.

I believe in Christ his Son, the exact representation of the Father, fully human, fully divine.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, God's active Presence in the world.

I believe that when everything else falls apart, this one thing I know: God looks like Jesus.

I believe that Jesus came to fling open doors and to break down walls, to provide a way to God that we could never make for ourselves.

I believe that the offense of Jesus is his radical love, a love that simply won't conform to the boxes we want to put him in, the stained glass windows and the heavy doors we want to close him behind.

I believe that radical love is worth running after, worth speaking up for, worth losing all for.

I believe in a God who invites questions, a God who would rather we wrestled and in faith never, ever let go instead of trying to wrap the Living Word in layers of dead certainty.

I believe in the community of the church, wrestling together over thousands of years, breaking bread with our questions, passing the holy cup of faith to everyone who needs to drink.

I believe that God enters in to our lives, day after day, year after year, century after century; a working in this world which is beyond our comprehension.

I believe that he restores the broken, the battered, the lost, and the weary.

I believe that his table is big, and his table is rich, and that it will not be filled with gatekeepers, but with those who long to crash the party of his mercy.

Maybe my theology is a mess, but I believe that mercy is a stumbling dance at best, that often we will get steps wrong, but the One who leads can turn each stuttered step to a note of grace.

I believe that God looks like Jesus, and that Jesus looks like love.

Always love.

Always.

Even to the end of the age.

Amen.