In the name of love...

This weekend is, of course, the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday in the USA. He would have been 84.  We will mark this gift to the world tomorrow in worship @ 10:30 am starting off with a version of Oscar Peterson's moving "Hymn to Freedom" as well as our take on U2's "Pride in the Name of Love" and "Emancipation Blues" by Oliver Nelson.

One of the things I have cherished in the OWS movement is their counter-intuitive way of organizing and challenging the status quo.  They believe ~ and they practice ~ a way of learning, teaching and building community that refuses to treat people or things as a means to an end. In a word, they turn traditional politics upside down.  These words from Eugene Peterson speak to just that foolish and beautiful way of being that we so deeply ache for in our hearts.

Shalom ~ peace ~ is one of the richest words in the Bible. You can no more define it by looking up its meaning in the dictionary than you can define a person by looking up her social security number. It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God's will being completed in us. It is the work of God that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life. Every time Jesus healed, forgave or called someone (into action), we have a demonstration of shalom.

And shalvah ~ security ~ has nothing to do with insurance policies or large bank accounts or stockpiles of weapons. The root meaning is leisure ~ the relaxed stance of one who know that everything is all right because God is over us and for us ~ in Jesus Christ. It is the security of being at home in a history that has a cross at its center. It is the leisure of the person who knows that every moment... is lived under the mercy of God.

Dr. King taught us something about living into the counter-cultural shalom and shalvah of God's grace.  May I embrace it and make it flesh in whatever days I have left...