Amazing Grace

As part of my Lenten discipline, I have been seeking to incorporate different readings into my morning devotional time. As a result, I have discovered new treasures. A book by Ann Weems titled, "Putting the Amazing Back in Grace," has quickly surfaced to the place of favorite. This morning, I was particularly struck by these words:

I was warned years ago that nobody likes

poetry and certainly nobody buys it!

What worried me then, what worries me

still, is how easily we in the church

forget the poetry of God,

how easily we in the church

extract the amazing from grace,

how easily we turn

Hosanna into ho-hum and

belief into bureaucracy and

righteousness into rules.

Addicted to our agendas,

bound to our budgets, we fail to

remember that the Love of God

is written upon our hearts...,

not in the Book of Order.

When we worship process,

we obliterate poetry.

We cover our eyes and our ears

against the beautiful red words,

the amazing words of the Word.

Jesus told the people to love their enemies,

and the people were amazed.

He told them to have compassion for strangers,

and the people were amazed.

He overturned the tables of the moneychangers,

and the people were amazed.

He told them to pray for those who persecuted them,

and the people were amazed.

He told them to set the captives free,

and the people were amazed.

He broke the rules, and healed on the Sabbath,

and the people were amazed.

While we in the church are spending

our energy on arguing,

who will bind the wounds?

And who will free the oppressed?

And who will feed his sheep?

Ann Weems, Putting the Amazing Back in Grace, Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999, 9-10.