The Rev. Twila Smith
Grace & Mediator, Allentown
“… for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
– Romans 11:29
All around we see the needs, we hear the cries, to work together for better outcomes, to do things differently. Yet even in the church I think of the hard slog to get there, pushing time-worn practices, the sins of the generations, and my own habits up the steep incline of change. My shoulders ache just thinking about it.
In my mind, the barriers to change become hard, rigid, and I feel the risk of becoming an equally unchangeable force pressing against them. It happens. Yet as I steel myself to push harder, my soul remembers the most transformative change-agent I have ever experienced – not a force in opposition, but a calling, an invitation, through the clear waters of baptism.
How can this be?
An irrevocable covenant with God, an unstoppable flow of gifts from the Holy Spirit, the changeover from death to everlasting life through Christ – not breaking us down with burden or force, but calling us into powerful waters and washing us anew … calling us to a lifetime of change, of growing and persevering, seeking and serving … calling us into relationship, into community, reminding us that we do not shoulder this alone.
God’s faithful, irrevocable call: steadfast and yet changing us over and over again, pulling us out of the mire of the past, raising us up to the new life of grace.
Keep calling me, O Lord, to the waters of change. And help me stop pushing long enough to invite others to join me here.