The teleological end of Christianity is salvation but the path is to become gift given for others. It is not enough to give our gift, or to minister out of our talents. We must fully become gift and then give ourselves to a wounded world freely trusting that God will let us be received with joy, love and safety and will let us receive the gift of others in that same love and freedom.
Free will exists not so that we can live lives of pleasure at the expense of the poorest of society but so that we can use our free will to abandon our comfortable positions and become one with people who struggle to live day in and day out. No one can uproot the racism, greed and violence in themselves completely, but we can begin to do this, and in our beginning receive the grace of God’s love.
While we carry our addictions, desires, petty wants, fear hatred and despair as our cross, and though we fall victim to our sinfulness, it is not in the falling but the rising back up to meet the struggle and befriending our own Simon of Cyrene’s that Christian hope is to be found. When we begin to master ourselves, we can begin to change the world. When a group of us begin, a ripple effect of love begins to make its way through the darkness and a revolution of peace, joy and forgiveness manifests in the world.
While we are present day concerned we are also other kingdom oriented. No matter our gifts struggles successes and heartbreaks we are all waiting to come into the true presence of the one whose name is greater than every other name.
