Friday, January 16, 2015
Ephesians 3:1-13
“…this grace has been given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.”
I love the image of this passage. God has been hiding a deep truth up God’s sleeve, and now is revealing it to the world: God’s love and grace overflow the limits of ethnic identity, national boundaries or political allegiances.
What comes to my mind is one of my favorite Anne Sexton poems that hints at a similar image using the setting of a poker game:
I’m mooring my rowboat
at the dock of the island called GOD.
This dock is made in the shape of a fish
and there are many different boats moored
at many different docks…
at the dock of the island called GOD.
This dock is made in the shape of a fish
and there are many different boats moored
at many different docks…
“On with it!” He says and thus
we squat on the rocks by the sea
and play can it be true
a game of poker.
He calls me.
I win because I hold a royal straight flush.
He wins because He holds five aces.
A wild card had been announced
but I had not heard it
being in such a state of awe
when He took out the cards and dealt.
As He plunks down His five aces
and I sit grinning at my royal flush,
He starts to laugh,
the laughter rolling like a hoop out of His mouth
and into mine,
and such laughter that he doubles right over me
laughing a Rejoice-Chorus at our two triumphs.
Then I laugh, the fishy dock laughs
the sea laughs. The island laughs.
The Absurd laughs.
we squat on the rocks by the sea
and play can it be true
a game of poker.
He calls me.
I win because I hold a royal straight flush.
He wins because He holds five aces.
A wild card had been announced
but I had not heard it
being in such a state of awe
when He took out the cards and dealt.
As He plunks down His five aces
and I sit grinning at my royal flush,
He starts to laugh,
the laughter rolling like a hoop out of His mouth
and into mine,
and such laughter that he doubles right over me
laughing a Rejoice-Chorus at our two triumphs.
Then I laugh, the fishy dock laughs
the sea laughs. The island laughs.
The Absurd laughs.
Dearest dealer,
I with my royal straight flush,
love you so for your wild card,
that untamable, eternal, gut-driven ha-haaa
and lucky love.
I with my royal straight flush,
love you so for your wild card,
that untamable, eternal, gut-driven ha-haaa
and lucky love.
What the world surely needs now are people who are themselves so overwhelmed by God’s wild card of love that they cannot help to pass on God’s “untamable, eternal, gut-driven ha-haaa!”
- David Shumaker
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