Walking the Way of Love in the Power of God

Dear People of St. David’s,

I pray that you and yours are safe and well and that you are feeling God’s presence and power and promise in your life.

I pray for God’s presence and power and promise in your life and my life because, like many of you, the events that transpired in our nation’s capitol yesterday saddened me deeply. I don’t think I have felt this level of sadness and alarm and helplessness since the attacks on our nation on September 11, 2001. I don’t fully understand how we have found ourselves in this moment as a nation, but I do know this is not the American way. This is not the Christian Way of Love. This is not the way I want to live my life with God and with you and others.

These events and other challenges in our common life remind me that left to our own, selfish desires; our own, limited view of the world; our own desire to live life on our terms and not on God’s terms, we are capable of some horrendous actions. We are also capable of being silent when we need to speak out and “live out” in a particular way, namely the Way of Jesus, the Way of Love.

It also reminds me that even when we are trying to step out of our selfish desires and limited view and to live on God’s terms, on our own, we rarely succeed for very long, if at all. It’s what St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15). None of us is able to walk the Way of Jesus or the Way of Love on our own.

Thankfully, we are never alone and we do not have to rely on our own power and ability. From early on in the Biblical narrative and all through the Bible, God promises that nothing is too hard for the Lord. God promises that all things are possible through God. God promises that He is with us always, even to the end of the age.

So in this New Year and in this time of heartbreak and confusion, I invite all of us to remember that nothing is too hard for God. God can and will do all things God intends. It begin with God empowering you and me to walk in the Way of love through our thoughts, our words and our deeds. It begins with you and me as we invite the power of God into our lives each day and each moment that we can so that the loving, gracious, kind, caring, understanding, merciful power of God can work in us and through us for our lives, for St. David’s, and for the life of the world.

Grace and Peace,

The Rev. W. Frank Allen
Rector