Great God, Your Love Has Called Us (ELW 358)
1 Great God, your love has called us here,
as we, by love, for love were made.
Your living likeness still we bear,
though marred, dishonored, disobeyed.
We come, with all our heart and mind
your call to hear, your love to find.
2 We come with self-inflicted pains
of broken trust and chosen wrong,
half-free, half-bound by inner chains,
by social forces swept along,
by pow’rs and systems close confined,
yet seeking hope for humankind.
3 Great God, in Christ you call our name
and then receive us as your own,
not through some merit, right, or claim,
but by your gracious love alone.
We strain to glimpse your mercy seat
and find you kneeling at our feet.
4 Then take the towel, and break the bread,
and humble us, and call us friends.
Suffer and serve till all are fed,
and show how grandly love intends
to work till all creation sings,
to fill all worlds, to crown all things.
5 Great God, in Christ you set us free
your life to live, your joy to share.
Give us your Spirit’s liberty
to turn from guilt and dull despair,
and offer all that faith can do
while love is making all things new.
Devotion
Let’s face it. We know our own failings. We don’t need someone to list them, or reiterate them, or spell them out for us. But we also have been reminded and know the gospel promise that God is calling each of us into relationship with God’s self and with one another. No matter how broken we are. No matter how wonderful we think we are. No matter what our background is, or what our history is, or what an exceptionally bright future we think we have, more important is the truth that God has chosen each one of us as special, unique, and necessary members of the body of Christ.
In the promise of the Resurrection, God is doing a new thing on earth today. God is building God’s church with human construction materials—and that includes you and me.
Prayer
I pray that each of us answers God’s call. I pray that each of us picks up the towel of servanthood. I pray that each of us lives into who God is calling us to be for the sake of the body of Christ. Amen.