A Standing Offer--August 20, 2021

A Standing Offer--August 20, 2021

"Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." [Hebrews 10:19-22]

It's funny how often we miss out on time with the important people in our lives because we just assume they're always around and always will be.  You know what I mean?  There are people in all of our lives that we just sort of count on as important fixtures in our lives, but because of that constant background presence, we sometimes forget to take the time for checking in with them.  We forget to hit "pause" every so often to set aside the time for the people who love us.  Not because they will need favors done for them, or because we are saving up relationship points for the times we'll need their help or advice, but just to connect with them.  It's so easy to treat those people in our lives as being "there any time I need them," that we rarely actually make the time to seek out conversation, or their wisdom, or just their listening ear.  It's not so much that we take those people for granted, necessarily, but more that we don't want to take advantage of their time by talking with them about every little thing on our worry list... so we end up never taking the time at all.

And that, I must say, is a shame.  The people who love us want to be available to us.  And as many times as they may tell us, "You never need to have an official reason to call, or to check in, or to say hi," we sometimes still slide into that kind of unintentional distancing, where we slide away from people who would always be happy to share a coffee or a phone call or a face to face lunch.

We never mean to lose touch.  And we don't intend to grow distant. But we do end up missing out on the people who are there for us.  Those people don't mean to make us feel guilty or embarrassed or upset for not checking in or picking up the phone with any certain frequency--but they do want us to know we're there.  No pressure--only the standing offer of availability.

The writer of Hebrews wants us to know that there is a standing offer from no less than the living God for that availability, too.  None other than the Creator of the universe invites our ongoing conversations, our half-formed questions and nagging worries, our flightiest thoughts and our most serious burdens.  And there are no conditions, no prerequisites, no fees, and no catches.  God wants it all.

After having spent so much time in his train of thought showing how Jesus removes whatever barriers or obstacles there might have been between us and God, the writer of Hebrews gets to the takeaway of all of this: there is nothing preventing us from coming to God with whatever is on our hearts or minds or nagging at our guts, so there is every reason to bring it all to God.  There is no need to worry that God will turn us away like the ominous floating head of the Great and Powerful Oz in Emerald City, and there is no possibility that God will be too busy to listen.  No gatekeepers will turn us away, and no secretary will put us on hold.  God is available, and that is a standing offer.

Sometimes what it takes with our circles of friends and family is just an occasional voice or a friendly nudge to remind us, "Hey, why don't you make the time, why don't you take a moment, to check in with the ones you haven't talked to in a while."  No guilt or need for making excuses--just the friendly reminder that people who care about you would love to hear from you, but often they are waiting for it to be a good time for you to talk.  

So maybe what we are being given today is the reminder that we don't need to wait for a life crisis, or a milestone of faith, or a birthday or a new year, or a particular holy day in the church calendar or anniversary of a big event in your life, to just take the time to check in with God.  Maybe what we need is just the nudge of an older brother in the faith like the writer of Hebrews saying, "There's never a bad time to talk with God--why not now?"  And I suspect that when we do, we'll be able to pick up right where we left off, and discover that God has already been cheering us on, lifting us up, and guiding our path without our even realizing it. Because... it turns out that checking in with God isn't because God needs to be updated on the events of our lives--we're the ones who have the need to bring our lives into God's light.

Anyway, it's a standing offer.

Lord God, thank you for the freedom to come to you in anything, with whatever is on our minds or hearts.  Let us make us of that gift today, just as we are.