A Theological Reflection - The Word

If you believe in the word of God, you don't fail.

You dance a little, cry a little, sing a new song, share a word, hug a friend, dream at night, break bread, take new wine, careful to throw out the wine skins and you don't fail.

You may have only five loaves and a few fish and it seems little when there is so much to be done. You may have only six jars of water, and no one is very happy with you and with that. you may have only a mustard seed or a manager. The only way out may be Egypt.

You may have only three years to do it all in. You might not even have a boat of your won. you may have only a few stories--no title, no degree, no temple to back you up or support you. You may have only the road to Jerusalem and it goes perilously through Samaria.

You may have only bread and a cup of wine on the night before it's all over. You may have only a few friends and they are asleep.

You may not have the rights words to get yourself off the charge. And so, you forgive them for not knowing what else to do to you. You may not even have a father in the darkness of Calvary and wish your mother were not there. You may have only one apostle left at the cross and hardly any disciples. Sometimes all you have are your wounds and the last shred of hope. But if the word of God is in you, you win. Not for your sake alone but for everyone. If the word of God is in us, nothing is lost, not even a coin, certainly not a sheep that wants to be rescued or a minister who seeks to be a shepherd. Nothing is lost.

Not even Peter who denies Christ or the Pharisee who comes to him only at night. No one is lost. Once the Church had only the word of God, nothing else, and it proclaimed its message without power or legal sanction in Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome. Amazingly, it prevailed with the word of God alone. This is not rhetoric---it is history.

We have the word of God, you and I.

Why do we keep thinking we need anything else?