For this final month of regular preaching, I have focused on God who crosses borders, God who reaches outside the lines we tend to draw between ourselves and those we consider others. We have explored a God who refuses to be defined, a God who is always, always, more expansive than our attempts to describe. We have looked at God who opens doors and unbinds chains for people of all walks of life.
Our God is more than we can define and imagine. Our God is not limited by the boundaries we create. Our God loves us...and those who are not like us.
For my final sermon this week, I reworked a theme I have looked at before: God offering grace to those we consider others. While Jesus is known for centering the marginalized (the othered) in many of his stories -- women, Samaritans, the poor, the hungry, the sick and "unclean" -- God didn't start reaching out to "others" only when Jesus came along. Our story today from 2 Kings shows us that God has long lifted up those we might wish to exclude (see 2 Kings 5:1-14).
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