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“In God’s economy, everyone profits.” I turned that little phrase as a paraphrase of Romans 8:28. At the time I was thinking about the tragedy of divorce and the unforeseeable joy when ex-spouses emerge happier on the other side of it, and perhaps with partners who were themselves unhappy before. It is not always so, God knows. But God is always about reconciliation and peace, new beginnings and grace, even when those graces may be viewed (by some) with bitterness.

I am thinking about other transitions too. Soon I will be moving to another church, and this past week I was hosting my replacement as he met the leadership of our church. It felt like I was introducing my girlfriend to her new boyfriend, to her new and better boyfriend, in fact! He will be a much better fit: has local roots, a folksy demeanor that matches the ethos, ears that allow him to banter (while I am deaf as a post). It is a match made in heaven.

As they chatted happily, I mused, cataloged all that has happened over the last few weeks and months that brought us to this transition, and not least some hurtful, unfair, and finally humiliating discussions that prompted me to put my name on the move list. I chose to leave, but I had hoped to stay. And so a part of me is angry, though below that I am just embarrassed and sad (and resentful: the legalistic part of me does not want to see even subtle subversion rewarded!). But if not for all of that I would not on Thursday have received the news that reduced me to tears and made me all but unable to talk to my new District Superintendent. I am so humbled, so honored, so blessed to be going where I’m being sent. All is well. Everybody profits.

Now there will be unhappy preachers in our conference, and unhappy churches too (been there, done that). And there is no guarantee on this side of Jordan that everybody profits now or lastingly. But each time we see a resolution on account of which everyone is happier and more fulfilled—and all of it an unexpected joy on the downside of difficulty—we can be sure that God is at work, and miraculously so. When EVERYONE profits, that is sure evidence, I believe, of the mystery and majesty and wonder of God’s economy.

Jesus said, “Peace I leave you; my peace I give you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” Jesus is saying, I believe, what Paul and I are echoing. That is, in this world there are clear winners and clear losers, judged by the categories of this economy’s spreadsheets. But in God’s economy there is a kind of divine giving that allows everyone to profit, to win, to be at peace. It may offend us, of course, that God works this way (remember the workers in the vineyard?), but ultimately we all come to realize that all is grace.

All is grace: that is really hard news, and really good news, and demands deep humility. One dimension of that humility is accepting grace for ourselves, and that is difficult because we have been taught to think “salvation” is a “reward” of our own hard work (and as a consequence we will not accept charity from anyone, even God, or “bless” anyone who does). More difficult still is accepting God’s grace for someone else, and especially one who has hurt us, others who are “ahead” of us or—though we hardly pause to parse this non sequitur—those we view as “less deserving” of God’s grace than ourselves.

But Frederick Buechner writes that until it is good for all of us, it is not good for any of us. In other words, when everybody wins, there is God’s joy and the very peace of Christ. Weeping and loss may be the sign that all is not yet as it will be, but we believe the Day is coming; indeed, that It is already on Its way.

Author Tom Steagald is working on a new book titled A HOUSE OF PRAYER: THE POWER OF PRAYING IN COMMUNITY. He welcomes your comments.

Nicola Vidamour is a Methodist minister in London, England; editor of Mesto Vstrechi, the Russian edition of The Upper Room

Disciplines: A Book of Daily Devotions is a longstanding—and beloved—resource published by Upper Room Books every year. Each week’s readings are reflections on scripture passages in the lectionary for that period.

In 2013 you can not only read these daily devotions but also comment on them, ask the writer a question, and respond to others who are reading the same material each day. We are looking forward to building a community of Disciplines readers! Just sign in and add your comment in the Comments section following the Monday blog post.

Each Monday an introduction and the initial reading for the week will be posted. Come back to this Monday post throughout the week to continue the conversation about the week’s readings and prayers.

Read Acts 16:16-34

The Methodist Church in Britain has recently produced a new hymnal called Singing the Faith. Charles Wesley, one of the two brothers who started the Methodist movement, was a prolific hymn writer; and Methodists have been well-known from their earliest days for the way in which they sing the faith.

Paul and Silas also sang their faith—even in the middle of the night while locked in prison after receiving a severe flogging. Despite their pain and suffering they still burst into song, offering praise and prayer to God.

It is believed that John Newton, the former slave trader, set the words of his famous hymn “Amazing Grace” to a tune he heard the slaves singing in the galley of a ship. African spirituals give powerful witness to the way in which black Christians have sung their faith in the midst of oppression and injustice.

Paul and Silas are imprisoned because they released a young slave girl from the spirit that possessed her, thus depriving her owners of the money she provided for them. This girl described her emancipators as “slaves of the Most High God.” Paul and Silas are indeed bound and held captive by God as well as by their prison chains; but their singing makes it overwhelmingly clear that their faith gives them a deep sense of freedom.

We sometimes talk about singing that “raises the roof” because of its volume and enthusiasm. When Paul and Silas sing “there was an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.” Paul and Silas—and all those who heard them singing their faith—are literally set free. Singing the faith is liberating!
God of freedom, help us to sing our faith until the walls of oppression come tumbling down. Amen.  

I remember that great scene in Gone With the Wind, when the gentry of Atlanta, as well as the scoundrel Rhett Butler, are gathered at Twelve Oaks. Talk turns to war, and Mr. Butler has the audacity to question the South’s resolve and its ability to wage, much less win, a war. He is challenged as “not a gentleman” and avoids a duel (because he knows he would be forced to kill the arrogant and naïve young Rebel). During the party word comes that shots have been fired at Fort Sumter, and all the brave young men, with whoops and yells, dreams of high (if surely quick!) adventure and ill-considered marriage proposals, run off to take up arms against the Yankees.

Yeah. And for some, I guess, that war is not over even yet and may never be. Like Nathanael from Cana in Galilee (John 1:45-46), we still judge, even hate, people simply on account of where they come from. Sometimes the cause is noble, sometimes not. Sometimes the lines are clearly drawn, sometimes not so much. Force of arms can stop the violence, sometimes, I guess, in the short term; but more often war begets war, suffering begets suffering, fanaticism fans a different color of fanaticism, and the carnage continues.  At least that is how it appears to this preacher.

Monday, though, I had the urge. My niece, who refers to herself as “Quikchik,” because she is—she set an 8:28 pace at the Boston Marathon, and my friend Craig Langston tells me that is fast for a forty-six-year-old woman—escaped the carnage by about thirty minutes. With the rest of the world I was horrified, almost in shock … but then again, not really. I mean, who was surprised? Really? What better target for a terrorist than Boston, on Patriot Day, at a time when the old, the slow, and the halt—and those running for causes, whose dream is just to run, not to win, to do 26.2 for themselves and their families and others they love one way or the other—when they are coming to the finish?

And all of it on TV. Here is the scary thing to me: Who knows the collateral damage in our own hearts, minds, and souls when we see these kinds of things—shootings, bombings—with a frequency that almost numbs our horror? Now some disgruntled worker or former spouse or teen or child, even, who maybe never would have thought of a gun as a “peacemaker,” decides that is the very way to make peace: a belch of violence to soothe their particular nausea.

Anyway, I had this urge. Not to join the army or national guard or police force. Not to buy a gun or take a course in defusing bombs. But to become a runner. A marathoner. Consider it an act of Peaceful Defiance.

My two artificial knees and fifty-eight-year-old-frame will not, I suspect, allow it (though I may talk to Craig, who knows about such things), but I want to. I want to run,  to join with other runners, and run again; in London this weekend, Boston next year, and who knows where all else, just as a way to say, “Do your worst. Fire all the guns you have. Set your little trashcan bombs. You cannot—you cannot and will NOT—win this race.”

John Dornheim, a native Long Islander,  was ordained in the ELCA in 1990 and has served congregations in Pennsylvania. In 2001, he transitioned from parish ministry to health care ministry, first serving as the chaplain in a Presbyterian affiliated retirement community in Glen Arm, Maryland, and then as the chaplain at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore. Most recently he has served as the Protestant Campus Pastor at Long Island University, Greenvale, NY. At the present time he is involved in the establishment of an inclusive faith community, ministering to the none, nominals, and nomads as well as other people who have been disaffected by the church at one time but still have a spiritual hunger. Dornheim has also been a community activBio.

Read Acts 9:1-20
The day stretches out, full of promise like so many others before it. Nothing will deter Saul from his task. He is, after all, a professional, a professional persecutor, a man on a mission—no one is safe. Or so he thinks. However, he underestimates the God he serves.
Often religious fanatics, extremists, start out with the best intentions, but then they begin to believe that they can do better, that they know better. Sometimes they set out to build a better mousetrap.
Saul is in for a rude awakening. He has spent a great deal of time developing his vision of the work that God intends that he do. Saul is not the first to put his imprimatur on God’s work; but in that post-Resurrection era, he may have been the most ruthless. Taking his cue from the Pharisees, he sought to be a Pharisee par excellence. Wrapped in the cloak of the law rather than being warmed by the gospel, he acknowledges the work to be done. The death of Jesus has not squelched the movement, and he finds himself determined to erase from the face of the earth all of Jesus’ adherents who sought to keep the message alive. After all, God has called him to do this; it has become his all-consuming vision.
In order to correct that vision, God takes the drastic step of dimming Saul’s sight, even to the point of blinding him for three days. That might not seem like a long time considering the number of years that Saul has persecuted Christians. At the right moment, God sends Ananias to Saul to help guide him to the Light. The eyes of Saul have been shut, but now those eyes will see God’s purposes more clearly.
Think about a time in your life when your understanding of God’s plan proved wrong. Whom did God send to assist you?