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After my blog “Uncleanness Cast Out,” this bit of an article was sent to me by a blog reader. It is by an Episcopalian bishop from an article titled, “The Meaning of the Passion Opens into the Meaning of a Resurrection.” I thought it was great so share it here:

“Ultimately the resurrection is a call to universalism. Go to all the world, go beyond the boundaries of your fears. Go to those you have defined as unclean, unworthy, unsaved, uncircumcised and unbaptized. Go to those you have reduced to being the object of your prejudices. Go to those who are different. Go to the rejected of the world and teach them what I have taught you, namely that God is love and that love embraces all that God has made, that love has no boundaries, that love rejects no one and that love is the essence of the gospel. The Great Commission was never meant to be a charge to us to convert the heathen, as it has so often been interpreted to be. It was and is a call to see everyone as living inside the love of God. That is why Matthew implies that all will see the risen Christ when all return to their Galilee, that is, when all of us return to our homes. For God is not out there somewhere, God is present in the least of these, our brothers and sisters.”

“So on this note Matthew brings his gospel to an end and we bring our study of this gospel to an end. Resurrection means that we live in God and participate in God’s oneness. It means no one stands outside the love of God. It means that we are part of God and God is part of us. It means that life in God is eternal because God is eternal. That is the gospel that Matthew proclaims, the gospel that Matthew’s Jesus bids us to preach. It is a gospel to be lived, not just to be repeated, because God is not a noun, that demands to be defined, God is a verb that invites us to live, to love and to be.”

~ Bishop John Shelby Spong

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