I see the moon, the moon sees me

"I heard someone say it's 93 billion miles away."

The stray cat purrs and settles between my sunburned legs. We're rocking back and forth, smooth and easy, summer-night slow. He's already licked the pink splattered remains of our ice cream from the bowls. He's comfortable here. Me too.

"But if you ask me, it looks like it's hanging right over the interstate."

We sit with the full stillness between us and watch the moon slide above the line of trees. It's a thick yellow, pockmarked and freckled with unexplored craters. 

And she's right. It looks absurdly, impossibly close. So does the Kingdom, tonight, as we're crossing generational and color lines to watch the night sky, looking for patterns in the stars and warmth in each other.

It doesn't look close because I'm proclaiming good news to the poor. That's what Jesus did, bringing his stunning message, "God is with us," to lonely, anxious humanity. All we can do is proclaim good news to each other. And that's what we're doing, the two of us, as we're opening her family Bible and reading, "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name." And that's what we're doing as we're singing the old hymns, laughing that we know all the same ones, belting that we rest on his unchanging grace. On Christ the solid rock we stand!

The Kingdom, in all of its upside-down, inside-out, embarrassingly inclusive glory is not yet here. I see the not-here-ness in too many "flesh-colored" Band-aids and missionaries that match my skin tone. I see it when I treat people as one-dimensional: you are just a needy friend, you are organized and put together, you are a heretic. I see it when kids in our neighborhood, and in others with similar demographics, are seen as the recipients of community service, not capable of offering it. I see it when I wake up in the middle of the night feeling lonely and afraid.

But here we are, on the porch, sitting with the paradox of a far-near moon. Calling out constellations, wishing on them for a world full of holiness and wholeness.

This is the year of the Lord's favor.


The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.