It's Never Too Late

It’s never too late.

That is God's gracious message to us. It’s never too late. It’s never too late to clean out your car. It’s never too late to send that Christmas letter you never sent last December. It’s never too late to call up your old friend and wish them a very, very, very belated Happy Birthday. It’s never too late to do Spring cleaning---even as you head into Winter. It’s never too late to ask for forgiveness.

The challenge, on a personal level is, I think, that we find it hard to dig ourselves out of a sense of “overwhelmedness” or a feeling of guilt or a feeling of unworthiness.

The good news: we don’t have to try to dig ourselves out from under those feelings that weigh us down and hold us back. God is right there with the best, most durable shovel of them all: love, mercy and forgiveness.

I pray that as you come to the end of another week and enter a weekend that leads us to gather again in God’s presence—even if virtually—that God will help lift off of your shoulders and off of your heart any sense of burden you are feeling. May God free you so that you may turn around and start anew in your personal life.

It is essential, it is our calling as Christians to receive and act on the words “it’s never too late” in our collective life, our community, our American society that is today so pained and trained nearly to the point of cracking.

It’s never too late.

It is NEVER too late for justice.

It is NEVER too late to turn away from injustice, from unjust systems, from power structures that diminish the dignity and well-being of people on the basis of their race, that in many cases were designed to diminish the well-being and sacrifice the lives of people of color. Whether we are talking about the old laws of Jim Crow or red-lining, the later practice of three-strikes-you’re-out mass incarceration, or the unequal protection of POC before the law today. It is never too late to change unjust laws, policies and practices. That is what our God teaches. Our God who offers us forgiveness and a vision of worthiness and justice that will lead us from sin and death toward abundant life for all.

Let us receive that teaching: It’s never too late. Let us receive that teaching, change our ways, and do the justice that God seeks. Now.