One of the most astonishing things Jesus ever said is found in John 15: “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” We’re invited to be Jesus’ friends. Among many other things, that friendship includes entering more deeply, and sharing more responsibly, in the work God is doing in the world. Our friendship with Jesus is a partnership in which are allowed to play a role in the realization of God’s hopes and dreams for creation and for human beings.

It’s important, and it is liberating, to remember that God is the “senior partner”; we join God in God’s work, rather than simply asking God to join us in what has seemed right for us to do. God sets the agenda and has the power needed actually to make a difference.

God is already and always at work in creation, making it fruitful, sustaining it, and healing the wounds our abuse and exploitation have inflicted upon it.

God is steadily at work in history and in the structures of society, pulling them toward justice and peace.

God is lovingly at work in every person, nudging, luring, and wooing everyone toward the wholeness/holiness we have seen revealed in Jesus Christ.

Our role, through spiritual discipline, prophetic analysis, and shared conversation, is to discern the shape and pace of God’s work and become a part of it.