The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 18), September 7, 2025

The Dynamic Invitation of God

 At the heart of open and relational theology is the conviction that God is not distant or static but intimately involved in the ongoing story of creation. God desires reciprocal, transformative relationships with creatures including humanity, honouring their freedom while lovingly guiding them toward the good. This week’s lectionary readings underscore this dynamic interplay between divine initiative and human response, pointing us towards a God who is both persuasive and responsive.

In Jeremiah 18, the image of God as a potter working clay on a wheel is a powerful metaphor for divine flexibility and responsiveness. The potter reshapes the vessel over time and this is an example of relational sensitivity. God responds to the moral and spiritual condition of Israel, reworking the future in light of present choices. “If that nation… turns from its evil,” says the Lord, “I will change my mind.” Here, we see a direct of example of God changing, not in essence but in choice of response and behaviour. Here God is not portrayed as immutable in the classical sense, but as deeply attuned to the evolving reality of human circumstances and even decisions. As Alfred North Whitehead writes, “It is as true to say that God is permanent and the world fluent, as that the world is permanent and God fluent.” What Whitehead refers to as God’s fluency—the divine willingness to adapt in response to human moral freedom—is the at the core of an open and relational understanding of God.

This relational dynamic continues in Deuteronomy 30, where Moses presents a stark choice between life and death, blessing and curse. God sets before the people a covenantal invitation: to choose life by loving and obeying the Lord. The choice is not coercive; instead it affirms human agency. God is relationally invested in people’s flourishing but does not override their autonomy. This text resonates with Whitehead’s process philosophy and the “divine lure”, which sees God as luring creation toward greater harmony and intensity of experience, never forcing but always calling. The divine presence is not fixed in decree but active in wooing creation toward the good.

 Psalm 1 creates a contrast between the flourishing of the righteous, who are those rooted in God’s ways like trees planted by streams with the instability of the wicked.  The wicked are described as being like chaff blown by the wind. The psalm is not primarily a moralistic warning but a poetic vision of what it means to live in alignment with the relational rhythms of God. God’s blessing is not transactional but grounded in a relationship. Those who dwell in relationship with God experience life in full communion, and do not experience Gods blessings merely in reward.

In Philemon 1–21, Paul exemplifies relational theology in action. Rather than commanding Philemon to release Onesimus, he appeals to his friend “on the basis of love.” Paul places the integrity of the relationship above coercion or power and encourages Philemon to act out of his own volition. This models how God also relates to humanity—not through domination, but through vulnerable, persuasive love. The letter might be described as brief example of divine-human interaction. God, like Paul, desires and pleads for justice and reconciliation whilst at the same time honours the freedom of the beloved to respond.

Finally, Luke 14:25–33 may seem at first glance to challenge the relational model, as Jesus speaks of the cost of discipleship in stark, even shocking terms: hating one’s family, carrying the cross, giving up possessions. However, Jesus is not opposing relationships but reordering them. He challenges his followers into a deeper relationship with himself as one who may disrupt other traditional social ties. The passage reveals the intensity of God’s desire for unreserved relationship with humanity. In relational terms, God seeks not superficial assent but whole-hearted participation in the divine life. Discipleship is costly because love, in its truest form, requires a reorientation of the self towards God and to others.

What emerges from all these readings is a portrait of God as potter, parent, persuader, and partner. One who invites, listens, responds, and transforms offering a perspective of the divine life that is profoundly interactive. Human freedom matters because love cannot exist without it. At every turn, the texts remind us that God’s purposes are not rigidly imposed but relationally offered, like different paths set before us, like appeals made in love. God lures us with visions of life, justice, and love—not to control us, but to journey with us.

Reference: Alfred North Whitehead. Process and Reality, Free Press, 1979.

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Doral Hayes is the Principal Officer for Ecumenical Development and Relations at Churches Together in England and a Licensed Lay Minister in the Oxford Diocese of the Church of England. Doral holds a MA in Contemporary Christian Theology from Newman University, Birmingham and is currently undertaking doctoral research in ecumenical theology at the University of Roehampton, London. Doral is a contributor to Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God, edited by Jeff Wells, Thomas Jay Oord, et. al as well as a number of other publications. She lives in Buckinghamshire, England with her husband, two teenage children and a crazy whippet.