To my loyal reader, have you noticed that the scripture link takes you to the readings online? Thanks, Vanderbilt.edu.
Bill Daws helped me focus on the forest instead of the trees this morning, finding a connecting link between all the passages. I'll try to present it accurately.
John reminds us of his theme: If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and because you know me, you know the Father. Although Jesus will be leaving the disciples, they will receive a new Advocate who is one with Christ and and the Creator and will never leave. In all of John the only commandments are to believe in Jesus Christ as one with God, and to love one another as God has loved you. In the psalm, we are urged to offer our praise to God who is on our side, who listens to us and acts for us. 1 Peter urges us to do good (i.e. to love our neighbors and our enemies) and that mostly that will encourage others to treat us with good, but even if it doesn't and we suffer, we must not return evil for evil, but keep doing good. It is better to suffer for doing what is right than for doing what is wrong. Acts points out that God is near now and has always been near. We are not far from God, who guides us. In other words, it all comes down to loving one another and all those whom God loves.
Amen. But then we need to figure out what that means for us on a deep level of action. I mean, it is easy enough to say we should love one another, and think that we have done our part if we go through our day and are reasonably nice to the people we meet and don't do anything to immediately cause hurt. We draw a small circle around our lives and the people and pets and perhaps a few precious things we really love. But we know that there is far more around us than our small circle, and it is that wider realm that is most challenging for us as Christians.
Jesus collected a band of friends, disciples, and followers, and then addressed large crowds of people. He interacted with a wide range of folks, noticing people we often try to ignore, serving the people on the margins, rejected by the social elites of his time. He criticized the cultural leaders of his time and talked about freedom that went beyond not being slaves to others, to living completely and wholly with God.
In Acts, Paul carefully studied the gods of the Athenians and identified the one true God as the one they called unknown. I suspect we have a lot of gods as well, whether we want to admit it or not, and that for many of us the one true God is among the least well known. What does God have to say to our prison system? To our economy? To the amount of trash we throw away every day? To the balance between food crops and ethanol production? To high debt loads among farmers and young families? To our dependence on automobiles and our perceived need to do everything on our own schedules, each in our own vehicle? I am convinced God does have a position and calls upon us to address each of these issues and many others in line with God's commandments.
Brian McLaren has written a book based in his deep re-reading of the Gospels. It is called, "Everything Must Change." There is a very good little film online called The Story of Stuff that is an amazing analysis of our economic situation. The Monday Bible Study is looking into the disease of "Affluenza" (the drive to consumerism in our culture), its symptoms and its possible cure. Many people are seeking to simplify their lives to make them more meaningful. And a couple of culture/history watchers predicted 15 years ago that about now our American society would enter a time of crisis on the scale of the Great Depression & WWII. It may be that this is the time in history when much of the work of the last 30 years on sustainability will coalesce into a dramatically different way of understanding ourselves in relation to one another and our earth. That is both good news and terrible news. We want to live in such a way that we have a good life to hand on to our children and grandchildren, but I am afraid that it will not come without major disruption. Can we be faithful and hopeful in the face of dramatic change? Can we reach into our hearts to love all people, to offer good in the midst of suffering?
We can and we will. It will help if we prepare, but the real Good News is that Christ has not left us orphaned, to struggle alone. Whatever may come, the one true God of love, the cornerstone of our spiritual house, and the Wisdom of all ages will be with us. We may be apprehensive, because we do not know exactly what is coming, but we have no cause for fear.
No comments:
Post a Comment