Today's Scripture Readings
Ezekiel 17: 22-24 (NRSV)
Psalm 92 (BCP, p. 720)
2 Corinthians 5:6-10,[11-13],14-17 (NRSV)
Mark 4:26-34 (NRSV)
Blog Reflection
The word faith is one that is thrown around almost like a can of soda. It can be full and closed tight, open and being drunk for all it is worth, empty and kicked all over creation, or thrown away and discarded as nothing.
When we say the word Faith with a capital F we are talking about the Christian Faith as a whole. When the conversation is an individuals faith,we spell it with a small f. News organizations and those not associated with any religious based community talk about a person's faith in a more generic term so as to not offend one group over another. When Christians talk the word faith it can mean many things.
In our Gospel today, Jesus is talking about a faith that begins in those who make the leap of faith to believe in God, the Parent of Jesus. It is compared to a small seed that is planted and grows to an enormous size so that it provides something for the individuals and others who might share in it. A faith that is not so isolated, nor is it without the need to provide something to others beyond oneself. Even if it is some shade from the summer heat, or the opportunity to belong to a community of people who believe in and live for something greater than themselves. A community where there is plenty of room for differences of belief, behavior and understanding. One that is not so confined to being abstract and idealistic, but also humanly practical and accessible.
It never ceases to amaze and/or disgust me to see people using the Christian Faith as a reason to exclude, denigrate and demoralize people who are different than themselves. The ongoing debate about accepting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and queer people into the life of the Church, because of the need to stigmatize and degrade is ever so very disturbing. The endless and erroneous use of the Bible to target LGBT people, Muslims, Jews, immigrants and the poor to treat them as second class citizens on earth, and even to dare to suggest that they are unwanted by God, is a misuse of our collective and individual Faith. Rather then see all that is so good and wondrous about the unconditional and all-inclusive love of God through Jesus Christ to be shared and enjoyed by people, all of whom are different from each other in some kind of way, many Christians use the Bible and our Faith, to establish their list of so called "Christian family values" to be violent and hateful.
This past week we witnessed examples of the ongoing violence towards women when Michigan Democratic Law Maker, Lisa Brown was banned from speaking on the floor, for saying the word: vagina. Male privilege can be used to demean a woman's reproductive health care rights to care for her own body, in the "name" of God violently, but, a woman talking openly about her body and the need to protect the rights of women is seen as shameful or vulgar. It appears that so called pro-lifers determined to declare war on women just cannot take responsibility for the hell that women are experiencing because of their negligence and grotesque behavior. Why is it that individuals in the "name" of the Christian Faith must make people so ashamed of the beauty of the human body? How is it that this has been the case for so many centuries of Church history?
A New York law maker backed by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) filed a bill to take away marriage equality for LGBT folks in the State.
Another story out of Michigan about the House there passed a law that would allow student counselors do discriminate against LGBT students.
This past week the breakfast giant General Mills publicly opposed the constitutional amendment that would ban marriage equality in Minnesota, a move that was amazing and awesome. Yet, true to form, NOM's President Brian Brown declared a political war that is aimed at destroying the company for the position they took.
Just this past Friday, President Obama made the historic move of giving children of immigrants the opportunity to stay in America to study and work their way towards full citizenship. The GOP House of Representatives was quick to condemn the move, accusing the President of granting amnesty, and suggesting it needs to be repealed. The opinion being made by a Representative who in the past has led a very mean spirited campaign targeting Muslims in very hateful ways.
Examples such as the one's I gave above are not good representations of Christians exercising their faith well. They are the means of misusing religious based zeal to maintain certain individuals as second class citizens through violence and prejudice. They are actions being taken in civil society, by Christianists and Dominionists determined to be sure that the Christian Faith that is made public and permanent is the one that is exclusive and destructive to people of faith and of good will towards others who are different than themselves.
As progressive Christians and individuals who believe in being inclusive peacemakers, we have the responsibility of proclaiming an inclusive Gospel of Faith. One that recognizes that Jesus came to heal broken relationships, by identifying with all humankind in all of our pain and suffering. Jesus came as one who was poor, marginalized and without even a place to lay his head. Jesus came to bring the face of God to a place where every human person can celebrate all of the good things God gives us. The hungry were fed, the sick were healed, the dead were raised and the hopeless found a new reason to have hope in God's love and grace. Just small actions of hospitality and reconciliation changed the face of human history in ways that we are still learning about. A Faith that forgives us of our sins when we fail, and unites us to God and one another through redemption and the promise of eternal life. A way of life that is ever progressing and not regressing. One that is open and accepting. Not rejecting and legislating others unjustly, so to give rise to oppression.
Let us see that the price of our faith is costly enough to say that when the Christian Faith is used to exclude and hate, we can say that is the wrong way to go. Because our founder Jesus Christ showed us all a better way. Jesus led the way to proclaim that through the Cross, all reasons for scapegoating are destroyed. The way of Jesus is through love and sacrifice of self for others, to guide Christians to the work of peace, justice, inclusion, hospitality and reconciliation.
Amen.
Prayers
Ezekiel 17: 22-24 (NRSV)
Thus says the Lord GOD:
- I myself will take a sprig
- from the lofty top of a cedar;
- I will set it out.
- I will break off a tender one
- from the topmost of its young twigs;
- I myself will plant it
- on a high and lofty mountain.
- On the mountain height of Israel
- I will plant it,
- in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit,
- and become a noble cedar.
- Under it every kind of bird will live;
- in the shade of its branches will nest
- winged creatures of every kind.
- All the trees of the field shall know
- that I am the LORD.
- I bring low the high tree,
- I make high the low tree;
- I dry up the green tree
- and make the dry tree flourish.
- I the LORD have spoken;
- I will accomplish it.
Psalm 92 (BCP, p. 720)
2 Corinthians 5:6-10,[11-13],14-17 (NRSV)
We are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord-- for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.
[Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others; but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences. We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.] For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
Mark 4:26-34 (NRSV)
Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come."
He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."
With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
Blog Reflection
The word faith is one that is thrown around almost like a can of soda. It can be full and closed tight, open and being drunk for all it is worth, empty and kicked all over creation, or thrown away and discarded as nothing.
When we say the word Faith with a capital F we are talking about the Christian Faith as a whole. When the conversation is an individuals faith,we spell it with a small f. News organizations and those not associated with any religious based community talk about a person's faith in a more generic term so as to not offend one group over another. When Christians talk the word faith it can mean many things.
In our Gospel today, Jesus is talking about a faith that begins in those who make the leap of faith to believe in God, the Parent of Jesus. It is compared to a small seed that is planted and grows to an enormous size so that it provides something for the individuals and others who might share in it. A faith that is not so isolated, nor is it without the need to provide something to others beyond oneself. Even if it is some shade from the summer heat, or the opportunity to belong to a community of people who believe in and live for something greater than themselves. A community where there is plenty of room for differences of belief, behavior and understanding. One that is not so confined to being abstract and idealistic, but also humanly practical and accessible.
It never ceases to amaze and/or disgust me to see people using the Christian Faith as a reason to exclude, denigrate and demoralize people who are different than themselves. The ongoing debate about accepting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and queer people into the life of the Church, because of the need to stigmatize and degrade is ever so very disturbing. The endless and erroneous use of the Bible to target LGBT people, Muslims, Jews, immigrants and the poor to treat them as second class citizens on earth, and even to dare to suggest that they are unwanted by God, is a misuse of our collective and individual Faith. Rather then see all that is so good and wondrous about the unconditional and all-inclusive love of God through Jesus Christ to be shared and enjoyed by people, all of whom are different from each other in some kind of way, many Christians use the Bible and our Faith, to establish their list of so called "Christian family values" to be violent and hateful.
This past week we witnessed examples of the ongoing violence towards women when Michigan Democratic Law Maker, Lisa Brown was banned from speaking on the floor, for saying the word: vagina. Male privilege can be used to demean a woman's reproductive health care rights to care for her own body, in the "name" of God violently, but, a woman talking openly about her body and the need to protect the rights of women is seen as shameful or vulgar. It appears that so called pro-lifers determined to declare war on women just cannot take responsibility for the hell that women are experiencing because of their negligence and grotesque behavior. Why is it that individuals in the "name" of the Christian Faith must make people so ashamed of the beauty of the human body? How is it that this has been the case for so many centuries of Church history?
A New York law maker backed by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) filed a bill to take away marriage equality for LGBT folks in the State.
Another story out of Michigan about the House there passed a law that would allow student counselors do discriminate against LGBT students.
This past week the breakfast giant General Mills publicly opposed the constitutional amendment that would ban marriage equality in Minnesota, a move that was amazing and awesome. Yet, true to form, NOM's President Brian Brown declared a political war that is aimed at destroying the company for the position they took.
Just this past Friday, President Obama made the historic move of giving children of immigrants the opportunity to stay in America to study and work their way towards full citizenship. The GOP House of Representatives was quick to condemn the move, accusing the President of granting amnesty, and suggesting it needs to be repealed. The opinion being made by a Representative who in the past has led a very mean spirited campaign targeting Muslims in very hateful ways.
Examples such as the one's I gave above are not good representations of Christians exercising their faith well. They are the means of misusing religious based zeal to maintain certain individuals as second class citizens through violence and prejudice. They are actions being taken in civil society, by Christianists and Dominionists determined to be sure that the Christian Faith that is made public and permanent is the one that is exclusive and destructive to people of faith and of good will towards others who are different than themselves.
As progressive Christians and individuals who believe in being inclusive peacemakers, we have the responsibility of proclaiming an inclusive Gospel of Faith. One that recognizes that Jesus came to heal broken relationships, by identifying with all humankind in all of our pain and suffering. Jesus came as one who was poor, marginalized and without even a place to lay his head. Jesus came to bring the face of God to a place where every human person can celebrate all of the good things God gives us. The hungry were fed, the sick were healed, the dead were raised and the hopeless found a new reason to have hope in God's love and grace. Just small actions of hospitality and reconciliation changed the face of human history in ways that we are still learning about. A Faith that forgives us of our sins when we fail, and unites us to God and one another through redemption and the promise of eternal life. A way of life that is ever progressing and not regressing. One that is open and accepting. Not rejecting and legislating others unjustly, so to give rise to oppression.
Let us see that the price of our faith is costly enough to say that when the Christian Faith is used to exclude and hate, we can say that is the wrong way to go. Because our founder Jesus Christ showed us all a better way. Jesus led the way to proclaim that through the Cross, all reasons for scapegoating are destroyed. The way of Jesus is through love and sacrifice of self for others, to guide Christians to the work of peace, justice, inclusion, hospitality and reconciliation.
Amen.
Prayers
Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast
faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim
your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with
compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who
lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now
and for ever. Amen. (Proper 6, Book of Common Prayer, p. 230).
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us
through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole
human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which
infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us;
unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and
confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in
your good time, all nations and races may serve you in
harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for the Human Family, Book of Common Prayer, p. 815).
Gracious Father, we pray for they holy Catholic Church. Fill it
with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt,
purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is
amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in
want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake
of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen. (Prayer for the Church, Book of Common Prayer, p. 816).
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