Teach us to Love

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"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion,"

          The Dalai Lama

 

"I have no idea what's awaiting me or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment, I know this: There are sick people, and they need curing,"

          Camus (The Plague)

 

“If one of you has a child[c] or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?... 

          Jesus

_____________________________________

 

The Bible says….

Really!  Right here!

 

Keep the Sabbath

No shellfish, clams, oysters, urchins, or lobsters

No eating cats, dogs, and ferrets

No tattoos

Don’t mix fabrics

 

Do kill the pagans

All of them

 

Many point a finger at queer people and say “Bad!  Sinner!”

But what about the greedy, those who lack compassion

those who lie and cheat, commit adultery, get divorced, and

and

and

and

 

There are prohibitions everywhere, everywhere

the list goes on forever

 

no wonder so many devout souls look constipated

Dour, bitter, hard, closed

 

It is all about the rules

Keep them or else

Keep them and you are in, safe, headed toward streets of gold

Don’t keep them and you are out, doomed, and headed to

eternal punishment

 

But why are there all these rules?

Why are they there?

For God?

Or for us?

 

are they there to keep us in line, control us

or protect us and nurture us?

 

do we fully understand

why that law, in that place, in that time

 

Don’t eat shellfish

In that place and time shellfish were dangerous.

 

How about the ones now being used, manipulated

As a tool to gain power?

Those about homosexuality

 

Are we sure (in the first place) we know why?

Perhaps those rules were not so much about loving, monogamous relationships

as about a sexuality that was predatory, abusive

about rape, pederasty

the abuse of sex

 

Of course, THAT is wrong.

Just as it is wrong for any form of sex to be

Predatory, abusive, or forced

 

And we know they did not know, that there IS a gender spectrum

Brain imaging and studies of chromosomes and more

Suggest variety

Perhaps what was confusing is not so confusing now?

 

It is no secret that we pick and choose

Dropping some, Obsessing over others

 

It is also true that we “use” the rules

To control, to gain power (even political power),

And suppress and even oppress

 

That we use them to punish and control

 

Jesus turned the concept of law upside down.

It is not the law, imposed from without by the righteous powerful

that makes us God’s people

 

it is a law of love, written by the Spirit on our hearts

that makes us God’s people

Giving us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control 

 

against such things, there is no law

It is not a sin to be kind, gentle, patient, or loving

There is no sin of empathy

 

But to be the opposite

Cruel, harsh, controlling, and “not loving”

That probably is, sin

 

Alas and alack

It is confusing and sketchy.

 

So what do we do?

We filter all the rules through the filter of love

Because there really is only one law

One

 

Love

“Jesus said ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

 

He was even more blunt (John 13:34) “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.”

 

Paul (Romans 13:10) said, “Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.”

 

I am sorry Lord, that we do not get it

Not very well

None of us

None

 

I am sorry when leaders use the law to gain loyalty

I am sorry when some deny the very existence of people you love

I am sorry when, as we try to figure it all out, we get it wrong

I am sorry when we use the rules as a weapon against people

 

Lord, teach us to love

Teach us to reject any way that is not love

Help us to take risks for the sake of love

So that if we err, and we will, we have erred on the side of love

 

The world is a right mess

We won’t get out of it by beating people over the head with a bible

We won’t get out of it through coercive control

We won’t get out of it by being retributive

 

There is only one way out.

 

We must follow the one law that counts the most

We must love

You, ourselves

And ALL others