… religion didn’t create hate, hate found voice in
religion
John
Fugelsang
The politics of Jesus and the politics of God are that
people should be fed, that people have access to life, that people should be
treated equally and justly.
Rev. James
Lawson Jr.
______________________________
The Word of the Lord
The Word of God for the people of God
The Word of the Lord to us
Really?
There is a reason Jesus asked the question
“Why do you call me Lord, Lord, but do not do what I
say?”
Or perhaps the better question is
Why do we take the words of the Bible
And use them in a way that violates the very nature of
God
As revealed in Jesus
Who is, after all
The Word
Why do people hear the words from the Word
“Love thy neighbor.”
And immediately ask if their neighbor is “legal.”
Nuke, in the movie Bull Durham, reflecting on baseball,
says,
"This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you
catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,
sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.”
Jesus, the Word, in reflecting on the jumble of words
contained in the Law and the Prophets, said,
“This is a very simple faith. You love God, you love yourself in a healthy
way, and then you go out and love the people around you. All of them.
Keep it simple.”
But we human creatures have muddled it up.
God says, “Welcome all.”
We say, “You’re welcome, IF.”
God says, “It is not about merit, it is about grace.”
We create a merit-based system
God says, “Love all.”
We don’t
(well at least I don’t)
God says, “I love you.”
We say, “I wonder if I have been good enough for God to
love me.”
God says, “Feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty,
house the homeless, welcome, comfort and take care of the stranger (the way I
have welcomed, comforted and taken care of you),” and all too many of us, and
an entire political party say, “Mass Deportations Now.”
God says, “Suffer the little children to come to me.”
Which means “there is a special place for children
in the heart of God, so draw them close,
protect, nurture, teach and love them”
And we say “I think it is worth some children (maybe a
lot of children) so that we can have the Second Amendment.
And we detain five year olds
And take away SNAP funding
And kill USAID, thus killing (so it is estimated) 500,000
children in one year.
Death by neglect
Instead of saying “God forgive us” as hate, division and
violence swirl
We say “They should have obeyed.”
And we turn people into “domestic terrorists”
It seems as if what God asks of us is simple
But not easy
Speaking of children…
Jesus also said, “Become like little children, or you
will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
The kingdom will never come,
Until we let God love us, comfort us, feed us, teach us,
embrace us
The way the “best parent ever” loves their little child
(That is even hard to imagine, because we have messed
parenting up too)
And until with the simplicity of a child
We keep it simple
And love God, have a healthy love of self, and then o out
and love the people around us. All of
them.
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