Whenever the subject turns to our current national dumpster fire and the resulting unrest here, There's a similar refrain I hear from the lips of many Christians these days:
Beautifully written John and oh so true. Also written was:
"Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours"
In order for our relationship with God to be real and true, an actual relationship of love; it cannot be forced or compelled. Otherwise it would not be an authentic or valuable relationship. God limits Godself in order to be in relationship with humanity. This was demonstrated in actual history by the incarnational life of Jesus.
God gave us the gift of free will and the instructions of what to do with our free will: caring for the least of these among us. We are the hands, feet, voice, and actions of God's love in the world. Let's get busy!
Thank you!! I just had a similar conversation last week with my pastor and he says exactly the same things as you! Praise God for those in this world who truly see the light and can guide us accordingly! 😌🙏✝️
One of your best and most important messages. Once someone gets it that God is not some sort of candy dispenser into which you put in some promises and push the button to get the candy to fall into the tray, they are moving much closer to the truth that Jesus actually taught: we are all the children of God AND the children of man. Our foremost job, before getting down to the business of actualizing the 'commandments' is to realize our inseparability with God, and how that plays out as collaboration. It's fine--no, great--to seek guidance along the way. I start my day that way, every morning. But it's not okay to act like a big baby. We must accept full responsibility for these lives we've been born to. As a famous Eastern European Rabbi once observed, "God is not your nice uncle." Becoming a mature and willing human is the light we don't want to hide under a bushel basket. We want it to shine, shine, shine, and (to mix parables) we must tend the light, too, like the wise women, because we will need that light when the next little or big thing asks us to step up. Us. Human and Divine.
Amen. Norms which govern or directly affect our thinking and behavior are established by moral codes we are trained to accept, tradition, the Rule of Law, and of course, statutes and other binding rules and regulations. But culture, the aggregate decisions of the entire community, probably constitutes the norm with which most of of us comply most of the time. I belive that Christians are called, with every breath we take, every decision we make, every movement we make, to create and help create a culture that is consisdent with the mandate that Jesus has given us - to love God with our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbors as outselves.
I feel like too many people have been, and still are still saying that. It amounts to if we just ignore it, it'll go away eventually. It's nut to to say that with the orange elephant in the room!
So here is the truth, at least as I understand and believe, on God being in control.
First, I firmly believe that if there is a God … She is more than likely a woman, and this "Conservative" crowd is pissing Her off. Therefore, I use “Her” with a capital “H” and refer to Her as She with a capital “S” because, after all, She is God.
Why would God be a woman, you ask? Well, I'd like you to think about it. God is supposed to be all-knowing, all-loving, and omnipresent. Does that sound like a man? I sure don’t know any men that would describe. And that includes me. Sounds more like a woman to me.
Second, if that Supreme being exists and is a woman, this MAGA Conservative Republican crowd is pissing Her off. How would you feel if some bigoted jerks started telling everyone that your children were not entitled to make their own decisions about how to live their own lives or make their own life choices? You would be pissed too!
I think She has a lot on her plate, and there is a lot of stuff really serious at present she is trying to pay attention to. After all, She is trying to care for vulnerable and impoverished populations worldwide, and those challenges have recently worsened significantly.
She is also pissed that we are not tsking care of things that we should be able to control without constantly begging her to take care of them. She ain't too happy about how we care for the earth and its gifts she gave us either. We don't seem to have much respect for her work over the last 4.5 billion years creating those things.
So my advice is to stop making everything that may trouble you Her problem to fix and ignoring our own responsibility to care for and deal with challenges under our control.
So my advice is this. Quit pissing God off, because She can be very vengeful and you may not like the answers She provides to problems we should be able to deal with ourselves and let her attend to the tasks She has to pay attention to.
I've recently shared with some very good friends that, no, I don't believe God is "in control" just as you've explained here. I know they don't mean they are released from responsibility, but I've outgrown so many of those things I once held as truths. LOVE - it's all about loving others hopefully, supremely, radically. Thanks for all your words and wisdom, John!!!
Well said and needs to be spread everywhere! Your words keep me going when daily I face chaos in the northern Virginia world! This administration perpetuating chaos, hatred and fear for many. Thank you
This is a deeply important articulation of the leap in spiritual maturity needed within Christianity: away from the belief that God works UPON us, from outside of us (so, we wait and pray for "him" to show up from somewhere outside this world and solve/fix everything we've messed up), to the understanding that God works THROUGH and WITHIN us (so that we are, already, the active instruments of God's goodness and love). The Mother Teresa wisdom is perfect: "Christ has no body...hands...feet.... but ours." Amen
As a pastor/preacher in a mainline church, I long ago concluded that perhaps the most revolutionary Jesus teaching of all is "You are the light of the world... let your light shine so that in you, others will see God's glory." "Don't hide it under a bushel basket...." (Matt. 5:14ff.) Or, as I often paraphrased it in my sermons, "YOU carry God's light in this world. Go live like you know that."
This was so revolutionary a teaching that within a few decades after Matthew, a later Gospel writer, John, had Jesus saying of himself "I am the light of the world...." Along with all the other "I am" sayings that appear only in the Fourth Gospel: I am the light... I am the bread of life... the good shepherd...the vine...the way, the truth and the life, etc. These utterances put on the lips of Jesus appear to represent a later theological development in the tradition, and not something original to the historical Jesus (if we can assume that the earlier-written gospels contain more accurate seeds of the historical Jesus): if he really talked like that about himself -- I am, I am, I am -- it would be difficult to understand why three out of four gospels don't contain any hint of that at all. No, the revolutionary spirit of Jesus is embodied in the "YOU ARE." Why would he have taught his disciples and others to live by the radical ethics of his vision if he believed it truly didn't matter how anybody lives because they have no true agency?
Might have to be enlightened churches, temples, mosques, synagogues etc that step up and help challenge the racist, godless, self-interested, lawless momentum - elected/appointed folks have been neutered
Amen John; and thanks, Debbie, for adding the what Mother Teresa has said to remind fair Christians who we are together. Alone we have blessed with gifts, talents and love to help and care for our neighbors. Together we are a body that can change the world as God desires.
Beautifully written John and oh so true. Also written was:
"Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours"
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
In order for our relationship with God to be real and true, an actual relationship of love; it cannot be forced or compelled. Otherwise it would not be an authentic or valuable relationship. God limits Godself in order to be in relationship with humanity. This was demonstrated in actual history by the incarnational life of Jesus.
God gave us the gift of free will and the instructions of what to do with our free will: caring for the least of these among us. We are the hands, feet, voice, and actions of God's love in the world. Let's get busy!
Thank you!! I just had a similar conversation last week with my pastor and he says exactly the same things as you! Praise God for those in this world who truly see the light and can guide us accordingly! 😌🙏✝️
One of your best and most important messages. Once someone gets it that God is not some sort of candy dispenser into which you put in some promises and push the button to get the candy to fall into the tray, they are moving much closer to the truth that Jesus actually taught: we are all the children of God AND the children of man. Our foremost job, before getting down to the business of actualizing the 'commandments' is to realize our inseparability with God, and how that plays out as collaboration. It's fine--no, great--to seek guidance along the way. I start my day that way, every morning. But it's not okay to act like a big baby. We must accept full responsibility for these lives we've been born to. As a famous Eastern European Rabbi once observed, "God is not your nice uncle." Becoming a mature and willing human is the light we don't want to hide under a bushel basket. We want it to shine, shine, shine, and (to mix parables) we must tend the light, too, like the wise women, because we will need that light when the next little or big thing asks us to step up. Us. Human and Divine.
Amen. Norms which govern or directly affect our thinking and behavior are established by moral codes we are trained to accept, tradition, the Rule of Law, and of course, statutes and other binding rules and regulations. But culture, the aggregate decisions of the entire community, probably constitutes the norm with which most of of us comply most of the time. I belive that Christians are called, with every breath we take, every decision we make, every movement we make, to create and help create a culture that is consisdent with the mandate that Jesus has given us - to love God with our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbors as outselves.
Exactly! Thank you so much for this.
I feel like too many people have been, and still are still saying that. It amounts to if we just ignore it, it'll go away eventually. It's nut to to say that with the orange elephant in the room!
So here is the truth, at least as I understand and believe, on God being in control.
First, I firmly believe that if there is a God … She is more than likely a woman, and this "Conservative" crowd is pissing Her off. Therefore, I use “Her” with a capital “H” and refer to Her as She with a capital “S” because, after all, She is God.
Why would God be a woman, you ask? Well, I'd like you to think about it. God is supposed to be all-knowing, all-loving, and omnipresent. Does that sound like a man? I sure don’t know any men that would describe. And that includes me. Sounds more like a woman to me.
Second, if that Supreme being exists and is a woman, this MAGA Conservative Republican crowd is pissing Her off. How would you feel if some bigoted jerks started telling everyone that your children were not entitled to make their own decisions about how to live their own lives or make their own life choices? You would be pissed too!
I think She has a lot on her plate, and there is a lot of stuff really serious at present she is trying to pay attention to. After all, She is trying to care for vulnerable and impoverished populations worldwide, and those challenges have recently worsened significantly.
She is also pissed that we are not tsking care of things that we should be able to control without constantly begging her to take care of them. She ain't too happy about how we care for the earth and its gifts she gave us either. We don't seem to have much respect for her work over the last 4.5 billion years creating those things.
So my advice is to stop making everything that may trouble you Her problem to fix and ignoring our own responsibility to care for and deal with challenges under our control.
So my advice is this. Quit pissing God off, because She can be very vengeful and you may not like the answers She provides to problems we should be able to deal with ourselves and let her attend to the tasks She has to pay attention to.
I've recently shared with some very good friends that, no, I don't believe God is "in control" just as you've explained here. I know they don't mean they are released from responsibility, but I've outgrown so many of those things I once held as truths. LOVE - it's all about loving others hopefully, supremely, radically. Thanks for all your words and wisdom, John!!!
Well said and needs to be spread everywhere! Your words keep me going when daily I face chaos in the northern Virginia world! This administration perpetuating chaos, hatred and fear for many. Thank you
God has already made us instruments of His peace... but just instruments. Question is, will we unstiffen our own necks, and follow?
This is a deeply important articulation of the leap in spiritual maturity needed within Christianity: away from the belief that God works UPON us, from outside of us (so, we wait and pray for "him" to show up from somewhere outside this world and solve/fix everything we've messed up), to the understanding that God works THROUGH and WITHIN us (so that we are, already, the active instruments of God's goodness and love). The Mother Teresa wisdom is perfect: "Christ has no body...hands...feet.... but ours." Amen
As a pastor/preacher in a mainline church, I long ago concluded that perhaps the most revolutionary Jesus teaching of all is "You are the light of the world... let your light shine so that in you, others will see God's glory." "Don't hide it under a bushel basket...." (Matt. 5:14ff.) Or, as I often paraphrased it in my sermons, "YOU carry God's light in this world. Go live like you know that."
This was so revolutionary a teaching that within a few decades after Matthew, a later Gospel writer, John, had Jesus saying of himself "I am the light of the world...." Along with all the other "I am" sayings that appear only in the Fourth Gospel: I am the light... I am the bread of life... the good shepherd...the vine...the way, the truth and the life, etc. These utterances put on the lips of Jesus appear to represent a later theological development in the tradition, and not something original to the historical Jesus (if we can assume that the earlier-written gospels contain more accurate seeds of the historical Jesus): if he really talked like that about himself -- I am, I am, I am -- it would be difficult to understand why three out of four gospels don't contain any hint of that at all. No, the revolutionary spirit of Jesus is embodied in the "YOU ARE." Why would he have taught his disciples and others to live by the radical ethics of his vision if he believed it truly didn't matter how anybody lives because they have no true agency?
We need to go live like we know...
Brenda,
I appreciate your exegesis. Your congregation is fortunate to have your wisdom !
Might have to be enlightened churches, temples, mosques, synagogues etc that step up and help challenge the racist, godless, self-interested, lawless momentum - elected/appointed folks have been neutered
Thank you. That's a problem I've had with that saying for many years. It's a complete abdication of any responsibility on ther part.
Raped? Beaten up? Your wealth stolen? Enslaved? "It's okay. God's in control" given with a smarmy grin.
Thank you so much!
Amen John; and thanks, Debbie, for adding the what Mother Teresa has said to remind fair Christians who we are together. Alone we have blessed with gifts, talents and love to help and care for our neighbors. Together we are a body that can change the world as God desires.