I do not know why I took one of the most difficult parts of the bible, and one of the lectionary readings for this Sunday, as today’s text. There are seven passages for today if you look at the daily readings and the lectionary.
What is running through my head is how does this fit with the Kingdom of God? Jesus took the Law and expanded it into intent. In doing so, he took the law to a point where no person can say that they are without fault.
Unless their conscience is seared. (And it if is, we are truly damned, for we have forgotten what is right and what is wrong. We have no conscience: there is no shame, no guilt, and no salvation.)
7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
13By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 16So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19We love because he first loved us. 20Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
Only two points from this. The commentator divides this passage into four…
Hatred includes contempt. This is where relationships die. You stop caring for the other. They become moronic. They are no longer attractive. The love dies, and hatred arrives. In the end, we choose to love our spouses. Daily. And this can be killed by criticism, coldness, and abandonment just as surely as it is killed by unfaitfhulness.
We are ordered to love each other. This, clearly, is not erotic (only idiots such as the Bergites believe that) but considering each other’s needs, doing the best for each other.
In trust. which brings me to…
Fear is the consequence of unlove. Or Mistrust. Or contempt. You end up in a situation in which you can no longer trust anyone. in. the. organization. and then the correct response is fear.
Love does not come easily. In fact, love is expensive: caution is cheap. If we are in a situation like this… there will be fear.
Father’s Day comes along and… wait a second… we hear again about how hard mom works, how nobody truly appreciates her, and how dad is a big, lazy, stupid lunk that needs to get it in gear. Wait, what?!
That happened a few years ago and I went up to the preacher and tried to point out that slavishly sucking up to mom while kicking the dads squarely in the nads was not good. The guy deflected my criticism and then insinuated that I was oversensitive in being unable to take criticism… and that my anger was clearly due to a lack of spirituality! I was speechless.
And these same people wonder why the women are such great “prayer warriors” and why men tend not to be on board with the whole churchy church thing.
If you, as a leader, are playing power games, criticizing people who disagress with you, you are no servant, and you are treating your parishioners with contempt. There is no longer any love in your congregation.
And you have lost the secret sauce, if you will. For there is but one — and that is that we love each other in Kirk and out of Kirk. (Church to the non presbyterian readers). It is our love for each other that is our greatest witness.
If there is fear, there is something wrong
“If there is fear, there is something wrong”
….but what would the solution be? Should we try to fix the problems in our church, or just go church shopping and find a new congregation?
I mean, when I switched to my fiance’s denomination, it didn’t change the fact that people in my old church thought it was okay to bully me for having a pagan father [I’m like a mugblood ;)]. I realize my actions were somewhat cowardly, but my faith was on the line. I did what I had to do.
Wait, I think I just answered my own question.
There is always something wrong. But if you cannot say your bit, you need to be aware that the leadership is moving away from where they should be.
I am a great fan of leading from below. There are ways of living, of acting, of asking questions, of getting solutions working and then telling the hierarchy about them… consider for a second Dorothy Day: stauchly catholic and doing good regardless of what the bishops said.
In the Anglican and Roman churches, of course, there is correction from the council of Bishops. Who are noting that the more conservative and gospel based regions grow, (see Sydney — the Papists have Cardinal Pell and the Prots have an evangelical leadership).
But in any church there will be those who see the priesthood as power and priveledge, not service and sacrifice.
The latter is what Christ said his kingdom was about.
I think the majority of the issues within modern Christianity stem from clergy pandering to their congregations. When churches began caring more about the amount of people in their pews, doctrine quickly degenerated into the Oprah-lite feel good nonsense. They tell people what they want to be told.
In my particular case, I was hurt by ignorant parishioners, not the clergy. According to the official Catechism, Japanese Catholics are allowed to
worship at Shinto temples [due to some sort of World War II era decree
that was never revoked]. If my old congregation had been properly catechized, then I wouldn’t have been bullied.