Tag Archives: Loving life Jesus

What is Beneficial?

Epiphany

January 15, 2021

Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
‘All things are lawful for me’, but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful for me’, but I will not be dominated by anything. ‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’, and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, ‘The two shall be one flesh.’ But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

Paul picks everyday things to illustrate his point in the above scripture, what we eat, and how we deal with our sexual desire. How we eat primarily impacts us personally. Our sexual desires can affect others. I have noticed that we humans tend to identify activities in society that we would never do or have any inclination to do as signature sins. Church potlucks tend to feed the stomach as much or more than they feed the soul. Religious groups invest a lot of energy in telling young women to be chaste and get a man at any cost. Their worth depends on it.

Christ-followers are people of the table, meaning we are called into community to love one another and welcome others to feast at our table as we share God’s love. The blessing of familial love is the source of our continued participation in God’s Creation, something to be cherished and respected.

Prayer: God, who is love, guides us in setting the priorities of our lives and guards us against projecting our priorities in the judgment of others. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Responding to Injustice

Living in the Spirit

August 24, 2020

Scripture Reading: Exodus 3:1-15

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ He said further, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. –Exodus 3:1-6

What calls us to commit? Moses had escaped Egypt after killing an Egyptian and wandered into the land of Midian. He found work, married, and seemed to be living what we might call a normal life. The plight of his people surely was still troubling his soul. People have been trying to explain the phenomenon of a burning bush, probably ever since the story began to be told. What happened was God lit aflame within Moses that he could not reject. He had to go back and do what he could to save his people from oppression.

We all face that decision when our eyes are opened, and we see injustice. As a society, we are very skilled in weaving injustice into the routines of life and often blame the oppressed for the problems that arise. The killing of George Floyd, which most of us witnessed on TV news, seems to have been a breaking point.

I have been struggling for some time with the question: Why must we think we are better than another to be a person of worth? Our society is grounded in that philosophy. I am in the process of reading the book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, that explores that idea. Recognizing that the USA has its own caste system, she describes what caste is and compares our system to the system in India and the system Hitler unleashed on Germany. It is eerie how they match.

Evil divides, God unites. As children of God, we are all called to be uniters, too.

Prayer: Lord, open our hearts to receiving your love as all we need to establish our worth. Help us to love others as you love them. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.