[alleluia]

Daniel Berrigan S.J., is a Catholic priest, peace activist, and poet. This story from his book, Love, love at the end ties in well with the themes of this site:

There was once a man who died, and rose again to life.

He had been a suburban man. He remembered trudging through the open fields, a Saturday in the country. Had he been struck by lightning? Had a bull charged him? He recalled a streak of horror coming through broken fences, crowned with daisies, demonic and bloodshot. His groin felt as though it had been ripped into by a scythe.

He stood up. No fields, no space, no landmarks. A city street. Cold. A musty doorway. His coat and face and hands covered with a dust of snow. Dazed and drunk, two legs under him like sticks of wood.

It was a city street, night, and infernal cold. The neon went off and on down the canyon, a bleary charade of eyes.

He shook like a dog, and took a few steps. The plate glass of a bar window drew him. He looked, and looked again. What was it, what face looked back? Black face? His mouth froze in a scream, his voice stuck in his throat. The neon winked him off and on, made and destroyed him,  the ugliest joke of all creation. A black face held him; it said like a bad joke, like a truthful ad; don't buy me. Danger. I'm poison. I don't beautify. Beware. No one recommends me, no family sings for me. Beware.

His hands went to his throat. A string of cheap beads. To his chest; two breasts. A whore's careless dress, a sack of anguish. A woman? Who died there? What arose there?

And then the neon took voice, the night erupted. A band of herald angels rose from the sewers, from the skies, sang this birth. "Welcome, sister, to a new skin. Welcome to the other side. Why, you're now two-thirds of all of us; black. The other half of us, woman. Black woman. What piety, what merits won this rebirth?" For country acres, for country matters, for wise polity, for good acts and good investments, this reward. For that I was hungry and you knew me not, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. Welcome. Not to punishment, not to hell. To a new chance. To a new body, to the new city.

Now, at length, I love you. Now I choose you. Welcome, outcast, reject, welcome to cold and fear and exhaustion and the dead end of corrupt hope. I anoint you and summon you, I kiss you with the kiss of my lips. Arise my love, my dove, my beautiful one.

Love, love at the end by Daniel Berrigan, S.J. (pp. 23-24)

left behind

Yes, another rapture cartoon! (see previous cartoon) This one ties in with that idea that floats around that 144,000 will be left behind when the rapture happens, which ties in with another idea (perhaps completely untrue) that the Jehovah's Witnesses are the 144,000 faithful -- except that there are more than 144,000 JW's today and someone's got to decide who stays and who gets swept up in the rapture.

And wouldn't you know it, they conveniently decided to leave a minority group behind.

where's the rapture when you need it?

Growing up, the rapture was a big deal, especially in the Baptist churches which I frequented. Along with discussions about it, there were movies and comics giving scary previews of what it would be like. And yes, it was because of such stories (told by my best friend back then) that I first "gave my life to Jesus".

For the new millenium and with the end of the world rapidly approaching, here's a more recent twist on the rapture:

This cartoon was inspired by an ironic photo I saw online, where two gay men are wanting the rapture to happen now, in order to get rid of Christian protestors with their hateful signs and angry words:



Photo credit: Photo taken by "perfectionequalsoverrated" of her dad and step dad at LA Gay Pride. Original site of posting no longer online.

[mercy not sacrifice]

From Richard Beck's blog, a simple post called "Jesus in Microcosm" giving us two verses contrasting the way of sacrifice and holiness with the way of mercy:

Leviticus 13.45-46
Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, "Unclean! Unclean!" As long as they have the disease they remain unclean.

They must live alone; they must live outside the camp.

Matthew 8.2-3a
A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

And Jesus reached out his hand and touched him.

(source)

Jesus could have just told a parable about lepers, or added another paragraph or two in the sermon on the mount:
"You have heard it said, 'Lepers must live outside of the camp,' but I tell you, live outside the camp with them!"

That would be pretty extreme. Due to the emphasis on purity and holiness,the people of Jesus' day would have had trouble living with lepers anywhere, especially the religious leaders. I might have trouble with that too, as I like a clean house with all the comforts. And invariably, it would be possible to 'live in the camp with them' while still keeping a distance.

But Jesus was talk and walk all in one. The life he lived showed us the better way. He reached his hand right through the rules to touch the man with leprosy.

What rules do we need to reach through to touch the lives of others? How can we embody Jesus' teaching that God desires mercy, not sacrifice?

treasures in heaven

Perhaps some followers of Jesus have transferred their materialism to heaven. Instead of owning many things and having full bank accounts here on earth, they strive to do good things so that they will have treasures in heaven.

I get the idea of building up treasures in heaven instead of down here where they rot and rust. But wouldn't it be enough just to be with our heavenly Father? And what if loving others didn't result in heavenly treasures?

Some people, like the third person here, have been given the message that they won't get in, that they might be excluded.

[does a conservative belief have to translate into hateful attitudes and behaviours?]

Over the past year the news has had various stories about evangelical pastors with conservative perspectives on same-sex relations who are saying hateful things. Even extreme hateful things like "all gay and lesbian people should be rounded up and put inside an area with an electric fence and left to starve". And there are christians who you don't hear about, who snub their gay colleague or speak badly about their lesbian neighbours, or kick out their gay teenager. Granted, there are many pastors who are loving — but we don't hear much about them on the media.

Perhaps you are a christian who has a conservative or traditional view about homosexuality, yet you don't want to be mean and hateful to other people. Do you have to be? Does having a traditional or conservative view about same-sex relations have to go hand-in-hand with hating gay and lesbian people? Or is it possible to love others and be respectful of differences?

Wendy Gritter discusses this question in "A Study in Contrasts: how those with traditional views can speak publicly about homosexuality." The post offers two specific examples of people with traditional views of marriage: Dr. Richard Mouw who is the President of Fuller Seminary, and Kirk Cameron in an interview with Piers Morgan.  The specific context here is speaking in public about one's views, but the lessons can be applied when speaking and interacting individually as well. Wendy examines the ways in which they communicate and the attitudes which exist behind the words they spoke.

I did not listen to the Kirk Cameron interview, as I've heard enough similar things. But in light of Christian colleges and universities dealing with the question of same-sex relations, I did listen to the first 25 minutes of Dr. Mouw's address to the Fuller community, and while we have different theological perspectives, I respect the attitude of love, humility and generosity he showed as brought out in what he shared about conversations and interactions he has had with those who are part of a sexual minority.

What do you think? Does having a traditional or conservative view on homosexuality oblige a person to be hateful?

How can a person hold certain beliefs and yet act civilly – no, more than that – Christianly toward those who have different beliefs or who have taken a different path in life?

---

Learn more by reading "A Study in Contrasts: how those with traditional views can speak publicly about homosexuality" and watching the video clips.

two questions

Two questions, each with strange answer choices.

The first question relates to the reality that some people who are not of the Christian faith, find christians to be irrelevant and outdated; others find christians to be hateful and undesirable. So it's really a question about the role we who follow Jesus play in the world. Are we full of love and grace? Are we salt and light? Or are we divisive and hateful? Does the world need christians and if so, why?

The second questions relates to the reality that some straight christians do not believe that a person can be gay and christian, others do not want anything to do with gay Christians, and in any case, few can see anything good coming out of gay and lesbian people being part of the church. Are we not all God's children? How can we say "we don't need that group" or "we can do without her"?

What answers will you choose?

what I wish our churches taught us...

From reactive to proactive. Where does your church land on this scale? When it comes to controversial matters like abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and hell, many tend to be reactive, which means most of the time they ignore such matters. And then when there’s a pressing reason like proposed changes to legislation, an adult club renting the building next door, or a Rob Bell asking questions about heaven and hell, they marshal their resources, preach sermons, picket and boycott, and tweet tweets which they sometimes later regret.

A current example of this is the response churches are giving to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S. or the granting of same-sex blessings in Canada, where gay marriage is already legal.

Take my church, for example.

 At its recent meeting, our diocese held a vote to allow the bishop to give permission to priests who want to provide a blessing to same-sex couples who are in civil marriages. To say it another way, if a legally married same-sex couple asks the priest to give them a blessing, the priest must first ask for the bishop’s permission. Note that this resolution does not oblige any priests to provide such blessings; it simply gives the bishop permission to say “yes” if a priest asks. Now, the church we attend officially has a conservative view on marriage and was not pleased that the vote passed, in fact by a significant margin. In response to this, the leadership discussed the matter at the church’s semi-annual meeting, and will have a task group consider what response to make.

They also discussed it with the youth. And when our children came home from a youth day, one of them expressed that they didn’t know why the church was making such a big deal about blessing people who love each other when there’s more important things like KONY2012 happening in the world.

Some people might suggest that the leadership needs to do a better job of explaining how this really is a significant issue, and that the church should have been proactive in teaching its beliefs more clearly before a resolution like this one came up.

I would suggest that there’s a bigger picture that’s being missed here. And while it involves being proactive, it’s not about clarifying “what’s right and what’s wrong” before it becomes critical. It’s about perspective, respect for others, and God’s heart for people.

Here are four things that I wish pastors and others in church  leadership were teaching, with some recommendations for each point:


1.  The reality that God loves gay and lesbian people

Of course we are told in church that God loves everyone. When said generally like this, it is easier to forget this reality when we encounter people we don’t like or who are different from us. But when it is said with a specific people group in mind, it has more impact and is harder to ignore.

• State clearly that God loves lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Repeat on a regular basis.
• Affirm that Jesus gave his life for gay people and straight people and transgender people and everyone else.
• Emphasize that loving our neighbours includes loving LGBT neighbours, relatives, and colleagues. Give a similar emphasis to other particular neighbours depending on current events, your city or neighbourhood, etc. For example, emphasizing God’s love for Muslim neighbours would be particularly helpful after 9/11. The goal is not to single out a people group, but to emphasize God’s love for people whom we might find it easier to ignore or hate.

Related to this is the concept that the self of the other person matters more than my truth. As Miroslav Volf says, “I may not sacrifice the other at the altar of my truth. Jesus, who claimed to be the Truth, refused to use violence to ‘persuade’ those who did not recognize his truth.” (Exclusion and Embrace, page 272).

nothing nice to say

I'm sure my mother told me this in my childhood too, as the saying is definitely sunk deep into my brain. However, a reading of some of the cartoons on this blog might lead some to suspect that it hasn't sunk deep enough....

Then again, Ezekiel and the other prophets regularly said things which aren't nice. So why can't a regular guy like me, especially when it's for the purpose of provoking thinking about our attitudes and actions.

The balance? As Jamie Arpin-Ricci says, "The prophet rebuke must always point to the redemptive possibility." That's the challenge for me too, in writing this blog.

[some thoughts about hospitality]

“Hospitality means the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.”

Henri Nouwen

"So, what does true hospitality entail? I think it’s twofold: receiving someone as they are and generously extending whatever it is you have to share. It might be a banquet, or it might be your tears. Either way, the Apostle Paul says it should be offered in love, without grumbling (1 Peter 4:8-9).
...
Diana Butler Bass, again in A People's History of Christianity, writes that for the first few centuries of Christianity—starting with the church in Acts—"hospitality was the primary Christian virtue." It was "fundamental to being a person of the way,” and it was the "main motivator for conversions" (italics mine)."

Kristin Tennant in "Hospitality Outside of Pinterest" article

"I pray that none will be offended if I seek to make the Christian religion an inn where all are received joyously, rather than a cottage where some few friends of the family are to be received."

Richard Hooker

"Can we hold a Christian identity in a way that sends us toward the other with love and hospitality rather than with fear and hostility?"

Brian McLaren in video

"The opposite of cruelty is not simply freedom from the cruel relationship, it is hospitality.”

Philip Hallie, “From Cruelty to Goodness”, The Hastings Center Report 11 (1981): 26-27

'A century ago, William Booth recognized the importance of friendship with the poor when he wrote, “One of the secrets of the success of the Salvation Army is that the friendless find friends in it.” True hospitality involves friendship which “brings to the other what no law or revolution can: understanding and acceptance.” Hospitality, while certainly being insufficient in efforts for justice and transformation, is essential, very essential.'"

Christine D. Pohl commenting on and quoting W. Booth, in Making Room, p. 84

'Jean Vanier writes that “Welcome is one of the signs that a community is alive. To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren’t afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share.” He also offers an important warning: “A community which refuses to welcome—whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors – is dying spiritually.”'

Christine D. Pohl quoting Jean Vanier, in Making Room, p. 160

"Hospitality will not make us safe, but it will lead us to risk joining in the work of mending the creation without requiring those who are different to become like us."

"This call for hospitality provides a clue to the possibility of welcoming difference, rather than creating a "cheap unity" built on compliance to one interpretation of faith in Christ."

"Difference is the gift that challenges us to practice such hospitality by resisting oppression and working for full human life and dignity for those with whom we stand in solidarity."

 ~ three quotes from Letty Russell  (Just Hospitality)

"... the act of hospitality is fundamentally an act of human recognition and embrace. If exclusion is fundamentally dehumanizing, hospitality acts to restore full human status to the marginalized and outcast.

Richard Beck, Unclean, pp. 122-123

"Hostage-taking is just another form of hospitality."

Jonathan Larson, Making Friends among the Taliban:

A Peacemaker's Journey in Afghanistan. p. 41

"Thus, the welcoming of the stranger is an eccentric encounter.

Consequently, a hospitable community will be eccentrically oriented, moving out from the center toward the edges and then past the boundaries to the area "outside" the faith community."

Richard Beck in "Eccentric Christianity: Part 3,

Welcoming God in the Stranger"

The people who feel welcomed are the people who you have set a table of hospitality for.

Doug Paul

If your church is a house, is everyone an owner? Or are some people guests? The difference is that owners can move the furniture, do renovations, etc. without having to ask anyone other than the other owners. Guest need to be polite.

adapted from Misty Irons

---

Note: This page is an ongoing collection of brief thoughts about hospitality that resonate with the goals of this blog. It will be expanded on over time. Other posts will contain more extensive quotes on hospitality.

peter's crazy vision

Acts 10 - 11 give the account of Peter's vision. In the dream, he, a Jew, is instructed to eat all kinds of creatures. He declines to do so, on account of these things being impure or unclean according to Old Testament laws. Then the same God who gave these laws, tells him not to call anything that God has made unclean. Shortly thereafter, some Gentiles arrive at his gate, having been sent by an angel.

It would appear that God has changed His mind here, or is at least indicating clearly that certain laws from before do not apply anymore. This frees Peter up to reach out to the Gentile visitors.


Might there be other things which God said before, which He does not want us to hold to anymore? And what if our reply is "You're crazy! That's not what the Bible says"?

[the good son first to see prodigal]

Are we ready to invite others? Jay Bakker writes:

Imagine for a minute how differently the prodigal son story would have played out if the father hadn't been there to intervene. What if instead it had been the good son who greeted the prodigal?

There would have been no happy reunion. No hugs and kisses. You can be damned sure there'd be no fattened calf or homecoming party. The good son would have lain back and watched his brother approach, his indignation growing with every approaching step.

By the time the prodigal reached the front door, the good son's anger would have been boiling over, and his first words might have been something like this: "Look at you come crawling back. Why did you even bother? You used up your share of the inheritance. And what do you have to show for it? Nothing. Well, don't think you can share mine. There's nothing for you here. Everything Dad left is for me. I did all the hard work while you blew it off. I earned it and you don't deserve it. Dad wanted me to have it. Now go away and don't come back.....ever!"

In some ways the good son's mistake (thinking that he has earned his own salvation) is the more problematic one, because it makes it harder for the prodigal to return. Versions of this scene play out every day in real life between Christians. Half the reason people stay away from the church is because they know that the good sons and daughters are waiting at the door to judge and reject them when they try to enter.

From Jay Bakker's book Fall to Grace: a revolution of God, self and society, pages 91-92

Have you ever felt unwelcomed somewhere, because of who you are or what you've done?

How can the reality of the father, waiting with arms wide open, be lived out by those who follow Jesus?

[resource on "finding our identity in Christ, not sexual orientation"]

The Nov/Dec 2012 issue of Evangelicals for Social Action's Prism magazine is on the overall topic of "Beyond Labels: Finding our identity in Christ, not sexual orientation".  It features articles and stories from a wide range of perspectives on this topic, and I highly recommend it. Mind you, some parts of it I agree with, and others I do not, but it is enlightening in any case and helps me better to understand this key matter.

Here's a sample quote from an article by Joshua Gonnerman:

The stories offered to gay people by mainstream religion and secular society are enticing, offering hope of acceptance, fulfillment, pride, and, most recently, marriage. The stories the more traditionally inclined churches have offered have tended towards either heterosexualization or stories focused on burden/struggle. As long as matters are framed thus, the gospel will continue to be outside the realm of possibility for most gay people. How far this is from the gospel where Christ declares, “I have come that they might have life, and that more abundantly”!

Read more at http://prismmagazine.org/currentissue/

There is also a downloadable version along with study questions if you wish to use this in other contexts.

cycle of 21st century life

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush writes in LGBT Rights -- Getting on the Right Side of History:

A vivid religious example is the United Methodist Church, which recently reaffirmed the idea that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. They did this while formally apologizing for the denomination's support of segregation and the oppression of native peoples in the past. Oh, the irony!

At the same time the Methodists throw one group under the bus, they extend a hand towards the groups that still have tire tracks on their backs. Of course, we know what comes next. In a few more decades, the Methodists will be having rituals of repentance for how they treated LGBT people.

Here's an idea. Why don't we just skip the "more oppression" part and move straight to the reconciliation and full communion? (source and full article)

the right side of history

"Here's the funny thing about history: sometimes you can't tell you're on the wrong side of it, especially when it's being made."
John Boyle, Citizen Times, Aug 11/12 (source)

Here is a review of history, and some of the times that the church has been on the wrong side of it. Note that in most cases, there were also believers on the right side of history, but it seems it took quite some time before that became clear to all involved.


Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, in an article about Evangelicals and the Wrong Side of History, says the following:

While evangelicals used Bible verses to deny women the right to vote, a very religious Fredrick Douglass and the suffrage movement used the Bible to support the full enfranchisment of women.

... the largest and most powerful evangelical denomination in the country, the Southern Baptist Convention, does not allow women to serve as pastors and through its lobbying arm has supported anti-choice, anti-gay marriage, and anti-immigrant agendas.

Rev. Billy Graham is another example of the evangelical tendency to lag behind in social progress. Rev. Graham, the undisputed leader of American evangelicalism for the past five decades, used a biblical argument to support the passage of North Carolina constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.... In the same manner, Graham refused to denounce segregation after a direct appeal from Dr. King in 1957. (source and full article)

150 years ago	100 years ago	50 years ago	Today
Abolishment of slavery	Suffragette / right to vote	Desegregation	Marriage equality / civil rights for LGBT people
Churches used the bible to defend slavery	Churches used the bible to keep women "in their place" and deny the right to vote	Churches used the bible to justify lesser status of blacks	Churches use the bible to put down lgbt people

Most Christians, looking back at history, would be loathe to return to the days when black people were enslaved, aboriginal people were beaten down, women had no vote and so on. In other words, they now accept that history was right. Yet in today's current hot issue – the acceptance of gay and lesbian people, they fight and object and "stand firm".

fine print

What does it mean when a church says "everyone is welcome?" Or if an event brochure says that "Anyone and everyone... can come and enjoy!"?

Does it really mean anyone and everyone? Or are there exceptions?

I think there are some reasonable exceptions: for example, the person who comes to church only to hassle and intimidate their ex-spouse, or a satan-worshipper whose only reason for attending is to disrupt the congregation.

But what about the man who has poor social skills? Or the woman who tends to ask awkward questions during the discussion time? Or the young person who is defiant? Should they be excluded?


Whom would you be willing to exclude?

Ironically, many of the people who are on the "more likely to be excluded" end of the spectrum, are the kind of people Jesus hung out with...

chic

[mea culpa]

I would like to confess my prejudices which are known to me:

1.
The other day I heard the mental health hotline joke, which someone read from the web. It starts like this:

You have reached the mental health hotline.
If you have obsessive compulsive disorder, press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.
If you have multiple personality disorder, press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
and so on...

Then when they got to the line about dyslexia, I thought to myself, how would someone who has dyslexia feel about this? And only later did I ask myself, why didn't I ask myself that when I heard the line about OCD or co-dependency or MPD? Is it okay to make fun of people with mental health issues but not those with learning challenges? It seems that part of me at least partly thinks so some of the time (I say some of the time because if someone was actively and agressively making fun of someone with a mental illness, I would of course object. But many of our prejudices are more subtle in how they show their face).

2.
I came across an interesting article called Everything I Need to Know About Hospitality, I Learned from Molly Weasley which I was going to share on Facebook. I clicked on the author's name to read other articles she had written, and discovered that she is Mormon. And then I became reluctant to share the article.

In thinking about this, I determined that if the author was Jewish I would not have hesitated, and probably not either if she was Muslim. So why hesitate because she's Mormon?
 
3.
Finally, I realize that I have prejudices against a particular ethnic group. I would be okay interacting with an individual from that group, but that I hold misperceptions or stereotypes about that group. Some of this may have come from the Winnipeg neighbourhood where I lived during childhood, where there were many people from this group and where it bothered me that many of the men drove a particular sporty car (no, not a Lamborghini :-) while their families lived in run-down houses. I don't think there is a problem in being concerned about how people use their money, but retrospectively, I think that I judged them for it and that I did not understand the importance of the cars in their particular culture.

How about you? In what ways are you prejudiced against others?

Where's the line between friendly joking about something and hurtful joking?

closets

[not a joke]

In February 2012, Relevant Magazine posted an article called What Diversity Should Look Like by Matt Chandler. In discussing how differences make a community stronger, it looked at righteous and unrighteous, rich and poor, and race and ethnicity. After reading it, I posted a comment. Here is a screenshot of that comment with the subsequent reply from another reader, and my question back. Didn't hear back...

the decline of jesus

In honour of National Coming Out Day, I offer the following:

The Jesus I know, the Jesus I see in the Bible, identifies with the least of these. In His time here on earth, that would have been women, lepers, tax collectors and people classified as "sinners" by the religious people. In our modern 21st century culture, lgbt people are often the least of these... and Jesus would identify with them, walk with them, become one of them.

If someone is offended by this, perhaps he or she hasn't grasped how radical Jesus was in his day. Radical to the point of offending religious people. Perhaps they do not understand how Jesus broke social stigmas continually... and yet today, some Christians seem more interested in maintaining a religious status quo than following in Jesus' steps.

Become one of them?? Hmmm. Reminds me of the Apostle Paul saying that

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.

I Corinthians 9:19-22 NIV

Hugh Hollowell speaking about My Jesus is a 23-year-old lesbian:


The Jesus I Know from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.



Some words of clarification: After reading this post, someone suggested that it would be helpful if I clarified some things about the cartoon and the commentary. So here goes:

Remember that this is social commentary. So I'm mixing together the following here:

• an idea -- Jesus was gay -- which floats around in a few places in society (for the record, I don't believe this)
• the passage about the sheep and goats in Matthew 25, where Jesus says, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (verse 40)
• Jesus being called a drunkard and a glutton, and being called a friend of sinners
• Jesus giving up his power and his rights and becoming nothing
• the idea that we need to identify with those who are poor and oppressed and powerless, and not be afraid to be mistaken for one of them
• our contemporary culture where lgbt people are oppressed and at the margins.

So the result is the cartoon,with the idea that we see Jesus in the least of these ...

join the protest

Why do we not protest outside of seafood establishments? Why do we not excommunicate parishioners who dare to bring a shrimp ring to a church get together? After all, the Bible is pretty clear about seafood, and if we say we believe the Bible is the truth....

Obviously, we make choices about what parts are important and what parts aren't, what passages still apply to us and what passages don't.

So if we're choosing anyway, what stops us from choosing love?

Read another post about "why not choose love instead of hate."

[Ku Klux Clowns in East Tennessee]

Here's a great story of how hatred was met with humour:

Word had begun to spread that a group of white supremacists, including members of the KKK, were converging here in Knoxville, TN, holding a rally in a park downtown. It was in the news and papers. Many locals were pretty upset by the public display of racism and hatred. Even though many of the folks connected to the hate-group were coming from other states, they had obtained a permit to gather and publicly proclaim their hate-filled message of White Power.

But they had no idea what was coming.

A group of locals had decided neither to cower away in fear nor to fight fire with fire…. Instead they decided to meet hatred with humor.....

Read the rest of the story by Shane Claiborne.

This event has inspired a children's book White Flour by David LaMotte, which is available in hard cover and perhaps e-book format. Check out White Flour Book for more information, plus a copy of the poem, a video of the book's author reading the poem, and more.

what we're known for

It seems these days that at least in the public realm, Christians are often known more for their opposition to people, ideas and causes than for the love they show to others. And it just doesn't fit, does it...

How have we moved so far from the loving community seen in the book of Acts?

What can you and I do to make a difference?

[on giving money to people]

In my line of work (homelessness), the one thing you hear all the time is ”Don’t give people money”. It is a truism. It is universal.

I sometimes ignore it.

(Read the rest of the story in Hugh Hollowell's article on Giving money to homeless people)

Depending on where you live and work, you may or may not regularly meet people on the street who ask you for money. What do you do? What could you do differently? How should you respond?

Here are a small collection of articles to help you think more about this matter and about the men and women who cross paths with you.

---

The first four articles (and the one above) are by Hugh Hollowell, who ministers with the poor in Raleigh, North Carolina. I like his perspective on things and often share updates on Facebook from his blog or the Love Wins blog:

1.      Q and R: Panhandlers vs Homeless People

2.
"I recently pulled out of a parking lot and there was a line of panhandlers at the stop light. Is it OK to give them money?" In this short article, Hugh addresses this question including Jesus' instruction to 'give to everyone who asks.'
Panhandlers - do I give or not?

3.     How not to be taken advantage of by panhandlers

4.      This post is not about giving money to panhandlers

5.      A related article by Jon M. Sweeney:
Can You Spare the Bread? Should You?

6.      Hear it in their own words:
http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/

sparrows

[waited all his life]

It was a nice sunny day in Rapid City when the Indians took the platform in the riverside park near the convention center. Fully dressed in their regalia, or modified forms of it, were Lakota, Cherokee, Dine, Kiowa, Paiute, Mohawk, Apache and many other Indian people proclaiming that Jesus Christ is good news sent from Great Spirit for Indian people - and believing in Him is not a "white man's thing."

The old traditional looking Lakota elder with sunglasses and a cowboy hat approached my buckaroo elder brother and ask what was going on? My brother explained that these are Indians who believe they can serve Jesus Christ and be fully culturally Native American. The old man didn't say a word at first - but there was much about his silence that caused my brother to pay attention. Just when my brother noticed the tears collecting around the bottom edge of the elder's sunglasses, the man spoke a very simple phrase with heartfelt emotion and full conviction…he simply said this: "I've waited all my life for this day."

From Eagles Wings Ministry

Can you serve Jesus and be fully culturally Asian? Black? European? Aboriginal?

Do we recognize how our culture influences our perception of Jesus? And how for those of us who are white, white privilege means that we usually do not recognize how our culture influences us?

a god like us

The idea of looking for a god who looks like us will raise red flags for some christians. It smacks of that saying: "God created us in his image and we returned the favour."

However, there are times when the dominant view of God is too far from an individual's culture and context. At a service this past summer, two Aboriginal women talked about "finding a God who looks like them." They weren't looking to make a convenient god who does what they want and doesn't interfere with how they want to live their lives. They were looking for a God who was not the great white european god.

What do you think?

How has the God you believe in been filtered and painted by your culture or the dominant culture around you?

[Ask a transgender Christian]

Christian blogger and author Rachel Held Evans has a series of posts called "Ask a...". In this series she invites questions for the interviewees from her readers in advance, and then posts the answers a few days later.

I found the recent Ask a transgender Christian particularly valuable, as I know very little about this and also because Lisa (pictured at right) talks about the role that other Christians and churches played in her journey. I was particularly pleased to hear her mention her involvement in a small church in Vancouver "where the motto is “everyone is welcome…and we mean it.” And they do." The embrace they offer is quite remarkable and regrettably rare.

In introducing Lisa, Rachel writes:

Lisa was born in Colombia, grew up in California and moved to Vancouver, BC in the early 1970s to start a successful career as a graphic designer and photographer. After living for 25 years as a devoted husband and father, Lisa was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. She says this diagnosis was both a blessing and a curse. Though it offered an explanation for her years of struggle, confusion, and guilt, it did not offer any simple solutions. It would take another ten years before she could come to terms with the diagnosis. Lisa has written her autobiography, Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life, which is available on Amazon. She has given sensitivity workshops at Gay Christian Network, companies, high schools, and churches and hopes to do more in the future.

Lisa responded to your questions with thoughtfulness and honesty. I hope you learn as much as I did.

Click here to read this interview.

Other interviews in the series include:
Ask an Atheist
Ask a Feminist
Ask a Funeral Director
Ask a Humanitarian
Ask a Gay Christian
Ask a Muslim
Ask a Nun
and many more.

colour-blind society

The cartoon takes the literal meaning of "colour" and therefore allows the speaker to like a society with black people and white people, but not (for example) red people and green people.

In the real world, colour-blindness is generally meant to indicate that a person is blind to the race of others. This is sometimes presented as a positive, but can actually be a problem. As Derald W. Sue from the Teachers College at Columbia University writes,

I have come to realize that color blindness uses "whiteness" as the default key and mimics the norms of fairness, justice, and equity by "whiting" out differences and perpetuating the belief in sameness and equality. The denial of power imbalance, unearned privilege, and racial discrimination is couched in the rhetoric of equal treatment and equal opportunity. The pretense of not seeing color is motivated by self deception. To be colorblind not only denies the central importance of racial differences in the psychological experience of minorities (racism and discrimination), but also allows the White person to deny how his or her whiteness intrudes upon the person of color.

Read the rest of this short article online:
The Color Blind Society: Whiteness as the Default Standard

sandwich sunday

[man in black]

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who is long paid for his crime
But is there because he's a victim of the times

I wear the black for those who've never read
Or listened to the words that Jesus said
About the road to happiness through love and charity
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a Man In Black

I wear it for the sick and lonely old
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men

And I wear it for the thousands who have died
Believin' that the Lord was on their side
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died
Believin' that we all were on their side

Well, there's things that never will be right I know
And things need changin' everywhere you go
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right
You'll never see me wear a suit of white

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world that everything's okay
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back
Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black



"Man in Black" by Johnny Cash (from Man in Black album, 1971)
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

jesus dispenser

Dispensationalism. Here's a layperson's impression of it, based on years of attending churches some of which had dispensationalist leanings. In brief, the idea is that history (particularly history during the time of the Bible) is divided into dispensations. For example, the Old Testament is a different dispensation than the time that Jesus walked on the earth which is a different dispensation from today. Related to this is the idea that some things were only meant for certain dispensations. For example, Jesus did miracles, but they are not for our dispensation so we should not expect any today.

This cartoon takes dispensationalism one step further, with the idea that as we are not in the same dispensation as Jesus, we can dispense with whatever he said.

exchanged truth for a lie

Much easier to pick and choose whom we love and whom we hate, than to follow Jesus' way of loving. Yet don't we all desperately need to be loved, just as we are?

What prevents us from giving this gift to one another?

[like cool spring rain over the hot, parched wilderness]

An excerpt from Donald Spoto's The Hidden Jesus: A New Life, "contrasting the message of John the Baptist—a message of repentance and imminent judgement—with the message of Jesus, a message of "good news" and forgiveness" (Beck):

What was the reason for this urgent and positive action [in Jesus's ministry], so different from the tone of the Baptist's message and typical Jewish reasoning? The answer was clear from what Jesus began to say and to do almost immediately. He not only taught, he healed; he not only preached, he blessed, consoled and transformed lives. Not only was there good news for the poor, but for everyone. He was "a friend of tax collectors and sinners," and of the sick and possessed, the smug and the sedate, the demented and the lonely, the impolite and the unattractive--everyone who was unacceptable and every kind of outcast came within the reach of his saving embrace.

It was no longer a matter of people repenting of their oppression of the poor, receiving a baptism of water as a sign of that repentance and a desire for a newness of heart. Now—in everything that Jesus was saying and doing—God's mercy was washing over the world for everyone, like the sweep of a cool spring rain over the hot, parched wilderness.

As seen on Richard Beck's blog.

heavenly homonyms

Straight people. People in dire straits. People in straitjackets. People in Armani jackets.

Is there really that much difference between us?

Does the bouncer at heaven's gate let some in and keep others out? On what basis?

be careful little mouth (what you say)

Oops. This unfortunate ending could have been avoided by loving one's neighbour, don'tcha think?

[our lady of lourdes]

How's this for a welcome!

Here's the full text from the bulletin at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Parish in Daytona Beach, Florida:

We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, yo no habla Ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail or could afford to lose a few pounds.
 
We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or like our pastor who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re “just browsing,” just woke up or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s Baptism.
 
We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like “organized religion,” we’ve been there too.
 
If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.
 
We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts … and you!

source 1 source 2

special number

Pastor Stickman has invited a friend to be part of the worship service. An unexpected friend.

If you attend a church, what do you think would happen if this took place on a Sunday morning? The parishioners might be unsure how whether to applaud or not. Some might be shocked or outraged. And some who have read Bad Girls of the Bible might be quite pleased to meet Rahab in person.

But in general, while many Christian have heard Rahab mentioned in sermons, we don't expect her to be a hero if she showed up today, especially if announced as a prostitute. Now to be fair, there is some debate as to why she is referred to that way, considering that she was an innkeeper and likely made fabrics (based on the quantity of flax on her roof). But the Bible is full of stories of God using unlikely people to further His kingdom, so why not?

Why not indeed?

While I don't know of any Old Testament characters known for singing (aside from the woman in the song of solomon, perhaps), you can imagine what kinds of names might have popped into people's minds when the pastor first started speaking. Moses, Abraham, Sarah, Naomi, and other familiar ones. But today, the visitor is Rahab who protected the spies when they came to her city.  And because of what she did, she and all who were in her household were spared.

What might her song be?

Can you hear it?

ecclesia fishing

This is the third cartoon in the 'ecclesia' series. As in the other cartoons, it is Ecclesia who is speaking here, and not Jesus Christ the head.

(click on image for larger view)

[a reckless, scandalous expenditure]

What are the hallmarks of the ministry of Jesus Christ? Do we embody them? Here is what William Stringfellow says about this:

Perhaps it is helpful to notice a few things about the ministry of Christ. One is that the ministry of Christ is a ministry of great extravagance--of a reckless, scandalous expenditure of His life for the sake of the world's life. Christ gives away His life. The world finds new life in His life and His gift of His life to the world. His is not a very prudential life, not a very conservative life, not a very cautious life, not--by ordinary standards--a very successful life.

He shunned no one, not even adulterers, not even tax collectors, not even neurotics and psychotics, not even those tempted to suicide, not even alcoholics, not even poor people, not even beggars, not even lepers, not even those who ridiculed Him, not even those who betrayed Him, not even His own enemies. He shunned no one.

The words that tell of the ministry of Christ are words of sorrow, poverty, rejection, radical unpopularity. They are words of agony.

It seems ridiculous to apply such words to the ministry of churches nowadays. Yet where these words cannot be truthfully applied to the ministry of churches today they must then be spoken against the churches to show how far the churches are from being the Body of Christ engaged in the ministry of Christ in the world.

As posted on Richard Beck's blog post The William Stringfellow Project: A Private and Public Faith, Part 4. Stringfellow quote from "The Fear of God", chapter 4 of A Private and Public Faith.

love. period.

Pastor Stickman's first sermon, his first Sunday after inadvertantly outing himself. Quite a contrast to some of the things which he said previous to that point in time. Now he can be more open, more honest.

Love. Period.

What do you think? Is there something more to say?

Do you want to qualify love in some way? Put conditions or limits on it?

---

Previous pastor stickman cartoon

culture war

Are we in a culture war?

What cultures are involved?

On a friend's blog, Jarred posted a comment which speaks to this:

Jarred said...
Emily: I would encourage you to beware of the Middle Ground Fallacy when it comes to speaking of the "culture war." After all, only one "side" of the "culture war" thinks of it in terms of being a "culture war" and has invested much time and effort in painting the other "side" as thinking in the same terms and behaving accordingly. The other "side" thinks of it in terms of struggling to gain the same human dignity and legal protections for all people.
May 16, 2012 10:10 AM  (source)

So there is the question of, "are we really in a culture war" or are Christians just not happy about no longer being in power. There is also the reality of the gap between what pastors and denominations believe and what the parishioners believe, and correspondingly, what each is willing to "fight" for.

 Ironically, in a world where the dominant perception of Christians is that we are judgemental and anti-gay, many evangelicals are rushing to support and promote Chick-fil-A now that its owner has publically stated that his company is against same-sex marriage. That's sure to help everyone to see and know that Jesus loves them no matter what!!

---

More reading: Some words for Christians on both sides of the Chick-fil-A war by Rachel Held Evans.

[joel mckerrow :: confession for the white part in me]

"Joel McKerrow is an international touring performance poet, writer, educator, youth worker, thinker and activist based out of Melbourne, Australia. He is the founder of ‘The Centre for Poetics and Justice’ (www.cpj.org.au/), a not-for-profit, community arts organisation focused on using poetics as a form of literary education, self-expression and social engagement for marginalised teenagers." (from his website).

 What Joel confesses in these videos fits perfectly with this site, in terms of addressing marginalization and in terms of saying sorry for what has been done from positions of power and privilege. These are amazing videos -- both in terms of the confessions being made, the speaking of them, and the appropriately artistic videography.

The four videos in the series:
my confession part 1: for the white part in me (featured above)

my confession part 2: for the rich part in me

my confession part 3: for the Christian part of me

my confession part 4: for the masculine part of me

---

For those of you living near Edmonton, Joel will be part of an evening event on Thursday, August 2nd at the Bleeding Heart Arts Space.

just as we are

Last time: Pastor Stickman, at the first Sunday service after accidently outing himself, was unsure of what to say. A parishioner gave the traditional greeting of "The Lord be with you", and Pastor Stickman responded with "And also with you".

Somehow – and frankly, I don't know how – he is still the pastor! Many pastors in similar situations have been fired and blacklisted in their denominations. In his case, half the parishioners have left the church, but that's to be expected.

Those who have stayed have been encouraging him. Perhaps a card, or an email. Maybe some fresh muffins dropped off at the house. And he begins to understand more deeply that even in this the worst of times, God loves him. No longer the proud leader with all the answers, he needs the body of Christ that meets in this building. They need each other. We all need each other.

[the sacrament of friendship]

What does true friendship look like? What does it offer the other person? What expectations are involved?

Richard Beck has been reading A Private and Public Faith by Stringfellow, and says the following:

So what does this sacramental life look like? For Stringfellow one proxy is simply friendship. In this chapter he describes his relationship (Stringfellow was living in a Harlem tenement at the time) with a boy addicted to narcotics. Stringfellow discusses how various clergy and social workers had come to view this boy with suspicion, as a lost cause, as a waste of their time and effort. And Stringfellow agrees that the boy probably is a lost cause from those pragmatic and programmatic perspectives. And insofar as Stringfellow can help the boy he helps. But his central concern is simply being a sacrament of life in the world of this boy. To be a life-giving oasis. To bring resurrection where only death is at work. To being a friend.

He often visits me when he is free, and we have talked a lot together. I am not aware that I have ever told him that he has a bad and costly and very debilitating habit. He knows that better than I do. And while he and I have talked about how his habit might be controlled or even cured, our relationship is not contingent upon his breaking his addiction. Acceptance of another person is acceptance of the other as he is, without entailing any demands that he change in any empirical way. This boy is an addict, and while I would rejoice if he were freed from this affliction, that would not change or increase my acceptance of him as a person. And though I am not an addict, that makes me no better nor worse than he. I am not his judge. I am just his friend. (Stringfellow)

And that, according to Stringfellow, is the central and primary witness of the Christian in the world.


The sacrament of friendship.

Overall excerpted from Richard Beck's blog post The William Stringfellow Project: A Private and Public Faith, Part 4. Stringfellow quotes from chapter 4 of  A Private and Public Faith.

standard reply

This is the standard reply that many Christians use to apply to those who are—in their eyes—"sinners."

I saw this just the other day on a friend's blog. She had posted about generous spaciousness and the invitation to rest, and one of the comments from a reader went as follows:

Steven said...

"Jesus, it is well known, had dinner with the wrong kind of people, touched the wrong kind of people, had conversation with the wrong kind of people, went to the wrong places, triggered and exposed social taboos, broke dividing walls, and announced a new kind of level playing field."

And then He told them to "go and sin no more".

July 15, 2012 9:10 PM source

Perhaps someone should have told Jesus to "go and sin no more," considering he was associating with the wrong people....

Let's unpack this a bit.

First, the reader repeatedly refers to "the wrong kind of people" without explanation or quotation marks. Consider the difference between the following two sentences:

1. Jesus had dinner with the wrong kind of people. Generally speaking, unless someone says more to qualify this, it means that they believe that these were indeed the wrong kind of people and perhaps even that Jesus should not have been having dinner with them at all. Think of Simon the Pharisee seeing the woman who was wiping Jesus' feet with her hair and perfume, who then said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” (Luke 7:36-50 NIV).
2. Jesus had dinner with the "wrong kind" of people. The quotation marks indicate that while some think of these people as the wrong kind of people, the writer himself does not think so.

Not only does the reader not have quotation marks, but he makes no statements to indicate that he is in disagreement with these people being the wrong kind of people. Nothing is said about Jesus loving everyone regardless of what the general society thought of them, nor anything contrasting Jesus' treatment of them with how the religious people treated them.

And then we have the reader's statement that Jesus "told them to 'go and sin no more'." Biblically, we have only the account of the woman caught in adultery where Jesus says "go and sin no more." So to say "He told them" (emphasis added) is simply not correct. It takes personal bias and applies it to Jesus.

While I do not know the Steven who posted the comment, I would guess that most likely, he himself feels that these were the wrong kind of people for Jesus to be spending time with, and that perhaps exposing social taboos and breaking down dividing walls is not such a great idea.

A standard phrase like "go and sin no more" is pretty handy. I simply label someone as a sinner (based on the simple evaluation: are they like me, or not?) and then I tell them to go and sin no more. Black and white. No nuances. No consideration that perhaps we have different ways of understanding something, or different approaches.

But labelling someone and giving them a pat answer is not grace, it's not love, it's not compassion, and it's not what Jesus did.

Perhaps "go and sin no more" is one of those phrases that we should give up... forever.