Showing posts with label twist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label twist. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

benevolent king edward

 

According to the Google dictionary, 

benevolent means well meaning and kindly and has the following roots:

diagram shows roots of benevolent from Latin to Old French to Middle English. Details in main text.


Both parts are from Latin.

"bene" meaning well; "velle" meaning to wish. 

bene volent = well wishing

benevolent.

Something said about royalty, as in "He was a benevolent ruler."

As king, he acted in ways which showed he wished well upon his subjects.



But who needs Latin, when you can speak French.

The word "bene" is quite similar to the French "bien", which in English is "good"

The French word "volent" means to steal.

So benevolent could also mean "good thief"

Something also said about royalty, as in, "He was a good thief."

As in, the king was good at stealing. So good, that no one even thought of him as a thief. 

Not even when he stole millions of acres of land from Indigenous peoples around the world. Or when he stole the lives of millions of people by enslaving them...


Just something to think about ...

Friday, May 11, 2012

go and sin no more


The story of the woman caught in adultery is amazing at many levels, from the trap the teachers of the law and Pharisees were trying to set to Jesus' way of exposing them:
At dawn Jesus appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
John 8:1-11 , NIV
But today, instead of seeing how life-giving this encounter is (literally and spirit-ually for the woman), some Christians have taken the phrase "go and sin no more" as the new golden rule. This is how it works: they identify people as sinners, and they apply the rule.

But Jesus said this once to one person, in a passage which is not found in the earliest manuscripts.  As someone named candeux said in a blog comment, "For one thing, we rarely read of Jesus calling individuals to repentance. In the case of prostitutes, I wonder if he recognized that these women were not choosing to be prostitutes because they were sex-starved but because they were forced into it for economic reasons (probably because they were unsuitable for marriage for one reason or another) and thus were in need of love and care more than they were in need of repentance." (comment source)

He saw, and sees, each person for who they are and where they are at. But many churches seem to have trouble with that, and I wonder if Jesus today might use the phrase one more time, addressing the church and its actions and attitudes toward lgbt people:



May 25th postscript: I also recommend checking out Richard Beck's post with accompanying comments on the topic of "Go and sin no more."

Thursday, March 22, 2012

man's best friend


Once in a while, Pastor Stickman's resistance to wearing his reading glasses does him good.

And further to dog's love for us, the Archbishop of Canterbury has asked,
What difference would it make if I believed I am held in a wholly loving gaze which saw all my surface accidents and arrangements, all my inner habits and inheritances, all my anxieties and arrogances, all my history, and yet loved me wholly with an utterly free, utterly selfless love? And what difference would it make if I let myself believe that each person around me is loved and held in the same overwhelming, loving gaze, and that this love made no distinctions of race, religion, age, innocence, strength or beauty?
(as quoted in a sermon by Bishop Jane on March 4, 2012).
And that is what dog is like, loving us with an utterly free, utterly selfless love, no matter what, and wanting us to do the same for others.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

prodigal


Definitely not the story that Jesus told, and definitely not a picture of our heavenly Father who loves all his children.

Saturday, November 05, 2011

lost sheep


This cartoon puts a twist to the familiar parable of the lost sheep, found in the Gospels of Matthew 18 and Luke 15.

Here, the sheep is leaving the ninety-nine other sheep to go look for Jesus, who apparently (from all appearances) has left the building.

Have you ever felt like this, or done this? Perhaps some friends or family members have expressed such sentiments....

Why is this happening? Where did we as a church go astray, that some need to leave to go look for Jesus elsewhere?

Thursday, November 03, 2011

the narrow gate


Who's in and who's out? What overt or subtle signs are there indicating who is welcome?

When is it better to leave? Necessary to leave?

The narrow gate that leads to life is not always what people expect it to be.....