Seriously, what happened to love? I mean what happened to love from the so-called “Christians”?
Everyone has gotten so cranky lately!
I am hanging with an elder of a church, a Harvard MBA , and he is bitching about Spring coming. I ask him why? “Cause my next door neighbors will be getting out their BBQ!” “So what’s a little hickory smoke between neighbors?” “Because they are faggots get it!….And I don’t want to see any faggotry.!” “What are they going to do ?” I ask. “Use French dressing rather than BBQ sauce?”
I am in Washington, DC and this Christian lady who started a state family institute and golfs with a Republican Ex-President starts screaming, I mean really screaming as we get to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. I don’t pay much heed as I am studying the controversial “likeness” issue of MLK.
I am a little disappointed by the likeness of him, but still overwhelmed by the beauty of the overall Memorial . I am looking at the quotes and the walls….opp’s she’s still screaming. “What’s going on?” I said. “He cheated on his wife! Cheated! Stop studying him, he has God to answer to!” “Are you forgetting all the good he has done?” “History is not to judge him, only God! “Than I suggest you leave that to God and stop getting your panties in a bunch.”
And it was such a beautiful sunny day.
With all this spring weather, it looks like the bears of winter are coming out of hibernation and raising a stink. All of them are rattling on about the Supreme Court hearing on same sex marriage, and seem to have forgotten that we live in a country where the Bill of Rights gives us a lot of liberty to either love or hang ourselves.
How is this “screaming mimi” behavior the Gospel of love? When asked by the Pharisees what was the greatest commandment, Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, “Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
We can not seem to get out of our own way, our prejudice, and our cruelty. Too often, God becomes our excuse. We need the Holy Spirit to inflame our culture with righteousness and Truth. We need to allow the Spirit to get things right. We can’t seem to. After all,”… the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
The only good news in that Jesus would not have been associated with such malicious behavior. Good thing He is not a part of this.
In fact, Jesus never called himself a Christian.
Indeed.
Back in the innocent “Jesus People” days of the 70’s, we used to sing a song: “They’ll know we are Christians by our love”. We need to learn that lesson again.
How will people recognize the true Christian church? Jesus Himself tells us two ways: John 13:35: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Another is John 17:21: “that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” In a word, unity.
Why don’t people see Christ in us? Because the American church of the 21st century doesn’t clothe itself in Christ. We are a divided and divisive group of whiners and judgers, just as you described, David. It’s nowhere near what Jesus expects of us.
Love your enemies? We don’t even love our friends the way Jesus taught us to.
And what’s with this fundamentalist obsession with sex? Count the number of references to love and justice in scripture compared to sexual sin. It’s not even close. God obsesses over justice; we ignore it in our attempts to purify the country. Could there be some latent twisted prurient fetish that makes “Christians” fixate on sex while most of the world’s children go to bed hungry and die of preventable diseases?
What would Jesus do? The same thing He did when he came to Jerusalem at the start of Holy Week: He’d weep over us.
Rick –
Wow! What a great comment…..and you bring up a great point, why are Christians obsessed about sex and judging people on sex?!
I have to smile when you bring up the 70s and being clothed today in Christ….the church definitely needs those clothes!
There are the hungry and the sick, yes and we must care for them! But I have seen too many friends die at their own hand this past year.
I often think if only they have known the love that I know! But it is so hard to see that love in the smoke of the fire and brimstone that seems to be so part of congregational culture.
As always, thanks for your mighty contribution to the conversation. The hate mail seems to come to me through private email LOL!
Hope you are well!
God Bless!
David