Thoughts and Musings from My Faith Journey
“Jesus Christ was recklessly charitable,” so begins a fascinating article on what happened when some Dominican Friars opened up their priory restrooms to protestors in need during the recent Women’s March on Washington. This small act of charity pushed both sides outside their comfort zones but ultimately allowed the friars to share their faith. Their example is one all churches should take to heart.
The article is well worth your time: https://goo.gl/P0FzMi
Shane Claiborne spent time with Mother Teresa and affectionately refers to her as Momma T. Today’s voice of the day comes from her via him:
“Following Jesus is simple, but not easy. Love until it hurts, and then love more.” — Mother Teresa as quoted by Shane Claiborne,The Irresistible Revolution, Updated and Expanded: Living as an Ordinary Radical (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), 124.
Our next Church Council Meeting will be held Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 6:15 p.m. in room 200.
I’m reading The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne for an upcoming district meeting. Today I came got to the part with this quote that describes so much of what I post on this blog:
Sometimes we speak to change the world; other times we speak to keep the world from changing us. — Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution, Updated and Expanded: Living as an Ordinary Radical (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), 20, 110.
So if you find yourself disagreeing with something I say here, remember that rather than trying to change you, I may be just trying to make sure the world doesn’t change me. Thanks for your tolerance and patience.
*Shane states that Elie Wiesel taught him this, but I’ve been unable (despite the awesome power of the internet) to trace the quote back to Wiesel.
This morning, apparently referencing the controversy over refugees, Franklin Graham (son of Billy Graham) tweeted the following:
“Why do you lock your doors at night? Not because you hate the people on the outside, but because you love the people on the inside so much.” — Franklin Graham. Twitter Post. February 9, 2017, 7:16 a.m.
On the surface, this is an admirable sentiment, but in the context of the current controversy, there are so many things wrong with this biblically and theologically that I didn’t know where to begin. So I decided just to go with the flow of the metaphor: I also lock my doors at night not because I hate the people on the outside, but because I love the people on the inside so much. Nonetheless, if my neighbor comes to my door fleeing a murderous religious fanatic, I unlock the door and let them in. Furthermore, according to Jesus, anyone in need is my neighbor.
Link: https://twitter.com/Franklin_Graham/status/829680292290056192
A reminder that came up at last night’s Mission and Outreach Committee meeting: pencils for school kits need to be unsharpened. Unfortunately, UMCOR cannot accept sharpened pencils. If you already donated sharpened pencils, fear not, we’ll find a good cause or use for them.
We all know that God calls, indeed commands us to love one another. The question is how to go about it. To answer that question I want to share a bit of advice from C. S. Lewis:
The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.
But this has to be done for the right reason. As Lewis goes on to note:
There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity [Christian love], but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his ‘gratitude’, you will probably be disappointed. — C. S. Lewis, “Charity,” in Mere Christianity (1952).
The movie Hidden Figures will be shown at 7:00 p.m. tonight (Monday, February 6, 2017) and tomorrow with a 2:00 p.m. showing on Wednesday. The movie is a “biographical drama” set in 1961 and based on the lives of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, who were African-American mathematicians at NASA. If you haven’t yet seen it, Jenny and I heartily recommend it. While not an overtly religious movie, it deals issues of justice that are close to God’s heart.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), the German theologian executed by the Nazis for his role in a plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler, prayed the following prayer.
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray,
And to concentrate my thoughts on you:
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness,
but with you there is light;
I am lonely;
but with you there is help;
I am restless,
but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness,
but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me. …
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me so to live now
that I may answer before you and before me.
Lord, whatever this day may bring
Your name be praised. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer as quoted by Jonathan Aitken, Prayers for People under Pressure (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008), 190.
Amen.
Hat Tip: Rev. Amy Lippoldt
Today’s voice of the day is an inspiring quote from C. S. Lewis:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else. — C.S. Lewis, “They Asked For A Paper,” in Is Theology Poetry? (London: Geoffrey Bless, 1962), 164-165.
Bishop Bruce R. Ough, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, has issued a statement addressing the recent executive order on refugees and immigrants. He was blunt:
The biblical witness is clear and unambiguous.
Walls are unbiblical. Hospitality is biblical.
Denying one’s neighbor is unbiblical. Welcoming the stranger is biblical.
He’s correct. We may not want to hear it, but God has been quite clear. To give just one example, Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” (Matthew 10:40).
You can read the whole statement here: https://goo.gl/hcYkfO