- How many sins does it take to make you a sinner?
- How many good things should you do to make up for your sins?
- Are you a good person?
- What do you need to do to become a good person?
- What can you do to live more like God would want?
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
A test for you all...the youth will be checking on your answers when we get home.
Monday, July 16, 2012
In one of our communion liturgies we speak a phrase:
The layers of issues surrounding hunger and homelessness can certainly create hopelessness. Addiction is a problem. Poor choices abound. But...or should I say BUT...we have forgotten to address the people in our rush to talk about/condemn the issues. We met a man who became homeless at 51. Having been addicted to crack cocaine for a very long time, our assumption might be that it was bound to happen...that he deserved what he got because of his choices...that those of us making good/right/smart choices shouldn't be expected to pick up his pieces.
Except. Except we cannot forget the rawness of the earth. This gentleman...this gentle man...grew up in a middle class home, in a middle class neighborhood. His father left the family when he was a child. His mother, assuming that the middle class lifestyle was the "right thing" for her three children, worked two full time jobs in order to keep their house and feed her children. What our gentle friend missed was "parenting." When he graduated from high school in 1972, he got a great job in construction, made good money, and was able to care for himself.
Except. Except we cannot forget the rawness of the earth. He had no life skills. He had no idea how to save money, invest, or budget. He had little moral center; like most young adults, the primary motivating factor in his life was "fun." His greatest strength, what he describes as "softness," what I would describe as empathy, was judged by his peers a weakness and he learned to fight instead. The community he so craved as a child, having to wait until he was 13 and could cross the street to reach the group of teens that hung out there, was the community that introduced him to pot. That community, another group of kids who had little supervision, the "fun" community of his young adulthood, brought the cocaine into his life. "It's great. Try it. It'll be fun."
We cannot forget the rawness of the earth. What makes this man different from the Kennedy kids that used drugs? from the kids in my church and my neighborhood? from my own child? Because we, mostly, have connections, resources, guidance. We had the financial means to have good insurance for rehab, for education, for lawyers, and for second chances. We have communities that hang in there with us even when we are hanging ourselves.
We cannot forget the rawness of the earth...except when we are at the richness of the table. Our tables are indeed rich. Think yours is not? Where are you looking? If I look at Mitt Romney's life, then my Ikea table looks pretty plain indeed. If I look at the life of the homeless, my table is exquisite. Even our communion tables are rich for those of us at the table. Are we set apart in our own minds or in our tradition as special, saved, redeemed? God certainly loves us, of that we are certain. God could love those homeless as well if they could get their act together and come into the church and share the table with us. Maybe some day. In the meantime, we congratulate ourselves on our hard work and achievement, on our luck and deserving rewards. In the meantime, we can sit back and judge ourselves worthy and others scandalously "lazy" or "troubled" or any other adjective that describes their underserving selves.
Except. Except...as the people of God, gifted with grace and redemption through none of our own doing or deserving...
Except...as the people of God, called to participate with God in the bringing of God's kingdom into the here and now...and God's kingdom doesn't include homeless or hungry for any reason...
Except...as the people of God seated at the richness of God's table, we cannot forget the rawness of the earth...having been fed, we must do something.
Lord God, as we come to share the richness of your table, we cannot forget the rawness of the earth.Oh, but we can...and we do. I fully intended to blog on the mission trip week, but they completely exhausted us with the heat and the schedule...but mostly the "rawness of the earth" with which we were expected to interact. When we finally did get home, fix supper and clean up, "collapse" was the only verb we could remember or use. Gratitude was the noun. For our accommodations, which would have sent the Travelocity Gnome into hyper-drive, were kingly compared to our brothers and sisters on the streets with no respite from the hunger or the heat.
The layers of issues surrounding hunger and homelessness can certainly create hopelessness. Addiction is a problem. Poor choices abound. But...or should I say BUT...we have forgotten to address the people in our rush to talk about/condemn the issues. We met a man who became homeless at 51. Having been addicted to crack cocaine for a very long time, our assumption might be that it was bound to happen...that he deserved what he got because of his choices...that those of us making good/right/smart choices shouldn't be expected to pick up his pieces.
Except. Except we cannot forget the rawness of the earth. This gentleman...this gentle man...grew up in a middle class home, in a middle class neighborhood. His father left the family when he was a child. His mother, assuming that the middle class lifestyle was the "right thing" for her three children, worked two full time jobs in order to keep their house and feed her children. What our gentle friend missed was "parenting." When he graduated from high school in 1972, he got a great job in construction, made good money, and was able to care for himself.
Except. Except we cannot forget the rawness of the earth. He had no life skills. He had no idea how to save money, invest, or budget. He had little moral center; like most young adults, the primary motivating factor in his life was "fun." His greatest strength, what he describes as "softness," what I would describe as empathy, was judged by his peers a weakness and he learned to fight instead. The community he so craved as a child, having to wait until he was 13 and could cross the street to reach the group of teens that hung out there, was the community that introduced him to pot. That community, another group of kids who had little supervision, the "fun" community of his young adulthood, brought the cocaine into his life. "It's great. Try it. It'll be fun."
We cannot forget the rawness of the earth. What makes this man different from the Kennedy kids that used drugs? from the kids in my church and my neighborhood? from my own child? Because we, mostly, have connections, resources, guidance. We had the financial means to have good insurance for rehab, for education, for lawyers, and for second chances. We have communities that hang in there with us even when we are hanging ourselves.
We cannot forget the rawness of the earth...except when we are at the richness of the table. Our tables are indeed rich. Think yours is not? Where are you looking? If I look at Mitt Romney's life, then my Ikea table looks pretty plain indeed. If I look at the life of the homeless, my table is exquisite. Even our communion tables are rich for those of us at the table. Are we set apart in our own minds or in our tradition as special, saved, redeemed? God certainly loves us, of that we are certain. God could love those homeless as well if they could get their act together and come into the church and share the table with us. Maybe some day. In the meantime, we congratulate ourselves on our hard work and achievement, on our luck and deserving rewards. In the meantime, we can sit back and judge ourselves worthy and others scandalously "lazy" or "troubled" or any other adjective that describes their underserving selves.
Except. Except...as the people of God, gifted with grace and redemption through none of our own doing or deserving...
Except...as the people of God, called to participate with God in the bringing of God's kingdom into the here and now...and God's kingdom doesn't include homeless or hungry for any reason...
Except...as the people of God seated at the richness of God's table, we cannot forget the rawness of the earth...having been fed, we must do something.
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