This past Sunday's readings reminded us of the significance of the Law to the Jewish people, and the limitations of that Law with respect to the new order Jesus came to institute on earth. Jesus's law is a law of love, a law that honors relationship first and foremost, a law that goes deeply inside of us, requiring us to consider others in every single thing we do. Or don't do, as the case may be.
Reflecting on Jesus's new order, Presbyterian minister Mark Sandlin has proposed a list of the "10 Things You Can't Do While Following Jesus" -- not a complete list, but (as the song goes), a very good place to start. To consider his list in "The God Article" and see if it corresponds to your own, click here. We'd love to hear your comments.
Article source
Image source
I actually thought that the most interesting thing about the article were the comments. The author has a clearly left-wing perspective; in the comments, those who raised questions about what he meant by each comment were ignored, whereas those who praised him effusively got happy replies. The hate directed at individual Christians who had engaged in behavior others didn't like was used to justify a hatred of religion, which is simplistic and sad. Others deteriorated into sarcasm and hate-based politics without addressing those who pointed out that simply because someone has different conclusions about the best way to achieve peace and to meet the greatest basic needs for the most people doesn't mean that they want less altruistic outcomes.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I've worked in government, I've seen its gross inefficiencies, I question whether government control of health insurance will actually result in the greatest good. That questioning doesn't mean that I want to "deny" health care to anyone. If people would actually engage in conversation in which they seek to truly question and learn, our entire society (government, politics, and churches included) would be better. Instead, there's a demonization of the "other" and the comments to this article showed that the article itself did nothing to promote meaningful dialogue.