James 2:15-16 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?
When someone says “I’ll pray for you” one of my common internal reactions is a kind of sarcastic “that’s nice.” I suppose it’s because I often don’t believe that the person is really going to stop and spend any real time in prayer for me. What I hear in the statement is not “I’ll pray for you,” but rather “well, good luck with that.”
As I am honest with myself my cynical attitude is mostly addressed to my own inconsistency in following through on prayers for others and making prayers turn into concrete help.
Lord, continue to move me toward authentic living.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Blessed are the Poor
James 2: 5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7 Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?
I first met George Baldwin in the 1980’s when I was in Seminary at Drew Theological School in Madison NJ. At that time in his life he was living in Nicaragua with a farm co-op. Because he as American and spoke good English he had been sent to lobby congress to stop funding the Contras in their terrorist war against the people of Nicaragua. While he was in the area he toured the local seminaries telling his story of life and ministry.
Rev. Baldwin had been raised in Montana and served in local churches there for a few years before going on to teach at the seminary level. A spiritual crisis hit him in his midlife and he began to see that his faith and his life were not in harmony. He decided that he needed to be the rich young ruler who sold all his possessions and gave them to the poor. So he moved to live and work with the poor of Central America.
"It’s easy being a Christian in Nicaragua. It’s up here in the U.S. where it is hard. In Nicaragua no one has much of anything and what they do have they share freely with their neighbors. It is only up in North America that we are so protective of our wealth that we can’t live into the Kingdom of God."
Luke 6:20 20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
I first met George Baldwin in the 1980’s when I was in Seminary at Drew Theological School in Madison NJ. At that time in his life he was living in Nicaragua with a farm co-op. Because he as American and spoke good English he had been sent to lobby congress to stop funding the Contras in their terrorist war against the people of Nicaragua. While he was in the area he toured the local seminaries telling his story of life and ministry.
Rev. Baldwin had been raised in Montana and served in local churches there for a few years before going on to teach at the seminary level. A spiritual crisis hit him in his midlife and he began to see that his faith and his life were not in harmony. He decided that he needed to be the rich young ruler who sold all his possessions and gave them to the poor. So he moved to live and work with the poor of Central America.
"It’s easy being a Christian in Nicaragua. It’s up here in the U.S. where it is hard. In Nicaragua no one has much of anything and what they do have they share freely with their neighbors. It is only up in North America that we are so protective of our wealth that we can’t live into the Kingdom of God."
Luke 6:20 20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Not just hearing or knowing
This from Robin Meyers:
Knowledge is not redemptive. Indeed, sometimes we can know the truth, and it will not set us free. Ask a smoker, for example, if he knows that tobacco is addictive and death-dealing, and he will say yes. Ask a cheating spouse if he or she knows what the affair could cost, and the answer is yes. Ask a teenager if she knows what drugs and alcohol can do to destroy her future, and she will almost always say, “Yes, I know.” Obviously “knowing” is not enough, and one of the great divides in the church could be overcome if we got one thing straight: the truth of which Jesus speaks is wisdom incarnate, not intellectual assent to cogent arguments made on behalf of God. Indeed, a quick glance around this broken world makes it painfully obvious that we don’t need more arguments on behalf of God; we need more people who live as if they are in covenant with Unconditional Love, which is our best definition of God.
Knowledge is not redemptive. Indeed, sometimes we can know the truth, and it will not set us free. Ask a smoker, for example, if he knows that tobacco is addictive and death-dealing, and he will say yes. Ask a cheating spouse if he or she knows what the affair could cost, and the answer is yes. Ask a teenager if she knows what drugs and alcohol can do to destroy her future, and she will almost always say, “Yes, I know.” Obviously “knowing” is not enough, and one of the great divides in the church could be overcome if we got one thing straight: the truth of which Jesus speaks is wisdom incarnate, not intellectual assent to cogent arguments made on behalf of God. Indeed, a quick glance around this broken world makes it painfully obvious that we don’t need more arguments on behalf of God; we need more people who live as if they are in covenant with Unconditional Love, which is our best definition of God.
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