I was in
desperate need of some spiritual stimulation and today produced plenty and more...
First was church with Father Bob at Wake Forest - The image of the full threshing floor from our reading today (Joel 2: 23-32) led to a sermon about the old ways of processing wheat, separating the wheat from the chaff. Around the threshing floor, there is a short wall to hold in the grain. The grain is tossed up over and over again and the wind, blowing across the top of the wall, carries away the bad stuff while the good falls back to the floor. Father Bob shared that sometimes he feels like one of those seeds being tossed up and down and is getting really tired, but the wind (often used to symbolize the holy spirit) blows across the top of that wall and carries off those things that interfere with the core of what we are/what God calls us to be. The anxieties, worries, fears, imperfections are not who we are, they are what weigh us down - and God tosses us up and down and the holy spirit wind strips it away from us. We can access that wind through prayer and time with God.
Father Bob also taught us all a breathing prayer inspired by the gospel reading today (Luke 18:9-14). As you sit, breath in and think "Jesus, Son of God" and as you exhale think "Have Mercy on me, a sinner" over and over and let God carry away everything else.
Disorganized notes from hearing Marcus Borg (an incredible Episcopal theologian and one of the Jesus Seminar Scholars), and my reflections afterward
Reading (Matthew) law of love, that first and great commandment God told us to love Him first, and to love each other.
What does it mean to be a Christian - To love God and to Love what God Loves
What does God love?
God so loved the WORLD that he gave his only son
God loves the world
and not the world as it is, but as it can be.
(Robert Frost "Has a lover's quarrel with the world" and maybe that's true of God, of us, as well)
God doesn't just love you and me - or people who think like me, or even just "human beings," but the whole world and everything in it.
As we were leaving, I realized that Marcus Borg didn't use Jesus to define Chrisitanity - many would define Christianity as the Followers of Christ - do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God? Born of a virgin Mary? yadda yadda yadda
Love God, and Love what God Loves (aka, the world)
According to Borg, that is what it means to be Christian
This message is what Jesus was teaching - but is there a difference between defining oneself as a "follower of Jesus" and one who "accepts Jesus as the Son of God"
If someone who loves God and Loves what God Loves is christian - muslims, jews, etc can all be considered christian... takes away all that junk that isn't essential. was mary a virgin? was Jesus divine? Is there a heaven? Hell? Devil? Is homosexuality a sin? What is the relationship of the trinity? Have you been "saved" are we all saved? Do we need saving?
Love God and Love what God Loves
i love it.
