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Restoring Love
The Gospel story from Matthew is filled with insiders and outsiders. Jesus walks through the story, everywhere he goes reversing the expectations of those on either side of the lines that have been drawn. This makes the story more interesting every step of the way. For example, there were boundaries drawn around folks like tax collectors (and other "sinners"), women with bleeding problems, and dead people as well. You knew you could make certain assumptions about them, and about what ought to (and could) happen to them. Tax collectors were hated for their participation in the system that oppressed the people; taxes are offensive enough in life, but theseguys were collecting them for the hated Roman Empire: "Tax collectors, then, were carp feeding off the river bottom of Roman rule. For Jesus to call a tax collector as a disciple would be as if he were today to call a political ward heeler in a bribery-saturated precinct, a narcotics detective on the take, a mafia don on the CIA payroll" (Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion). And it wasn't enough that Jesus called one of these "carp" away from his tax-collecting: he actually sits down and eats with them, something that is not just surprising, but "astonishing" to Richard Swanson: "Meals," after all, "are swaddled in rituals. Observant Jews, then and now, understand that meals center the world; they bring stability and joy back into an inhospitable world. But that means one must be careful, especially under the domination of Rome, with whom one eats" (Provoking the Gospel of Matthew). Perhaps we have lost this reverence for the sharing of meals and the meaning of sitting down and eating together. Perhaps our celebration of Holy Communion might be deeper and more sustaining if we experienced that meal as bringing "stability and joy back into an inhospitable world," rather than being a test of our membership, something from which outsiders are barred. Do we think about this enough?
Last Updated (Friday, 27 June 2008 15:30)
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Endorse the Statement of Conscience Against Torture at www.UCCAgainstTorture
The six conference ministers in the New England region of the UCC recently issued apastoral letter calling for an end to U.S.-sponsored torture. The UCC’s General Minister and President, Rev. John Thomas has also called for an end to torture. They are urging everyone to endorse the Statement of Conscience Against Torture developed by the National Religious Coalition Against Torture.
The conference ministers in the New England region are: The Rev. Jim Antal, Massachusetts; The Rev. Charles Barnes, Rhode Island; The Rev. Carole Carlson, Vermont; The Rev. Davida Foy Crabtree, Connecticut; The Rev. David R. Gaewski, Maine; The Rev. Gary Schulte, New Hampshire.
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June is Anti-Torture month. The issue of torture has been much in the news lately including questions about whether the U.S. should engage in torture. For Christians who believe that all human beings are made in the image of God, torture is unambiguously wrong. It harms the tortured person and also the torturer. Moreover, intelligence experts question whether information derived through torture is useful, and these practices degrade the standing of the U.S. in the international community and weaken its moral authority.
Last Updated (Friday, 30 May 2008 23:05)
Creation Continues
It's only human to want to tell the stories of who we are and where we came from, of what came before us that shapes who we are today and who we are becoming. These stories are voices in themselves, voices of protest and consolation, voices of clarity and courage. In The Luminous Web, Barbara Brown Taylor describes the shaping of the creation narrative of Genesis as a counter-cultural protest of the people of Israel against the creation story of their Babylonian captors. While their oppressors saw the origins of the universe as violent and bloody, the Israelites told their children a different story rooted in goodness and blessing. Light came from the deepest night, and order from chaos. The sun and the moon and the stars were set as signs of beauty and the changing of the seasons, providing light and direction and the keeping of time. God filled the earth with vegetation that was fruitful and nourishing, moved the waters back from the land and provided a home for the creatures that crawled across it, walked upon it, and flew over it. In the midst of this loveliness, humankind was tenderly placed and blessed and called to be caretakers and stewards. And God looked upon all this, and found it good.
Last Updated (Monday, 26 May 2008 16:17)
