Some more thoughts, these on the topic of God, the Bible and peacemaking:
In the Bible we see Jesus in at least two ways: Jesus as the man who walked amongst us and Jesus as part of who God is.
It is, of course, the same Jesus and yet God has different roles God's playing in Jesus. Understand that: Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels may act differently than you see God portrayed in other places throughout the Bible.
In Jesus the man-god who walked amongst us, we have Jesus as role model, as shepherd, as example. THIS Jesus is our standard for how to live.
God is not our standard in that we are NOT to try to make ourselves into little gods. God's role is different than ours.
But Jesus came to show us how to live, Jesus came to teach us The Way.
1 Peter 2 tells us:
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.
"He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten; instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly.
God is the one who deals justly. It is God's to avenge. It is God's to decide who lives and who dies. THAT is God’s role, not humanity’s.
Jesus left us an example. NOT “how to be little gods,” but rather how to be whole humans. "To be perfect as God is perfect," meaning NOT that we should be like God making God-like decisions of life and death, but rather that we are to be completely whole human beings, living as we were designed to live.
And how is that? How do we know how to live?
Jesus. Jesus and our God-given reasoning.
Jesus the man-god who walked amongst us, teaching us to live peaceably. Teaching us NOT to kill our enemies but to love them. Teaching us to overcome evil with good.
And again, I would point out that it is this Jesus-man whom we've been commanded to obey and in whose steps we are to follow. We are told specifically in the book of Romans, “Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”
NOWHERE in the Bible do we have commands given to us to "go and kill those sinners." In ZERO places in the Bible are we thus commanded.
But we are commanded to love our enemies. To overcome evil with good.
Given that, on what possible basis would we break the command that we've been given in order to act out a command that we have NOT been given (ie, Kill Enemies – even be willing to kill their children)? Rather, we have been told specifically, "Vengeance is MINE, saith the Lord"?
Yes, God does appear to tell some Israelis a relatively few times to go and kill those people. But God has not told US to do so. We have no commands to do such in all of the Bible. Not one.
If we're going to start implying commands from examples in the Bible (which is what the violence-as-solution folk are doing), then shall I take it as a command that I should go and marry a prostitute (as Hosea did)? Shall I go throughout Louisville and kill all the firstborn males (as the Death Angel did in Egypt)?
There are examples in the Bible where it appears that God is telling people to kill children. Shall we do this? When shall we do it? When we hear voices telling us to kill children? When our gov’t tells us it’s time to kill children?
Do you see the horrifying problem with implying commands or license from actions that happen in the OT when no such command exists for you and for me?
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Jeff Street 2007
Goodness is stronger than evil,
love is stronger than hate,
light is stronger than darkness,
life is stronger than death,
victory is ours through him who loved us.
~Bishop Desmond Tutu
Happy Easter everyone!
If you'd like, you can see some of our joyful Easter mayhem at the Jeff Street blog or my flickr account.
Christ is risen! Risen in our hearts. Risen in our communities. Risen from the Holy Ground bursting forth in life for us all.
And, from the resurrected Christ, I offer these words (written by Paul in Romans, but a fair summary of some of Jesus' major teachings):
Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same regard for one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly; do not be wise in your own estimation.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all.
If possible, on your part, live at peace with all. Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."
Rather, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head."
Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.
~Romans 12:14-21
Christ is risen, indeed.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Thorny Issues
A story I found at commondreams.org, stating what should be obvious, if you think about it:
NEW YORK - The Bush administration’s plans to increase biofuel imports could add to the suffering of millions of impoverished peasants in Brazil and other developing countries, food rights and environmental groups say.”The benefits of biofuels cannot be achieved at the expense of food shortages and environmental degradation,” says Celso Marcatto, an activist associated with the U.S.-based anti-poverty organization, ActionAid, in Brazil.
ActionAid, like many other groups, fears that the growing U.S. demand for ethanol fuel could force agribusiness in Brazil to indulge in unhealthy competition for profits that might end up causing monopolies over farmlands and damage to the environment...
“The U.S. government should be thinking through a careful approach to biofuels based on diverse production of a mix of crops, including native grasses,” said ActionAid’s Karen Hansen-Kuhn in the United States.
Emphasizing that local ownership and sustainable agriculture must be considered as “crucial” elements of the United States’ biofuel policy, Hansen-Kuhn described Bush’s approach as a “headlong rush.”
Some researchers claim as well that investments in ethanol to fuel automobiles are driving price hikes in food products around the world...
=======
I'll repeat my common refrain, that others (like the Nearings in the post below) have been repeating for a while now: We must reduce our hyperconsumption or there will be painful consequences.
NEW YORK - The Bush administration’s plans to increase biofuel imports could add to the suffering of millions of impoverished peasants in Brazil and other developing countries, food rights and environmental groups say.”The benefits of biofuels cannot be achieved at the expense of food shortages and environmental degradation,” says Celso Marcatto, an activist associated with the U.S.-based anti-poverty organization, ActionAid, in Brazil.
ActionAid, like many other groups, fears that the growing U.S. demand for ethanol fuel could force agribusiness in Brazil to indulge in unhealthy competition for profits that might end up causing monopolies over farmlands and damage to the environment...
“The U.S. government should be thinking through a careful approach to biofuels based on diverse production of a mix of crops, including native grasses,” said ActionAid’s Karen Hansen-Kuhn in the United States.
Emphasizing that local ownership and sustainable agriculture must be considered as “crucial” elements of the United States’ biofuel policy, Hansen-Kuhn described Bush’s approach as a “headlong rush.”
Some researchers claim as well that investments in ethanol to fuel automobiles are driving price hikes in food products around the world...
=======
I'll repeat my common refrain, that others (like the Nearings in the post below) have been repeating for a while now: We must reduce our hyperconsumption or there will be painful consequences.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
The Good Life
I’ll interrupt the McKibben book review and discussion to harken back to an earlier attempt to spell out what it means to live a-right.
I’ve read and re-read Thoreau’s Walden and the Hubbards’ Payne Hollow, as well as what Wendell Berry and Gene Logsdon have had to say about living sustainably. One couple that I’ve been aware of but haven’t read have been the Nearings – Helen and Scott.
The Nearings were something akin to socialists, pacifists, distrusted the government and were leaders in a back-to-the-land movement before there was one. They are very interesting to read and read about.
In light of some of our previous conversations on Right Living, I would like to share a bit from the Nearings’ preface of their classic Living the Good Life:
When we moved to Vermont we left a society gripped by depression and unemployment, falling prey to fascism, and on the verge of another world-wide military free-for-all; and entered a pre-industrial, rural community. The society from which we moved had rejected in practice and in principle our pacifism, our vegetarianism and our collectivism. So thorough was this rejection that, holding such views, we could not teach in schools, write in the press or speak over the radio, and were thus denied our part in public education.
Under these circumstances, where could outcasts from a dying social order live frugally and decently, and at the same time have sufficient leisure and energy to assist in the speedy liquidation of the disintegrating society and to help replace it with a more workable social system?
…We decided these tasks could better be performed from a Vermont valley than from a large city or from some point outside the United States. As it turned out, we saved enough time and energy from the bread labor and the association required by our Vermont experiment to take an active though minor part in United States adult education and in the shaping of public opinion, at the same time that we were living what we regarded as a self-respecting, decent, simple life.
Although written in response to conditions in the 1930s, it sounds as cutting edge today as it did when it was published in 1954. Thoughts?
I’ve read and re-read Thoreau’s Walden and the Hubbards’ Payne Hollow, as well as what Wendell Berry and Gene Logsdon have had to say about living sustainably. One couple that I’ve been aware of but haven’t read have been the Nearings – Helen and Scott.
The Nearings were something akin to socialists, pacifists, distrusted the government and were leaders in a back-to-the-land movement before there was one. They are very interesting to read and read about.
In light of some of our previous conversations on Right Living, I would like to share a bit from the Nearings’ preface of their classic Living the Good Life:
When we moved to Vermont we left a society gripped by depression and unemployment, falling prey to fascism, and on the verge of another world-wide military free-for-all; and entered a pre-industrial, rural community. The society from which we moved had rejected in practice and in principle our pacifism, our vegetarianism and our collectivism. So thorough was this rejection that, holding such views, we could not teach in schools, write in the press or speak over the radio, and were thus denied our part in public education.
Under these circumstances, where could outcasts from a dying social order live frugally and decently, and at the same time have sufficient leisure and energy to assist in the speedy liquidation of the disintegrating society and to help replace it with a more workable social system?
…We decided these tasks could better be performed from a Vermont valley than from a large city or from some point outside the United States. As it turned out, we saved enough time and energy from the bread labor and the association required by our Vermont experiment to take an active though minor part in United States adult education and in the shaping of public opinion, at the same time that we were living what we regarded as a self-respecting, decent, simple life.
Although written in response to conditions in the 1930s, it sounds as cutting edge today as it did when it was published in 1954. Thoughts?
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Sacred Yard
Donna and I got to hear the wonderful Mitch Barrett in concert this last Friday. He did a beautiful job and I was especially moved by this old song of his. The greening of the yard, I suppose.
Sacred Yard, by Mitch Barrett
Outside in my front yard
I’ve got a plastic rooster and a Noah’s Ark
camel bells from a foreign land
crystal ball on a terra cotta stand
Jesus’ cross is hanging on a tree,
Tibetan prayer flags blowin’ in the breeze
rub my lucky yard gnome as you walk past
my concrete Buddha laughin’ in the grass
chorus:
Wipe your feet before you step from your car
you’re on hallowed ground you're in my sacred yard
Holy Water in the birdbath to wash your sins
now you’re forgiven, come on in
Got a silver star of David and a stained glass moon
sentimental objects hanging in my room
everything is sacred every breath of air
be careful what you’re thinking, every thoughts a prayer
It’s the ordinary people you talk to every day
incantations and prophecies from the mouths of babes
you can talk about the weather or the food you crave
it’s the feelings you project
and not the words you say
chorus:
Wipe your feet before you step from your car
you’re on hallowed ground you're in my sacred yard
Holy Water in the birdbath to wash your sins
now you’re forgiven,
and I'm forgiven,
we're all forgiven
come on in
You can listen to it and other songs at his website if you're so inclined.
Sacred Yard, by Mitch Barrett
Outside in my front yard
I’ve got a plastic rooster and a Noah’s Ark
camel bells from a foreign land
crystal ball on a terra cotta stand
Jesus’ cross is hanging on a tree,
Tibetan prayer flags blowin’ in the breeze
rub my lucky yard gnome as you walk past
my concrete Buddha laughin’ in the grass
chorus:
Wipe your feet before you step from your car
you’re on hallowed ground you're in my sacred yard
Holy Water in the birdbath to wash your sins
now you’re forgiven, come on in
Got a silver star of David and a stained glass moon
sentimental objects hanging in my room
everything is sacred every breath of air
be careful what you’re thinking, every thoughts a prayer
It’s the ordinary people you talk to every day
incantations and prophecies from the mouths of babes
you can talk about the weather or the food you crave
it’s the feelings you project
and not the words you say
chorus:
Wipe your feet before you step from your car
you’re on hallowed ground you're in my sacred yard
Holy Water in the birdbath to wash your sins
now you’re forgiven,
and I'm forgiven,
we're all forgiven
come on in
You can listen to it and other songs at his website if you're so inclined.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Watchful
“If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible…”
~George W. Bush
But that’s the problem for Mr. Bush, isn’t it? We, the people, know exactly who to hold responsible for the quagmire in Iraq.
Natural consequences are never fun when we’ve made poor decisions.
~George W. Bush
But that’s the problem for Mr. Bush, isn’t it? We, the people, know exactly who to hold responsible for the quagmire in Iraq.
Natural consequences are never fun when we’ve made poor decisions.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
A Midwinter Orange?
As we began looking at Bill McKibben's book, Deep Economy a couple of posts ago, I suggested that it looked like McKibben was setting up to suggest that our way of life is not sustainable. That we have "prospered" and been able to produce food for the ~7 billion of us only because of cheap fossil fuels and water.
But as time goes on, as the population continues to increase, and, as affordable fossil fuels and water begin to run out (whether that's sooner - ten years or less, or later - 100 years from now), both water and petroleum will go up in cost. Lacking affordable water and petrol - the two resources on which our economy is based - what will become of us?
McKibben addresses this, saying:
The "food system" has been made over in the name of efficiency and growth as much as any other: the average bite of food an American eats has traveled fifteen hundred miles [!! -dan] before it reaches her lips.
The self-sufficient all-around farms with which the colonists covered the continent have largely disappeared, at least outside of Amish country...
This being the case, one must wonder what happens when affordable petroleum goes away? If we can no longer purchase food from the other side of the world, will we be able to begin to produce and buy locally again?
We all know that the Industrialists will say, "Well, something will just replace petroleum - we'll still get our stuff..." even though no such replacement exists. But short of some answer to, "Where?," I have a difficult time taking such misplaced starry-eyed optimism seriously.
So, are we ready for winters without oranges or strawberries? Or will global climate change mean that we'll be able to grow oranges and year-round strawberries in our now-temperate zones?
Is there some reason to assume that it's not a big deal that we won't be able to buy food from around the world?
But as time goes on, as the population continues to increase, and, as affordable fossil fuels and water begin to run out (whether that's sooner - ten years or less, or later - 100 years from now), both water and petroleum will go up in cost. Lacking affordable water and petrol - the two resources on which our economy is based - what will become of us?
McKibben addresses this, saying:
The "food system" has been made over in the name of efficiency and growth as much as any other: the average bite of food an American eats has traveled fifteen hundred miles [!! -dan] before it reaches her lips.
The self-sufficient all-around farms with which the colonists covered the continent have largely disappeared, at least outside of Amish country...
This being the case, one must wonder what happens when affordable petroleum goes away? If we can no longer purchase food from the other side of the world, will we be able to begin to produce and buy locally again?
We all know that the Industrialists will say, "Well, something will just replace petroleum - we'll still get our stuff..." even though no such replacement exists. But short of some answer to, "Where?," I have a difficult time taking such misplaced starry-eyed optimism seriously.
So, are we ready for winters without oranges or strawberries? Or will global climate change mean that we'll be able to grow oranges and year-round strawberries in our now-temperate zones?
Is there some reason to assume that it's not a big deal that we won't be able to buy food from around the world?
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Pinecone Swirl
More quotes...
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
John Muir
We call upon the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon, that flow in our rivers and streams, that fall upon our gardens and fields, and we ask that they teach us and show us the way.
Chinook Blessing
Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
Langston Hughes
We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?
Wendell Berry
You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing.
Psalm 65:9-13
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
John Muir
We call upon the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon, that flow in our rivers and streams, that fall upon our gardens and fields, and we ask that they teach us and show us the way.
Chinook Blessing
Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
Langston Hughes
We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?
Wendell Berry
You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing.
Psalm 65:9-13
Star Moss
Spring is nearly upon us. I thought I'd share some photos of the emerging spring in my neck of the woods, along with some quotes to get you in the mood for rebirth.
It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for awhile and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space… and I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: You will outlive the bastards.
Edward Abbey
To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.
Helen Keller
Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. The very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. To be awake is to be alive. Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
Henry David Thoreau
It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for awhile and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space… and I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: You will outlive the bastards.
Edward Abbey
To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.
Helen Keller
Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. The very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. To be awake is to be alive. Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
Henry David Thoreau
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Can't Buy Me Love
From Jesus’ words on a different sort of economy, I’d like to move on to Bill McKibben’s thoughts on the same. McKibben has just released a book called Deep Economy that I’ve just begun reading and will likely be posting on in the coming days.
The gist of McKibben’s book is that there are three problems with our System as it exists.
1. It’s not sustainable
2. It’s not healthy
3. And even if it were either of these, it’s not working to make us happy
And it is this third point that he seems to focus on, at least in the initial pages. A few excerpts from the first chapter, where he is asking the question: Is more better?
In some sense, you could say that the years since WWII in America have been a loosely controlled experiment designed to answer this very question…in 1991 the average American family owned twice as many cars, drove two and a half times as far, used twenty-one times as much plastic, and traveled twenty-five times further by air than did the average family in 1951…the size of new houses has doubled since 1970, even as the average number of people in each one has shrunk…
And on McKibben goes, listing how much more Stuff we have and use and waste. He goes on to quote conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza who said that we have created not just the first middle class, but “the first mass affluent class in world history.”
To which, many of us would be inclined to think, “Well, that sounds like a good thing, right?” Maybe not.
McKibben then points out that, despite all this Stuff, we are less happy.
In 1946, the United States was the happiest country among four advanced economies; thirty years later, it was eighth among eleven advanced countries; a decade after that it ranked tenth among twenty-three nations, many of them from the third world…The percentage of respondents saying they were very happy peaked sometime in the 1950s and has slid slowly but steadily in the years since…
That’s not to say that getting richer caused these problems, only that it didn’t alleviate them. All in all, we have more stuff and less happiness. The experiment we’ve undertaken has yielded a significant, robust, and largely unexpected result.[emphasis, his]
Of course, between these quotes, he has offered much resourced material to support his claims and his approaching conclusion. That conclusion being:
The answer is interesting for what it says about human nature. Up to a certain point, none of what I’ve just said holds true. Up to a certain point, more really does equal better. [emphasis, his]…
And it wasn’t, as it turns out, just my anectdotal impression. In general, researchers report that money consistently buys happiness right up to about $10,000 per capita income, and that after that point the correlation disappears disappears.[emphasis, his]
That’s enough for now. I apologize because I’m almost certainly not doing justice to all the researched and reasoned commentary McKibben offers, but hopefully you get the idea.
His point is that being desperately poor and unable to feed yourself is miserable. But once you’ve reached that $10,000 annual amount, you’ve reached the zenith of happiness that money can buy.
You buy that?
The gist of McKibben’s book is that there are three problems with our System as it exists.
1. It’s not sustainable
2. It’s not healthy
3. And even if it were either of these, it’s not working to make us happy
And it is this third point that he seems to focus on, at least in the initial pages. A few excerpts from the first chapter, where he is asking the question: Is more better?
In some sense, you could say that the years since WWII in America have been a loosely controlled experiment designed to answer this very question…in 1991 the average American family owned twice as many cars, drove two and a half times as far, used twenty-one times as much plastic, and traveled twenty-five times further by air than did the average family in 1951…the size of new houses has doubled since 1970, even as the average number of people in each one has shrunk…
And on McKibben goes, listing how much more Stuff we have and use and waste. He goes on to quote conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza who said that we have created not just the first middle class, but “the first mass affluent class in world history.”
To which, many of us would be inclined to think, “Well, that sounds like a good thing, right?” Maybe not.
McKibben then points out that, despite all this Stuff, we are less happy.
In 1946, the United States was the happiest country among four advanced economies; thirty years later, it was eighth among eleven advanced countries; a decade after that it ranked tenth among twenty-three nations, many of them from the third world…The percentage of respondents saying they were very happy peaked sometime in the 1950s and has slid slowly but steadily in the years since…
That’s not to say that getting richer caused these problems, only that it didn’t alleviate them. All in all, we have more stuff and less happiness. The experiment we’ve undertaken has yielded a significant, robust, and largely unexpected result.[emphasis, his]
Of course, between these quotes, he has offered much resourced material to support his claims and his approaching conclusion. That conclusion being:
The answer is interesting for what it says about human nature. Up to a certain point, none of what I’ve just said holds true. Up to a certain point, more really does equal better. [emphasis, his]…
And it wasn’t, as it turns out, just my anectdotal impression. In general, researchers report that money consistently buys happiness right up to about $10,000 per capita income, and that after that point the correlation disappears disappears.[emphasis, his]
That’s enough for now. I apologize because I’m almost certainly not doing justice to all the researched and reasoned commentary McKibben offers, but hopefully you get the idea.
His point is that being desperately poor and unable to feed yourself is miserable. But once you’ve reached that $10,000 annual amount, you’ve reached the zenith of happiness that money can buy.
You buy that?
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Jesus on Economics and Religion, Part 2
Luke 12:16-34
And He told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man was very
productive.
"And he began reasoning to himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since
I have no place to store my crops?'
"Then he said, 'This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns
and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my
goods. 'And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry."'
"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is
required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?'
"So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich
toward God."
And He said to His disciples, "For this reason I say to you, do not
worry about your life, as to what you will eat; nor for your body, as
to what you will put on.
"For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
"Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no
storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds!
"And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life's
span?
"If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry
about other matters?
"Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but
I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one
of these.
"But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today
and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You men of little faith!
"And do not seek what you will eat and what you will drink, and do
not keep worrying.
"For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but
your Father knows that you need these things.
"But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly
to give you the kingdom.
"Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money
belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys.
"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
The Word of the Lord.
Thoughts? Comments? Cutting remarks?
And He told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man was very
productive.
"And he began reasoning to himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since
I have no place to store my crops?'
"Then he said, 'This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns
and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my
goods. 'And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry."'
"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is
required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?'
"So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich
toward God."
And He said to His disciples, "For this reason I say to you, do not
worry about your life, as to what you will eat; nor for your body, as
to what you will put on.
"For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
"Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no
storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds!
"And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life's
span?
"If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry
about other matters?
"Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but
I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one
of these.
"But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today
and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You men of little faith!
"And do not seek what you will eat and what you will drink, and do
not keep worrying.
"For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but
your Father knows that you need these things.
"But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly
to give you the kingdom.
"Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money
belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys.
"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
The Word of the Lord.
Thoughts? Comments? Cutting remarks?
Monday, March 12, 2007
Doin' Justice...
My church is part of an organization (started by members of my church) called CLOUT - Citizens of Louisville Organized and United Together. It is a Direct Action justice group.
We have a great Op-Ed piece in the local paper today. Check it out:
http://jeffstreet.blogspot.com/2007/03/doin-justice.html
We have a great Op-Ed piece in the local paper today. Check it out:
http://jeffstreet.blogspot.com/2007/03/doin-justice.html
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