Genderless

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Am reading Altars of the World, Barbara Taylor Brown, which enriches my walk with God. In my internet browsing afterward, I came across spiritual books by Sue Monk Kidd. She has embraced a feminist theology. I have always been afraid of this because I fear the goal of feminist "theology" is to reinvent God. So much of it seems to be focused more toward feminism (and so am I, to a point) than toward God (which is my ultimate focus). I have no desire to reinvent God. I have known him far too long to want to make him into someone who fits my idea of a perfect god. He is already perfect in ways beyond my comprehension.

If I am to reinvent, I want to reinvent myself into a more Christlike woman. (Actually, this is what Jesus does. I just need to not resist. "Open my eyes, Lord, that I may see. Open my ears, Lord, that I may hear.")

But I do know that I agree that God is genderless. He created us in his image, male and female. I could call God her and be just as correct as calling Her him. God is genderless or at least both genders. In that regard, I, too, am genderless. I always have been in regard to the way I think and identify. I didn't know women were expected to be different and were treated differently until I was a young adult woman and found that the workplace discriminated against women.

Maybe I can tread lightly and gain a little understanding of a feminist's point of view -- Kidd's, that is. I need to remove this fear of "religion for feminists" and look for God in all things, wherever She may be. After all, I should know He is there. (I will stop short of calling God a "goddess." To me, God is sufficient for God, just as man (mankind) is sufficient to include me.

It's time to grow some more. Thank you, Lord, for helping me overcome my prejudices against my own kind. This has been a long journey, Lord, (more that 50 years) to find where I, a woman, fit into your plan. I am blessed to have lived long enough to travel this far. I know I cannot now go back. I am coming forward, and soon I will meet you face to face.

A short thought

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It occurs to me that when I die, I will look back and say "There were things I still wanted to try or do," but in the very next breath I will say "Thank you dear God that I have seen so much, sampled so much, and touched so much," and that will be the absolute truth. God has been so good to me and given me such a blessed life. I am so thankful to know He was there beside me through it all.

Christians and Muslims

Lauren and I have this discussion about the horror happening today brought on by Islamic terrorists. He says, It's their religion. It is violent. I say, But Christianity has had its own violence, too. There is violence in the Old Testament. The Crusades were violent. I say most, or at least many American Islamics want peace.

Now, I think there are two things going on here. Secular thought and religious thought - two universes, in a way, even though there is really only one. There are Christians who want peace and there are Muslims who want peace. Neither of these have to be religious. They are just seeking a moral and peaceful way to live. And within this same world, there are those who will take Islam and Christianity to wage terror on the world. They do not want peace. They do not want God. They want power, annihilation, evil, destruction, control.

Then there is the religious realm. I can't speak to the Muslim way of life, but I expect they are reaching to God for their everyday needs and showing a worshipful obedience to what they know because this is how you live a good and satisfying life. I can't speak to how God sees them.  I think there are Christians like that, too. I can't speak to how God sees them (or us). God handles people the way He handles them. It is not up to me to say what God does. And then there is Jesus and John 3:16, and there is self sacrifice for the Lord, there is loving God with all our hearts and minds and loving our neighbor as ourselves, where we come to the realization that He matters more than we do.

I believe Christianity goes to the very heart of God. I believe Jesus is The Way, The Truth, and The Light. I choose Jesus as the one who brings me to God.

Not well said, but a start to my understanding what I think and believe.

Prayer - Sins against God, Sins Against Man

Most of the confessions I read are confessions of our sins against God, yet I always think of my confession of neglect of God should include any sin I have committed against my neighbor (which includes anyone and everyone in the world, in my mind). Whether sins of omission or commission, sins of thought, word, or deed. I believe this because I think that anytime I have hurt another person or failed to show God's love of another person, I have sinned against what God would want of me.

With this in mind, I confess to you, Lord, that I am, indeed, a poor miserable sinner. It is in my nature to be a sinner. I desire Christ's nature to be in me. I accept forgiveness, because I know I am guilty. My confession includes the part of the Lutheran liturgy where we say, "I have not loved my neighbor as myself."

I know I have no merit in myself. The only merit I can claim is the salvation Jesus offers me, that You offer through the sacrifice of Jesus. I know this to be true, even though in my buoyed ego, I think that I actually deserve something. Forgive me, dear Lord. In my flesh, I am sin.

In my confession, dear Father, dear Son, dear Holy Spirit, I acknowledge that I am not the answer to life's problems. I am not the solution you seek. YOU are. You are the Great I AM, not I. While in my flesh I think I am smart and wise, I truly know that You are the smart and wise one. I repent of my smugness, my egotistic nature, and I turn to you, my God. Teach me to "lean not unto my understanding," but to turn to you continually.

In Jesus' name and for His sake, I pray. Amen.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. - Proverbs 3:5

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. - Romans 12:2

Thank you dear Heavenly Father. Thank you for entrusting your Word to me from time to time. May those who heard  be blessed by your Word, not be dragged down by my flesh.

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Morning Prayer, Based on Matthew 6, The Lord's Prayer

Our father, dear father, You who are in heaven, hallowed, blessed, be your name.

May your kingdom come to earth, may your kingdom be among us, may your kingdom live in my heart.

May your will be done in all things. I trust you. I accept your will. I know you will see me through all circumstances. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day those things we need ... food, shelter, peace of mind, forgiveness, love of you, love of our neighbor, love of mankind.

Forgive us our debts and trespasses, our unworthiness, our bigotedness, and help us forgive others in the same way. Just as you love us, teach us to love one another.

Protect us when we are tempted. Give us the strength to say "no."  Help us keep our eyes on you.

Deliver us from evil. Protect us from those influences.

I love you, I trust you, with my imperfect human attention span. Keep me in your care.

Amen.
(Based on Matthew 6:9-13)

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man …

The gospel lesson for our second midweek Lenten service was Luke 5:12-16. Verses 12-13 (NIV) follow:

¹²While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

¹³Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,”  he said. “Be clean!” And immediately, the leprosy left him.

As I was browsing this reading before service last night, verse 13 came to me with an image of Jesus reaching out to us during our final moments in this life. He says, “I am willing. Be clean!” And then we are – we are clean, we are with Him, we are whole and without pain.

I don’t know why that image was so powerfully clear to me – it’s certainly not the traditional interpretation of this story, but at the same time I saw this image, I thought of a friend who is battling an advanced stage of breast cancer and of another friend who is battling an advanced stage of lung cancer. Perhaps I also saw myself in that image, with Jesus’ hand stretched out to me as he said, “Be clean.” Maybe that was because I have been suffering my own health problems, with intense pain, since mid January, and the idea of Jesus reaching out to soothe me was appealing and comforting. And I know, at my age, that one of my ailments will lead to my last ailment, whatever that is to be.

The traditional interpretation (and, indeed, the literal interpretation) has been comforting to generations of people. Jesus can make you well, we remind each other. Just ask Him.

Being made well as we remain in this life is always appealing. It’s what we want, what we pray for. But as I age, this new image of Jesus making me well as I leave this life and enter the promised eternal life is also comforting to me.

Don’t misunderstand. I love living. I love daily life, the mental and physical explorations, the friendships, the energy, the love – I love so much about life. I wish this life could go on forever. That’s a normal wish. It’s like saying I want this moment to last forever. But as a follower of Christ Jesus, I have comfort 24/7, no matter my situation. 24/7, no matter the season, no matter my pain, no matter my circumstances, Jesus reaches out to me. “I am willing,” He says. “Be clean.” He tells me to be whole, to be well, to be happy, to be comforted. No wonder I love this life so much. Jesus makes me whole no matter where I am.

Romans in Six Weeks - Some Highlights

We're almost through with our study of Romans. Our study ended up being six weeks instead of the eight I originally thought it would be. Imagine Romans in eight weeks - daunting! But in six? But the thing is, we wanted to finish before Ash Wednesday (at least that was one of my original goals), and because of travel conflicts, we couldn't start until January 17 - and complicate that with the fact that I didn't do the math right. I think I would have let my goal of done by Ash Wednesday be forgotten, but others had commitments after that time ... life is like that, isn't it? So six weeks it was and is. God is our God in real time, not in a neatly planned time line of our devising. We meet to study, God is there. We have something else going on in our lives, God is there. We sleep, God is there. We're awake, God is there. God is there. God is here. Period.

From the resources I initially collected (http://suestudies.blogspot.com/2011/09/romans-resources-for-this-study.html), we've used these:

• The study guide by Charles Gieschen from the God's Abiding Word series published by CPH.org (Every participant received this guide for background self-study, if they desired.)
• The two books by Douglas J. Moo (These books are in my library and I didn't ask that anyone else purchase them. They were great resources for me!)
• The 1984 version of the NIV (This is the Bible we have on our shelves at church. We used it so that everyone would be reading from the same text, even though we encouraged everyone to also refer to the text of their own favorite version.)
• http://www.biblegateway.com/ (I used this wonderful site when I wanted to copy limited snippets of text into our weekly guides so we could compare a verse from different versions or to pull up a few verses from the Old Testament or to summarize some history necessary to understand Paul's references. The publishers on BibleGateway.com allow limited uses of their copyrighted text, and they provide the verbiage you need to show that you have permission to use it. I can't say enough about BibleGateway.com. I also use it to study multiple sections of the Bible when I'm dealing with multiple cross-references or when a question about one section pops into my mind. Endless wonderful applications on that site!)
• And, as always, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. I am so grateful for the people who gather together all their best and post their research onto wikipedia, and for leaving a trail of their arguments under the Talk tab. You give me much information, many points of view, and links to follow through. Thank you!

I've never lead a study where I wasn't both leader and participant. The truth of the matter is, the Word teaches us all. I learn through my preparation time, but I learn also during the time I meet with others. This next week, the 5th of our 6 weeks, we're going to take a little review time to name some of the outstanding points we've learned during our time together. I'm going to start the list with three things I've learned and don't want to forget.

• When we were studying Romans 1:21-23, Gieschen says: "The human response to the Creator is not neutral." To me, this translates into this: "Everyone has a reaction to God. Even atheists are reacting to God." As we were exploring reasons why one seems to reject God, even though that person leads a good life and more or less believes there is "a God," one of our participants says she believes her husband feels vulnerable when he thinks about "becoming a Christian." Vulnerable! I don't recall ever thinking about that. Reluctant, yes. Doubtful, yes. But vulnerable? For me, this was a great truth. I will forever remember this. I know it will color the way I look at nonbelievers. Jesus knows they feel vulnerable. He will be gentle with them, I'm sure. I will be more gentle in my love for my nonbelieving friends, too. (Week 2)
• The same participant who gave us the word "vulnerable" works with the preschool at our church. When we were studying the concept of Original Sin (that's what we Lutherans call it) in Romans 5:12-14, she related a discussion with our pastor about how those beautiful, sweet little children in our preschool could be tainted with original sin. He told her it's because life is all about me at that age.
  
  And isn't that it? Isn't that the definition of the sin inherit in every human being, whether we call it original sin or the characteristic of natural man or our sinful nature or all about me or whatever?
  
  And it's not just true for our preschoolers, either. It's probably the same thing Paul is talking about when he says "For what I do is not the good I want to do..." in Romans 7:19. All about me is the state of our fleshly bodies, of the bodies we live in, all of our lives. Our consolation is that God through Jesus Christ has rescued us from this state and it is no longer our master. We are not slaves to all about me. The phrase all about me will stay with me. (Week 4)
• We talk a lot about God. A lot of people talk a lot about God -- or is that god? During Week 3 we talked about an article by Steve Chapman, a writer for the Chicago Tribune. I found this article in The Week, a magazine which is always on our kitchen table. http://theweek.com/article/index/223252/the-truth-about-lsquosecularrsquo-america Our point wasn't about whether Chapman's assessment was right (secular America has less crime, teen pregnancies, divorces, etc, than Christian America) but why he might think that's true (perhaps what Chapman thinks Christian America calls sin is hidden in secular America because of birth control, cohabiting without the benefit of formal marriage, etc).
  
  We talked about what Christianity really IS. Being a Christian means that you believe what God has done through Jesus Christ. Christianity is believing and trusting in "this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes -- the Jew first and also the Gentile..." (Romans 1:16 - NIV 84). But so often, we equate Christianity with "believing in God," and that's what we'll say: "Do you believe in God? Yes? Then you must be a Christian."
  
  In our thoughts, Chapman was comparing the wrong things. He was actually comparing the economically disadvantaged to the economically advantaged. It's obvious that Chapman's "truths" fell apart in our hands.
  
  And then somewhere in our God-talk discussion, our arguments fell apart a little bit, too. One of our participants asked, "But what about Jesus?" That was a moment of truth for me. How do we define God? Do we need to be clearer when we speak that we're talking about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (the Trinity, in Lutheran theology and in the theology of many other protestant and catholic denominations and churches)? Do we need to be clearer about defining what Christianity is? And have we forgotten that we, as believers in and recipients of Christ's magnificent work, are part of secular America?
  
  For each of us, our discussion may lead to different paths, but hopefully it will help all of us to be ever mindful of who this God is we worship. Hopefully, Christ is at the forefront of our faith. Hopefully, in our efforts to "do good," we will not forget What About Jesus. (Week 3)