Series of Seven: Understanding

Hokay guys.

Now it’s time to get deeper.

Before, all of the things that I said we as Christians to do made a lot of sense.  Quiet prayer and alone time with God.  Fellowshipping together.  Worshiping God.  Studying the Bible and works by theologians, philosophers, and other thinkers.  Helping others through service.

But understanding?  What does THAT even MEAN?

Calm down, my young Padawan.  There’s a few different things that it can, and does, mean.

This also might be rambling, because my brain is all rattled up.

To begin, we should try to understand things that we can understand.  This can relate to Bible passages, songs we sing, encounters with people.  “Love one another” is quite understandable.  But also we should understand that things may not always be the same way as it was before.  Paul told women that they should keep their heads covered while in a house of worship.  True understanding of that involves scholarship and research, in order to learn that women with uncovered heads were temple prostitutes.  Also the women who spoke up loudly…also temple prostitutes.  When’s the last time you saw a temple prostitute?  I thought so.

We should also try to understand the people we meet.  There’s people who aren’t the same as us, whether they are different due to things like race, sexual orientation, and religion, or different due to likes, varying beliefs, socioeconomic status, educational status, etc.  We need to work to understand them and learn that they are beautifully wonderful people.  Let’s not judge with our mouths but listen with our ears.

We also need to understand that we can’t always understand.  There are many big theological issues (the mystery of the Trinity, the resurrection, etc) as well as issues that are more Earthly (natural disasters, why there’s still child hunger and slavery, etc) that we can’t understand.  In the former, by not understanding, our faith is strengthened because, well, we gotta have faith.  In the latter, it’s hard.  I don’t know why millions of people die due to things like earthquakes and hurricanes or why there’s over a billion starving people while others have billions of dollars.  I don’t know.  And by not always knowing, we understand that we don’t always understand.

So, to sum up, try to understand what you can, try to understand that things may have change, try to understand others, and try to understand that you can’t always understand.

Series of Seven: Service

At both the church where I attend and the church where I work, there are three “steps” that the church does, and implores its members to do.  The church where I attend is “reaching UP to God in worship”, “reaching IN to each other through fellowship and spiritual growth” and “reaching OUT to the world with ministry action”.  The church where I work states that we are a church that is “living in grace, learning in community, and loving through service”.  Both churches have similar aspects of worship, study/fellowship, and service.  As I have already talked about the first two aspects, today I will focus on service.

Service is at the heart of being a follower of Christ.  One of the most common examples of this is in Matthew 25, in which Jesus tells his followers to provide food, water, shelter, etc for those who are in need.  He states that he himself was naked, hungry, unwelcome, which confused the disciples, yet left them with the perplexing addendum (as Jesus was wont to do) by stating that “whatever you do to the least of these, you have done to me (Matthew 25:40)”.  Basically, by not helping those in need, we are insulting and hurting God himself.  That’s not cool.

There are many ways that we can serve others.  We can volunteer at agencies where “the least of these” may frequent, such as homeless shelters, food-based organizations, and clothing closets.  We can help the disenfranchised with any difficulties they may face, such as helping women, the LGBT community, people of color, those who have mental illness, and many others.  We can serve through short term missions, such as helping build/repair homes, provide medical care, and teach classes.  We can help by being an advocate for the “least of these” by stating that we will NOT stand for oppression.

It really is sad today how quickly many Christians are to go against truly serving the “least of these”.  Sure, they’ll go on mission trips and collect money for those they “deem acceptable” for help, but then they boycott groups like Planned Parenthood without offering true love or support to the women who go there (for whatever reason they do).  They’ll be quick to say that the multitudes of black people killed by police were “in the wrong”, instead of addressing issues of racial inequality and helping those who truly need advocates.  They’ll blithely throw Leviticus in the face of LGBT people, showing that they apparently don’t follow Jesus’ plea to love one another.  Doing such a thing isn’t godly or just.  It’s Bible worship.  I’d rather worship Jesus and follow in the footsteps of his radical love and compassion.  Jesus never talked about gays, but he did talk about loving people, so that’s what I choose to do.

Sorry.  Got political.  It just makes me really, really, REALLY sad and mad.  Smad.

Anyways, we are called to serve others.  Let’s serve ALL others in love, mercy, and grace, and not by oppression, forced conversion, or ill-will.

Service.  It’s important.  Just do it in love.

Musings Into a Series on A New Set of Seven

Seven is a very important number in the Christian faith.  The world was created in seven parts (often seen as “days”).  There are seven sacraments in the Catholic and Orthodox faiths.  The seven holy days.  The plethora of sevens in Revelation.  It goes on.  So I thought that making a list of seven things Christians should strive to do would be a good thing.  Over the next few days, I’ll (hopefully) write a post on each, but here are all of them…

1. Contemplation
2. Fellowship
3. Worship
4. Study
5. Service
6. Understanding
7. Joy

Now, you may ask, “Where is prayer?  Where is Bible reading?  Where is evangelism?”  I made these as all-encompassing things which would include all things, though in different, broader ways.

Additionally, I believe that all of these things should be done as much as possible, but barring any out-of-the-ordinary predicaments (illness/injury, vacation, overtime work, exam week, etc), each thing should be done a minimum of weekly, some daily.

Also, super glad to be back blogging!