I have a whole reflection in my head about today's scripture passage and yet I feel compelled to write about being held captive. This being Passover, it seems appropriate. There seem to be a great many captives out there who should find special meaning in being released from slavery.
First on my mind are the slaves in and around the issues before the Supreme court this week. Let's look at the media. The attempt to show an unbiased and balanced view of the marriage debate seems almost maniacal. In their effort, nay, their need to show fairness, seemingly at any cost, the media invariably picks an Evangelical Christian or a Roman Catholic Bishop to tell their view. It would seem to me that the media attempts to show no favoritism is actually jading the truth. The two religious entities I mentioned while certainly anti-gay most certainly do NOT represent the beliefs of all Christians. The media needs to be liberated from their own bias.
Those Christians of the far right. In spite of how vocal they may be, Evangelicals are a small minority. There are a large and growing group of Christians who are coming out of the bonds of slavery to literalist translations of the Bible. They see that being gay is not a sin and not against God at all. To many Christians accepting who God actually made you to be and living out that life in a loving way is a truly holy life. Certainly as holy as a heterosexual person living out their life. The religious right and literalists who are captive to a myopic view of the Bible need to be liberated.
Gay men and women/the gay community. If there was ever such a striking parallel example of people that have been held captive, it is the gay community. We are closeted in so many ways from which we need to be liberated. We need to be liberated from lives that society tries to impose on us. First we need to come out of the closet. One kind of liberation. Society would say we cannot live productive , loving , committed lives and so often the gay community and individuals live up to that stereotype. When that message is beaten into you the joy of being gay is often celebrated a bit too much lets say. Anything in excess is not good. That would be liberation from stereotypes and lifestyles. A third point of liberation and one that again touches on other societal views of the gay community is that we are not faithful. Gay men and women seek the true meaning of life and seek out their God like every other human. Very often it is the churches that have told us we are going to hell in a hand basket so we do not seek God because that God is viewed as hateful and hurtful. We need to be liberated from what churches say and do, to the love of and relationship with our loving creator. It should be the same but church does not necessarily equate with God. Look at the Westboro Baptist church as an example.
On this holy day when we celebrate the Israelites escape from bondage and freedom in God, gays around the world can celebrate also. We too know the sorrow of captivity and the joys of liberation. So alongside, misguided if not hateful churches and the media, our closets and our catechisms, let us pray that we will also be liberated from the tyranny of law that keeps us in bonds that others wish to hold us in. Pray for the Supreme court decision in favour of equality, justice and loving couples whomever they may be.
Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.
Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.
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