Accomodation

Luke 14:1-6

          My most wonderful father-in-law and I often speak of religion when we visit. He has many brilliantly correct statements one of which is that Religion is nothing but accommodation. I could not agree more. Then, we each share some of our 'war stories' about our own faiths. He might offer how ridiculous it is for a Hasidim to not be allowed to push a button on an elevator on the Sabbath even if that person was headed to Synagogue. However, IF the elevator door was open and IF that Hasidim walked in and IF someone else pushed the button, now that was OK. With all do respect, how ridiculous. I might share how silly not eating meat on Fridays is. What was once a mortal sin is now OK, except in Lent. Even so, if St. Patrick's day falls on a Friday in Lent, there would be a dispensation for all the Irish in New York to eat their corned beef. Like the man said, accommodation. 

          I am also amazed, raised and schooled as a good Catholic, how it would be OK to practice the rhythm method (or it's current equivalent) but not acceptable to practice other forms of birth control. I could understand arguing that an IUD is not OK because it literally caused a fertilized egg to be aborted. But what about 'the pill' that essentially prevents fertilization from occurring? What about condoms?  Whatever the method, the intent is the same. I always looked at the intent. One method was no different than any other because the intent was the same and they all originated from the intelligence God gave us to discover and discern such information. 

            Another more laughable moment was when one of my fellow Deacons yelled at a parishioner saying that to merely read Dan Brown's book The DaVinci Code and discuss it was a mortal sin. Mortal sin??!! Really? It astounds me that this man of the cloth does not even realize what constitutes a mortal sin. The same goes for another person who told a class of young boys that looking at a Playboy magazine was a mortal sin. While I loath objectifying women, this is a natural curiosity of adolescence so, really, a mortal sin?

         I am sure everyone has some examples of religious BS. I have great respect for the Muslim faith. Every Muslim I know is a fine person, welcoming, loving and lives a good life. However even I have heard of some very silly Fatwas that have been issued.  Every religion it seems has rules or even traditions that are unrealistic or not based in any intelligence that God wishes us to honor. If I did not want to offend anyone more than I may have already done, I would have entitled this blog entry simply "Religious BS". 

         God gave us intelligence to learn , to discover him and cut through the BS to what the true message is, love. That is the lens we must always use.  Let our conscience dictate how we act in concert with the laws Jesus gave us and there are really simply the two.

             

          

One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully.  And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy.  And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”  But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away.  And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”  And they could not reply to these things.