2 Corinthians 1:3-7
I have worked at the same facility for over 30 years. For a few of those years I simultaneously volunteered there in the evening giving out the Eucharist to patients. I always started with this first line from today's passage. In humility we must realize our own frailties and faults, how much we have been forgiven and are loved and then move outward to console those who have also sinned. All sinners need to know that they are loved in their brokenness, loved by others and by Jesus Christ who died specifically for our brokenness.
There is no room for arrogance or the even the mere thought that we are able to diminish our own sins in order to condemn another or to speak out that 'surely their sins' are worse than mine. Perhaps worse still are those who actually have the chutzpah to verbalize, explain and rationalize why their sins are not quite as bad. Surely they are better as a believer because they have already been forgiven and surely they have sinned no more. Get over it, we're all sinners!
I get quite a kick out of people who immerse themselves in such hypocrisy. What comes immediately to mind is the picture I found today on Face Book. I can understand if your calling is to 'enlighten' people about respect for life, I can. But in so doing you shouldn't be condemning anyone lest you walk in their shoes. More to the point though, if you don't feel compelled or called to speak out in support of the children begging at our border to come in, for God's sake don't speak out against them! That really is quite a bit of hypocrisy
Another form hypocrisy that I see is those that seem compelled to rail against homosexuals. They are condemned without any cause. They presume what's going on your bedroom wile I am sure they want no one looking in theirs. If we are to follow their narrow and supposed Biblical strictures on sexuality then sex would be simply for procreation. Every incident of sexual contact should be only for procreation and that sex better be very, very vanilla. No variations there. Do you really want people snooping in bedrooms deciding how we love is moral or immoral? Today is the feast of sixth-century Syrian monks Symeon and John who lived in the dessert for 29 years together. While there is no evidence or perhaps even a reason to think there was another sexual with their relationship, they lived a committed and very loving life together all those years. By all accounts, certainly a relationship to be emulated, certainly a witness to same sex love and relationships. If we want to bear witness to how people love, why can't we hold them up and forget about the sex. (who am I kidding?) Besides the hypocrisy of those that condemn acts they don't even know happen in other peoples lives, there is the neglect and twisted view of sex as bad. Sex is a gift to be raised up and celebrated. The pleasures that two people share, no matter what they are doing (as long as it's respectful, mutual and no one gets hurt) is a bond and expression of mutual love. How can that be bad?
If someone who knows me is reading this they may chuckle that I seem to be saying that no one can judge anyone. I suppose that is true even though I do hold up standards for human behaviour that should be met. Mutual respect. Committed loving relationships. Respect for all life, including our beautiful blue orb and all it's inhabitants. What I cannot abide by is being a judgemental fool who does so by misquoting the Bible or selectively taking passages to hold up as 'super importnat' while there is wholesale ignorance and disregrad for others. Worse, holding up the one Bible with one hand saying "Praise Jesus!" while taking a Bible in the other and beating people down with it.
We are all sinners, let us not judge, lest we be judged.
Another form hypocrisy that I see is those that seem compelled to rail against homosexuals. They are condemned without any cause. They presume what's going on your bedroom wile I am sure they want no one looking in theirs. If we are to follow their narrow and supposed Biblical strictures on sexuality then sex would be simply for procreation. Every incident of sexual contact should be only for procreation and that sex better be very, very vanilla. No variations there. Do you really want people snooping in bedrooms deciding how we love is moral or immoral? Today is the feast of sixth-century Syrian monks Symeon and John who lived in the dessert for 29 years together. While there is no evidence or perhaps even a reason to think there was another sexual with their relationship, they lived a committed and very loving life together all those years. By all accounts, certainly a relationship to be emulated, certainly a witness to same sex love and relationships. If we want to bear witness to how people love, why can't we hold them up and forget about the sex. (who am I kidding?) Besides the hypocrisy of those that condemn acts they don't even know happen in other peoples lives, there is the neglect and twisted view of sex as bad. Sex is a gift to be raised up and celebrated. The pleasures that two people share, no matter what they are doing (as long as it's respectful, mutual and no one gets hurt) is a bond and expression of mutual love. How can that be bad?
If someone who knows me is reading this they may chuckle that I seem to be saying that no one can judge anyone. I suppose that is true even though I do hold up standards for human behaviour that should be met. Mutual respect. Committed loving relationships. Respect for all life, including our beautiful blue orb and all it's inhabitants. What I cannot abide by is being a judgemental fool who does so by misquoting the Bible or selectively taking passages to hold up as 'super importnat' while there is wholesale ignorance and disregrad for others. Worse, holding up the one Bible with one hand saying "Praise Jesus!" while taking a Bible in the other and beating people down with it.
We are all sinners, let us not judge, lest we be judged.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ. If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering. Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.
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