More reasons to love

       I know that we all have an innate desire to understand things. It is part of our makeup and it is the reason we have advanced in understanding and in the sciences. But there is false reasoning out there too that is so counter to the intelligence that God has given us as to be more akin to voodoo than God's gift of intelligence. The span of such fake reasoning and pseudo intelligence is quite wide.

      In today's passage there is the argument that culminates with the question, David thus calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?’ It's as if they want to understand but they cannot grasp it by using their own limited understanding and intelligence. They cannot seem to get it, they cannot see past their own limited logic.

      It is incredibly sad today to see those faux faithful elite that come out with statements like 'as long as gay rights are pursued, more hurricanes will hit the east coast'. I've read such tripe. It has to be some of the stupidest things I have ever heard. That and such things as tornado's are God's punishment against America for this or that contrived sin.

        I can't just look at just these faux faithful preachers and televangelists either.  Perhaps the bigger sins are whole religions that rely on their spurious reasoning, logic and 'tradition' in their promulgation of rules, rubrics and policies that effect millions of people, God's children.

        For example, I myself do not understand why ( if God even intervenes in such a micro manager way ) some people are born with ambiguous genitals. I don't fully comprehend why it took me almost 50 years to realize I am Gay. I also don't understand why we have massive hurricanes and floods. I would be more likely to attach the actions of humankind and what I call 'social sin' as the root cause of natural disasters. To me it would be man's abuse of nature as a root cause. I am quite sure we may even one day be able to define the science behind it all. Perhaps we already have in the scientific hints of global warming theory and facts.

         The point is, when we try to play God by defining or deciding what God thinks or intends we are being incredibly arrogant and at least insulting God that we of limited intellect could ever understand anything completely and thoroughly.  

       The ancients asked Jesus, whose sin is it, the blind man or his parents' sins that caused the blindness?  What a truly dopey thought. I hope you agree. I think Jesus' answer was quite telling for us even today. It was neither but an opportunity for the blind man and us to be witness to God's kingdom. How does the blind person respond to their challenge? How do we respond in love to that person? The related question then isn't what causes the hurricanes per say, but how do we respond in love and intellect to the fact that they are occurring? Do we support the injured and those traumatized by the storms? Do we see if we are as humans responsible in some way and take action to prevent whatever we are capable of preventing?  Storms will occur, how do we then witness to the kingdom of God in love?

        Knowing answers is nice and wonderful even. But sometimes we are not capable of knowing. We should not then rely on fake reasoning, hate and voodoo to come up with answers. Because we may not understand, it is no reason to hate. Because we don't understand, it may in fact be a reason to love.

Luke 20:41-21:4

Then he said to them, ‘How can they say that the Messiah is David’s son?For David himself says in the book of Psalms,
“The Lord said to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand, 
   until I make your enemies your footstool.’ ” 
David thus calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?’

In the hearing of all the people he said to the disciples, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.’