Masks

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you;
bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you.
— Luke 6. 27-28



Be compassionate for those who have learned
by hard and hurtful experience
to mask their fear with anger,
whose meanness is really loneliness,
whose arrogance is actually insecurity,
whose hard heartedness is the only safe place
they know where to hide their terrible wound.
Be kind to those who do not know how to be kind,
for most likely no one has shown them kindness.
Forgive those who seem always to be fighting,
for it may be the only way they know how
to reach out and touch someone.
Be gentle with those who yell at you,
for they're only trying to show you what hurts.
Be kind to the ungrateful and the selfish,
for only thus will you know
how deeply and freely God loves you.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________
Copyright (c)Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

Outsiders

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Jesus said, “There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
— Luke 4. 27-30

When Jesus preached his message of the universal inclusiveness of God's love—that God would heal a pagan foreigner—those who wanted “insiders” and “outsiders” were threatened. So those who moments before had approved of Jesus as one of their own quickly made him into an outsider.

We all need to feel that we Belong and that the Universe approves of us. And it's natural (original, actually: original sin) to believe that there's a reason for that, not just God's grace. It's hard not to suppose there's something about us that makes us more worthy than others. Of course someone who seems less worthy messes up our system and threatens our security. So we compare. We don't just judge and oppose those who threaten our sense of belonging and approval, we also want to get them out of our way: to eliminate them. Slamming the door on someone, cutting off a relationship, executing someone, genocide—they all come from the same spirit.

We all have a different set of people that we want to drive out of town: gays or gay-bashers, terrorists or corrupt CEOs, the people who annoy or offend us. But the impulse is the same. As we resist evil and injustice the real challenge is to stay in relationship with the people we want to eliminate. To bless those who curse us, and pray for those who abuse us. This doesn't mean staying in an abusive relationship. But it does mean staying in the human family, and letting others, even the demon-possessed, stay here, too. There is always Christ in the ones we want to reject. And he always slips through the midst of us and goes on his way.

As Jesus points out, it's the outsiders God blesses first.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


_______________________________
Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com