Hear the truth from somebody who has experienced the war first hand.
Memorial Day
May 26, 2008 at 11:58 am (Raleigh)
Today is Memorial Day.
How about instead of selfishly remembering the people that “died for our country”, we remember everyone who has ever died because of acts of violence.
I pray that we remember the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that have died. I pray that we remember the thousands of civilians in Afghanistan who have died. I pray that we remember the thousands of US soldiers who have died.
I pray that we remember people who have died because of police brutality. I pray that we remember police who have innocently died from gang violence. I pray that we remember all of the poor and sick who die on the streets daily. These are the people that are often forgotten. I pray that we remember the people who are dying from lack of clean drinking water. I pray that we remember people who have died as a result of genocide. I pray that we remember revolutionaries who nonviolently fought against the powers that be.
I pray that someday violence will no longer prevail, that we learn from our mistakes, and that the love of God will triumph.
Life
May 18, 2008 at 11:34 pm (Matt)
Dear God,
I miss you. Where’ve you been?
Oh…right. You haven’t gone anywhere. I guess I miss you because I’m the one getting further away from you. You’re right where you’ve always been.
You used to be so close. You’ve blessed me so much throughout my whole life…I never questioned my faith in you or my trust in your plan for me. I’ve made the choices I felt you were guiding me toward. I’ve done what I discerned to be your will. That’s all you’ve ever wanted, right? I play music to glorify you and spread your word, I serve my church, I help out my friends and family. All these things bring you joy, do they not? Of course they do. So why is it I’ve lost that passion I’ve always had?
I guess it’s because your will for me is changing. You brought me up in a wonderful home and wonderful church family to give me the foundation I need to continue doing your work, just in a different setting. I asked where you are…maybe I ought to look where you were when you were here physically. Back then, you spent your time among the unclean and unrighteous, the sick and the poor, the dirty and unpresentable…the people ignored and dismissed by the religious fundamentalists because they made them uncomfortable. I can’t find you now because that’s where I haven’t looked. It’s probably because I am one of those religious fundamentalists. I want to love the unlovable, but I know I don’t, because I don’t do anything for them or – goodness forbid – with them. You want so much more than for me to give them money or food or time…you want me to be a vessel of your Love to them. They won’t see it any other way…not as long as Christians sit on their butts watching football and eating potato chips while people down the road go hungry, both physically and spiritually.
Oh right, that’s what I do. And I wonder why I can’t find you.
God, bring me to where you are. Don’t let me be complacent and content with the life I’ve gotten comfortable living. Let me suffer with those who are not so comfortable, not so privileged. Help me to share the love and blessing you have freely poured out upon me. Help me give everything I have to those around me until it hurts. Don’t let me rest until I have helped those who need to rest in your arms find you. I’ll have plenty of time to rest in heaven, after all. Pull me down, into the gutter, into the slums, into the garbage heap of humanity crushed under the feet of greed and oppression…so that I can find you there.
Love,
Matt
Pentecost
May 11, 2008 at 10:42 pm (Raleigh)
Today is Pentecost, where we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit
Love
May 6, 2008 at 12:09 pm (Matt)
I haven’t posted in quite a long time, and Raleigh’s been all over me about that, so I figured I’d let all you wonderful readers get a glimpse of my recent spiritual thoughts.
I have been a little stagnant spiritually lately, mainly because I’ve been busy finishing this semester. But what study I have been doing has focused on God and Love, or rather, the equivalence between the two. I’ve been reading 1 John, which discusses at length the relationship between God and Love. Those of us raised in the church learned from a young age that “God is Love”, and John confirms this in multiple places in this letter (for example, 1 John 4:8 and 4:16). But no one ever seems to make the connection that this “is” is bidirectional. If God is Love, then Love is God.
This is surprising to many at first glance. Why? Because “love” has lost its salt over the centuries, especially in the English language. I love God, but I also love my girlfriend, music, Final Fantasy, pound cake, ESPN, orange tic tacs, and hot tubs. That’s a lot of different things, and there’s a lot of difference in what I mean when I say I “love” them. I certainly don’t love cake the same way I love my girlfriend, or SportsCenter the same way I love God. It’s not even about “degrees” of love, as if I could say I just love God “more” than SportsCenter. It’s a fundamentally different kind of love.
One of the many benefits of reading the New Testament in Greek instead of (or in addition to) English is that Greek has a greater vocabulary for complex concepts such as love. There are at least four words that existed in Greek during the time of the New Testament that are translated as “love”, but only two regularly appear in the Bible (“eros” – romantic love and “storge” – familial love are generally absent). The most common is “philia”, or in verb form “phileo”, which means brotherly or friendly love. The stronger love is “agape”, which is the love of God for His creation, or love commanded by God for His creation. When both of these words are translated “love” in English, a significant contextual element is destroyed. The prime example of this is in John 21:15-17. In plain English, Jesus asks Peter three times “Do you love me?” and Peter replies “You know that I love you.” But you can’t tell that Peter is dodging the real question. Jesus asks “Agapas me“, using the strong, unconditional, total devotion form of love, “agape”. Peter can’t commit to that, and replies, “Nai Kurie; su oidas `oti philo se” (“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you”). Note that Peter uses “philo”, the lesser love as of a friend or brother. Peter answers a different question. Jesus didn’t ask “Are we pals? Are we bros? Are we BFF?” That’s what Peter was affirming with his answer. Jesus asked “Are you devoted to me? Do you love me with everything you have?”
God Himself asks the same question of each one of us, and we are always prepared to answer like Peter before us. Sure we “love” God. We go to church, we tithe, we don’t actively do things we know God wouldn’t like. We want to be friends with God, to hang out with Him now and then.
God doesn’t want friends. God wants followers. God wants people to give Him agape, not philia.
But what I was originally trying to say with this post is that God is Love and Love is God. When you see me type Love with a capital L, I’m talking about agape. And agape – Love – does not exist in this world outside of God. Where Love is, it is a direct result of God. 1 John 4:19 says that “We Love Him, because He first Loved us.” Our ability to experience Love was initiated by God. Our Love begins by returning to Him the Love He has invested in us. But of course, our call is not solely to Love God. Once we have that point down, we look at the consequence of Loving God in verse 21: “And we have this commandment from Him, that the one who Loves God also Loves his brother.” Once we know how to Love the way God Loves, our mission is to share that Love. And because God is Love, by sharing Love we share God.
Philia exists without God. People who do not know God can have philia for their friends, eros for their lovers, and storge for their families. None of those lesser, incomplete loves depend on God. But nobody who does not know the Love of God will be able to have complete Love for anyone else in this world. A family with storge but without agape will fall apart. A marriage built on eros and philia is doomed to divorce. A friendship with philia alone can last, but will never be as good as it can be. Agape, the Love of God, is the panacea for all the social and personal diseases that are tearing this world apart. God is Love and Love is God, and we Christians know and understand are possess that Love. It is our mission to share it with the world. Witnessing isn’t just spreading God, for example, by standing on the street corner and preaching. We can often be more effective witnesses by spreading Love, because when people see a Love that transcends anything they have ever known, a Love that Loves them for who they are and forgives them for their mistakes, a Love that clothes and feeds and cares for them in ways no one ever has, a Love that ignores race and gender and yes, even sexuality and religion, and simply Loves…they have to wonder where it came from.
“Whoever has the means of life of the world, and beholds his brother having need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the Love of God abide in him?” – 1 John 3:17
Book Review- Calling the Rainbow Nation Home: A Story of Acceptance and Affirmation by E.T. Sundby
May 4, 2008 at 10:51 am (Raleigh)
This book was truly inspiring. It begins with the story of a female who was found by God first, then later accepted the fact that she was a homosexual. The story describes her initial battle with trying to reconcile both her her spiritual beliefs and her sexual orientation. The story is heartwarming and convincing. God revealed himself to her and helped her through her time of questioning, as she was leaning towards being celibate for the rest of her life. He revealed to her through the Holy Spirit that celibacy was not her calling.
God’s presence in her life is vividly apparent
. He has done so many things through her that blew me away when I read this book, that denying the legitimacy of her faith is absurd.
The book then deals with the “clobber passages”, which are the passages in the Bible that deal with homosexuality. She sorts out the confusion over poor translations by using the original languages (Greek and Hebrew) in which the Bible was written and puts other passages into the correct context, for example: The Sodomites were not condemned for their sexual orientation, but for their rejection of God and their sexual promiscuity as they were known at that time as temple prostitutes. This is clearly an immoral lifestyle, which resides outside of a committed monogamous relationship.
I wouldn’t say that this book changed my views on the issue of homosexuality. God had already revealed to me about a year ago that he does not care about orientation, and that homosexuals are also God’s people and play a significant role in his plan.
Why would God choose to make a person homosexual, only to later condemn them for their natural disposition? People who argue that homosexuality is learned and not something that you are born with are ignorant. I have spoken with a few people who have revealed to me that they wished to God they were heterosexual, given the difficulties and oppression they would receive from family and friends, but they could not help the fact that they were never attracted to the opposite sex.
Before I get ripped apart for posting this please consider the following:
- Why would God reveal the acceptance of homosexuals into the faith community to me as a heterosexual male?
- Does the Holy Spirit ever reveal to people that homosexuality is wrong? or do they believe what they believe because it is deeply engrained into their head that homosexuality is a sin because of our culture or upbringing?
- Is our understanding of homosexuality based on a very Amero-centric literal reading of the clobber passages, which neither take historical and cultural contexts, or the original Greek and Hebrew into consideration?
Please do not ridicule me, as I did not develop my understanding of sexual orientation on my own. Please do not question the legitimacy of what God has revealed to me, because that is offensive. Instead I encourage everyone to first read this book, or check out gaychurch.org, which is the website created by the author; however, I do not think the website does justice over the book.
Pray about and study the issue before you jump to conclusions. Ask God to reveal the truth to you about whether or not homosexuality is a sin in both disposition and/or practice. I’m not looking to start a debate here, I believe God created everyone and that we are all His children. He loves us all regardless of who we are.
