FRIDAY, May 21

Matthew 9:9-17. Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

I was writing a poem and I wanted to use a synonym for God. I highlighted God and moved my cursor to the thesaurus icon at the top of the screen. I clicked.

God is not in the thesaurus, it said.

What? I chuckled at my computer's lack of God-consciousness and then began to get this mental image of God being everywhere, even in laptops. I've always thought God was in heaven and maybe in church. But he's also in here in prison, where murderers, thieves, rapists, child molesters, and drug dealers live. Among society's outcasts, that's where I found God. (Actually, it's where he found me. God wasn't lost. I was.)

It shouldn't be surprising that God could be in a prison. If Jesus were walking around today, what would people think about a son of God who spent most of his time in prisons, visiting the very people society had exiled? In crack houses? Shooting galleries? In parks with the homeless? Juvenile detentions? Mental institutions? Homes for unwed mothers? Slums?

To be Christ-like is to eat with sinners.

Have you seen Jesus lately?

Whom have you been eating with?

Pass the salt. Thank you. (1998)

PRAY for the Diocese of Coventry (Canterbury, England)

Ps 102 * 107:1-32; Jeremiah 31:27-34; Ephesians 5:1-20

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May 21, 2010 at 6:20 am

Written by lois,

I love that. People try to rub elbows with important people and they miss God where he really is. Everywhere! But with us sinners!

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May 21, 2010 at 8:44 am

Written by Ken Anderson,

This is exactly what I said in my comments on the meditation for yesterday. To live into the life that God and Jesus hope we strive to live into, we have to see that God is in all people and that we need to reach out to the those that make us most uncomfortable, the sinners and outcasts of society, for those are the ones in need of God's message the most, not those people who sit next to us in church. It's not so much to preach to them, but to help them by living the Kingdom of God and treating them with the love that Jesus has asked us to share. The healthy are not in need of a physician. The strength and courage to do so is the catch that most of us run into when trying to live into Jesus' message.

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May 21, 2010 at 9:12 am

Written by Andrea,

Ken, I agree that we are all called to reach out beyond ourselves in love, and I am sure you have the best of intentions - you sound like a sincere Christian trying to live out the life Christ called us to live. But I get a little uncomfortable when I hear people say that the people who sit next to us in church (and maybe we ourselves) are more spiritually "healthy" than the poor, the sick, the outcasts,... the sinners?? (I thought we were ALL sinners?) Assuming that "we" are OK and "they" need the Gospel more than us seems a little condescending to me. To me, the radical (and difficult) lesson is that the murderers, rapists, and child molesters the meditation mentioned are all children of God like me. And yet, if God can love and forgive me, a sinner, I have to believe God loves and forgives everyone.

I am the outcast. I am the sinner. I am tragically flawed. My heart is not pure.

May 21, 2010 at 9:32 am

Written by Steve Doutt,

Andrea, Yes. I'm sure that everyone speaks with the best intentions; but, it is our language that sometimes prevents us from seeing the log (plank) in our own eye. We have to speak positively in the first person. For example: intead of "praise be to God"; say, "God, I praise you" or "I love you God."

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May 21, 2010 at 9:36 am

Written by Ken Anderson,

Andrea, I think you misunderstood probably because there just isn't enough space in this arena to fully dive into this subject. My point in making a distinction between those who sit next to us in Church and those people who do not, is that human nature makes it more comfortable for us to be Christlike and live the life that Jesus would hope us to live, to do so among those who are around us on a regular basis. Those who believe like we do and live like we do. It is also true that there are a lot of people who make the effort to outwardly appear to be Christian and attend Church every week, but live a life of deep sin. Yes we are all sinners and lost sheep, but some of us in the world have strayed farther than others and I have strayed a great distance in my life as well.

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May 21, 2010 at 10:32 am

Written by Mike Patterson,

The writer needs a new computer!

Pass the salt!

May 21, 2010 at 11:14 am

Written by Gaye Anne McWade,

I love knowing that we ARE the "salt" that passes throughout all corners of society since the Spirit of Christ Jesus abides within, upon, and among us who have received it—-from that first great day of Pentecost--in church or prison!

God is not in the Thesaurus

May 21, 2010 at 11:46 am

Written by a. brook,

I remember this writer who, I believe, authored the book by the same name; it is good to be reminded. I pray he is doing well. I pray too that we remember to seek God in the confines of our own imprisonment(s) which we tend to build.
And where I say "we" I really mean "I". Grace and Peace to you.

Friday, May 21 Meditation

May 21, 2010 at 1:01 pm

Written by Nora,

The above meditation has me bothered, because although I did not want to join my husband in serving a Memorial Day picnic at a homeless shelter, I'm quite willing to join any protest activity against BP Oil's cataclysmic destruction to the ocean, even if it means putting my life on the line. I wish that the "least of My brethern" could also mean the other creatures we haven't been too good in sharing the Earth with.

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May 21, 2010 at 10:15 pm

Written by Sheri Christi,

Nora, your comment reminds me of a lovely friend named Holmes Rolston, whom I regard highly. Now a Templeton Prize winner, he was fired from his first job as a minister for his curious views on God and nature. I think you would like him.

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