Mercy and legality are like grass and fire

The thoughts of a drugged church

Love alone is credible

Violation of the day: Jesus breaks one of the 10 commandments

Matthew 8:18 Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19 A scribe then approached and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 21 Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” 

Here Jesus goes again, breaking the law. Or at least, telling his followers to do so.

It's hard to find actual instructions for burial in the Old Testament, which I find surprising. Certainly there are prohibitions about uncleanliness related to touching the dead, and there are passages about the death and burial of many prominent figures. Deuteronomy 21:23 instructs us to bury a man on the same day that he was hanged, but that's about the most specific bit I can find.

But we do know that it was an obligation for family members to bury their dead, and an act of piety for Jews to bury those outside their families when necessary.

More importantly for this passage however is the commandment to honor our parents. This is one of the biggies. The top ten. The ones that overarch the Levitical laws and instructions that came afterward.

The man, this disciple, asked to bury his father. He asked to fulfill his familial obligation and to perform a final, ultimate act of honoring. An act that is a significant milestone in each of our lives.

And yet Jesus told him not to.

Of course he had his purposes. Presumably this is Jewish hyperbole in action. But the truth is the truth: Jesus advised his disciple to go against Jewish custom, and to break one of the Ten Commandments.

Your ways, Oh Lord, are unfathomable.

On zeal.

Let the heirs beware

Matthew 8 includes a story of the profound faith showed by one outside The Faith, a pagan centurion, who sought the Christ for healing of his dying servant. Here is part of the passage:

Matthew 8:10 When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.” And the servant was healed in that hour.

Jesus warns that the chosen practitioners and supposed heirs were not the only ones to sit at the table. More so, many of them would not be invited at all. In contrast, reviled outsiders will take their place.

The message remains for us as Christians. We have been called, and chosen. But that doesn't mean that we won't be surprised by who will sup at the end of the age.

Not so simple.

False prophets bearing good fruit?

The readings of the day include this passage from Matthew, the first verse of which is often used to describe people like me who offer apologetics for Christ's acceptance of same-sex relationships:

^{Matt 7:15} “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 

I've had it flung from an assortment of places online, sites in which fundamentalist Christians gather to pick up scripture like a burning brand with which to purge the land of the scourge of gaydom. 

The passage continues with this:

¹⁶ By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

This morning we turned to Galatians, to read more about good fruit:

^{Gal. 5:22} But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.  

In conversations with these folks, verses of scripture spray out like bullets from a Gatling gun, with little skill and no concern for accuracy. Just a scattershot of ammunition designed to destroy or at least frighten into submission.

My prayer for those of us who love God from within same-sex relationships is that we be mighty bearers of good fruit. In all our discussions, no matter how infuriating or repetitious or contentious, may we bear gentleness and self-control. May our behavior stand in sharp contrast with the hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, dissensions, and factions that are listed as un-Godly fruit described in verse 20.

May we return the harsh brutality of scripture as weaponry with a gentle rain of living water. 

And may they indeed know us by our fruits. 

May we unite

Question of the day: Where does the Bible say "one man and one woman"?

The Sola Scriptura peeps puzzle me. I've spoken before about the fictional concept of "Bible alone", and yet am regularly re-surprised by the way in which it is touted as unarguably real. People claim that the only thing we should cling to is the word of scripture, and then turn around and state "truths" that are not found there.

For example, nowhere in the Bible does it actually say that marriage is to be between one man and one woman. We've all heard citations of scripture which support the stance, but that's a very different thing.

Because the Bible doesn't actually say it.

Anywhere.