Greetings Dear Reader,
So many of the things that Jesus said reflect his love for
humanity. In a time where real oppression
existed at a brutal and dangerous level, he elevated those who were hated by
others. He saw the needs of people as he
moved through his day.
In our culture, we see signs that are supposed to represent Jesus. People chant slogans about what Jesus wants
for us. The difficulty is the level of
hatred in those signs and slogans. The message
may or may not be true but the messengers are representing that which does not
represent Jesus.
Here is a minor example that speaks to the whole. When I was first learning to write, I tried
to write with my left hand. The Sisters
at my school would smack my hand with a ruler and tell me, “Jesus hates it when
we write left-handed.” Many years later
I learned why they thought this. The
Latin word to “go left” is “sinister”.
Somewhere in the mists of church history, someone decided that sinister
meant evil. Thus, Sister Saint Thomas
applied the metal-stripped maple ruler to the back of my hand saying that writing
with the left hand is evil and that Jesus hates it. I still have the scar on my knuckle from
that.
When we represent Jesus as hating, we had better be very
sure that we are correct. If we do not,
we are using God for our own purposes.
We are never in the right when we omit the love of Jesus from our
attitude. Saying that he hates people
who commit this or that sin is a lie.
Saying that he hates people of a certain social or political standing is
also a lie. An honest look at Jesus, omitting
the commentary of his followers, shows that no matter what the religious
leaders thought of people, he interacted with them in love.
He made it clear that the benchmark for being aligned with
him is love. For those of you who do not
share my faith, please feel free to demand that those who do interact with you lovingly. If they do not, call them out on it. It is the Maker’s mark on his followers. It is the foundation of all else that we
are.
For those of you who follow Christ, we must examine every action
and attitude to see if they are Christ-centered and founded on love. If they are not; if they espouse hatred
through injustice, condemnation, or self-righteousness, we had best be silent until
our hearts are right. There is nothing
we need to address that cannot be handled with humility and love. We may need to be bold and take a stand, Dear
Reader, but we need never declare that God hates anyone because he does
not.
Further, he requires that we love every human if we have any
hope of loving the Father the way we should.
We must demonstrate our love through kindness, mercy, grace, justice,
and peace. We must take up the cause of
being good to everyone even when they hate us.
Jesus never said to hate anyone. He
did express his love and command that we express that love in all that we do
with each other. Loving the Father and
each other is the foundation for all that we do in the name of God or it is not
doing things in the name of God. It is,
however, taking the name of the Father for our own purposes. That is clearly a violation of his requirements
for us.
Wishing you joy in the journey,
Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every
writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a
homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure
store.”
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Every human story is part of the great story that leads
to the Father getting everything back to Good.
Contacts for Aramis
Thorn:
#aramisthorn
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