do i care?
I have just finished reading the OT for my class, well all of it except for what I will listen to on the ride back to Chicago tomorrow and I feel the need to exhale my thoughts…
First of all so that I do not appear more devout then I truly am, I am about to finish a two week course on the Hebrew Bible and one of the things I have had to do is read it in that amount of time (see previous posting).
Anyways here are some themes that jumped out to me today as I cruised through the prophets. First of all, God really cares about the poor. I mean this is sort of one of those ‘well duh’ sort of observations but the thing is I realized that I have somewhat compartmentalized talking about my faith and poverty as it were my attempt to truly align myself with the Christian left. But it is so much more then that and forgive me for harping on the obvious but God gets pretty pissed off at people for being really religiously active but not giving a crap about the least in our very midst. And as I see it, with the relative ease of world travel that really leaves no one out that we should not be deeply moved by when they are in need. That makes my gut hurt. The truth is I suck at that sort of thing. I mean maybe if I play the game of ‘am I better then that other Christian’ I do okay because lets be honest most of us do pretty well at that game. But do I really care about what God cares about is the bottom line. I am not sure about that.
Another theme that jumped out was divine punishment for evil. We, or at least I, do not like to think about that one all that much. I prefer happier things, like love and grace and peace and good beer. But God is a God of wrath and injustice will be punished. Even when Israel thought it was actively worshipping YHWH they missed the point by merely putting forth the motions. Which gets back to the same point as earlier. Do I care about the things God cares about? Am I moved to anger about anything? And when I am is it concerning the right things?
I hope and pray that we do not prostitute the bride of Christ as has been and will continue to be so easy to do.
First of all so that I do not appear more devout then I truly am, I am about to finish a two week course on the Hebrew Bible and one of the things I have had to do is read it in that amount of time (see previous posting).
Anyways here are some themes that jumped out to me today as I cruised through the prophets. First of all, God really cares about the poor. I mean this is sort of one of those ‘well duh’ sort of observations but the thing is I realized that I have somewhat compartmentalized talking about my faith and poverty as it were my attempt to truly align myself with the Christian left. But it is so much more then that and forgive me for harping on the obvious but God gets pretty pissed off at people for being really religiously active but not giving a crap about the least in our very midst. And as I see it, with the relative ease of world travel that really leaves no one out that we should not be deeply moved by when they are in need. That makes my gut hurt. The truth is I suck at that sort of thing. I mean maybe if I play the game of ‘am I better then that other Christian’ I do okay because lets be honest most of us do pretty well at that game. But do I really care about what God cares about is the bottom line. I am not sure about that.
Another theme that jumped out was divine punishment for evil. We, or at least I, do not like to think about that one all that much. I prefer happier things, like love and grace and peace and good beer. But God is a God of wrath and injustice will be punished. Even when Israel thought it was actively worshipping YHWH they missed the point by merely putting forth the motions. Which gets back to the same point as earlier. Do I care about the things God cares about? Am I moved to anger about anything? And when I am is it concerning the right things?
I hope and pray that we do not prostitute the bride of Christ as has been and will continue to be so easy to do.
posted by Jon at
8:56 PM
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