10 Resolutions for 2015 31DEZ14

HERE's Jim Wallis' 10 New Year's resolutions for 2015. There are life lessons in these for people of all faiths and good people everywhere. We can do better, I must do better this year. From +Sojourners .....

10 Resolutions for 2015

by Jim Wallis 12-31-2014 | 4:53pm

Some people don’t like the idea of New Year’s resolutions, but I do. We often only use the word in the context of this season, but “resolution” is a nuanced noun. Some of its definitions include:

A new day. Image courtesy eelnosiva/shutterstock.com

A firm decision to do or not to do something — see: intention, resolve, plan, commitment, pledge.

The quality of being determined or resolute — see: determination, purpose, steadfastness, perseverance,tenacity, tenaciousness, staying power, dedication, commitment, stubbornness, boldness, spiritedness, bravery, courage, pluck, grit.

The action of solving a problem, dispute, or contentious matter — solution to, settlement of, conclusion to, “the peaceful resolution of all disputes.”

In a world of seemingly endless conflicts, I sure like the sound of that. We need more of all of these qualities just now. All three meanings of resolution are wonderfully attractive to me — and timely for this brand new year. So here are my 10 resolutions for this 2015:

1.     Love God. We can’t really love anyone if we don’t spend time with them. Take the time this year to be quiet and listen to God in prayer. My dad’s old Bible, which I got to keep when he died, is full of multi-colored notes underlining the text, from his reading of it literally every day — every day for me too this year.

2.     Extend who our neighbors are; whom we are also called to love. When Jesus was asked, “Who is my neighbor,?” he told people to reach beyond themselves, their natural groups, and their regular boundaries to the neighbors who were further away from them, especially to those who are in most trouble. My mother’s two instructions to us were always clear: If there is a kid on the playground that nobody else is playing with, you play with them. And if there is a bully picking on other kids, you stand up to him. Okay, Mom.  

3.     Love hardest those who are the closest. The relationships that will bring us most joy and sorrow are inside our inner circle that we are most responsible for. Our wives, husbands, partners; dearest friends; and, especially, our children must be the first priority, the first claim on our lives and time. Whoever or whatever else we are or will ever be — to them we are really only dad or mom.

4.     Build racial bridges. We are at a crisis point — and a point of great opportunity to heal wounds and move racial justice forward. It’s time to help lead America into its diverse and changing-demographic future.

5.     Always Ask, “What does this mean for the poor and vulnerable?” What happens to these members of society is a chief criterion for God’s judgment on a nation’s righteousness and our own integrity. So that must be the first question of every public policy debate this year, and we must be the ones to raise it.

6.     Support and empower women and girls. This half of God’s children not only bears the brunt of the world’s injustice and conflicts, but is absolutely essential to their resolutions. The most repressive hierarchies fear the education of girls above all else.

7.     Stand up for the reality of climate change. If we say we love God and care for God’s creation, it is time to raise our voices over the crisis of climate change. It’s time to start turning around, and we must begin to do that.

8.     Question every act of war. Peacemaking is not finding another war to win, but getting underneath the conflicts to their causes. We must question each escalation of war and continue to ask our leaders why this keeps happening.

9.     Practice presence. Spend less time with screens and more with books, less time with complaining and more with solving, less time with arguing and more with listening, less time with shopping and more time with being thankful, less time with worrying and more with exercising, less time obsessing about food and more time eating well, less time planning and more time doing, less time scheduling and more time living one day at a time.

10. Embrace hope and joy. Try to replace disappointment and despair with hope — not as a feeling but as a decision. Try to replace anxiety with joy — which means to be open to all the surprises, blessings, and gifts that we can’t control but are offered by God and the people God surrounds us with, if we are paying attention.

My 11^th resolution is for all those who have read this or anything else Sojourners has offered in 2014.

I humbly but sincerely ask you to remember Sojourners’ work and to support our mission in 2015.  Pleasepledge the cost of a cup of coffee, or a meal, or a shopping trip or a tithe each month; or make a 2015 year’s gift promise of your resources or legacy to Sojourners; or make another decision of support whose aim, is to help Sojourners to plan its purposeful mission with bravery, boldness, and courage for another year and for years to come. For 2015, we ask for your commitment to help us to fulfill our calling.

May God bless us every one.

Make your commitment to Sojourners’ work in 2015 by clicking here.

Jim Wallis is president of Sojourners. His book,The (Un)Common Good: How the Gospel Brings Hope to a World Divided, the updated and revised paperback version of On God’s Side, is available now. Follow Jim on Twitter @JimWallis. Sandi Villarreal is Web Editor & Chief Digital Officer for Sojourners. You can follow her on Twitter @Sandi.

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Sermon on Loving your Enemy (even if you don't mean it) 20FEB11

I have posted this before, but thought it would be good to post again considering the reactions of some to the death of osama bin laden......

 


Sometimes when I’m bored I kinda like to fill in sound effects that I think the crowd listening to Jesus might have responded with. He takes familiar passages And says “you have heard this (and everyones like “yeah!) and then he goes but I say this” (and everyone’s like booo)   he does this with messianic authority several times in the Sermon on the Mount like in today’s reading when he says: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ (and everyones like “yeah!) ³⁹But I say to you,  if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; (and everyone’s like boo!) 
Jesus takes the part of the law of Moses which prevented disproportional punishment….  the let the punishment fit the crime statute found in Exodus 21 and turns it on it’s head like Jesus loves to do. OK, fair enough.
But then the next part says this.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

So where exactly is it is written you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemies?  That’s just not found in the Torah.  I searched for it…it’s not there, sure the love your neighbor thing is in the old testament but hate your enemy?  good luck , it’s like trying to look for “God helps those who help themselves” It’s simply not in the Bible.  But then I realized why love your neighbor and hate your enemy sounds so familiar …. ‘cause, it might not be in the Bible, but I’m pretty sure it’s in my heart.  It’s like, in our DNA.  So if you’re trying to find where Love your neighbor and hate your enemy is found don’t look in the old testament…look here.  When I realized this it felt like a bad horror movie “the phone call is coming from inside the house” See In my heart I want to savor my anger and resentments.  I mean you may be able to turn them into love but my anger and hatred is special.  It’s justified and if I can get other people to hate the people I hate then all the better.  Knowing why each of my enemies clearly deserves to be hated is like a big delicious meal, until I realize I’m the main course.  Because hatred is simply a corrosive form of spiritual bondage.  So Jesus says Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.
          Now before we go on let me say this: loving your enemy and praying for those who persecute you is not the same as saying that it’s ok that someone has caused you emotional, spiritual or physical harm. I don’t think Jesus is saying that we should dismiss, discount or diminish the very real harm done to us by damaged people.

So when Jesus says love your enemies I just don’t think he means try and muster up a positive emotional feeling about despicable people. Loving those who persecute you is simply not the same as saying you should feel affection toward the people who have hurt you, or that you should feel fondness for people who are mean to you at work.  I just don’t think this about our feelings. Because the Greek word Jesus uses when he tells us to love our enemies is Agape and  Agape love simply isn’t about what we feel in our hearts.  It’s not a sentiment. I actually don’t think it has to do with feelings at all…agape is the love that’s only possible through the indwelling of God’s spirit.

 And I don’t think he means think nice thoughts even.  Remember when your mom made you apologize to your brother or sister and you just kind of phoned it in “sorry.” and she was like “say it like you mean it…it doesn’t count if you don’t mean it”  Yeah…this isn’t like that.  I think loving our enemies might be too central to the gospel…too close to the heart of Jesus for it to wait until we mean it.  I don’t mean it. And my heart, remember… the very place where I found that impulse that I am to love my neighbor and hate my enemy isn’t going to purify itself.  So if God is waiting for that same heart to feel nice loving warm pink fuzzy things about someone who is my enemy well, I think God might be waiting awhile. 
So if it’s not a feeling we try really really hard to create in our own hearts maybe Agape-ing… loving our enemies is actually an action.  Because given the choice between feeling the thing and doing the thing I think the doing of the thing that is what’s critical here. And maybe “really meaning it” is not the prerequisite to just doing it and maybe the action we take is simply this: you pray for those who persecute you.  Commend them to God.  You don’t have to feel affection for them…just hand em over.   Because this counter-intuitive act of enemy love requires prayer.  It doesn’t require the right feelings of niceness or generosity, It requires that we commend our enemies to the one who has perfected the love of enemy. It requires being in the prayerful presence of a God who was killed by God’s enemies and then rather than retaliation, rather than violence, rather than an eye for an eye God used that same death to be the very thing that ends up being the source of their salvation.
So maybe when Jesus says to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you it’s not so that you can be good.  It’s so you can be free. this freedom from the corrosive distortions of hatred this freedom from having to protect our selves and prove ourselves and preserve our rightness.  Well, this is the freedom of the Gospel.  This is the freedom of a God who loves God’s own enemies enough to die for them.
I’ll end with a story about how you just never know when God might make your enemy your friend.  A man named Chris Roseborough hosts a conservative Christian talk radio show called Pirate Christian Radio. And a couple months after he had spent 2 of his shows talking about me and how I am disobeying God by being a female pastor and how I’m a heretic because I have gay folks in my church and well, you get the idea.  Well a couple months after this he showed up to a conference I was speaking at in the Twin Cities.  Now you should know something about me.  My first response to almost everything is screw you.  Now I almost never stay there but I almost always start there. God usually pretty quickly moves me to something a little more gracious but that doesn’t change my wiring.  I’m a fighter.  So when I heard he was there I went into a little mini rage screw that guy he shouldn’t even be here, don’t show me who he is I’m not talking to him.  Clearly he was my enemy.  But the next day a middle aged guy with a beer gut and a bad goatee walks up to me after I had spoken extends his hand and says “Hi. I’m Chris…” I swallowed hard, extended my hand said a quick “help me” prayer and we proceeded to have a conversation about our need for God’s grace and forgiveness of sins and the Eucharist.  A conversation in which he cried twice.  At the end I said “Chris, I have 2 things to say to you. 1. You are a beautiful child of God and 2. I think you and I were desperate enough to hear the gospel today that we might even hear it from each other.  Now Chris calls me about every couple months and we talk for like an hour.  He hasn’t written about me or talked about me on his radio show and he’s gotten in a lot of trouble form his followers for calling me his friend.  Now…did this happen because I managed to make my heart feel really nice warm fuzzy feelings toward him? clearly not.  I can’t stand the guy.  This was a loving-my-enemy that only could flow from the heart of a forgiving God.  The same God who in the book of Ezekial says I your God will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I  your God will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

And THAT is what freedom feels like.  May it be so. Amen

February 20, 2011 in House For All Sinner and Saints, sermons | Permalink

FASTING AND LENT

"Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?"
- Isaiah 58:6-7

Citizens or Neighbors? 6OKT10

by Julie Clawson

Last week a Tennessee man’s house burned to the ground while firefighters stood by and watched. Gene Cranick hadn't paid a $75 insurance fee that opts him into his county’s fire protection services, according to him he simply forgot to send it in. So when his house caught fire, firefighters showed up and watched his house burn (with his pets inside). They worked to save a neighbor's field (who had paid the fee), but simply stood by as his house burned to the ground. There is much to-do being made about following the laws of the land and the safety of firefighters working in a place they aren’t insured to protect. Comparisons are (rightly) being made to instances where people die in the ER because they are refused treatment since they don't have health insurance. What we see is that the system rewards those with privilege any money who can afford protection, but denies help to those who fall outside that group.
Those, of course, aren’t the only laws that prevent help from reaching people. Numerous cities have passed laws against panhandlers. Included in these laws are rules that forbid giving handouts to beggars. These laws make it against the law to feed the hungry – giving a sandwich to a homeless guy on the streets is technically illegal in many areas. Also there are the laws about not giving aid to immigrants. Pastors cannot offer shelter, food, or sanctuary to the needy if they are illegally in this country. Doctors cannot treat the wounded for fear of lending aid that is against the law. We have allowed ourselves to be consumed by a system where we have essentially forgotten that the Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.
Somewhere along the way we have started caring more about being a good citizen than being a good neighbor. It’s strange, because we still attempt to instill in our children the idea of being a good neighbor – to help even those that oppose us. With two young children at home, I see a lot of the TV shows and movies aimed at kids. I see Dora going off to help out her arch-enemy Swiper when he gets in trouble. Or in the new Tinkerbelle movie, I see the fairies mounting a rescue attempt for the one fairy that always tries to ruin their lives. No matter who those people are or how bad they have been, the message gets sent that if they are in trouble you help them no matter what. In the same way we teach our kids the story of the Good Samaritan, emphasizing that racial, cultural, and economic lines do not matter when it comes to how we should help others who are hurting. We say that we value being a good neighbor, but how quickly that gets abandoned when it gets in the way of being a good citizen.
Allowing the laws of the land to stand in the way of love is not what it means to live out what Jesus was encouraging in that parable. Standing by and watching a house burn down and pets be burned alive because of a $75 fee is not being a good neighbor. Nor is letting someone die because they aren’t rich enough to afford insurance. From a certain political perspective it can be justified as being a good citizen, but that is not even close to being the same thing. Perhaps we need to listen more to the lessons we teach our children. Being a good neighbor means taking care of people no matter their economic, racial, or political status. It means loving them no matter how badly they may have treated us or offended our sensibilities. It means we have to stop being the Priest or the Levite who let the excuses of legality and red tape justify our crossing to the other side of the road and walking right past those who suffer. Being a good neighbor means revering compassion and love above following the letter of the law. The laws were made to serve, not to prevent us from actually serving.
But I fear we have it all backwards in our society as we constantly seek to find new and more creative ways to avoid doing the hard work of actually following Jesus.
Update – For a perfect example of this messed up worldview, read these comments arguing that letting the house burn down was the "Christian" think to do since having compassion means you follow a weak "feminized" Christianity that doesn't care about responsibility or prosperity.