Tag Archives: love of neighbor

Sunlit Grace

04 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Poems, Prayers

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Red Bluff Church

Church on Red Bluff Road, south of Quesnel, British Columbia, Photo credit: blog Cruising Canuckistan

Bless the people
who labor for a better life
a better neighborhood
a better country
a better world,
who love family
create community
and give of themselves
so that seeds of hope
planted in places of despair
may be watered
and grow
and emerge as new life!

Bless the artists and poets
who see what might be
with a piercing clarity
of what now is.

Bless the journalists
who ask uncomfortable questions
and expose inconvenient mistruths
in their dogged pursuit of truth.

Bless the churches and mosques and synagogues
that dot the prairies, hills and valleys
of this precious landscape,
breathing a spirit of prayer and goodness
into the shared life of their communities.

Bless truck driver, crop picker, waiter and cook.
Bless coal miner, windmill farmer, and solar installer.
Bless single mother, newly married, aging couple, and widowed.
Bless teacher, student, leader, and follower.
Bless dreamer, shaper, thinker, and friend.

Bless the fraying edges of relationships,
the absences and separations,
the losses and heartaches,
the holy disruptions,
the sacred silences of peace.

Bless it all, Creation’s Lord.

Let the sunlight of your grace
shine upon poor and rich alike
exposing the treasures nearest each beating heart –
love of neighbor,
love of God.
Bless the whole world, we pray –
no exceptions.

 
Words Copyright (c) 2017, Mark Lloyd Richardson

Prayers you won’t hear on the lips of people following Jesus

25 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by in Prayers, Reflections

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Prayers you won’t hear on the lips of people following Jesus

(If you do hear any of them, I guess you know what that means)

Lord, shield me from the needs of people I meet today so that I don’t feel responsible to do anything to meet their needs;

Lord, defeat the (insert other political party name here), so that your kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven;

Lord, help me to keep the ordinary activities and choices of this day separate from the private spiritual journey I’m on;

Lord, help me to look beyond the pained expressions on the faces of bullied teenagers, stressed-out parents, and neglected elders, to see your glory;

Lord, keep others from interrupting my day with their personal worries or fears that have nothing to do with the good I hope to accomplish today;

Lord, prevent others from asking me about my faith in you (let my actions speak for themselves);

Lord, remove my guilt when I have more pressing things to do than stop and help a neighbor;

Lord, give me a pure heart, unstained by the sins of this world (by keeping me at a safe distance from those whose morality doesn’t look like mine);

Lord, help me to appreciate the exclusive claims of Christianity and its superiority over other religious traditions;

Lord, make me great in your coming kingdom;

Lord, I believe, and there is no unbelief in me;

Lord, I thank you that I am not full of myself like other people!

Words (c) Mark Lloyd Richardson

God Bending Down

06 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by in Reflections, Sermon portions

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“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me…. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.” (Hosea 11:1-4)

This is Hosea’s portrait of God bending down to reach humankind – to touch us, to hold us, to heal us. It is a portrait of God’s infinite capacity to love all who are made in God’s image.

However, Hosea goes on to describe a growing separation between God and humanity, a story that repeats itself not only within human history, but within our individual lives and the communities to which we belong.

Hosea warns that the people beloved of God “shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. The sword rages in their cities, … and devours because of their schemes. My people are bent on turning away from me.” (Hosea 11:5-7)

It is a discouraging picture. The very people who have been rescued from slavery, brought safely through the wilderness, and bestowed with the promise of a land and a future, have once again become a rebellious people, turning away from God.

It doesn’t take much, you know – a few good months in the stock market; good enough health; harmonious family relations; meaningful work or meaningful retirement – life going fairly smoothly, in other words!

Slowly, almost without noticing, you drift away from acknowledging God for the gifts and the blessings and the joys of your life!

Slowly, almost without noticing, you begin to think that you are entitled to have things be the way you want them to be, only to be surprised when life again becomes difficult or challenging or out of control!

The prophet Hosea implicates God’s people in their own troubles, speaking of their return to Egypt, to the very slavery from which they have been rescued, if they continue in their sinful ways.

We, too, forget our history. In the United States we have a history of racism. We have made progress toward racial equality and justice in my lifetime, but we haven’t arrived yet in creating a society that provides the same opportunities and protections to all of our citizens.

Usually it is the people who are the most clueless about systemic racism who are quick to say we have moved beyond it. People say things that belie their prejudice or intolerance, all the while denying having any such attitudes. It is in these ways that we, too, can “return to Egypt,” if we turn a blind eye to the racial tensions and injustices around us.

Hosea, chapter 11, is a psalm of lament. God calls people to be faithful and to live with the intent of honoring God with their lives, yet so often we choose the slavery from which God has time and again set us free. We choose to belittle our neighbors who are different from us.

Abraham Heschel claims: “Prophecy is not concerned with imparting general information, but deals with what concerns God intimately.”

What concerns God is that we learn to love our neighbors – including our homeless neighbors, our gay and lesbian neighbors, our black or Latino neighbors, our immigrant neighbors – neighbors different from us. When we fail to love our neighbors, we fail to love the Creator of us all!

Words (c) 2013 Mark Lloyd Richardson

Look Who God Let In

09 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by in Reflections, Sermon portions

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The New Testament book of James reminds us that we do well if we fulfill scripture’s royal law, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (2:8). Our neighbor is not only the person next door, but the one we haven’t yet bothered to get to know, the one of a different socioeconomic class, the one of another religious or cultural perspective. Our neighbors are increasingly diverse. As Diana Eck reminds us in relation to our own Constitution, “We the people” in our religiously pluralistic society includes the Muslim, the Buddhist, and the Hindu.

“If you show partiality,” James warns, “you commit sin” (2:9). The command to love our neighbors challenges us at the core of who Christ calls us to be. It challenges us to be inclusive in our welcoming. It challenges us to widen the scope of the ones we call our neighbors. It challenges us to live the gospel values of hospitality, compassion and grace.

When it comes to the church and who is in and who is out I am always stunned by God’s graciousness.

People I cannot relate to, God lets in.

People I don’t understand, God lets in.

People whose life decisions I can’t embrace, God lets in.

People who are stubborn or opinionated or worse, God lets in.

People who are not like me – fine, upstanding sinner that I am – God lets in.

God lets in all kinds of people. It’s the church that sometimes closes the door in the face of the hurting, the addicted, the self-righteous, the poor, the sojourner, or the different.

I favor the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church.

I am constrained by the Gospel of Jesus Christ to accept those whom God accepts.

As a follower of Christ I believe in my heart that God accepts me and loves me as I am.

God’s grace is so unfathomable that you and I experience it even when the people around us know we don’t deserve it.

God’s love comes to us even when we know ourselves to be unlovable.

I have felt the assurance of God’s forgiveness and grace in my life. How can I deny it to other sinners?

The doors to God’s grace open wide to a vast array of imperfect people. How can I close a door that God opens?

As another pastor is quoted as saying, “I am so glad that God wants people who sin and struggle with sin to come to church, because as Pastor, I would hate to be excluded from the church I serve in.”

God’s kingdom is an alternative Realm where the least, the last, and the lost are God’s most urgent concern. How these neighbors are treated is a sign of how well the church understands God’s purposes.

A wonderfully inclusive welcome statement at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Community in Daytona Beach generated a lot of buzz on the Internet recently. It reads:

“We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, y no habla Ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail, or could afford to lose a few pounds.

“We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or like our pastor who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re ‘just browsing,’ just woke up, or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s baptism.

“We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, and junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like ‘organized religion,’ we’ve been there too.

“If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.

“We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts … and you!”

Again I ask, if God opens a door to my neighbors, who am I to close it?

Words (c) 2012 Mark Lloyd Richardson