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Tuesday 15 August 2017

"Therefore... No Excuse."

I ask for the grace to pray faithfully.  May we receive what is needed for us to be present to the world as it is.  May we seek to follow Christ and deepen our discipleship, whatever the cost.  May we be open to making the changes we can to proclaim the presence of the Kingdom of God to all God's peoples.


Romans 1:24-2:1
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, 27and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. 29They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32They know God’s decree, that those who practise such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practise them. 2Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.


1) "degrading passion;" "...received in their own person the due penalty for their error;" "...did not see fit to acknowledge God;" "...filled with every kind of wickedness;" "...those who practise such things deserve to die;" "There fore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things."


2) My first thought is how amazing that for centuries the church read the first chapter to justify judging "sodomy" and yet neglected to read the first verse of chapter 2: "for in in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things."  Paul will go on in Romans to demonstrate how the Jewish judgement of the Gentiles only contemns the Jews because it isn't in following the law, but by grace that all are saved.  All are "condemned," so that all may be "saved."  I wish I could internalize the first verse of chapter 2.  But I judge so easily.  And I'm filled with judgement about what's been happening with the "white nationalist" movement in the states.  I know that condemning them and asserting they are horribly wrong will never open them to alternative education.  Nor does it help me educate my own people about our own participation in white privilege/supremacy.  Yes, white nationalists have taken their privilege to an extreme, but the difference from our own reality is only in degree, not kind. 


3) What is the invitation in all this?  To find the opportunity to examine our own blind spots in relation to people who are not "like us;" to expose our tokenism for what it is; to confess our comfort with the way things are; to seek ways of being open to a more egalitarian model for relationships in particular between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people in our context.


"Holy One, help us remember that you are the only judge."


Breathprayer: "Therefore... no excuse."



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