Our pastor has been off lectionary for Lent; he's been preaching about the last 5 days of Christ. Yesterday's pre-planned Gospel was the Crucifixion story. It provided an interesting juxtaposition with the story out of Sanford, the shooting of unarmed Trayvon Martin. When our pastor first mentioned the case, I felt my heart sink a bit. I find the story heartbreaking in all sorts of ways, yet I'm tired of hearing all the anger that it provokes.
Our pastor pulled off the tricky task of talking about the case without it sinking the larger message. Our pastor reminded us that we don't know as much about the case as we might think we do. He said, "It's not helpful to speculate on what the people were thinking or feeling that night.
He said that Christians have a voice to bring to this conversation, which is so marked by anger and speculation. He then segued to the Good Friday story. He asked, "To what is our heart clinging?"
Luther said it should be God.
Our pastor reminded us that our culture will offer us many substitutes for God. Our culture is happy to provide gods for us: self, anger, money, anxiety, status . . . the list could go on and on.
It's an important question to ask periodically: to what does your heart cling? Is it God or some other kind of god that your culture has supplied?
but bestows favor on the humble
6 months ago
1 comment:
This is a hot issue at my seminary, and I'm uncomfortable with the way it's being discussed by fellow students. At the same time, I'm very aware that (as a middle-class white woman) there's too much room for error in suggesting we reframe the discussion.
I'm glad your pastor was able to do so gracefully (in both senses).
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