Psalm 73:3-12
I was envious of the arrogant;
I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For they have no pain;
their bodies are sound and sleek.
They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not plagued like other people.
Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them like a garment.
Their eyes swell out with fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
They set their mouths against heaven,
and their tongues range over the earth.
Therefore the people turn and praise them
and find no fault in them.
…
Such are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
This past week has been an AWFUL week. I have always said that I am a news-junkie, but this week the news has been hitting way too close to home and I have not been able to break myself away from it. And the hardest part of it all has been the realization that the faith I claim and the political beliefs I have seen being acting out around me are light years apart from each other.
One of the most distressing things to come out of this week (although it’s been in plain sight for a few years now) is the growing existence of churches that call themselves “Christian” while teaching a twisted form of Christian belief that rejects the actual teachings of Jesus as “weak” and replaces them with a quest for power and control.
This is most obvious in the destruction of any teaching that attempts to lift up “D.E.I” – “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” These three points seem to be anathema to these so-called Christians.
A couple of weeks ago I introduced you to Rev. Mark Sandlin – a Presbyterian pastor from North Carolina whose brief and sometimes ‘snarky’ on-line musings on things bible-related I have found to be helpful in seeing a subject from a new direction. Here is part of one such musing regarding diversity and inclusion:
In teachings such as The Good Samaritan, Jesus praised this foreign man because of his caring actions, even though he would have been rejected as ‘unclean’ by the greater bulk of the people around him; The Beatitudes, for instance, teach us to be humble and not try to raise ourselves up above others. And several times when the disciples tried to limit who could have access to Jesus (i.e. women, children, foreigners) Jesus rebuked them (the disciples) and insisted on remaining open and available to all.
And there is, of course, the ultimate teaching from Matthew 25 which we have discussed multiple times recently: “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me….Lord, when did we do these things? When you did them to the least among my brothers and sisters…”
And yet these so-called Christian Nationalists reject these teachings. How do you call yourselves followers of Jesus and then reject everything Jesus taught?
Jesus made no secret of his beliefs in equity and inclusion – and he didn’t offer them to us as suggestions – these are commandments. Jesus expects us to do these things, if we are going to call ourselves his followers
And it wasn’t just Jesus and the New Testament – the Hebrew scriptures long before were filled with stories of various prophets speaking out in God’s name to reject the peoples’ shows of fake piety – such as Zechariah 7:9-10, ‘Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’ Do not take ancestral properties from someone fallen on hard times – and, again, offer hospitality to foreigners who show up hungry and exhausted – “You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself. (Leviticus 19:33-34) There are dozens, if not hundreds of such commandments in the Bible – both Old and New Testaments. How can we just ignore them?
Jesus and the God he claimed as ‘father’ cared about every person. No one was to be judged by the color of their skin or the fatness of their purse. The people then – as we are today – were expected to live and interact with each other with love and respect – not with greed or pride.
To quote Sandlin again:
What we’re seeing on the news these days is just plain wrong but human arrogance has convinced too many that they have the right to be cruel and selfish. Those of us who know this is wrong must act, as we can, to correct these and to open the doors wide for God’s love to fill the world with no room for hatred and selfishness.
Since I’ve been quoting Rev. Sandlin today, I’ll close here with his signature sign-off when he’s doing Bible exploration:
One of the most distressing things to come out of this week (although it’s been in plain sight for a few years now) is the growing existence of churches that call themselves “Christian” while teaching a twisted form of Christian belief that rejects the actual teachings of Jesus as “weak” and replaces them with a quest for power and control.
This is most obvious in the destruction of any teaching that attempts to lift up “D.E.I” – “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” These three points seem to be anathema to these so-called Christians.
A couple of weeks ago I introduced you to Rev. Mark Sandlin – a Presbyterian pastor from North Carolina whose brief and sometimes ‘snarky’ on-line musings on things bible-related I have found to be helpful in seeing a subject from a new direction. Here is part of one such musing regarding diversity and inclusion:
- "When people challenge DEI initiatives in Christian spaces, I have to wonder if they've read their Bibles lately. Christianity has a DEI bias baked right into its foundation. Jesus deliberately sought out the marginalized and excluded. He touched lepers, spoke with Samaritans, elevated women's voices, welcomed children, and ate with those society rejected. The early church was explicitly instructed to break down barriers of ethnicity, class, and gender.”
In teachings such as The Good Samaritan, Jesus praised this foreign man because of his caring actions, even though he would have been rejected as ‘unclean’ by the greater bulk of the people around him; The Beatitudes, for instance, teach us to be humble and not try to raise ourselves up above others. And several times when the disciples tried to limit who could have access to Jesus (i.e. women, children, foreigners) Jesus rebuked them (the disciples) and insisted on remaining open and available to all.
And there is, of course, the ultimate teaching from Matthew 25 which we have discussed multiple times recently: “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me….Lord, when did we do these things? When you did them to the least among my brothers and sisters…”
And yet these so-called Christian Nationalists reject these teachings. How do you call yourselves followers of Jesus and then reject everything Jesus taught?
Jesus made no secret of his beliefs in equity and inclusion – and he didn’t offer them to us as suggestions – these are commandments. Jesus expects us to do these things, if we are going to call ourselves his followers
And it wasn’t just Jesus and the New Testament – the Hebrew scriptures long before were filled with stories of various prophets speaking out in God’s name to reject the peoples’ shows of fake piety – such as Zechariah 7:9-10, ‘Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’ Do not take ancestral properties from someone fallen on hard times – and, again, offer hospitality to foreigners who show up hungry and exhausted – “You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself. (Leviticus 19:33-34) There are dozens, if not hundreds of such commandments in the Bible – both Old and New Testaments. How can we just ignore them?
Jesus and the God he claimed as ‘father’ cared about every person. No one was to be judged by the color of their skin or the fatness of their purse. The people then – as we are today – were expected to live and interact with each other with love and respect – not with greed or pride.
To quote Sandlin again:
- "If you're opposed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, you're not just fighting modern culture – you're standing in opposition to Jesus's radical message of inclusive love and the divine vision of beloved community. Our faith calls us to embrace diversity – frankly, that's exactly how Creation flourishes. So yes, Christianity has a DEI bias, and we should not only be proud of it, but we must continue to live into it as fully as we can every day."
What we’re seeing on the news these days is just plain wrong but human arrogance has convinced too many that they have the right to be cruel and selfish. Those of us who know this is wrong must act, as we can, to correct these and to open the doors wide for God’s love to fill the world with no room for hatred and selfishness.
Since I’ve been quoting Rev. Sandlin today, I’ll close here with his signature sign-off when he’s doing Bible exploration:
- “Seriously, ya’ll…some of you need to get to reading the Jesus-y parts.”
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