It seems fashionable lately to focus on only the two great commandments of Jesus, "you should love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and "you shall love your neighbour as yourself", but Jesus gave many commandments throughout the new testament that seem very specific.
In your opinion, are all of Jesus' commandments relevent even today, or should we disregard some and not others?
If we only follow the two great commandments and not the others, is this "cherry picking"?
We were sitting together in a large circle, myself and several residents of the Veterans Wing at a large Canadian hospital. They had come because they were interested in having an open conversation about 'spiritual matters'. And my role was to lightly facilitate.
"Joe" got the conversation started with the following provocative comment:
Today, on the ski lift, we met a fellow - well educated medical specialist. The lift ride is long in the Rockies so you get to have a good conversation if you are inclined. We were asking about real estate and managed to end on a recommendation from this doctor to read Ezekiel 38/39 - he felt April was going to be a significant month this year. Now we're just looking this up and it seems to indicate a battle of ginormous proportions though its hard sorting through the online hyperbole of crackpots.
Jesus often focused on the need for integrity between the "inner life" and the "outer life." One metaphor he gave to the Pharisees (who were apparently squeaky clean on the outside) was an instruction to "clean the inside of the cup."
On my way to the office this morning, Bob Marley's granddaughter was speaking because of the movie opening she was a part of at the Royal Ontario Museum :
Mr. Coyne warns us that the baby boomers can expect cuts in their old age pensions. Workers at a factory are locked out even as the factory reports record profits. The child povery rate is rising. working and middle class wages struggle while the incomes of the wealthiest in the western world rise to the highest levels in recorded history.
We have an economic system based on greed, self-interest, and abuse - not to mention war, torture, and assassination.
Gee. I dunno. It seems to me there are moral questions here.
Yes Yes I know it only Monday. BUt tomorrow is Tuesday. ANd still January. And so I had another Tuesday Lectionary Leanings post for http://revgalblogpals.blogspot.com THought I would share it here.
