April 3, 2011
4th Sunday of Lent. A. Year
is true. We see and experience God through our bodies. That truth brings both healing and challenges. How do we hear the LGBT community and our friends the news?
they have been caricatured as often overly concerned by the body. Passages this week urges us to focus on the body. Therefore, may be particularly suitable to be read from a perspective friendly to LGBT people.
What could be the story of the anointing of David by Samuel in 1 Samuel 16:1-13? We the great "seer" Samuel, examining the children of Jesse to discern whom God has chosen. We see Samuel admiring the appearance and height of the first child of Jesse, Eliab, and concluding that this was the chosen one, only to be corrected with this memorable sentence: "This is not what the man sees , for man looks at the appearances, I look at the heart "(verse 7). However, it remains throughout the body as Samuel discerning God's choice. God uses Samuel's eye for male beauty, to "see" who would be the great king of Israel.
God uses our physical attractiveness, our ability to see and want to promote their purposes in the world. Despite the insistence of the writer of Ephesians 5:8-14 where the sexual body is hateful to the spirit, the body is stated in the story of the anointing of King David. David does not apologize for God's pleasure in your physical appearance. When dance without their clothes before the ark of the Lord in 2 Samuel 6, he insists on doing this for God and not by the slave girls, as he thought his wife (verses 16-20). The sense by which Samuel called the chosen of God, is the gift of sight.
Have you ever considered how God might use our ability to be attracted to your work? You know in any case? What is wonderful about this discovery? What worries or dangers also arise when we get carried away by our attractions?
The emphasis on the divine gift of sight continues our conversation on John 9: 1-41. Return the view is the urgent work of the kingdom of God revealed through Jesus-returning people to full capacity sensual, metaphorically -. Reading the Gospel of John draws to Jesus working (on Saturday), restoring wholeness (holiness "?) Through the violation of a code of holiness. And he healed left alone to defend his healing, and Jesus the healer (verses 13-17).
Is not this the predicament in which some people are LGBT and other oppressed people? God restores the full sensitivity and full appreciation of our embodiment as people equipped with race, gender and sexuality, but we are left alone in the community to defend our healing, and those who assist us in our healing. Some, surely, they may still insist that God does not heal LGBT people to assume their sexuality. Those ministers who support the full personhood of LGBT people, surely they are breaking the law of God, even Jesus was accused of doing (verse 16). These people expect us to be healed to get rid of the appreciation and celebration of our sexuality, our race or our gender.
What experiences have you had in the knowledge that God had released, but others questioned your authenticity? Or that those who expect to support you did not? How did this affect you?
However, John insists that some believe is endowed with vision, can not really see. And those who are considered blind, are in fact in full possession of their sensual skills. Is it not the responsibility of the beloved community to support the full expression our humanity? Is not the timing of the beloved community to defend and stand by those who come to the full humanity out of the closet, proclaiming his healing?
However, we must insist that blindness is not just a metaphor, it is not to stigmatize the blind as incomplete human beings. Actually, who are physically blind can also participate in their full humanity. Believing in Jesus is to experience the work of Jesus in their lives, being returned to the full humanity and full community. The work of Jesus, the kingdom of God, can only be experienced in and through the flesh. LGBT people and other oppressed people do not need to apologize to assume their flesh, for as Samuel, John and the psalmist insists (see Psalm 23: lying down in green pastures, still waters being driven, being comforted by the rod and staff of God), we experience is through the presence and the anointing of God.
inclusive God
However, we must insist that blindness is not just a metaphor, it is not to stigmatize the blind as incomplete human beings. Actually, who are physically blind can also participate in their full humanity. Believing in Jesus is to experience the work of Jesus in their lives, being returned to the full humanity and full community. The work of Jesus, the kingdom of God, can only be experienced in and through the flesh. LGBT people and other oppressed people do not need to apologize to assume their flesh, for as Samuel, John and the psalmist insists (see Psalm 23: lying down in green pastures, still waters being driven, being comforted by the rod and staff of God), we experience is through the presence and the anointing of God.
How does it affect the emphasis that God is experienced through the flesh and work through it? How is it good news? What God tells you through this emphasis? Prayer
celebrate our bodies and our liberation from oppression,
help us to approach and support
who are in the process of coming out and being healed,
who are coming to the awareness of the gifts
of your presence in our own bodies.
Help us to realize that, as advocates of yours,
often do evil
and we end up oppressing whom you have delivered.
Forgive us for this mistreatment
and help us accept ourselves
like you we have accepted and released.
Amen.
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