(no subject)
This was my closing statement in a homework assignment having to tie Gandhi and King with the kingdom of God: In Matthew 21:32, Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.” To me, King and Gandhi led movements for people who the rest of world had already written off as either worthless or inferior. Both African-Americans and Indians were seen as weak and because of that, they were always treated with discrimination by the “greater forces” of their environment whether it was only in their country or town or by neighboring countries that were controlling them. What is so refreshing and true about what Christ said is that those that society rejected - the tax collectors and prostitutes - they were the ones that could truly see and understand the power and divinity of God. King and Gandhi’s people got “it”. It was their faith in being able to conquer oppression that kept them moving.
Since my time here in Los Angeles, there are certain things that make a little bit more sense to me. My faith is different now. My theology is different. I'm a little different. Everyday, my sense of connection with the marginalized in society gets stronger. I've never really been able to reconcile with God in suburbia but the God in the city... that God makes sense to me. That is the God I want to worship. I believe that there is a reason why the gospels are filled with Christ using the rejected and "unclean" to teach everyone else lessons about love and community. There are examples of women, the sick and ethnic minorities (The Good Samaritan) that Christ said, hey, take a moment and look at what they did. Who are the rejected today? Why are they important and what is Christ trying to communicate through them and becos of them?
At the same time, I cannot hate APU and its administration. I cannot hate my church and I cannot hate politicians. I want to, sometimes. All I want to say to everybody is, "You preach Christ? You preach having a relationship with him and walking in his ways? Okay, let's really look at that. Let's look at what he did and who he really was." We all know the story of his sacrifice. What about the fact that he was, essentially, a man who was homeless? (His ministry never allowed him to settle down.) He was arrested. He reached out to people (while the religious leaders thought he was ludacris and a heathen) and looked at them as individual beings of worth. He taught us that love is acted out, shown and without any sort of pricetag. He taught us that we cannot serve both God and money. Haven't we been missing it? It is so easy to say that you love Jesus. But I think we should really look at what that means and what we're really getting ourselves into when we say that.
I'm getting it now... not always, but it's a start.