The Bible is not a guidebook to manhood or womanhood. It is a guidebook to personhood in Christ: Love God and Love your Neighbor (all people & Creation) as yourself. Anyone trying to package the Bible as a guidebook for gender presentation is on a slippery slope to idolatry.
Our citizenship is in Heaven;
not in the systems and structures
that our societies value:
power maintenance,
economic control,
and resource exploitation,
by which people and creation are
oppressed and marginalized
for the comfort and supremacy
of a few.
Our citizenship is in Heaven;
in the Love and Justice of God
that transforms our hearts, churches, and societies
through the model of our Savior,
Jesus Christ,
and the power of
the Holy Spirit,
by power sharing,
economic jubilee –
equitable resource stewardship –
and communal creation caretaking.
Our citizenship is in Heaven
by co-creating Heaven on Earth –
this Earth –
here and now,
for all people
and creation.
Amen.
God of Love:
Working for the flourishing of all people –
toppling white supremacy, patriarchy, and affluence –
dispersing power to all people –
enabling all of creation to live fully.
Centering marginalized and oppressed voices
from prophetic resistance
to Kingdom community
of holistic well-being.
Racism, homophobia, sexism –
all tools of oppression and domination –
cast into the flames of Hell.
Hell:
the chosen rejection of God’s love
and flourishing of God’s creation.
And the God of wholeness
will be uplifted and
reign in Love,
Eternally.
Amen.
You call us to wholeness, not brokenness –
as a Spirit of three-persons in one substance –
demanding that we speak truths
to one another:
our friends, our foes, ourselves.
That we must not rely on worldly comforts
and temporal ease,
instead finding rest and strength
in You
with community:
the good, the bad, the real.
Because you created us for wholeness,
not brokenness.
Amen.
I have confidence
in God’s miraculous love
amidst this time of terror –
through signs and symbols
from Mother Earth.
In the serotinous cones of the lodgepole pines –
resins dripping and releasing seeds
after consumed by rampant wildfires –
bringing a new generation of life
amidst death.
In the interdependent relationships of plants –
the trinity of beans, corn, and squash –
Holy Sisters, mutually sharing life-giving
minerals, nitrogen, fertilizer, and water –
amidst times of depletion and scarcity.
In the ecstatic ecstasy of human touch and companionship –
the wells of physical interconnection
and soul-expanding depths of conversation
amidst the valleys of shadow and despair.
There is a tremendous constancy of
Possibility,
hope and New Life,
all plainly modeled for us from
our Holy Mother, Earth –
and embedded in our incarnate bodies –
if we only listen
and follow.
God’s love is an open-armed greeting,
but teachings of sin caused me to pull away:
Unworthy.
God stood saddened still, but not stunned,
knowing from the human evil it came:
Control.
God sent an Advocate before I was formed
to be ever-present with me, reminding me:
Love.
God demonstrated to my heart, helping me
to see the wrong in ecclessial espoused self-hate:
Healing.
God extended means of Grace, and I retreated
drowning in family, culture, and church:
Tradition.
God persisted, loving without condition
and inviting me into the Love abundance:
Experience.
God led me to encounter texts and people
with different messages and teachings
coaxing my brain where my heart wasn’t ready:
Reason.
God opened my eyes to read and interpret
in holistic and healing ways:
Scripture.
God encountered my in God’s love through
self-love, neighborly love, and love of enemy –
a least-of-these love:
Calling.
And God’s call was to teach and to love
as a conduit of God’s love in the world:
Disciple.
Amen.
When a social claim
is absolute about God
it is probably a deception.
We must test this claim
with the Truth of God’s Love.
Does the claim bear the fruits of Love?
God is love
and the fruits of Love
include and challenge
are abundant and generously given
uplift and make whole.
If the claim demonizes or terrorizes
harms or scares
excludes or makes scarce
it is antithetical to Christ
and God’s Love.
Resist.
Deacon Grant 