[34] This is not really a sermon on The Cross [Lent 2B, CWM]

( Mark 8:31-38 )

This is not really a sermon on The Cross

Last week, Pr. Lisa mentioned the discomfort many progressive Christians have with the concept of “sin.” I apparently was acculturated differently, because I do not have a knee-jerk negative reaction to sin talk.

If you ask me, “What is ‘sin’?” I say, “Sin is that which separates us from God” -- and if I’m really thinking, I add that it also separates us from each other, and from ourselves.

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

Our consistent missing the mark is a part of the human condition, and our strivings to ever draw closer to the Divine are our best selves at work in us.

While I don’t have a problem with discussion of sin, I have basically zero interest in the glorification of Jesus’ suffering and death. I have, in fact, an active resistance to it.

I absolutely, full-stop, refuse to believe in a God who requires the brutal death of a Beloved Child in order to reconcile the world to Godself. That’s abusive and cruel and irreconcilable with the God of Love who is at the center of my faith.

So I tend to not engage with the Cross much.

And fortunately for me, today’s lectionary doesn’t require that I come up with a coherent theology of the Cross that I can live with.

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[Lent 2B] joy sadhana wore her ~shimmery light blue & white sweater today

Best way to keep me quiet during a Bible Study? Do a lectio style where we go around and say what spoke to us personally and there's NO DISCUSSION. [Lambeth/African style] I had comments the 3rd round, but the first 2 I was like, "Yeah, I got nuthin." (It didn't help that my body was rebelling at the use of the H-word during Lent in The Message version and all the masculine pronouns in the Message and the NRSV and the pronunciation of YHWH in The Inclusive Bible.)

I stayed for the Congregational Meeting re: the Capital Campaign (which lasted less than an hour!) and left shortly thereafter as I needed to eat some real lunch and finish my sermon.

I got crepes to-go from Mr. Crepe, took the shuttle bus to Harvard Square, walked to HBS, and sat in the foyer of my building on my netbook and then went upstairs to my office to print out. (I had considered just going to HEUMC and working on the office assistant computer, but I think this was the better plan.)

During Coffee Hour, Rae asked, "Do you know what you're preaching on?" I said yes -- and said that if I had to wing it right now, I would be okay. When I actually pulled my draft up, I realized I'd had a somewhat overly optimistic recollection of how much I'd accomplished thus far -- but I was done about 2:30.

***

FCS today was: the Twelve Steps of AA: Step 6; and the 7 Deadly Sins: Greed+Gluttony.

The Meditation in the bulletin was:

From Geneen Roth's Women, Food and God:

It's never been true, not anywhere at any time, that the value of a soul, of a human spirit, is dependent on a number on a scale. We are unrepeatable beings of light and space and water who need these physical vehicles to get around. When we start defining ourselves by that which can be measured or weighed, something deep within us rebels.

...Compulsive eating is basically a refusal to be fully alive. No matter what we weigh, those of us who are compulsive eaters have anorexia of the soul. We refuse to take in what sustains us. We live lives of deprivation. And when we can't stand it any longer, we binge. The way we are able to accomplish all this is by the simple act of bolting -- of leaving ourselves -- hundreds of times a day.

...Imagine not being frightened by any feeling. Imagine knowing that nothing will destroy you. That you are beyond any feeling, any state. Bigger than. Vaster than. That there is no reason to use drugs because anything a drug could do would pale in comparison to knowing who you are.

***

"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy."
-mylittleredgirl [more info]
"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up." --Anne Lamott

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