Clearing the Backblog...
Ok, ok, ok... I know I've missed a couple of days and for that I'm really sorry. The days are very full here and the moments to grab some time to blog are few. Thus, and so... let me look back a couple of days.
Wednesday began with more mind blowing Bible with Bill. We cracked open some more of the Parables. Notably we looked at the Good Samaritan (Matthew 10:25). So many times we have heard this parable used to refer to someone who does a good deed for a stranger. The example that Bill used was helping an old lady carry her groceries home.
What we discovered was that being a "good Samaritan" goes way beyond simple good deeds. The Samaritan in this story gets messy by coming into contact with a person who is half dead, bleeding and is probably a trap laid by robbers. He uses the most expensive things to help heal this half dead man, oil and wine were not cheap to come by. He puts this wounded man upon his own animal and thus becomes even more of a target for thieves. He gives up two days wages and promises to give more, to give all that is required.
In the example of the old lady it would not be enough to simply carry her groceries. The good Samaritan would have bought the groceries, drove them home in his own car, put them away, cooked the meal, fed the lady the meal, washed up after the meal, cleaned the whole house - including scrubbing her toilet - putting the lady to bed and then to come back tomorrow and do it all over again.
The point is "good Samaritans" take the age old question "what are the limits to being a Christian" and throw it out the window. Good Samaritans practise lavish, insanely over the top generosity always.
To quote Martin Luther King Jr. "The first call on love is justice."
How do we put this into practise... well, I'm still working on that really. But this kind of call on our lives is so powerful that we simply have to tame it. It is impossible to do this completely the main thing is to actually do our best.
We also looked at the parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14) and the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1). They equally blew open my understanding of what a Christian is and how I should live.
On Wednesday we also studied ethics with the Reverend Bill Danaher, the Dean of Theology here at Huron. He explained and engaged the topic in a way that we could all understand and grasp and put to work in our lives. We now know what terms like "consequentialism" (the greatest good for the greatest number) and "deontology" (right vs. wrong: treat all as an end and not a means) mean and who neither of these two schools of thought really fit any given situation. Rather we looked at a third ethic that revolved around virtue (what kind of person would I become if I did...?)
The afternoon saw us engage the topic of justice by being involved in a workshop around the work of the Primate's World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF). We defined "justice". We explored the difference between shallow and deep justice. He heard about what PWRDF is and how it engages in justice all around the world.
The worship Wednesday night was loud, high energy, powerful with a joyful drum circle. After worship we separated ourselves by gender. The girls had a "girls' night in" and the boys went out bowling. I've never bowled with those HUGE balls you put three fingers in before... it was difficult to get but once I found a ball that suited my hand I faired pretty well.
More about yesterday (Thursday) and my trip to Stratford, ON to visit the L'arche aommunity there soon...
E+
Wednesday began with more mind blowing Bible with Bill. We cracked open some more of the Parables. Notably we looked at the Good Samaritan (Matthew 10:25). So many times we have heard this parable used to refer to someone who does a good deed for a stranger. The example that Bill used was helping an old lady carry her groceries home.
What we discovered was that being a "good Samaritan" goes way beyond simple good deeds. The Samaritan in this story gets messy by coming into contact with a person who is half dead, bleeding and is probably a trap laid by robbers. He uses the most expensive things to help heal this half dead man, oil and wine were not cheap to come by. He puts this wounded man upon his own animal and thus becomes even more of a target for thieves. He gives up two days wages and promises to give more, to give all that is required.
In the example of the old lady it would not be enough to simply carry her groceries. The good Samaritan would have bought the groceries, drove them home in his own car, put them away, cooked the meal, fed the lady the meal, washed up after the meal, cleaned the whole house - including scrubbing her toilet - putting the lady to bed and then to come back tomorrow and do it all over again.
The point is "good Samaritans" take the age old question "what are the limits to being a Christian" and throw it out the window. Good Samaritans practise lavish, insanely over the top generosity always.
To quote Martin Luther King Jr. "The first call on love is justice."
How do we put this into practise... well, I'm still working on that really. But this kind of call on our lives is so powerful that we simply have to tame it. It is impossible to do this completely the main thing is to actually do our best.
We also looked at the parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14) and the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1). They equally blew open my understanding of what a Christian is and how I should live.
On Wednesday we also studied ethics with the Reverend Bill Danaher, the Dean of Theology here at Huron. He explained and engaged the topic in a way that we could all understand and grasp and put to work in our lives. We now know what terms like "consequentialism" (the greatest good for the greatest number) and "deontology" (right vs. wrong: treat all as an end and not a means) mean and who neither of these two schools of thought really fit any given situation. Rather we looked at a third ethic that revolved around virtue (what kind of person would I become if I did...?)
The afternoon saw us engage the topic of justice by being involved in a workshop around the work of the Primate's World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF). We defined "justice". We explored the difference between shallow and deep justice. He heard about what PWRDF is and how it engages in justice all around the world.
The worship Wednesday night was loud, high energy, powerful with a joyful drum circle. After worship we separated ourselves by gender. The girls had a "girls' night in" and the boys went out bowling. I've never bowled with those HUGE balls you put three fingers in before... it was difficult to get but once I found a ball that suited my hand I faired pretty well.
More about yesterday (Thursday) and my trip to Stratford, ON to visit the L'arche aommunity there soon...
E+
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