December 2, 2024 — Stuff That Needs To Be Said: Essential Words on Life, Death, Faith, Politics, Love, and Giving a Damn

(Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying: Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.” Acts 1:12-14

“I’m starting a new church—the Church of Not Being Horrible. Our mission statement is simply this: Don’t be horrible to people. Don’t treat them as less worthy of love, respect, dignity, joy, and opportunity than you are. Don’t create caricatures of them based on their skin color, their religion, their sexual orientation, the amount of money they have, the circumstances they find themselves in.” (Pavlovitz, John. Stuff That Needs To Be Said: Essential Words on Life, Death, Faith, Politics, Love, and Giving a Damn (p. 18). John Pavlovitz. Kindle Edition.)

Have you noticed how horrible people are to one another? I notice it every day. I see it on the roads, I see it in the news, I hear it on social media. Do you think this is how Jesus wants us to treat one another? Do you think the disciples gathered early in the development of the church and thought to themselves: the only way to grow this church is to be horrible to outsiders? I am very certain they did not – and I am certain Jesus does not want us to be horrible to one another. Jesus wants us to love each other – to be one with each other the way that Jesus and His Father were one.

Now that sounds easy enough, but in truth it is hard to always do what G-d asks of us. G-d has always wanted a covenant with G-d’s people—sort of like a marriage. G-d wants a relationship with each one of us so we can form our relationships with each other within that model of love. But I am also sure that Jesus does not want us to model our relationships upon the movie “The War of the Roses.”

Perhaps we need to stop being horrible to one another – both in our relationships with the “others” in our lives, and within the church as well.

Pastor Dave