Love Your Enemies...You Made Them

As Glynn preached on this lesson last week noting that the church should stop making unity its goal and unify around social justice, Clay gives it a second look. He notes that the church is already united in "Original Sin." Our propensity to do violence and making it sacred is why the church and society reject the Gospel. "As those of you who were here or have watched or read the sermon online will remember, Glynn asked how important is unity? His position was “not so much” if Jesus’ sermon to his hometown is any indication. Jesus could have played to the crowd’s delight that a local boy was making the rest of the region sit up and take notice. Instead he preached a sermon that transformed the congregation from a cheering crowd into a lynch mob ready to throw him off one of the cliffs that overlook Nazareth. Glynn argued that Jesus’ message is that unity is only possible as an outcome for a community that seeks social justice for those on the margins. He chastised especially the church for making unity a goal that trumps justice for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community. I couldn’t agree more and I would co-sign those sentiments. But I would also argue that the church does not need to seek unity we are already united--by original sin.   Some of you may be wondering if you heard me right. We don’t dangle people over hell’s fire as sinful beings at St Matthew’s and we certainly don’t look at babies as contaminated because they were created by S-E-X. But, yes, you heard me right." Full text and video links available at www.stmatthews.org.nz.