Scripture: 1 Corinthians 4:1-3
This, remedy then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.
Thought for the Day: It’s all too easy to judge other people, especially other people’s faith. Christianity has done an excellent job of creating people who think their way is the only way, and therefore anyone who disagrees is a corruption, a sinner, damned to an eternity in Hell. It’s unfortunate, because this is human judgment of human institutions, and has nothing to do with faith, and even less to do with the nature of God.
Our role as people of faith is never to judge the belief system of others. Our only role as people of faith is to believe that God is at work in the world—working through every single one of us to create a peaceful, just, loving planet, safe for all humans, no matter what they believe. If we deign to judge others somehow less worthy than ourselves, we are guilty of the greatest sin of all: the sin of hubris.
One of the things that attracted me to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) as a denomination, is the diversity of theological opinions that coexist in any given worship space. In the Florida Region, for example, we have churches that are exceptionally literal in their biblical interpretation, and churches that are exceptionally metaphorical in their biblical interpretation. We coexist as people who understand that God speaks to each of us uniquely, and that it is more important to do the hard work of caring for each other, the hard work of creating a better world, than to prove one or the other right or wrong.
Nobody has a bead on the truth, and none of us has the right to say we know God or God’s will (if there even is such a thing) better than any other person. My belief is that God loves every human on the planet equally, whether or not we call ourselves Christians (and no matter which of the 44,000 Christian denominations Christians belong to).
In my opinion, there’s no point in believing in a petty, cruel, mean, closed-minded God who insists on a narrow path to God’s embrace. The God I believe in has room for everyone at the table, no exceptions. I believe this is Jesus’ legacy of love, and it is what I hope we preach and practice in my church. Because quite frankly, the God of the Crusaders and the Inquisitors and the Roman Empire, must perish forever from the face of the Earth.
It is time for the age of religion to end, and the age of faith to begin.
Prayer: Remind me, God of all being, that I have no right to judge the beliefs or actions of another. My only tasks, as someone who loves You more than I love life itself, are to spread universal love and joy; to care for the widow and the orphan; to give voice to the voiceless; and to resist Empire in all its evil forms. Help us to stop bickering about the pointless human details of religion, and instead, create in us a deep and lasting faith. Amen.