{"id":2900,"date":"2015-09-23T13:34:38","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T18:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/teachingnonviolentatonement\/?p=2900"},"modified":"2015-09-23T13:34:38","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T18:34:38","slug":"wednesday-sermon-welcoming-the-vulnerable-pope-francis-and-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/teachingnonviolentatonement\/2015\/09\/wednesday-sermon-welcoming-the-vulnerable-pope-francis-and-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday Sermon: Welcoming the Vulnerable – Pope Francis and Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Copyright:<\/a>
Copyright: kwest19 \/ 123RF Stock Photo<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Pastors have a frequent question when they begin to discover\u00a0mimetic theory<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s great. But how does it preach?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Reverend Tom Truby shows that mimetic theory is a powerful tool that enables pastors to preach the Gospel in a way that is meaningful and refreshing to the modern world. Each Wednesday, Teaching Nonviolent Atonement will highlight Tom and Laura\u2019s sermons as an example of preaching the Gospel through mimetic theory.<\/em><\/p>\n

In this sermon, Tom discusses the transformation of the human understanding of God from \u201ca blood thirsty monster\u201d into \u201cthe loving Abba\u201d that Jesus revealed. This loving Abba cared for the vulnerable. Tom brilliantly makes the connection to the earth\u2019s vulnerability and Pope Francis\u2019s visit to the U.S. We hope you enjoy this sermon!<\/em><\/p>\n

September 20th<\/sup>, 2015
\nBy Thomas L. Truby
\nMark 9:30-37<\/a> (The Common English Bible, Copyright 2011)<\/p>\n

Welcoming the Vulnerable<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jesus and his followers travel through Galilee, the place where they are most well-known, but Jesus wants to keep their journey quiet; no attention brought to them, no crowds, no public demands, no rock-star idealization on this trip.\u00a0 He wants to remove the effect of others on his followers so that they have a better chance of taking in what he wants to teach them.<\/p>\n

The crowd doesn\u2019t understand what Jesus is doing and their misconception makes it even harder for the disciples to understand.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 message, so different than the majority, is hard to keep in mind when the ego-inflating crowd swarms around.<\/p>\n

What was Jesus teaching his disciples?\u00a0 He was telling them \u201cThe Human One will be delivered into human hands.\u00a0 They will kill him.\u00a0 Three days after he is killed he will rise up.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s it.\u00a0 That\u2019s the whole thing. This is the third and briefest statement in Mark on what is coming for Jesus.<\/p>\n

Notice Jesus is delivered into human hands.\u00a0 A majority of religious people in this country don\u2019t believe that.\u00a0 They believe Jesus was delivered into God\u2019s hands who had Jesus sacrificed as a substitute for us.\u00a0 The majority believe we should be on the cross but Jesus is there instead receiving God\u2019s punishment for us.\u00a0 God demands blood in payment for sin and Jesus provides it.\u00a0 This makes God a blood thirsty monster instead of a loving Abba and totally misunderstands both the character of God and the message of Jesus.\u00a0 This is why it is so important to notice that the Human One is delivered into human hands and not God\u2019s hands.\u00a0 Jesus wants his followers to take this in and gives them quiet time to do it.\u00a0 But the text says \u201cThey didn\u2019t understand this kind of talk and they were afraid to ask him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question was the elephant in the room but they didn\u2019t want to ask it.\u00a0 They have left everything to follow Jesus. He has demonstrated a capacity to do wonderful things. They see he has the power to be the long awaited Jewish Caesar but now he says he must die at the hands of human beings and then rise from the dead.\u00a0 Can you imagine the weight of their unasked question?\u00a0 It\u2019s so scary they don\u2019t want to know.\u00a0 They just want to go on and pretend he didn\u2019t say it.<\/p>\n

I think there is a parallel that works in our time.\u00a0 It is like us modern people preferring to not talk about what is happening globally with our environment.\u00a0 It\u2019s so scary we don\u2019t want to know and when the scientists speak we push it aside wanting their words to go away.\u00a0 Instead of asking question, we put on ear phones and drown our consciousness by watching pixelated screens that present a world far easier to look at and that doesn\u2019t require we rethink our lives.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not look at that disappearing glacier.\u00a0 It makes us too anxious.\u00a0 Let\u2019s tune in to the crowd on Facebook and Twitter and think as they think.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Jesus had asked they travel without the crowd\u2019s awareness.\u00a0 In essence he told them to shut off their smart phones, iPads, iPhones, iPods and radios.\u00a0 He wants his follows to think and feel outside their usual channels.<\/p>\n

They return to Capernaum, home base on the Sea of Galilee.\u00a0 They go into a house, close the door, and Jesus asks them a question.\u00a0 \u201cWhat were you arguing about during the journey?\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of asking the one question on all their minds\u2013what did Jesus mean by his talk of dying and rising again, they had been arguing with each other, distracting each other from the real issue that concerned them all.\u00a0 In their fantasy of the future they had been discussing who would be highest in Jesus\u2019 new regime.\u00a0 They had completely ignored what Jesus had been teaching them and instead chosen to live in their make-believe world where each is a hero and the only problem is resolving the competition between them.\u00a0 Now Jesus wants to know what they have been talking about.<\/p>\n

A long silence falls on the group as each hope someone else will speak up.\u00a0 Mark\u2019s narrator tells us \u201cthey didn\u2019t respond, since on the way they had been debating with each other about who was the greatest.\u201d\u00a0 This reminds me of the debate Wednesday night in which each was trying to convince the world they were the greatest and the only thing they agreed on was that Trump was the problem.\u00a0 No one spoke to the issues our world is facing.\u00a0 That is a reality they all prefer to ignore.<\/p>\n

\u201cJesus sat down, called the Twelve and said to them whoever wants to be first must be least of all and the servant to all.\u201d\u00a0 There is nothing wrong with wanting to be first but there is a way of doing it that gets you there without destroying the community you wish to lead.\u00a0 If you want to lead, get beyond your own ego-needs and serve those who follow you.<\/p>\n

And then to show them what he was talking about \u201cJesus reached for a little child, placed him among the Twelve, and embraced him.\u00a0 Then he said, \u2018Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me isn\u2019t actually welcoming me but rather the one who sent me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Love the vulnerable.\u00a0 Let the vulnerable be the center of your community.\u00a0 Embrace them.\u00a0 Instead of fighting, make them the center and you will find peace.\u00a0 Pope Francis has welcoming the vulnerable and will be talking about it with us this week as he visits us.<\/p>\n

On another subject, our Safe Sanctuary Policy is our effort to love and protect the most vulnerable in our midst.\u00a0 I am mandated to preach on this at least once every year.\u00a0 This is the Sunday.\u00a0 In this church we go out of our way to always have two adults present when we teach our children or work with them in any way; we are very careful when initiating hugs lest our needs drive the hug rather than theirs; and when they choose to hug us, we warmly respond without clinging to them an instant beyond their need.\u00a0 That\u2019s a tough one for us particularly when their warmth feels so good and we feel needy.<\/p>\n

We always remember that an invisible Jesus stands between the vulnerable one and ourselves. This is not easy and we don\u2019t always do it perfectly but we do our best.\u00a0 So with the vulnerable child in the very center of the formerly feuding disciples Jesus says \u201cwhoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me.\u201d\u00a0 In serving the vulnerable we serve Jesus and find our unity.\u00a0 Our serving them keeps us from making ourselves too important.\u00a0 With Jesus and his church the vulnerable are always the greatest.<\/p>\n

If Jesus were talking to us today, in addition to lifting up a child, I think he would lift up a globe and say the earth itself is now the least of these.\u00a0 I think Pope Francis will talk about that this week, God bless him.\u00a0 Our planet is most vulnerable and currently being sacrificed on the altar of our need to compete and consume at a level the earth cannot sustain.\u00a0 We are destroying our home and the destruction will have dire and unprecedented impact on our children and their children.\u00a0 Already we are seeing the signs in the forest fires, droughts, floods, melting of glaciers around the world, rising of the sea, the acidification of the ocean and disappearance of species.\u00a0 Our scientists have become our prophets and we don\u2019t like what they are telling us.\u00a0 We prefer false prophets who suggest conspiracy theories and bad science.\u00a0 We are like the disciples who hear Jesus predict his passion but close our ears, distracting each other with fights and living in our fantasies rather than facing the truth.<\/p>\n

If we would reach for the vulnerable earth, place the earth in the middle of our concern and embrace her, we would find unity, faith and God.\u00a0 This week in a Facebook entry Lindsey Paris Lopez<\/a> wrote:<\/p>\n

I want a huge department of defense\u2026against climate change!\u00a0 Can we please redirect all the time and resources we spend on killing each other toward working together to save our planet?<\/em><\/p>\n

Whoever welcomes the vulnerable of the earth and the vulnerable earth itself, welcomes me.\u00a0 And whoever welcomes me isn\u2019t actually welcoming me but rather the one who sent me.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastors have a frequent question when they begin to discover\u00a0mimetic theory. \u201cThat\u2019s great. But how does it preach?\u201d Reverend Tom Truby shows that mimetic theory is a powerful tool that enables pastors to preach the Gospel in a way that is meaningful and refreshing to the modern world. Each Wednesday, Teaching Nonviolent Atonement will highlight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2321,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWednesday Sermon: Welcoming the Vulnerable - Pope Francis and Climate Change<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pastors have a frequent question when they begin to discover\u00a0mimetic theory. \u201cThat\u2019s great. 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