a sermon from me, for the fifth Sunday in Lent [30K PDF]
Sealord don’t give a shit about sea stewardship [via Joel C]
Judge Cherie Booth (Tony Blair’s wife) on restorative justice [via John S on CD]
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Re: your (lovely) sermon –
Seems to me a great deal of what you are saying is about Jesus’ broadening of the rules, as opposed to a loosening of them; I reckon the misinterpretation of this concept is about the sum total of my problem with traditional orthodoxy.
Re: Sealord –
That article was about 40% too long. Silly SST.
‘broadening’ like what for instance?
I don’t quite get how you intend those two categories to differ either.
Re. SST article, here are the interesting bits:
and
Like, does he not care or get that if you take more fish than the fishery can sustain it’ll eventually collapse and that’s the end of that income stream? (Not to mention the arse-raping of the seabed that is bottom trawling.)
I confess that I don’t understand the question “Do we have the skills to talk about sin in the context of grace?”. What came up in discussion?
Broadening = ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’.
Loosening = ‘don’t cast stones’.
Deb — the question is worded badly. I meant that it’s hard to talk about sin (in the sense of failure to meet an external standard, rather than say not living up to one’s self-expectations) in our milieu. Easier to be nice and open to everything on the one hand or the Solemn Voice of (Green/Red/Conservative Christian) Orthopraxy on the other. David the priest recounted one pastor of his suggesting that you ought only to reprimand someone after you’ve wept over them.
RDB — Broadening & loosening are here equivalent because John sees Jesus as without sin and so even though eligible to cast that stone decided against it, possibly giving his followers a template to do the same.
Matt. 5:17-20 “do not think I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill For assuredly, I say to you,till heaven and earth pass away one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments,and teaches men so,shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven”
(that doesn’t count as a comment)
RDB: My interest has been piqued by this broadening versus loosening concept. Not sure, though, how ‘don’t cast stones’ is loosening.
Matt: I feel piqued by the bad language appearing on this site these days (like ‘shit’ and ‘arse-raping’).
Forgive me, they seem apt.
One thing that strikes me about the John passage is this – that in order for an adulterer/adulteress to be stoned for adultery, they had to be caught in the very act by no less than 2 witnesses, which is quite a thing to accomplish. The thing screams setup.
I also like the fact that it was the oldest men who left first.
Matthew,
I have to agree with you.