Sunday sermons

[bladespark]

I used to post these all the time. I thought I might try and get back into the habit, though I doubt I'll manage to post one every single Sunday. Just whenever something from church particularly inspires me to thought.

I'm posting this unlocked, and I ask that whether you agree or disagree with my views, that you please keep things civil in the comments. I'm normally very private about this sort of thing, and I'm giving you guys reading this a lot of trust by posting it for you all to see. Please don't abuse that trust. As Thumper's mother said, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."



There was a lesson at church a few weeks ago, about revelation, and the teacher said "God speaks to all men." Now "men" here doesn't mean "males" it means men in the sense of mankind, of all humanity. And I was thinking about this idea, that God speaks to everyone. I don't think it's a commonly held belief. I think most religions teach, or at least assume, that God speaks only to some certain group of the chosen. But I really do think that God speaks to all of us.

Some of you are probably going "But God has never said anything to me." Well, in the Gospel According To SPark (which is most of the stuff I post, this is always my opinion, not any kind of official doctrine) there are two reasons for that. One was addressed by the same teacher with the quote "God never uses a floodlight when a flashlight will do." Ie. He's not going to descend from on high with a chorus of angels to tell you something that He can say with a little spark of quiet inspiration in your heart. I think many of those moments of small yet profound wonder that we experience are from God.

The second reason we don't always hear God speaking to us is because we don't want to. Do you think, if God spoke to you, that He'd say "You're right about everything you believe, and you're doing the right thing in everything that you do, you're perfect, just carry on as is"? Yeah, no. God always calls us to be better than we are. Even if you're Mother Theresa or some other saintly, devoted, godly sort, there's always something you could improve. But God doesn't force that on us. If we don't want Him to call us to be better and kinder and less lazy and more inspired, then He won't. We have our free will, and how much God we want in our lives is entirely up to us. Though even those who reject God completely aren't rejected by Him, I think. I think He still sends them those moments of wonder, because in the end what God wants is for us to be happy, fulfilled, and accomplished people, who live up to our potential, and who reach out to those around us and help them as well. So within the limits that we ourselves allow, God does what He can to help each of us be that sort of person.


And on the subject of reaching out, I'm opening this post up for question asking. I tried formspring once, but I never did get any questions. :) Not "popu-fur" enough, I think. But anyhow, you can ask questions about the little sermon there, or about my religion, or about me personally, my business, my art, whatever. Any question you like. All questions are guaranteed an answer, though no answers are guaranteed to be the answer you hoped to get. :)

Comments

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Heh. I dunno, if you're seeing sexism where it isn't here, I gotta wonder how much of the sexism you're seeing elsewhere actually exists. You seem to have a pretty big chip on your shoulder about it. I don't doubt that some churches are just like you say, but mine sure isn't. Women's authority roles in my church have different titles than men's, but there's just as many female leaders as male. Every congregation has a male bishop and a female Relief Society president, and they run things between them. And I've never once felt like anybody in my church thought less of me because of my gender. Somewhat the opposite even, the prophet (leader of the whole church world wide) once said he felt that women were if anything far better than men, and the men of the church could do worse than to try and emulate their wives. The church uses some archaic language, like the "man" for "mankind" thing, but honestly... when you're used to that meaning, reading the Bible suddenly includes women much more thoroughly, and maybe that's a good thing.

And when a guy says "Let's discuss this idea: 'God speaks to all men.' *writes on blackboard* Now what do you think this means? Well first let's talk about the 'men' part. Am I leaving you ladies out? Of course not! I'm using 'men' here in the sense that means all mankind, so it includes everyone in this room. And what else does 'all men' mean..."

That's more or less what he said, paraphrasing because it's been a few weeks. I really don't think I need to say anything about inclusive language there. It would be absurd when he made it crystal clear that he's being inclusive.

[lilsongbird.livejournal.com]

Well if you don't see being told you are incable of reaching a higher level in the church because you're female or told you should be in the kitchen helping with the cooking not out lifting boxes even though you can lift more then most of the men as sexist... then I don't think anything I say will sway you. "relief society president" I think is something unique to your church. I've never heard of that before. o-o I'd say if you doubt my view of overall sexism within most churches, look at other churches and forms of Christianity. I think you'll be pretty surprised at how sexist many are... not to mention abusive at times. I have a chip from having experienced being told "no you can't- you're a girl" and even as far as having a bible thrown at me for pointing out some lines in the bible had more then one way of being read.

Using "man" and "mankind" to speak to all people because the bible does it is honestly a bit silly in my view. The bible wasn't writen in English. It was translated into it, so using the way the bible phrases things only makes sense if you are reading in Hebrew (which if you do you get a few things that are hugely different). I'm curious to how you feel women in the bible is a good thing though? The majority of women throughout the bible (Mary being an exception) are seen in a pretty negitive light. Eve leading mankind into damnnation, the whore of babylon... not to mention leviticus discussing how impure women are and how sacrafices must be performed to clense them to enter the temple... when the bible talks about men it usually it's refering to those of the male sex. Often the armies, or other groups of males.

And as noted before- I wasn't clear from your post that you were paraphrasing him vs interpreting what he said. I understand that now. :)

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

*sigh* You keep completely missing the point of what I'm saying. For one thing, I don't doubt you have good reasons to have a chip on your shoulder, but good reasons or not, it's skewing your judgment. You were amazingly quick to jump on something that was already explicitly explained as not sexist and insist it was sexist too. Your experiences are valid, I'm not arguing that, but I simply have never seen the world-wide all-of-Christianity sexism you insist exists, and I think your experiences are making you see what may not be anywhere near as common as you think it is.

Secondly, I didn't say the "man" thing was from the Bible. I said it was archaic. It's from the dictionary. "a member of the species Homo sapiens or all the members of this species collectively, without regard to sex: prehistoric man." It's used by all kinds of people including scientists! It's archaic, but it's not used in that sense because of the Bible. However if you use it in that sense, then the Bible is much less the negative, sexist document you see it as. I can read "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom" and know it's talking about me, where if I take your view, I guess women aren't allowed to be happy in wisdom, or something.

And honestly, have you never read Ruth? Or Esther? Two entire books of the Bible that are centered on women as the heroes and stars of the story! Mary is not the only good woman in the Bible. For every Whore of Babylon there's a Rachel, who Jacob loved so much he worked for her father 14 years so he could marry her, or a Sarah who God blessed to be the mother of nations, or a Rebekah who was shown to be kind-hearted and generous to all. The Bible is full of good stories about women! Have you read the Bible? Were you so busy being angry about how sexist it was that you missed these stories? You seem aware of the restrictive laws of Leviticus that Christ said were done away with anyhow, but you seem to be missing entire books! And the New Testament has more of the same, in addition to Mary, did you know about Martha, the sister of Lazarus, who was a disciple of Christ? Or Mary Magdalene, who was the first person to see Christ resurrected? I could list more, this is not by any means a complete recitation of the positive depictions of women in the Bible!

There's probably not much point in my going on further, because I think your world view and mine are too wildly different to come to an agreement about this, but I really think you might want to reconsider some of your prejudices. Certainly not all Christians are sexist, and I maintain that most are not, and you've had the misfortune of knowing some people who are not at all typical of Christianity as a whole.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

P.S. I just wanted to say that I'm not trying to attack you. I hope it doesn't come across that way. You seem like a perfectly nice person. :) I just kind of profoundly disagree with you about this issue, and I'm trying to find words that explain myself, since we seem to not be understanding one another very well. But one can disagree without being disagreeable, and I hope I've managed to express my opinion without offending you.