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

[unspeakablevorn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the authoritarian nature of religion-in-practice often gets me grumpy.

This does bring me to another point/question/etc though.

I got the impression as an outsider that in LDS, there is less clergy/laity divide in general: that everyone ends up doing the various "ministerial" duties like meeting with the infirm, once in a while, that everyone ends up doing the "teaching" stuff, etc, etc. There must still be some divide, clearly, or there wouldn't be a hierarchy of temples and chapels and so forth, but I don't really know. I seek enlightenment!

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

We have what's called a "lay clergy" which means there's no special distinction between an ordinary member and a priest/whatever. Every male member is ordained to the priesthood, and every female member is qualified for the equivalent female leadership positions. (I got "set apart" which is like being ordained if technically slightly different, for my position.) On a local level everything is divided up and shared out, and the Bishop who leads the local congregation is just an ordinary church member who's been picked to be bishop for a few years. He might have been the guy who prints up meeting programs before, and might be the guy who babysits toddlers in the nursery afterward. (And every active member does something or other, I'm currently the pianist for the Relief Society meetings.) The next level up, Stake leaders are picked much the same way, in much the same sort of temporary arrangement.

The church's world-wide leadership is picked from the general membership in a similar way, though nearly always they've previously had some leading experience on the local level before getting selected, but in their case it's not temporary, if they accept the position they're expected to keep it for life, and at that level they're also expected to quit any jobs they may have, and put any assets they have into a pool, from which everybody in said pool gets their living money. (I don't know the exact details of that, but I think that it's fairly self-supporting, as a certain number of those called were well-off enough to provide for everybody, but the church's other funds probably supplement it at times.) That's a very small group compared to the membership of the church though, no more than a few hundred people. Mostly the church runs at a purely local level, on a purely volunteer basis.

Temples are an entirely different matter, which I'm somewhat less familiar with, as I've never personally held a temple related position, but I believe they're also entirely volunteer run, and the temple president is usually somebody who's retired and thus has the time to devote to running a temple even though he's not getting paid to do it. As I say, though, I'm not 100% certain, I've never been, and haven't personally known any temple presidents. They're not really in my social circle, being old people. :)

[unspeakablevorn.livejournal.com]

Ah, so it's even more glommed together than I thought! That's pretty cool.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

They put out lots and lots of manuals for the local leadership, to try and keep it coherent. :) But it is very glommed together compared to say, Catholicism. Then again half the evangelical groups appear to work on a "if you can get people to listen to you you're a preacher" basis so we're at least less haphazard than that!