Day 139a: What needs to be shown to ALL … (September 15, 2019)
I woke from a relatively restless slumber on the front porch of the Pilgrim Baptist Church and headed off once again into the pre-dawn darkness, into the town of Abingdon proper, where I soon came across the most mystical & almost medieval-looking St. Thomas Episcopal Church …
“We are not to teach and practice a community of goods & profit, but rather are to exemplify (and thereby testify to) the all-loving Word of the Lord. Yes, the church would have us witness that only all ‘true believers in Christ’ (i.e. worshipers of Jesus as the one & only celestial Son of God) are those of one body (citing 1 Corinthians 12:13) and are those who partake of the one bread (citing 1 Corinthians 10:17) and are those who truly have one God and one Lord (citing Ephesians 4). Of course, these are all hinged upon the words of the supposed apostle Paul (the primary founding father of the modern Christian church), and – at least in this particular context – have little to nothing to do with The Way as taught & enlivened by Jesus Christ. For the church, it is seen as Christian to show a divine love amongst like-minded believers – that they are indeed to selflessly care for one another, and yet only one another, to qualify. And yet Jesus himself would strongly beg to differ (and indeed did actually beg to differ quite consistently in the Gospels). For Jesus would have establish limits upon nor draw any boundaries around our Love. Rather, he would have us show gentle mercy and selfless kindness to believer and differing-believer alike – indeed much more so upon the latter than the former. For his true followers are those who tend to any & all in need, with proximity being the only relevant qualifier. Beggars are always given to, the ill are always tended, and even the wants of foreign saints are willingly & joyfully satisfied. They receive the most wretched as brothers and take strangers into their houses as if they were long-lost soulmates. They comfort the saddened and give freely to the needy. They clothe the naked and offer their bread to the hungry. They do not turn their face from anyone – rich or poor or devout or heathenish. This is the kind of Brotherhood that Jesus admonished, and this is the kind of Community that the Christian church would do well to foster.” ~ inspired by Menno Simons
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