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From the Deacon’s Desk
Rebuild Restore Renew
“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? I will with God’s help.”
This, the fifth and final promise that we make in the renewal of our Baptismal Covenant, and it is really the essence of our gospel message for this coming Sunday. It’s from Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 5, and is a part of his Gospel that is known as the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus tells us that if we are to be children of our Father in heaven, then we must love everyone, even our enemies and those who persecute us. We can’t respect the dignity of every human being if we can’t love every human being.
Now, granted, some human beings are much harder to love than others, as we always have a hard time getting away from the misconception that we must “like someone” before we can “love someone”. But I think if we concentrate on “respecting every human being” because they are just that, a “human being,” we can begin to get to “loving our enemies and those who persecute us.”
Jesus invites us to look deeply into the ways we deal with people who do not honor our social, or political, or religious convictions. Are we ready to write them off and have nothing to do with them?
There is always a noticeable tension when we come in contact with someone we know that we have opposing views on certain subjects. I pray that we, the Church, may live into this tension with care and mercy, live into our Baptismal Covenant, so that in the fullness of time, by grace, we may serve the risen Christ in all of whom we meet, whether they accept us or not. Through the daily renewal of our Baptismal Covenant, we will, as St. Paul writes to the Romans, conform no longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Let’s begin today! AMEN.
By Grace Through Faith
Deacon George
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