Archive | April, 2012

by on April 23, 2012

Today’s Moltmann Monday comes to us courtesy of Theology Ryan Gosling:

 

I do, too, Ryan. I do too.

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CARE workshop

by on April 16, 2012

Dallasites, my friend David Martin and I are hosting a one-day conference this coming Saturday called CARE. David is a Hospice Chaplain with years of experience and he has done extensive continuing education on grief. I’m excited about this opportunity for people across the metroplex to come and hear him share his wisdom. If there is someone in your life who is aging or ill, if you or someone you know is struggling with the process of grief, this is an opportunity not only to hear the wisdom David has to share, but to come and be equipped with practical tools on how to visit people in the home or hospital, how to support those who are ill or grieving, and how to encounter your own grieving process. I will also share briefly on how we can support those loved ones struggling with Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s a fruitful way to spend a few hours of your Saturday. Spread the word!

Saturday, April 21

9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

13154 Coit Road Suite 104

Dallas, TX 75240

Cost for the workshop is $20/person or $30/couple.

To register for Care, please send an email with your name and phone number to dgshroyer (at) gmail (dot) come.

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The Golden Rule, The Jesus Rule

by on April 5, 2012

 

 

On Maundy Thursday of Holy Week, we remember the Last Supper Jesus shared with his disciples and friends, breaking bread and sharing wine. And in John’s gospel, we also encounter Jesus as servant, kneeling before a wash basin and washing the feet of his students. John 13:12-15 says:

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord–and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

We talk a lot about the Golden Rule at our house. It’s one of the many mantras my kids endure far more frequently than they’d like, I imagine. And frankly, most days the Golden Rule is a good enough benchmark to set. It’s tough to love someone as you love yourself. But I hope at this stage in my spiritual practice as a follower of Jesus I’ve also become someone who is also attempting to love others the way Jesus has loved me, which is to say unconditionally, with unending mercy, with a love that conquers all. As Jeremiah says, God “has loved us with an everlasting love.” If I’ve learned anything this Lent, it’s that I have a long, long way to go before I get there. But it’s one mountain I find worth the climb. And I actually believe it’s more reachable than most of us allow ourselves to believe. (What do we think Jesus was showing us the example for? Guilt?! Or transformation?!)

This Holy Week, I’m trying to die to my sense of “fairness” or my own personal “rightness” and even my internal justifications of “that’s actually pretty kind, that will do nicely” in the hopes that what will be resurrected is the kind of compassion that has and will always change the world.

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The Com-Passion of God

by on April 2, 2012

This Moltmann Monday, here are some wise words from our German friend about Jesus’ suffering and death. They come from p.178 from The Way of Jesus Christ:

The theology of surrender is misunderstood and perverted into the very opposite unless it is grasped as being the theology of the pain of God, which means the theology of the divine co-suffering or compassion…If we abide by our conviction that Jesus is the messiah and the Son of God to the point of his death on the cross, then he brought the messianic hope and the fellowship of God to all those who have to live in the shadow of the cross, the mean and women who suffer injustice, and the unjust…But God does not cause Christ’s suffering, nor is Christ the meek and helpless victim of suffering. Through his surrender God seeks out the lost beings he has created, and enters into their forsakenness, bringing them his fellowship, which can never be lost.”

Jesus was not cast out into suffering by an angry God. He entered into suffering as God and with God, that all might be brought in. This is the com-passion and fellowship of Christ, our brother. And it creates the kind of community which can never be lost. If there is something for us to ponder this Holy Week, it is this great com-passion made manifest in the journey of Jesus to the cross and to the tomb.

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