This morning I was reading an article from the website portraitsinfaith.org. The article detailed an encounter that the author, Daniel Epstein, had with Richard Rohr. For those unfamiliar with Rohr’s work, he is a Franciscan friar who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As a spiritual writer, speaker, and teacher, Richard’s work has been very influential in the church as we seek to encounter God personally.
Richard has been criticized for being too conservative in this theology as well as too liberal.
As a teacher who stands in the middle and calls all of humanity to come together around the infiniteness of God, I find his work helpful as I navigate and consider the post-quarantine church and my role in it. From my perspective there are far too many people proclaiming (and ultimately judging) how I live out my faith in public. Too much criticism and judgment leveled against me because I wear my mask, or because I do not, while I walk through Target or Giant Eagle. Too many people are quick to offer a label without taking the time to consider the nuance of post-quarantine life and wonder about their role and mission in it.
Does anyone who offers these judgments stop and consider the substance of my faith walk as diligently as they do about whether I wear a mask or not in public??
I wonder what God has to say to us as the church as we move back out into society and begin our evangelistic work again?
In this article Rohr is quoted as saying the following:
“To throw away your measuring tapes, your scales, you’re weighing and this – because you’re trying to weigh the infinite. . . . But you can’t weigh or measure or calculate or dole out the infinite. There’s enough to go around. It’s a worldview of abundance. And we understood God in a worldview of scarcity. And so we see our politics based on a worldview of scarcity. There isn’t enough healthcare to go around, there aren’t enough homes to go around. Everything is: there’s not enough. And this said, I’m getting political now, but people have way more that they need or ever could use in their lifetime. So that – We would throw away our weighing, our counting. Stop counting who’s worthy, who’s not worthy. And if you look at so many political arguments, that’s at the bottom. Who’s worthy of this and who isn’t worthy. And they try to weigh worthiness. It ends you up in a hole, a dead end. It’s stupid, stupid, stupid. Because I’m not worthy and once I’ve accepted and forgiven that, then I can forgive everybody else’s seeming unworthiness.”
I hope that today you will take some time to consider in the infiniteness of God that is present and accessible for you. I am not worthy of God and neither is anyone that I come into contact with each day. But when I put away my desire to judge someone, regardless of the issue that I am wrestling with, I can create space for God move and act. I wonder what Rohr’s words might say to you today?
Blessings
Rev. Derek
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