Today's Word
                                      
‘Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. . . . ’ Matthew 6:9

Today's Reflection: New York's New Gay Marriage Law
   
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we are radicals. We are asking for God to replace the kingdoms of this world with His Kingdom. This prayer asks for everything to be changed. Yes, it is even political. God wants to restore everything, the whole shebang. 

One simple but HUGE thing is that when we understand who God is, and how, therefore, the world is created to work, then we know how to live individually and together on God’s planet. Here’s God 101: God is three in one, three persons, fully committed, permanently one in self giving love and fully happy in “Their” love. God is a community, a family. The image of God is found in Genesis 1:27, a man and a woman. What’s the first thing he “did with them”? He merged them, Genesis 2:24.25, a total merger of body, soul, spirit, mind, emotions, commitment, permanence, with creative power to reproduce. One man, one woman, total merger, the image of God, self giving, total package, oneness, never to be broken apart. The implications of this are innumerable. 

The Bible uses one man one woman marriage as the picture of the image of God and the picture of the restoration of the cosmos (Revelation 21:2 is just one example). It seems to me that if any church or group of believers were to change this picture, then that group would be reconfiguring the image God, which is idolatry of a special sort, a kind which creates a different god.   Further, it seems to me that it’s really good for a society to maintain the biblical definition of marriage, because if God set it up that way then it must be good for people. Civil unions in a secular society for the purpose of just treatment under the law are one thing, but removing what God set up marriage to be is another. No society can expect to stand when it removes the cornerstone of its foundation. 

One final word: I do not think homosexuality is simply a choice. Hardly any gays were heterosexually oriented one day and then just woke up the next and decided to be gay. It’s much more complex than that. Nor is there any room for Christians to demean those who are gay. Gay jokes and imitations never honor the Lord and they demean God’s children. Personally I would love our church to be filled with gays and lesbians who know where we stand on the issue, but feel so loved and accepted by God and the church family that they can’t stay away. If you follow the actions of Westboro Baptist Church on the news you are witnessing believers who are violating “hallowed be Thy Name” in the worst possible way.

Prayer

Lord, please forgive for any thoughts, attitudes or behaviors of mine which have demeaned others. Make me an instrument of salvation and protect me from self righteous indignation. Jesus nailed it when he said, ‘ When you condemn others, you condemn yourself’. Lord help me to be able to articulate to others your desire for marriage in such a way that Your heart can be heard through me. In Christ’s Name. Amen”