🦁 Easter 2-5

Readings: Psalm 135; Daniel 3:1-30; 1 John 2:3-11. 

Reflection

Good morning. This is Tim. Trouble coming to you from Sacramento, California. Today's readings are some 135. Daniel Chapter three, verses 1 to 30 and first John Chapter two, verses 3 to 11 in today's reading. 

And Daniel, we have the story of Shadrach Meshach in the Bendigo. You may remember them. We've been talking about them and the other readings we've had from Daniel. These were friends of Daniel who had come to Babylon and they were educated by the Babylonians as the Jews had been taken over. At that time the nation of Israel were slaves to Babylon and they'd been educated and they'd already come out. Daniel had taken Nebuchadnezzar his dream, told him what the dream was and told them what it meant. At that point, the King appointed Daniel to his court. Shadrach, Meshach and Bendigo were appointed over different portions of Babylon. Then the King Nebuchadnezzar, ah, raised the statue to himself and said, Hey, you know, at the Sound of Music you will bow down and worship my statue and Shadrach, Meshach and the Bendigo did not and they told the king to his face, We're not going to do that. We have our God and our God will save us from the fiery furnace that Nebuchadnezzar had said. If people didn't bow that they would be thrown in. So he had them bound and thrown in. The men who threw him them in were killed by the heat of the fire and the act of throwing them into the fire. But they were not an angel. The Lord came down and they were stood walking, unbound in the fire, untouched, unchanged under UN affected. And Nebuchadnezzar saw that and he became a believer in our reading in first John today. So first John is an epistle. We really are not sure who wrote it. 

There are people who believe it was John the Evangelist, not the same as John the Apostle that came out, but we're not sure, again who wrote it because they never identified themselves. And it was very common at that time that someone would write about a person, the name the book after them. So we know whether John Rose himself and we don't know which John did or if it was written by John. And again, which John, we don't know. We do believe that the book was written in the city of Ephesus somewhere between 95 and 110 A.D. So this is well past the time of Christ. This would have been 62 plus years after the passing and crucifixion resurrection of Jesus. 

And the book is about advising Christians how to discern their true teachers by the way they act. And this is something you know, this speaks to the term you know, we have this old phrase do as I say, not as I do know that doesn't pass the test. We've all been around leaders like that who come out and they say one thing and they have this great message and tell us all kinds of things. And then when it comes time for them, their actions are completely the opposite. 

And this is something that is has plagued Christianity from the beginning here. We've all seen examples of preachers and evangelists and quote Christian people who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. And the things that have happened, you know, we have had some who have gone to jail. They defrauded people of their money and all kinds of things like that. What we're saying here and what John is trying to say is we as Christians, if you talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. It's that simple. And so we have that's the first verses 3 to 6. 

Verses 7 to 11 are titled The New Commandment. And this again speaks to who we are as Christians. We are told to love our brother, love your neighbor as yourself. Insert whatever you want there. We're to love others, period. There are no adjectives in there saying who, you know, specifying will only this group or people who are like this or who aren't like that or whatever. It's love your neighbor as yourself, period. And here they use the phrase Brother, so love your we are to love our brother. If we don't. And they we say he's in the light and we hates his brother, then they're still in the darkness. If you love your brother, you abide in the light and in him there is no cause for stumbling again. If you're going to talk, to talk, you got to walk the walk. We are to love each other, period. And this is something that the church believers have struggled with and it still goes on today. We have schisms in Christianity where we have Christians who we love. We love everyone, we love our brothers and our sisters, we love our immigrants. We love people no matter of their race, their creed, their color, their orientation, veteran, non-veteran, whatever we are to love those around us and we are to help them and guide them and take care of them. 

But we have people using the flag of Christianity who are saying, Well, no, wait a minute, we don't love this one. We don't love that one. No, not those people over there. I mean, we've had we've had all kinds of stuff. We've had people using scripture to justify oppressing entire groups of people, whether that was by their race, whether it was by their gender, whether it was by their beliefs. If you don't believe like me, I mean, I grew up in the religious right and before it was known as the religious right. And we Catholics aren't Christians, they're Catholics. It's different now. They're Christians. They have their way of doing things, but they're still Christians. 

So we find ways, just like they do in the secular world, to divide people up and control people by saying, you know, you love someone this way or that way or whatever. That's not the way it works. We love everyone and we treat people with love. Now you can disagree with someone. You can tell someone what they're doing is wrong, but it can be done in a loving manner that doesn't degrade them. And that's the trick. Very difficult to do because we've always been taught when there's something negative about somebody, we just, you know, especially in today's world, is divisive as it is. We trash talk, you know, all these people. And that's not that's not love and that's not dealing with them in love. And that is not helping them. What it actually does is drive them even farther into where they're at and away from the love and the light of Christ. So this week, as we come out and we're in the second week of Easter, an Easter tide for those of us in liturgical traditions, love your brother, your sister, the person around you that may be different than you. Show them love. Show them the light of Christ. Amen.