Monday, June 20, 2005

Good Morning!

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

The new unit for this week is Unit 8 , Reaching Out to the Poor

Focus Scripture for the Week: Leviticus 19:10

You shall not strip you vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.

Today's scripture: Matthew 11:1-5

-- this is a unit that offers up another challenge to us and the way we live and think. What did you or I or any of us do for the poor yesterday, or the day before? I think that we generally think about the "poor" as being some nameless mass of people, when we often come into contact with them as individuals, who are asking for or needing help. And we often think about helping the poor only in the context of food or money for food. But the poor have a wide range of needs -- for housing, for medical care, for education, for any number of things we take for granted.

-- the Reflections reading made an interesting point, in that one of the ways that Wesley worked to help the poor was to make certain resources available to them inexpensively. The point was that there are ways to help the poor, including making necessities more affordable. Auburn University has a major affordable housing initiative that focuses on designing simple, inexpensive homes for the rural poor. That is an example of being engaged with the poor beyond simply dropping a dollar in the collection plate, or pushing a five out a rolled down window at the end of the interstate exit.

-- the scripture reading points out how important care and ministry to the poor was to Jesus -- in the passage, John the Baptist sends some messengers to Jesus to ask if he the one, the Messiah, that John had been preparing the way for. Jesus answers by simply saying what he is doing -- with the implication that the work Jesus is doing is the work that the Messiah would be doing. Right up there with healing the sick and raising the dead was preaching the good news to the poor. If you take the approach that the Messiah was going to do things that couldn't or wouldn't be done by others, then think about the reference to the poor --- the poor were neglected and ignored and dismissed by Jewish society at the time of Jesus -- so to reach out to them was a major break from the norm. The challege laid out in the Reflections section is that we live in a time where being poor separates you from society in many, many ways -- and that the Methodist tradition calls us to bridge that gap, and to reach out in ways that bridges that gap.

-- I guess one of the questions of the day would be -- what is your opinion of how our society and culture treat the poor among us? How does being poor separate you from society?

Today's prayer request: Natalee Holloway's family.

This situation sadly continues to drag on, and I think everyone knows what the ultimate resolution of this mystery will be. Let's pray that it be resolved soon, and give the family strength to get through this ordeal.

Today's class member prayer:

Christie Peebles

Have a great week.

Jay