Skip to main content

Binding and Loosing

Reading: Matthew 16:13-20

Commentary:  What does it mean to say that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” The gospel writer, Matthew, is putting these words down for a very young Christian tradition, still mostly Jewish followers of Christ with some Gentile participation. The young ekklesia, as Matthew calls the assembly of the faithful, struggles with oppression from outside and wrestles with how to get along together on the inside.
            Learning to live together faithfully in community was and is a large part of walking in the way of Jesus. Those who chose (and who choose) to do so are not embarking on an unmapped journey without assistance or guidance. They have scripture for their map, church community for their support, and the Holy Spirit as their GPS. Embracing all of these tools means seizing onto what heaven, what God, has offered to the church universal.
            By using these tools as individuals and as the Christian community, we will be living out what it means to say, “Jesus is the Messiah, God’s anointed, the son of the only living God.” It is in the living out that religion moves into faith. Correspondingly, faith means that some things are drawn close and others are released.
            Faithful living includes the embrace of community, the love of one’s neighbor, active forgiveness, unbridled generosity. Faithful living also requires the rejection of racism, classism, the using of others as means to an end, the abuse of power, and the worship of anything other than God as God.
            What we embody, what we say, our choices are bound to us through habit, action, and association. This life shows God and those around us what we take seriously and what is important to us. As it aligns with God’s mission and kin-dom, it is bound in heaven and will flourish in mystery and sometimes within our own witnessing.
            What we reject, what we renounce, what we denounce, and what we abandon becomes separated from us. It rusts and fades. It cannot take root. These words, actions, and choices indicate to God and our neighbors that these things have no place in our community or our lives. They have been loosed from association with us and they return to nothingness.
            Thus, we are called to be in daily reflection to what we are binding and loosing in our lives and communities. What are we calling forth? What are we letting go? What have we asked the Spirit to help flourish? What have we renounced to rootlessness and non-existence?
            All of these things together reflect to show the truth of our answer to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” 


Hear a short worship service, including this commentary here: 


Find this short worship service regularly here: http://10worship.blogspot.com
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Religious Holidays in Anchorage

You may have read in the Anchorage Daily News about a new policy regarding certain religious holidays and the scheduling of school activities. If not, a link to the article is here . The new rules do not mean that school will be out on these new holiday inclusions, but that the Anchorage School District will avoid scheduling activities, like sporting events, on these days. The new list includes Passover, Rosh Hashanah , Yom Kippur , Eid al - Fitr and Eid al - Adha . They are added to a list which includes New Year's, Orthodox Christmas and Easter, Good Friday, Easter, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. The new holidays may be unfamiliar to some: Passover is a Jewish celebration, in the springtime, that commemorates the events in Egypt that led up to the Exodus. The name of the holiday comes specifically from the fact that the angel of death "passed over" the houses of the Israelites during the plague which killed the eldest sons of the Egyptians. Passover is a holiday
Post a Comment
Read more

Latibule

I like words and I recently discovered Save the Words , a website which allows you to adopt words that have faded from the English lexicon and are endanger of being dropped from the Oxford English Dictionary. When you adopt a word, you agree to use it in conversation and writing in an attempt to re-introduce said word back into regular usage. It is exactly as geeky as it sounds. And I love it. A latibule is a hiding place. Use it in a sentence, please. After my son goes to bed, I pull out the good chocolate from my latibule and have a "mommy moment". The perfect latibule was just behind the northwest corner of the barn, where one had a clear view during "Kick the Can". She tucked the movie stub into an old chocolate box, her latibule for sentimental souvenirs. I like the sound of latibule, though I think I would spend more time defining it and defending myself than actually using it. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure how often I use the
2 comments
Read more

When the Body of Christ is Fat

Bitmoji Julia enjoys tea Within a very short amount of time, two people whom I love were called "fat ass". One of these slurs occurred in the church building and the other occurred in the same building and within the context of worship. Both incidents were the result of a person with already impaired judgment lashing out at the person who was in front of them, perceiving them to be unhelpful or denying aid or service. Regardless of the "why", the reality is that the name was uncalled for, hurtful, and aimed to be a deep cut. The reality is that a person who is under the influence of legal or illegal substances and often displays impaired judgment can still tell that body shaming- comments about shape, appearance, or size- is a way to lash out at someone who is frustrating you. That means those words and that way of using them are deeply rooted in our culture. An additional truth is that when we, as a congregation, attempted to console and listen to those who h
6 comments
Read more