Reason calms anger. Forgiveness heals wounds. Compassion lifts the marginalized. Reason, forgiveness, and compassion matter more than religious appearances. If churches won’t live these values, maybe it’s up to the rest of us!
Have you ever noticed how often people talk about God as both endlessly forgiving and ruthlessly judgmental, depending on who they’re talking about? Forgiveness for themselves, condemnation for the people they fear or don’t understand. That contradiction isn’t new, and it shows up in the stories we’ll be looking at today.
Welcome to Mythologizing the Bible, where we’ll be taking a look at three readings from the Christian Bible through the lens of “sacred myth.”
As we reflect on the readings for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we’ll explore how reason can defuse anger, how forgiveness can break destructive cycles, and how compassion demands that we celebrate those who’ve been pushed to the margins.
If churches so often miss these lessons (or worse, twist them into tools of judgment and exclusion), what would it look like if the rest of us picked them up and lived them as human values instead of religious slogans? Because if we’re serious about building communities of compassion, it won’t be enough to claim the label… we’ll need to actually live the values.
