Minister’s Blog
One key point in cultivating peace may be found in the word “justice.” Justice is often mentioned in the Old Testament as an attribute of God in the way that God always judges with fairness and mercy. So how would a human being cultivate justice?
There are many times in human history when certain things that most people believed to be impossible became possible while other possible things turned out to be impossible. The truth is that human beings are not capable of judging what is possible and what is impossible.
Some may ask, “what have I received to be thankful for in this life filled with challenges and problems?” To those people, Buddha may point out the importance of acknowledging the universal and essential gift that is shared with all living beings: life itself.
Among all of Jesus’s teachings, this might be the hardest: love your enemy. As far as I understand, it means neither to pardon all wrong doings of an evil person nor to force ourselves to have friendly feelings toward those who are actively hurting us. But like all of Jesus’s teachings, this concept has layers of meaning that are as relevant to people now as they were during his time.
For his final evening on earth, Jesus could have done any number of activities with his disciples, but he chose to have a meal with them. Through this last supper, Jesus lifts up the importance of eating together, or more precisely, sharing food together.
Thinking of the Bible as a rulebook for the functionality of a human community is a bit of a shallow interpretation. What is even further away is the belief that not obeying one or two of those rules could result in eternal damnation in hell.
In the beginning, most of us start a task with the intention of making a good change in the world. However, we may reach a point where we are willing to compromise our original intention for the sake of better production or profit.
Jesus makes the point very clear that the qualities acceptable to heaven are different from what the material world values. In John, he answers Nicodemus by saying, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (3:5-6)
The Sabbath meant more than just taking a day of rest for the Israelites. Keeping Sabbath, according to Moses, meant keeping the tribal identity of the Israelites, which was at the core of bonding the chosen people of the living God.
At times, even when people realize and acknowledge the fact that their habits are destructive to their lives, they still strongly resist changing the habits, because change is perceived as giving up stability and comfort in their lives.