IF, as you say, "Love of God and love of our neighbour" IS the message of your faith, then how do you kill 6,000,000 people over some details that, by your definition, are less consequential?
You are an intelligent person. Figure it out. The message says do XYZ, people do something different. What can be concluded? Said people were NOT following the message.
It wasn't that many years ago that Northern Ireland was a bloodbath. Supposed Christians, some claiming to be protestant others claiming to be Catholic were at war with each other, all in the name of religion. But while they may have waved a particular flag, in my estimation it is false to assume that either group was really living under the lordship of Christ. If they had been, they would not have behaved as they did.
It is natural for people to judge a religion by the behaviors of it practioners. In this regard, Christians have failed Christ for on the whole we have been very poor at living by his commands. And as egregis as they might be you don't have to point to killings to make that point. Just walk into any American city where the majority of people claim to be Christian, and what do you see? A consumption based society in which the poor are being marginalized. That can't happen when people live out the teachings of Christ.
Jesus came to announce the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God and to invite us to join him in living according to that kingdom ethic. Well, hunger is an affront to the reality of God's kingdom. In God's kingdom people don't starve. And when we take on the name of Christ, one of the ways we mark this is by participation in signs of the faith such as the sharing of the Lord's Supper (the Eucharist). Now, some think that this is just a nice little ritual, but it is so much more. For those who truly have faith, faith does its business in the bread and wine of that meal and transforms us. It is a sign of our Lord claiming us, and claiming us as ambassadors of his kingdom. When we pray the prayer that Jesus taught us, we are praying for God's kingdom to come among us and that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, we are praying a prayer that sends out to transform the world so that in the end it resembles heaven more.
In that same prayer, we pray for our daily bread. A more accurate translation of this word "daily" might be
sufficient or
enough. To pray for more would tempt us to try to live as if we wre other than those who live only by the will and the working of a gracious God. When the manna was given to the Hebrew people in the wilderness, they were permitted to gather only as much as they needed for each day. So, daily, we too must reach out to God who daily reaches out to us. To want for more than this day's bread is to be focused on the self and to express lack in belief of God's providence.
Now, if you are a Christian and still reading, at this point I hope you see how this simple prayer moves us to bow on our knees in confession. I say this because, let's face it, most of us -- at least those with access to the internet -- aren't likely to be in a position where we have to think much about daily bread. For most of us, THAT is not the problem. Perhaps a few of us have exactly the opposite problem, a little too much bread. For this is one the problems of humankind, we take God's good gifts and we prevert them, even bread. We become over-indulgent in it. We hoard it. We run the price of it up so as to increase our own profits, often at the expense of those who are most in need. We use it as a weapon. Most of us perish from too much bread rather than too little, filling the gnawing emtpiness within through ceaseless consumption. We are rich and, as one notes in Scripture, rich people are often in big trouble in terms of serving and pleasing God.
Since this thread began by looking at Church history, I want to go there too, back to Gregory of Nysaa. Gregory noted the wonder that in the Lord's Prayer, when one considers all that we need, the only thing we are permitted to ask for is something so basic as bread. Not herds or silken robes, not a prominent position, monuments or statues. Only bread.
Note here as well. When Christains pray this prayer, we are taught to pray, give
us this day
our daily bread. Bread is a communal product. Bread is a corporate responsibility. St. Basil the Great made explicit in a sermon that nothing that belongs to us is ours alone, particularly that which we have an excess of:
The bread that is spoiling in your house belongs to the hungry. The shoes that are mildewing under your bed belong to those who have none. The clothes stored away in your trunk belong to those who are naked. The moeny that depreciates in your treasury belongs to the poor!
Our bread is not ours to hoard. Our bread belongs to our sisters and our brothers. Bread is God's gift which, like so many other good gifts of God, we pervert by our selfishness.
Yusuf, it isn't just the cases from history (some might say a few extremists, others might see a regular pattern of condoned or even promoted behavior) that prove that Christians don't actually practice the love of which we so much like to speak. In truth, we all have quite a bit of room for improvement. It is a good word.
Whether you meant it that way or not, I don't know. But thank-you for the reminder. I have much work to do, if I am truly going to follow the one who I claim to serve. May we each do better to have our message reflect his message of and command to love which Christ himself shared with the world. If he is my Lord, I'm not just accountable when Yusuf points out failings throughout history to which I can say, that I didn't do any of those things. But his Spirit (which Yusuf was an instrument of today) also reminds me that there are things that Christ has called me to do in the practice of living a life of love which others might point at and say to me, "Well, you didn't do any of those things either." It's not enough to say "I believe", if I truly believe he is my Lord, I need live a life of service which exemplifies his message and actually be a instrument of God's message of love.
