Ezek22 Lectionary Reflections

Today’s Readings (text):

• Genesis 19:15-29
• Ps 26:2-3, 9-12
• Matthew 8:23-27

Today’s lesson from the Book of Genesis is about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. But before God destroyed the cities, where sin had taken over, he got Lot and his family out of there.

The angels God had sent to take them out of the evil city urged them not to look back on the destruction of the cities: just get out of there, they said. But Lot’s wife did look back as they were fleeing, causing her to be turned into stone.

In the gospel, Jesus’ apostles in the boat worry about the storm, and Jesus scolds them, telling them they have very little faith. They see the storm and danger, rather than Jesus and their certain salvation. Like Lot’s wife, they take their eyes off what the Lord has asked them to do and worry about their own situation. But Jesus teaches them with words, instead of punishing them by turning them into stone.

At the time of this writing, the situation in Iran was not very good. There were fires, water canons, people dying, and all sorts of educated opinions that the elections themselves were rigged. On the TV, we can see smoke rising from places in the city, which reminds me a great deal of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah described in the Book of Genesis.

Nuclear weapons, which are no doubt part of the reason that Iran is throwing out journalists and not talking to diplomats, form the basis for terror now being sent into the hearts of every country in the world except Iran.

I would provide a link to a source for news and information about Iran and the current dispute over the election, but first, sources are too numerous to read, and second, many reports cannot be confirmed, because the country has expelled most outside news agencies and observers.

Today, of course, we do not lay waste to countries or even cities, as happened in biblical times. God destroyed the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, Jesus scolded his apostles, and today we have continued to evolve. We might consider sanctions or other diplomatic solutions.

Our world can’t afford to have Iran destroy itself, either by protests that result in many deaths, or by the actions of the government itself in not telling the truth, continuing to develop nuclear weapons, or putting innocent reporters in a situation where they have no choice but to look back upon the country.

If the election was rigged (the ayatollah says it wasn’t, and the opposition leader and many journalists say it was), a great injustice has been done, and it must be made right. A government that is not duly elected cannot represent its people in international forums, and Iran cannot cut themselves off from the rest of the world—not today. But if it is not made right, a diplomatic scenario that resembles God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah may be the only option available to other nations.

As Christians, let’s keep our faith, though. Let’s follow Jesus’ example in today’s gospel reading. Let’s calm the storm so the boat gets to the other side. In other words, let’s ensure that Iran’s people keep their faith strong, and let’s help them get through this without the shedding of innocent blood. There has been enough of that already.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24; or, other from the protocanonical texts
• Ps 30:2, 4-6, 11-13
• 2nd Corinthians 8:7, 9, 13-15
• Mark 5:21-43

For the record, Protestants don’t consider the Book of Wisdom part of the true canon. Your church may have chosen a different reading today.

Today’s readings carry two distinct messages: first in the gospel that our faith will save us, and second in the Old Testament reading and epistle that despite how much God hates death, he would hate losing our souls to the devil even more. He would hate it so much that he sent his only Son to save us.

Bob Burg wrote an eZine article about a year and a half ago, in which he talked about the idea that givers gain. Although this hypothesis would seem to fly in the face of logic (when you give something away, you don’t have it anymore, so “givers lose” would probably be more accurate), he points out that people don’t really function like a simple math equation.

Now, I don’t know Mr Burg’s theological beliefs, but his argument is the same as that used by St Paul in today’s passage from his second letter to the Corinthians. Paul writes:

as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their needs, so that their abundance may also supply your needs, that there may be equality.

And Mr Burg follows up on a quote from another author:

As author Jim Pancero says, “You cannot give yourself away.” Long before you’ve expended your resources, much more will already have come back to you.

Our Lord gave everything he had (his life), and that has led billions to his side. Our own giving (say, of time and money) might not be quite that fruitful, but that’s the basic idea, as Jesus taught us with his own sacrifice. When you give it all away—everything—you’ll discover the magic secret: that you have everything you need to accomplish all the things you ever wanted to do.

This applies especially to money and time, two things everybody on Earth is always wishing they had more of. As Mr Burg points out in his short article, the best things in life are not free, but better than free. When these things—love, knowledge, empathy, etc.—are given away, they tend to come back to us in greater quantities.

Even Shakespeare wrote about this idea: “One half of me is yours, the other half yours,” says Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 2. Christians can view this giving everything away as following Jesus’ example. Others can view it as a practical strategy that works in business and in many aspects of life: just practice giving it all away. After a while, I believe you will see what all the buzz is about.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Job 38:1, 8-11
• Ps 107:23-31
• 2nd Corinthians 5:14-17
• Mark 4:35-41

St Paul tells us in his second letter to the Corinthians that “[Christ] indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

This week, our attention turned to the tragic shooting of Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. James W. von Brunn, 88, has been charged with murder in connection with the shooting. On his web site, for which I will not provide a link, he claims to have ties to anti-Semitic organizations as a Holocaust denier (US Holocaust Museum: deniers).

As if the shooting weren’t bad enough, the horrors continued in the media. Conservative media seemed to blame President Obama and his backing of Palestinian causes. Of course, a stereotypical Arab Muslim hates Jews, and that’s about as deep as these lame-brain types could go.

From liberal media, we had the counter-argument that the right wing had ignored a report two months ago by the Department of Homeland Security (PDF link), which noted that the bad economy and an African-American president might mobilize extremists. Some say this type of coverage encourages violent wing-nuts.

All of this blame-shifting is done because news anchors think we want answers. They seem to think we need to explain this terrible act by a man who wants to deny the occurrence of the Holocaust.

But not all actions human beings have ever taken have reasons that we can understand. There are people who deny the crucifixion of Jesus, just as there are people who deny the occurrence of the Holocaust.

Like the shooting at the Holocaust Museum, though, these are events that cannot be understood by our feeble intellect—the museum shooting and Holocaust for their horror and the crucifixion for its love.

We will never comprehend what it is like to lay down your life for a friend or for your many friends, and if we do, we won’t live to tell anyone about it.

And this is the ultimate meaning to today’s epistle: that public misinformation is advanced by blame-shifters who try, in pitiful ways, to explain the significance or the motivation behind inexplicable human behavior. As we know, many who died in the Holocaust laid down their lives for their loved ones, taking a seat on the train while being separated from their children (see the movie Sophie’s Choice).

Life on Earth is perfect when it is lived—and ended—not for our own sake, but for the sake of others and for something higher: our Lord. It cannot be understood, and it most definitely cannot be denied.

Today’s Readings (text):

• 2nd Corinthians 8:1-9
• Ps 146:2, 5-9
• Matthew 5:43-48

In today’s gospel, Jesus calls on us to rise above the ordinary behavior of being nice to people who are nice to us, of loving those who love us. Instead, we are to love our enemies. We are to pray for those who persecute us.

Why? Simply because God created our enemies and those who persecute us as his children as well as he created those who are nice to us.

History gives us mighty examples of persecution. For example, the Japanese persecuted Christians in the 17th century (link), killing thousands upon thousands of them by burning at the stake and crucifixion.

During the Holocaust, millions upon millions of Jews were persecuted by the Christians in power in Germany. You will have to find your own Internet reference for this one.

Recently, two American reporters were sent to labor camps to serve 12-year sentences in North Korea (link). The government in North Korea is angry at the world, especially at the United States. They probably think we’re getting into their business just a little more than they would like us to.

And they would be right. When one of your enemies has nuclear weapons and fires off a couple of missiles to prove their military might, they send terror into their neighbors, and their neighbors are our friends.

“Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,” Jesus says. That can be a tall order when our enemies are flexing their nuclear muscle and persecuting citizens of our homeland. But we are called to act this way nonetheless.

No easy answers come for American-North Korean relations. The communist government is even saying the truce they signed at the end of the Korean War is no longer valid. But although we may be confused about North Korea, let’s not be confused about ourselves. Let’s remain true to our Lord and his promises.

Back in the 17th century, there weren’t many native Christians in Japan. Most of those who died at the stake or on the cross were from Korea or the Philippines. And today, the Koreans are persecuting us and their nearest neighbors (Japan, South Korea, and so on).

Although people who have read a little about ancient history may be able to explain the actions of North Korea, this “eye for an eye” mentality was not supported by Jesus in what he taught us. Retaliation is an easy path, and it often leads to the demise of the one who retaliates.

Let’s stick to the high road and put our trust in the Lord, who has never disavowed a promise he made or a “treaty” he “signed,” who is constant and unfailing in his love for us. We may try to follow that example and send an envoy to North Korea to negotiate the release of the two journalists.

Whatever happens, though, we pray for the two journalists and for those who imprisoned them on baseless charges. May the North Koreans’ anger be eased, and may God grant them peace forever.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Exodus 24:3-8
• Ps 116:12-13, 15-18
• Hebrews 9:11-15
• Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. The epistle to the Hebrews ties together Moses’ actions in Exodus 24 and those of Jesus when he died to bring about forgiveness for our sins:

For if the blood of goats and bulls … can sanctify those who are defiled so that their flesh is cleansed, how much more will the blood of Christ … cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.

With Christ’s death, the consciences of believers were cleansed so that we could worship God in the right way, the letter intends. Moses’ sacrifice at the altar wasn’t enough: it’s not good enough to sprinkle animal blood on people; rather, we need Christ’s blood, and we drink it at communion and in our thoughts and prayers, in order to be in a right relationship with him and his Spirit, which endures on Earth.

But we know there are those who do not believe because they don’t understand the love of Christ or the utter perfection of his sacrifice. I think the path to salvation for people who don’t understand this love is different than it is for us Christians, but it is the path God put them on.

“This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many,” our Lord said, implying that it was not shed for all humanity. Many Christians think he came for everyone, simply because the English version of the Roman Catholic mass and some Eucharistic prayers based on it declare that Christ’s blood was shed “for you [Christians] and for all, so that sins may be forgiven.”

The translation in the Eucharistic Prayer is slightly inaccurate, since “for all” means something substantially different from “for many.” Other sayings of our Lord, however, support the idea that he wanted to save everybody, but that isn’t what he declared at the Last Supper.

One of the reasons Christians take communion in church is that the church forms a community. I’m not talking about a community online or a fan club for a movie star. Those are communities, to an extent, but the relationship we have with stars is sort of unidirectional, since we don’t give anything valuable back to them. Yes, we support them financially with our patronage, but money has no value in the context of community.

Organizations like churches (and synagogues, mosques, and so on) nurture a community where relationships work in both directions. Together, we are stronger than the sum of our parts, just like the ants who accomplish something together that could not be accomplished by any of them individually.

And there are other “tribes” and other “believers” as well, not members of our little ant hill called Christianity. If these ants see an ant of a different color, for example, crossing over on this same ant bridge, they won’t try to stop it—provided it has that all-important characteristic: being an ant. As you see in the picture, color isn’t a big deal in the eyes of ants.

Likewise, those who help us reach our goal as human beings and children of God are our friends, even if they were not intended by God to be one of the “many.” We would be made stronger by helping them along their own journey as well, since we are all effectively trying to get to the same leaf, a place where we share in the divinity of Christ with consciences that are cleansed of all dead works.

Today’s Readings (text):

• 2nd Corinthians 4:7-15
• Ps 116:10-11, 15-18
• Matthew 5:27-32

The abortion debate is officially out of control.

Many religious leaders protested the speech of the president of the United States at a Catholic university because he does not oppose the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade—the president of the United States. A doctor who performed late-term abortions was murdered because he performed those abortions—murdered.

From the other camp, authors focus on 9-year-olds, raped by their fathers, whose bodies would be torn apart by pregnancy and delivery. People on TV tell us about fetuses with rare bone diseases, in which the bones are so brittle, the baby would crumble and suffer greatly upon birth.

As a result of the debate, we fortify abortion clinics because a large group of crazy people see private property as their own personal war targets and put glue in the locks. They take videos of women who walk into the clinic like a smart bomb seeks its military target. Doctors have to wear bulletproof vests just to get to work.

I have tried to stay out of the political-religious debate about abortion, but it is now impossible for me to avert my eyes from the actions described above, all repugnant to the Word of God. At least everyone seems to agree that life is sacred, and most of us believe that life begins when the fertilized egg is implanted in the uterine lining.

In our Lord’s words, read today, do you hear him grant exceptions to the terrible sin of divorce? Jesus never mentioned abortion, so we faithful people, our lives devoted to his service, have to extrapolate. I pray we do it intelligently.

When Jesus granted an exception to a sin that contravenes the commandment against adultery, he couldn’t have been clearer: If you divorce your wife, except for just cause, he said you are guilty of a sin that contravenes this commandment.

Logically, we infer from what our Lord said that he might have granted appropriate exceptions, had he chosen to speak about abortion. Forcing a woman to go to term in a pregnancy that kills her makes us just as guilty of murder as we would be if we had killed the fetus—just as guilty.

Murder is a sin against another commandment, which Jesus also talks about in today’s gospel. And did you notice in Jesus’ teachings that the person doesn’t actually have to die for it to be a sin?

We often have to choose between murder of the woman and murder of the fetus. Sometimes God doesn’t give us any other choice: one person is going to die, according to God’s will. Mother or fetus? Which life has more value?

Answer: neither. It therefore needs to be up to the woman to decide. After all, her life and the life of her offspring are the ones in jeopardy. That’s what the Supreme Court said a long time ago, and they were correct.

What of the baby whose bones are so brittle that he or she will not live more than a few minutes outside the womb, during which he or she will suffer great pain? Again, God has given us no choice. If all our efforts would not save the baby, the choice is between a quick, painful death inside the womb and a slow, painful death outside the womb.

Jesus himself came up with a middle ground, and we hear it today in our gospel.

And as our psalmist says, “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones.” God takes what is precious to him in ways of his choosing, not ours, including brittle bones, 9-year-olds who get pregnant, and so on. Let us not fail our Lord’s Spirit by imposing our own will on the decision of whether the mother or baby will die in these rare cases.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Acts 11:21b-26, 13:1-3
• Ps 98:1-6
• Matthew 5:20-26

General Motors in Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection on June 1. The action in federal court in Manhattan was the fourth-largest bankruptcy in US history, according to CNN (link).

The federal government (our tax dollars at work) will give the American auto industry giant $30 billion to keep it afloat during the bankruptcy process, and that’s in addition to the $19.4 billion we gave it to try to keep it out of bankruptcy.

But since the company is “buried under an unsustainable mountain of debt,” in President Obama’s words, many financial experts are wondering if even this will do any good. The bankruptcy will allow the company to shed about $27 billion in debt, now in the hands of assorted bondholders, when it converts those bonds to shares of stock, practically valueless, in the company that might emerge from bankruptcy in 60 to 90 days.

Experts are also worried that the company’s pension fund, which provides promised health care and retirement money for thousands upon thousands of former employees, is about $12 or $13 billion short of where it needs to be. Some companies, in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, have used the protection to do away with those expensive pension funds in the past, but GM has promised not to do that here. When the time comes, we’ll see.

I’ve often wondered how advisable it was to comment on current (and as yet unsettled) events in these reflections. However, this is a pretty big event, and it is applicable to all of our readings today.

Let’s start with the psalm. Ps 98 says, “Sing to the Lord a new song … He has remembered his kindness and faithfulness toward the house of Israel.” The government and GM executives are hoping to produce a new company. It will need to increase the desire for its product, considering the steady decline in GM’s marketshare since 1980.

Can GM sing a new song that steers people to buy its products and turns our national pride into loyalty for a company that has taken good care of its workers? Or, will the new company just produce a cheap version of the same old cars and neglect the faithfulness of those who have worked in its factories their whole lives?

Next, in the gospel, we hear about people who drag their debtors to court, and from there, hand them over to the guard and throw them in prison. I hope GM isn’t at this point yet, but our Lord advised his followers in this part of the Sermon on the Mount to settle before they get to that last resort. I’m sure Jesus was talking about repenting before your death, but today, we have the GM bankruptcy.

Now is the time for GM to get car buyers back into its cars; letting the bankruptcy get much deeper will overshoot an important window of opportunity. Some auto industry experts think it’s already too late, but we must have hope.

With that same optimism, we approach Christ and his offer of salvation. We are aware that his death caused our sins to be forgiven, provided we persevere in a right relationship with him, and GM needs to carry that same optimism through bankruptcy. If its goals and our goals can coincide—and if the company enters into a right relationship with Americans—we might be able to save it.

Our goal as human beings is the love of Christ, not monstrous amounts of money or perks for corporate executives. As GM emerges from bankruptcy or fails, Americans will be watching closely the degree of faithfulness on GM’s part toward its employees and its customers. What we see will dictate our actions, since we have a vested interest in the success of GM, financially with our taxes and because our neighbors in Detroit need us.

If GM’s faithfulness to its employees and customers is not seen, we’re ultimately talking about the same, boring cars. Remember the Cimarron? It wasn’t much more than a Chevy Cavalier that had a Cadillac price tag.

Finally, in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear that “a large number of people was added to the Lord.” GM is not exactly the Lord, but in an analogy, anything goes. It is our hope, as taxpayers, that the loyalty of a large number of GM employees and customers is rewarded and that we see people flock to a new company born out of this mess, a company that honors our true values rather than the idols of money and gas-guzzling, dysfunctional dinosaurs.

Today’s Readings (text):

• 2nd Corinthians 1:1-7
• Ps 34:2-9
• Matthew 5:1-12

Today we hear the so-called Beatitudes, preached by Jesus at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. This part of his sermon ends as follows:

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I am an educator, and every time I hear this sermon, I think of the problems bullying causes our students, especially around the middle school years.

Research has found (SafeYouth.org) that children from homes where parents “provide little emotional support for their children, fail to monitor their activities, or have little involvement in their lives,” tend to become bullies. In addition, bullies tend to experience a greater number of legal and criminal problems as adults.

Confident kids who are initially targeted by bullies often develop a thicker skin, and the bullying has no long-term negative effects on them. It tends not to last all that long if they or their friends stand up to the bully. School-wide programs that address bullying, which might reduce bullying by up to 50 percent, can encourage the targets to stand up to the bully. (Disciplinary action against a single bully is not usually effective.)

On the other hand, if kids allow themselves to become victims over the long term, they are often insecure in adulthood and have just as much trouble with social situations and relationships as the bullies.

Is Jesus telling us here to allow ourselves to become victims of this type of persecution? I sure hope he isn’t. Bullies are trying to take away your self-esteem and emotional development, a sin against the commandment, “You shall not steal.” Jesus would never condone such behavior.

Let’s look carefully at his words. Yes, you are blessed if people persecute you and say evil things about you because of your faith in Christ. But once blessed, it’s time to do something about it so that you don’t become a long-term victim. Jesus says you should rejoice, and you can’t do that if you allow yourself to become a victim.

Since long-term persecution won’t make you any more blessed and may cause great harm, what we should also learn from this part of our Lord’s great sermon is that we don’t have to sit there and take it from everybody who bullies us.

I know first-hand that bullies tend to move on when their targets fight back, so in defense of your well-being in the here and now, let me advise you to fight back with an appropriate level of tenacity and fortitude for yourself and for your friends. You all won’t be able to serve any purpose, let alone our Lord’s purpose, if your social skills and self-esteem deteriorate at the hands of a long-term bully.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40
• Ps 33:4-6, 9, 18-20, 22
• Romans 8:14-17
• Matthew 28:16-20

In today’s gospel passage, we hear what is one of the clearest, if not the clearest, expressions of the Trinity: the concept of one God with three forms or “persons.” Jesus tells his followers to baptize people in the “name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

When they are baptized, they become a member of the community of people who believe in the Trinity. Today we call that community the “church.” And water is one of the fundamental elements used by the “church.” In how many states of matter does water exist on Earth? Three (solid, liquid, gas). This, one of the natural properties of water that makes it so important for life on Earth, is part of the reason we use it in baptism that follows a Trinitarian formula.

Before Jesus, had anyone ever claimed to be a form of God? Sure. Lots of folks made the claim. I think some people still make the claim, but those people generally do not walk among us.

Jesus did walk upon the Earth, though, a planet governed by the same laws of physics as ours is today, performing miracles that would have been impossible given what people knew about medicine during his time. In other words, medical science was not far enough along to make the blind see and cure leprosy.

In the study of quantum physics today, scientists generally believe that a few subatomic particles don’t follow all the rules of classical physics. For example, electrons do have mass, but we can only infer how much space they take up (Wikipedia). Scientists can only describe their behavior in terms of mathematical equations. In other words, we can’t draw a picture of an electron.

We can’t draw a picture of God, either; we more or less infer his existence from evidence brought to us by Jesus and stories in the Old Testament, just as scientists infer the existence of electrons, quarks, gluons, and so on, from evidence gathered by modern equipment like the particle accelerator just outside Chicago or the one in Switzerland. If Jesus weren’t the Son, we ask, how could the events in the Bible have happened?

Of course, that begs the question: How do we know the Bible tells us what really happened? This question will have to remain open for your own personal interpretation. We know there are mistakes in the Bible, in both the New and Old Testaments. There’s also a great deal of allegory. But are the stories of Jesus’ miracles and his sayings true or not? This may be the topic of another reflection.

But here, we can confirm that Christianity hasn’t been illogical or academically dishonest in concluding that Jesus must have been the Son of God: in fact, that’s probably the only explanation that the stories in the Bible don’t destroy. If the gospels are true—and that’s a big if, as they say—the only logical conclusion is that the Trinity must also be true.

Physicists infer the big bang from its effects on how our universe exists today. Along those lines, what do you consider to be some of the effects of God’s grace? A critical examination of our faith like this needs to continue, and we need to keep what is good and eliminate what is bad.

However, we obviously have to infer a few things about God’s existence. Happily, we have, in our stockpile of evidence, the love shown from one person to another, from us to the different animals that share our world, and from our Father to all of humanity when he sent his Son to save us and the Spirit to guide us.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Tobit 2:9-14 or other from the protocanonical books
• Ps 112:1-2, 7-9
• Mark 12:13-17

When people asked Jesus in today’s gospel reading if they were required to pay their taxes, Jesus threw them a curve ball, as he often did, giving them an answer they were not expecting: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s,” he told them.

Governments and taxes are a real part of our lives. Collecting taxes isn’t exactly the favorite job of anyone in the government, but if things are to function properly, the government has to collect taxes.

On an island just off Cedar Key, Fla., birds and snakes live in a symbiotic relationship with each other. When it comes to birds, you will find thousands of migratory shore birds, herons, pelicans, and even eagles on the island, making their nests and raising their young in the protected interior. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service doesn’t even allow people on the exterior beaches except for research purposes.

But even though humans leave the birds alone, the snakes can’t read the signs. Many snakes on the island, such as the cottonmouth water moccasins, are poisonous, but they have no predators here. Since the birds bring back an abundant supply of fish to feed their young, giving the snakes an easy life of rummaging for leftovers, the snakes are docile and, to some observers, lethargic.

The snakes, however, have not been as friendly to raccoons, rats, and other rodents as they are to the birds on this outer island, which used to be a part of the key itself. Besides, raccoons and rats have an innate fear of poisonous snakes like the cottonmouth water moccasin. That instinct keeps them away from the island, so the birds’ eggs and young are protected by the mere presence of the snakes.

Because the snakes naturally protect the survival of the birds, it’s in the birds’ best interest not to bother the snakes and even to provide them with food as a side effect of their own survival behavior. The snakes therefore get enough food during nesting season to last them through the entire year.

Taxpayers have a symbiotic relationship with governments as well. Our government establishes justice, insures domestic tranquility, provides for the common defense, promotes the general welfare, and secures the blessings of liberty. It has become good at these things over the past 233 years, and in turn, we give them some of our money and respect their laws.

U.S. laws, including our tax laws, were not handed down by God, to be sure, but it is generally good that when two entities, be they organisms, corporations, or governments, benefit mutually from an action, without causing any harm, that the action itself should occur naturally. An action that is part of the natural law is not likely to raise an objection from Jesus or from those who follow him.

Now let’s talk about giving God what is God’s. Through grace, he gave us salvation in Jesus Christ. What are you going to give him in return? Fish? Well, if God were a snake, that would be fine, but he isn’t. I say you show your thanks through your actions: by loving others, who are also his children, even if they don’t want to be considered his children.