2 May

Receiving Others as Gifts: The Sanctity of Life

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Brokenness, Community. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

SanctityOfLife

In a way, this topic–the sanctity of life–is foundational to the entire series of receiving others as gifts. In fact, it is foundational to my entire life message and my worldview as a whole.

I could’ve put this topic first and built out from there, but it is a bit tricky to write about. I mean, I can, with one post, alienate just about everyone with my thinking on this issue. I myself don’t even live up to my own high-minded ideals about how very sacred and precious life is.

And so, I’ve buried this most-important topic in the middle of the series to work up the gumption to write about it. At this point, I don’t so much have more gumption as I have a sense of commitment to myself to write the whole series as planned.

Basically, when it comes to the sanctity of life, I think it is a lot easier to want to protect some lives and disregard others. But if we take seriously that each and every person belongs to God as God’s precious creation, then we are challenged to hold as sacred the lives of all people.

Let me give you an example. Sometimes I have heard people make a very impassioned case against abortion, yet those same people advocate for strict application of the death penalty. On the other hand, some people are pro-choice, yet staunchly opposed to the death penalty. For me, if life is valuable, then both the lives of the unborn and the lives of inmates on death row are valuable.

Both abortion and capital punishment are serious issues and I do not mean to make light of either the complexities of an unplanned pregnancy or that of serious violent crime. What I mean to say is that I lament any loss of life.

I figure if the good news of Jesus Christ is true, really truly true, then no one is beyond God’s love. Every life is worth saving in God’s eyes.

But the sanctity of life in my mind goes beyond just the overt taking of a life. We demonstrate respect for life and undermine it in a million small ways every day.

Some of the everyday ways we show respect for life, in no particular order, are when we:

  • care for the sick;
  • truly listen to someone who thinks different from us;
  • honor those who are vulnerable;
  • advocate for non-violent solutions to problems;
  • treat children with kindness;
  • give dignity to the elderly.

We undermine life when we neglect the above, abuse others with actions or words, infringe on others’ basic human rights, and more. These behavior undermine life because they violate others in some way. Whatever we do that violates others–even if they live through it–are offenses against their lives.

In this broad extension of the idea of the sanctity of life, there isn’t a person I know that isn’t guilty of some violation of another. Myself included. Having this perspective doesn’t make me perfect. But I do believe it with all my heart and try to catch myself whenever I recognize that I’m in danger of causing harm to another.

The good news is that we can begin anew each day. We can connect with our God who loves all of his created people and allow God’s Spirit to guide our words and actions as we receive others as gifts and honor the sanctity of their lives.

 

Read all the posts in the Receiving Others as Gifts series:

28 Apr

Another Writing Milestone: My First Print Publication

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Community, Vocation. Tagged: , , , , , .

For the first time today I held my first paid, print publication in my hands. It is an article for Connect: Journal of Children, Youth & Family Ministry, the official publication of the ELCA Youth Ministry Network.

The article is called, Seven Ways That Hands-On Service Builds Connections and Confidence for Young People and you can read it online with this link >> http://issuu.com/elcayouthministrynetwork/docs/connect_journal_winter_2014_167/14

And just for fun, here is a picture of me holding the print version in my very own hands…

My First Print Publication

Special thanks to Clint Schnekloth, a colleague and friend, and author of Mediating Faith, who helped me get this opportunity.

25 Apr

Receiving Others as Gifts: People Belong to God

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Community. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Belonging

In a previous post in this series on Receiving Others as Gifts I talked about not taking others for granted, that they are not objects for us to use. I want to go a step further with that to emphasize that people belong to God.

 

People belonging to God has (at least) four important implications:

 

1. We Need to Honor & Respect Others

The other people we encounter in life, as God’s beloved creations, deserve the respect that we give to God.

In college I once wrote a paper talking about the importance of both loving God and loving neighbor. I wrote about these actions as if they were two separate realities.

My professor pointed out that these are really two sides of the same coin.

It simply doesn’t work to say we honor God when we dishonor God’s created people.

 

2. We’re Not the Boss of Other People

Overtly acknowledging that others belong to God underscores that they do not belong to us.

We serve alongside one another in mutuality and we give and receive meaningful companionship but others are free to give or withhold these as honors their own commitment to God.

Others’ participation in service and companionship is not for us to coerce but for them to discern.

It is important for us to honor their boundaries about what they are or are not willing to do.

 

3. We Can Learn About God from Others

Another implication of others belonging to God is that many times we can learn from them about God.

As each of us are designed by our creator to be in communion with him, sometimes others may be tuning in to God in ways that we aren’t currently. As such, we can glean insights and inspiration from their encounters with our God.

Obviously, as a church professional married to a pastor I believe that there are formal roles in which this can happen.

But a person does not have to be super religious or a trained professional to have encounters with God from which the rest of us can learn.

It is easy to settle into our own views about and experiences with God. But God is at work in the lives of others too.

Our lives can be enriched by remaining open to God’s movement in and through others.

 

4. Different by Design

In my post about “giftedness” I talked about the idea that others are different from us. Whether we find these differences enjoyable or annoying, it is important to recognize that many of the differences among us are by God’s design.

God created each of us as unique individuals. Our giftedness comes from God.

Discrimination against or dismissal of others’ uniqueness is a failure to recognize God at work in each person. But by honoring their differences, we honor their belonging to God.

 By honoring others as God’s beloved creations, giving them the freedom to choose how they serve and with whom to associate, learning from them about our amazing God, and respecting their uniqueness we show a deep respect for them. In these ways we show with our actions that we embrace the idea that they do not belong to us, but to God.

Read all the posts in the Receiving Others as Gifts series:

20 Apr

No Other God is Able to Deliver in This Way – Resurrection Day Reflection

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Inspiration. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

409px-Simeon_Solomon_-_Shadrach_Meshach_Abednego

I’ve shared before that I love the vigil on Holy Saturday (the night before resurrection day). But one of my mostest favoritest parts of the vigil is the reading of the story of Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego and their deliverance from the fiery furnace. If you haven’t read the story lately, it is well worth looking up in your Bible in Daniel 3:1-29 or you can read it online now at Bible Gateway.

The gist of it is that King Nebuchadnezzar wants everyone to worship a golden statue that he has set up and if they don’t he’s going to throw them in a “furnace of blazing fire,” which, of course, would mean death. But three young Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego serve only one God and refuse to worship the king’s statue.

Their defiance of the king gets him so mad that “his face is distorted” and he orders the furnace to be turned up seven times hotter! He has the three men bound and thrown in. The handlers that throw them in get killed by the flames because the furnace is so hot.

But when the king looks into the furnace he sees four men: Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and another with appearance of a god, moving around, unbound, clearly still alive. The king is astonished and orders these “servant of The Most High God” to come out of the furnace.

Nebuchadnezzar recognizes that this God that Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego worships has saved them from what should have been certain death. He then makes a decree that no one should blaspheme against the God of Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego because “there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way.”

And indeed, it is this Most High God, with the power to defy death, that we worship.

But in the work of Jesus, God did not simply sidestep death, God went all the way through it. What this means, as my theology professor, Dr. David Truemper used to say, is there is now no part of our human experience that God has not personally gone through. And not only that, but he conquered death once and for all in the resurrection.

There is no other God who is able to deliver in the way that Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior has done for us.

Thanks be to The Most High God for the victory of Jesus’ resurrection!

 

18 Apr

Can an Untimely Death Bring a Shine? Good Friday Reflection

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Brokenness, Inspiration. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

 

JesusDeathStainedGlass

Today is “Good Friday,” the day we as Christians commemorate the suffering and death of Jesus. For a dramatic narration of the story by Nashville’s Charles Esten (aka “Deacon”), click here.

But it is hard for me to get my mind around the idea of an untimely death being a good thing.

I don’t talk about this much, but in the past several years I have lost two twenty-something cousins. The young men, Michael and Phillip, were the only two children of my aunt and uncle. They died about two years apart, both in car accidents.

Growing up these were the cousins that I saw most often. Even after I was married we would spend holidays together whenever possible. I’d say we were pretty close.

I’ve been reflecting lately about how I’ve felt especially dysfunctional in terms of things like housework. I’ve always been a little lax, but there was a time if company was coming I could step up my game and get my house to a shine.

Now though, I just can’t care about that shine anymore.

As I thought about what changed–or rather–when that change occurred, I realized there was a distinct shift when Michael died (he was the first one to die). It hit me hard.

Just nothing was the same anymore without Michael’s shining smile in this world.

And then when Phillip died too, it was grief upon grief, tarnish upon tarnish.

Shiny, happy housekeeping held no meaning for me anymore.

I still don’t have nearly as much company or as many dinners and parties as a once did. But even when I do, I just figure you’re willing to enter my mess then we can really be friends.

And maybe it’s a protection.

To love like I loved (still love) those little cousins of mine…and to lose them both? I mean, that kind of loss makes it hard to want to love that hard again.

It always seemed to have hit me harder than it should have–I mean, I’m just the big cousin. I don’t even know how my aunt and uncle–the parents–get up every morning.

And then there are the questions upon questions…Why them? When then? Why death?

So you see why I have trouble thinking of an untimely death as a good thing?

I don’t accept that God wanted it that way. I can’t embrace a God who wills people dead for some larger purpose. Or at least I won’t if that’s the kind of God our God is.

So then, the untimely death of God’s own son? Am I supposed to accept that? To accept that God gave up what no parent should ever have to give up?

This is where our language about God and our understanding of God’s nature get confusing. See, all the God there is came to us as Jesus. God didn’t send an agent that was somehow apart from Godself. God is Jesus. Jesus is God.

Our very God gave up God’s own shine to be one of us.

The cruel fate of an untimely death was not something that God did to someone else. No, God submitted to human punishment & sentencing. God endured humiliation and death for our sakes.

The untimely death of God is the most baffling of all. But if anything could ever shine despite death, then it would be because God conquered the very death that threatens to overshadow our world.

We know that God did not stay dead. He rose victorious from the grave and conquered death itself.

Death does not get the final word.

And whether we feel shiny, happy, or we’re still grappling with some kind of grief, we know that love wins. God’s love shines through for us always, all the time, no matter what.

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