Je suis Paris; je suis le monde

Below is my opening meditation and prayer from Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship on November 15, 2015.

Today we come together to celebrate life and to mourn death. As many of us probably know, Paris was attacked last Friday evening. I have to tell you I have mixed feelings about talking about this. I have mixed feelings because Beirut, Lebanon was attacked by suicide bombers Thursday, and I didn't even notice. Another suicide bomber attacked a funeral in Baghdad on Friday, and I didn't know. Garissa University in Kenya suffered an attack with a similar death toll months ago and I had no idea until last night. The U.S. is still conducting drone strikes and other military operations that take human lives. Human lives that shouldn't have to be qualified with the terms "innoncent" or "guilty," but human lives that should be valued because they are lives.

Meditation on Mennonite Church USA Convention 2015

After attending the MC USA 2015 convention, I was scheduled to be the worship leader at church. The service this past Sunday was a lament, of sorts, over the painful decisions that were made at the convention this year. Our congregation found the resolution on membership guidelines particularly upsetting, but we should also not forget the pain that our Palestinian and Israeli brothers and sisters feel over the Palestine and Israel resolution (click here to read the reactions of some Palestinians and Israelis to the decision to table the resolution), as well as that of others who have been hurt by the church, while at the same time not discounting the positive resolutions that were passed.

I am posting my opening meditation from this past Sunday's service below, along with the hymn I used to craft a call to worship.

Religion and Obergefell et al. v. Hodges

Today's historic Supreme Court decision has thus far received an understandably mixed reception. I have been troubled by those, including dissenting justices, suggesting that religious institutions are now under threat by the decision. All of this in spite of the fact that the decision itself and Justice Roberts' majority opinion carefully protects religion under the first amendment. So let's talk about the rights of religious institutions and what this decision could mean for us as a society.

So, regarding marriage, what rights do religious institutions have? After the civil rights struggle of the mid-twentieth century, churches have to marry people of other races and interracial couples, do they not? And if they can't discriminate based on race, they surely can't discriminate based on religion! So, up to this point, all religious officials have had to marry all opposite-sex couples that have come seeking to be married, correct? WRONG!