How do we live compassionately in a time of violence and despair? What can we do with our private disappointments and the anger we feel in such an unjust world? In his most personal book yet, Richard Rohr turns to the writings of the Jewish prophets, revealing how some of the lesser-read books of the Bible offer us a crucial path forward today.
We celebrate God’s gift of diversity and value the wholeness made possible in community equally shared and shepherded by all. We welcome and affirm people of every gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation, who are also of every age, race, ethnicity, physical and mental ability, level of education, and family structure, and of every economic, immigration, marital, and social status, and so much more. We acknowledge that we live in a world of profound social, economic, and political inequities. As followers of Jesus, we commit ourselves to the pursuit of justice and pledge to stand in solidarity with all who are marginalized and oppressed.
We, as members of the church’s Friday Study Group, which has been meeting steadily for many years, have been studying and discussing the Sermon on the Mount, as presented in the Gospel of Matthew. We are struck by Jesus’s forceful emphasis on inclusion of the meek, the hungry, the neglected, the poor in spirit, the lonely, and those denied recognition and just treatment by society, in his vision of the Kingdom of God…. [Please see our Statement on Social Justice].
This figure is based on readings from (among others) Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God, by Kaitlin Curtice, God is Red by Vine Deloria, Jr., How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo; Courageous Faith: How to Rise and Resist in a Time of Fear by Emily C. Heath; I and Thou by Martin Buber, as well as contributions to discussion by Friday Study Class and Betty Phifer Advanced Study Class members, many of whom have taken part in the Capital Area Justice Ministry in Tallahassee.
Content added and photo adapted by Pam Crosby. Photo taken by Ferran Perez and used with permission from https://www.pexels.com/photo/high-angle-photo-of-white-spiral-staircase-3427031
For more information, send an email to Pam Crosby, FSG member.
