13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. 17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you.
19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me— 20 those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? 22 I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. 24 See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
THOUGHTS by Ben Masters, a senior at GMU:
Happy Pride Week!
Pride Week at Mason is a time when we celebrate and honor the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer and ally members of our community. This is a week when we have an opportunity to give thanks to God for our very being-- for being fearfully and wonderfully made, for being known by God even when our birth and ongoing growth is a secret to us. This is a week when we can return to God, our loving creator, and turn away from the ways we belittle each other's created-ness. Even though we argue over how people come to know themselves as LGBTQ (genetics, culture, sin, grace, etc.), the psalmist reminds us that God's thoughts are vast, and that when we try to count them they are more than the sand-- and yet at the end of the day God is still with us all.
But Pride Week also reminds me that the world is many times neither a safe nor loving place for LGBTQ people. Yesterday (Monday), protesters came from the Westboro Baptist Church to shout out messages of hate: that "God hates fags" and that God had condemned GMU for supporting programs like Pride Week, and that AIDS was God's curse to same-gender loving people. Like a lot of my friends, messages like that get a rise out of me and I want to echo the psalmist's feelings: I hate them, God, and they tell lies about you! If only those hate-mongers would leave people alone! And yet, when I listen to the lines again, it strikes me almost as if Fred Phelps, founder of WBC, is saying those words: "O that you would kill the wicked, O God... Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? ...I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies." Didn't Jesus say something about loving enemies? Blessing those who curse me? Praying for those who mistreat me? (Yes, if I take Luke 6:27-28 seriously.)
And so, this Pride Week, as I begin to celebrate my LGBTQ and ally brothers and sisters, I hold the last two lines of the psalm close: "search me, O God, and know my heart... see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
PRAYER:
Search me, O God, and know my heart. See if there is anything in me that scorns my neighbors. See if there is anything in me that keeps me from upholding their dignity as beings created in your image. See if there is anything that keeps me from dwelling in loving and just community with them, and lead me in the way everlasting-- the way of our brother Jesus. AMEN.
Pride Week at Mason is a time when we celebrate and honor the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer and ally members of our community. This is a week when we have an opportunity to give thanks to God for our very being-- for being fearfully and wonderfully made, for being known by God even when our birth and ongoing growth is a secret to us. This is a week when we can return to God, our loving creator, and turn away from the ways we belittle each other's created-ness. Even though we argue over how people come to know themselves as LGBTQ (genetics, culture, sin, grace, etc.), the psalmist reminds us that God's thoughts are vast, and that when we try to count them they are more than the sand-- and yet at the end of the day God is still with us all.
But Pride Week also reminds me that the world is many times neither a safe nor loving place for LGBTQ people. Yesterday (Monday), protesters came from the Westboro Baptist Church to shout out messages of hate: that "God hates fags" and that God had condemned GMU for supporting programs like Pride Week, and that AIDS was God's curse to same-gender loving people. Like a lot of my friends, messages like that get a rise out of me and I want to echo the psalmist's feelings: I hate them, God, and they tell lies about you! If only those hate-mongers would leave people alone! And yet, when I listen to the lines again, it strikes me almost as if Fred Phelps, founder of WBC, is saying those words: "O that you would kill the wicked, O God... Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? ...I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies." Didn't Jesus say something about loving enemies? Blessing those who curse me? Praying for those who mistreat me? (Yes, if I take Luke 6:27-28 seriously.)
And so, this Pride Week, as I begin to celebrate my LGBTQ and ally brothers and sisters, I hold the last two lines of the psalm close: "search me, O God, and know my heart... see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
PRAYER:
Search me, O God, and know my heart. See if there is anything in me that scorns my neighbors. See if there is anything in me that keeps me from upholding their dignity as beings created in your image. See if there is anything that keeps me from dwelling in loving and just community with them, and lead me in the way everlasting-- the way of our brother Jesus. AMEN.
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Ben Masters is a senior at GMU involved with LCM. He plans to spend the year after graduation involved with Lutheran Volunteer Corps, and he blogs at http://letusbebread.blogspot.com/
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JOIN US for worship this Wendesday at 7:47pm in the BISTRO as we celebrate PRIDE WEEK, exploring how we can all identify with living in exile or on the margins ... and how God's love reaches us wherever we are. http://GMU747.org
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These devotions are provided by Lutheran Campus Ministry at George Mason University . Feel free to share them with your friends! For more information on our ministry and events, see http://gmu.edu/org/lutheran
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These devotions are provided by Lutheran Campus Ministry at George Mason University . Feel free to share them with your friends! For more information on our ministry and events, see http://gmu.edu/org/lutheran
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