Monday - A New Idea - The Night That Changed the Poor
Last week we started a new series called, “The Night that Changed Everything.” We’re looking at the significance of Christmas, a night that changed much more than most of us imagine. We’ll see its impact on five segments of society:
The Night That Changed the Religious
The Night That Changed the Powerful
The Night That Changed the Poor
The Night That Changed You
The Night That Changed the Wise
This week we’re looking at how it changed the poor. Often the poor are excluded from important events – there were reports of homeless people being temporarily removed from the streets before the Atlanta Olympics, for example. When the world was watching, Atlanta didn’t want them seeing poverty.
But strangely, the Christmas story puts poor people front and centre. Mary and Joseph themselves are travellers with apparently modest means. The first visitors to see the baby are shepherds.
We’ll explore this week why it’s significant that the poor are so prominent in this important event.
Question: What role do the poor play in our world?
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On the news last week, we heard about how no one wants the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the deceased suspect in the Boston Marathon Bombings.
No cemetery seems to want the body, and the funeral director is under attack for his involvement.
You can hear the anger in people’s voices. They cannot forgive this man for trying to kill them, their friends, their families. One man said, “dump him off a boat like Bin Laden”.
Maybe it would be different if he was alive, and people could tell him off, see him stand trial, explain his deeds, and see him convicted and put away. But they can’t – he’s dead, and so they can only try to deny him a proper burial – many seem unable to forgive this man.
A few columns and blogs here and there have spoken of forgiveness. You can tell it’s hard – more often than not you can tell they wish they could hate, but are held back by something, someone, who compels them to go against their baser instincts and forgive someone who they want to hate.
Question: Can you forgive someone who won’t apologize, or forgive you? Why or why not?
One example of a blog advocating forgiveness: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-martha-r-jacobs/is-a-person-bad-or-does-a-person-choose-to-do-bad-things_b_3200740.html