Question: The closest person to me in the world recently died. I honestly prayed for his healing, but he didn’t get well, and now he is gone. Why didn’t my prayers work? What did I do wrong?
Answer: Prayer, faith, a positive attitude, hope… these are all very powerful and can make a difference in the difficult circumstances of life. And still, not everything works out the way we’d like sometimes. I don’t know what was wrong with your loved one, but I’m sure he was trying to get rest and was receiving medical treatment, and those efforts along with your prayers all worked together to benefit your dear one. Maybe your prayers gave him strength to bear the difficulty. Maybe your prayers comforted him in ways that you couldn’t see. Maybe your prayers gave him hours or even days of life that he wouldn’t have otherwise had. And while a cure or remission may have eluded him, healing in other ways may have been very real for him. Your prayers may have even helped him have a peaceful transition from this experience of life to the next. We sometimes don’t know how our prayers have benefited someone, but we can know that our prayers are an expression of love, and love is never wasted. You can be sure that your faithful prayers were a blessing to your loved one. Our loving prayers are always a special gift of goodwill, and they do in some way add something beautiful to the lives of those we hold in prayer.
If you have questions about faith, the bible, the church, or sexuality & spirituality, you can email your questions to durrell@sunshinecathedral.org, or go to the Ask the Reverend Durrell Watkins page and click on the link there. Rev. Durrell Watkins will answer your questions and publish the answers here and in the weekly SunBurst. Your name will always be withheld, so only the actual question and the response will be published.
“Divine Life destroys death, Truth destroys error, and Love destroys hate. Being destroyed, sin needs no other form of forgiveness.” Marry Baker Eddy
Lent is traditionally a “penitential” season, but if we take penance to mean simply feeling ashamed and guilty for previous mistakes, then does it really serve much purpose? And, if penance is merely claiming to be sorry for things we actually enjoyed but feel we “should” be sorry for, isn’t that even less meaningful? The penance that helps us isn’t false shame, or even honest regret. We don’t become better by punishing ourselves or by feeling lowly. The penance that is life-giving is repentance, which isn’t sorrow, but change. If we haven’t been generous, then let’s start being generous! If we haven’t been kind, then let’s be kind. If we haven’t been concerned with justice for all people, then let’s get to work. This change of attitude, change of direction is what will lead us back to the truth of our goodness, and as we live in the power of our innate goodness, the world around us will be blessed as well. Atonement isn’t punishment for error; it is turning away from error so that we realize our At-one-ment with the divine.
Question: I keep hearing that Sunshine Cathedral is a progressive church. Doesn’t progressive mean liberal?
Answer: A dictionary definition of “Liberal” is as follows: favorable to progress; favorable to concepts of maximum individual freedom; free from bigotry; open-minded; generous; not bound by tradition; doesn’t insist on literalism. Synonyms for “liberal” include: progressive; broad-minded; charitable. Opposites of “liberal” are: reactionary; intolerant; stingy.
In that we affirm the sacred value of all people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender identification, religious history, political affiliation, physical ability, or sexual orientation, we are clearly “favorable to progress” and to “concepts of maximum individual freedom”. We obviously don’t feel oppressed by tradition around here, and we take the scriptures far too seriously to reduce them to an anti-intellectual, overly simplistic, or unreasonable literalism. In at least these matters, we appear to be fairly open-minded, and we are always trying to be generous in spirit and sharing our personal resources is one of the primary ways that we worship. So, I think many people would characterize us as fairly liberal (and I, for one, am comfortable with that description).
How we typically understand our progressive spirituality is that our theology is “open” (there is room for a variety of opinions and one is free to change one’s mind as one acquires new information or experiences); we are pluralistic (respectful of non-Christian traditions); we value compassion; we are more concerned with following Jesus than with individual opinions about Jesus; we value relationships more than legalistic demands or restrictions; we are trying to be inclusive of more kinds of people by recognizing the sacred value of all people; we are challenging ourselves to care about issues of social and environmental justice; and our message is non-dogmatic, that is, we know that we need not all believe the exact same things to live together in love, harmony, and respect. If that is liberal, then so be it… we mostly tend to think of it as the Way of divine living that Jesus modeled.
If you have questions about faith, the bible, the church, or sexuality & spirituality, you can email your questions to durrell@sunshinecathedral.org, or go to the Ask the Reverend Durrell Watkins page and click on the link there. Rev. Durrell Watkins will answer your questions and publish the answers here and in the weekly SunBurst. Your name will always be withheld, so only the actual question and the response will be published.
If I touch a hot stove, I will feel heat and pain. The appliance gods aren’t punishing me for breaking a rule. It’s simply that choices have consequences and actions produce reactions. Touch hot stove, get burned. That’s all. As some people have wisely stated, “We aren’t punished for our sins, but by our sins.”
Sins are just mistakes. Sin is not getting it right, not hitting the mark. It’s touching the hot stove. Let’s remove from our consciousness any idea that there is a punishing God waiting to catch us misbehaving only to unleash retribution on us. We don’t want to comply with rules out of fear; we want to cooperate with wisdom, compassion, and generosity for the joy, healing, and empowerment such cooperation will bring. God is Love and Love isn’t waiting to trap us, torture us, or condemn us. Love will let us make our own mistakes, and we’ll need to take responsibility for them… but Love is there all the while holding us, never letting us go.
Sharing the Light is an Internet talk show where Reverends Durrell Watkins, Robert Griffin, and others discuss theological questions of interest to our community.
In this episode of Sharing the Light, Sunshine Cathedral’s Senior Pastor Durrell Watkins speaks with Director of Media and Justice Ministry Robert Griffin and the Reverend Michael Diaz. We invite you to join us for an enlightening conversation on Sharing the Light.
Question: I am a gay man in my mid 60’s who is searching for a spiritual home. I’m a former Roman Catholic but I no longer believe much of what I was taught as a child. Even though I have more doubts than solid beliefs, I still want a place to explore spirituality, to commune with God, and to enjoy the company of other people. Can you provide me some direction?
Answer: All I can say is, “Welcome Home!” Seriously, Sunshine Cathedral is honestly trying to be the very sort of place you describe. We are affiliated with The Center for Progressive Christianity, and therefore “invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us… believers and skeptics, people of all gender identities and sexual orientations, people from every race and class and all abilities, and people who hope for a better world as well as people who have lost hope.” We also “find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty — more value in questioning than in absolutes.” We offer Holy Communion, but we understand it to be “a representation of God’s feast for all peoples” and everyone is invited to receive the Sacrament regardless of church membership, no matter what one’s beliefs or doubts may be. We try to balance thinking and feeling in our sermons. We try to be inclusive with our language, and we blend a variety of worship styles so that many people will find something comfortable from their past even while moving forward in new directions. If you haven’t worshiped with us yet, I hope you’ll give us a try.
If you have questions about faith, the bible, the church, or sexuality & spirituality, you can email your questions to durrell@sunshinecathedral.org, or go to the Ask the Reverend Durrell Watkins page and click on the link there. Rev. Durrell Watkins will answer your questions and publish the answers here and in the weekly SunBurst. Your name will always be withheld, so only the actual question and the response will be published.
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