Universal Love in Unexpected Places

A Small Omnist Pastor

Being a small church located in Maryville Missouri brings in difficulties of their own. Looking around this town, you will find millionaire churches and huge buildings of worship. Most of these churches are built from the ground up from even hundreds of years of service to the community. Many arrived in this town with funds from their denominational church communities. Unfortunately, we watch as nondenominational churches arrive and leave within a year or two due to the monetary need to thrive. In most moderate to bigger-sized churches there exists a considerate number of paid employees which could include the basics such as the pastor up to daycare workers. In churches that are starting, however, it is much more common to see a community built through highly committed volunteer work such as ours.

A Minister in this position is required to think about how much they can bring into the church. Since we live in a monetary society it's important to be honest about our household needs. Often this leads to Pastors negotiating their time and working a full or part-time job. This is the case for my role in the church. Although I am a full-time pastor, I also dedicate my time as a caregiver for local seniors through a company in town. This has brought me a lot of experiences and reflections spiritually.

A Cold Sunday Morning

About every Sunday I work with a client that goes to the local Methodist church. The first time that I had taken him was strange for me. I hadn't gone to a Christian church in quite some time and felt odd as a pastor myself of a different faith being there. The church community there was welcoming and had a female pastor named Kim. She had a bubbly personality which reminded me of a pastor I had when I attended a Nazareen church in my youth. Being an Omnist I still listened to the sermon given and took what resonated and left what didn't. This wasn't always easy as some small details did not sit right with me.

This Sunday the temperature was about 6 degrees out with a cold wind. It was so cold outside and I was so happy to be in that warm church building. There was an unexpected story coming from passages in The Bible today that I wasn't prepared for. Kim was telling a story from 1st King 17. Most recognize the name Elijah, but this was a story I wasn't familiar with. She tells of how he left the comfort of Israel and was fed by the Ravens as they were commanded to do so. This sparked my attention more as Ravens were spiritually sacred to me and spoke to me through Norse Mythology. Furthermore, she explained that at that time Ravens to the Jewish people were considered unclean, yet this man listened and ate the food provided. After the water was drained from the bog as there was a drought, he was then led to meet and be fed by a Pagan widow. She showed him hospitality and love even though she had a vastly different religion from him. There came a point where her son became ill and she spoke to the Man of God with hostility believing that her son was dying due to his presence; asking him what he had against her and pinned it on his religion as she thought he might have been there to remind her of her sin and to kill her son. Instead of reacting with anger, the Man of God turned to his religion and asked God why he would bring tragedy like this and asked God to bring back the breath into the son.

Moral of the Story

Kim throughout this sermon talked about the subject of love to one another and how people of different beliefs still come together out of universal love. Sometimes as Pagans, we do not see this from the Christian community and I think that this is an example of why we are hurt so often and also may blame the religion instead of the person or other factors just as the widow has. The same is said for those who have hurt us by using religion against us. In the story, the widow was hurting and she grabbed onto the difference that they had as she saw it as a threat. She couldn't understand why this was happening to her. What made a difference however is that instead of pushing his religion onto her from a place of misunderstanding or hate, he instead learned to understand what she was going through and his religion as to how this could happen. He sympathizes with her. This story unites two people of different religions coming together out of universal love and hospitality.

We can use this to reflect how we respond to religious hate as most of the time it doesn't have to do with religion at all. We can also reflect on if we do this in our own lives and what pain we might be experiencing.