There was a short article I saw the other day. It seemed, at first glance, to be quite meritorious. Filled with good things to say, and to consider. However, as one might guess by the title, not all is as it appears. I was… in much thought after reading it. It has taken a while for me to get to this article, for I have had to let the idea simmer for a while. I have had to organize my thoughts. So let me copy and paste it here so that you may read it, too. Then I’ll make some comments about it:
The pastor says they sit front and center. The gay boys. Sometimes they hold hands. And some folks have said he should address the issue. But the pastor tells me he doesn’t know what to say.
There is the couple who are pregnant and not married. Walks in shame as her father a “Man of God”, physically slaps her legs while she is having morning sickness and the Boyfriend who is not wanting to marry her. But the pastor tells me he doesn’t know what to say.
And then there’s the man who sneaks in the back door. Fresh off the street. After the service starts. And leaves before altar call. The people sitting close complain about how bad he smells. Of beer and smoke and sweat. But the pastor tells me he doesn’t know what to say.
And then there’s the young mama who wears dirty clothes and lets her four children come in and eat all the donuts and drink all the watered-down juice. Some church staff say they “…eat like little pigs. Like they haven’t eaten in weeks.” While the Mama just stands there and lets them. And the elders say something must be done and said. But the pastor tells me he doesn’t know what to say.
And there’s the whore sitting among the faithful. And everybody knows her. She sits with a painted-up face, cheap perfume, and a broken heart. And those who sit close, well, they all treat her for what they think she is. And at the last staff meeting, her name came up. Something must be done about her. But the pastor tells me he doesn’t know what to say.
The pastor is a good man. Holy and just. And he wants to do the “right and loving” thing. And he wants to “look like Jesus”. And he asks me if I have any thoughts on anything he could say.
Yes, sweet Pastor. I do. Start with this and say it Louder than any other words:
“Welcome to Church. This is a place of love and hope and safety and forgiveness. There will be food for the hungry. Living water for the thirsty. We are so glad you are here. You are invited. You are loved. Come on in—we’ve been waiting on you. Welcome here. We are the church.”
Say that. To the called and to the called-out. To the leaders and the greeters. To the dirty and the clean. We are all the same. We are.
May we blow the dust of religion out of our souls and choose affection instead. May our words and actions and reactions be a sanctuary for all.
Jesus broke many laws to love. So, Jesus, be our voice. Be the only words we should ever speak.I believe this with all my heart. Years ago we were kinder. Everybody looked out for one another. We need to go back to that. It takes us all. We gotta do better at looking out for each other instead of breaking each other down.
You don’t have to copy and paste unless you want to, it’s your choice.
Amen.
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I have a sign in my house in Second Life. It is very close
to the graphic above. It is a reminder to me of my daily repentance. It is a
pledge to God that is important to me. Jesus died for my sins. Therefore, how
can I go back to that which caused him, the one I love, to be crucified? I absolutely can’t go back, can’t even look
back. This is an individual and personal way of approaching God.
Amen… like this is a prayer? Well. There is a lot of good here. And a lot to be straightened out. Truth and love need to walk hand in hand. God is the One who decides what truth is, and God is the One who decides what love is. Love without truth is not love at all. So, let’s find some truth and apply it.
The pastor in the above story is doing an emphatically poor job at feeding Jesus’ sheep. This is because he is not turning immediately to scripture to inform him about how to proceed. To direct him about what to say to all these different people. Scripture contains the answers to all life’s questions… including how we can care about one another. How we can support one another. How we can love one another.
And yes, the author is right. We should follow in Jesus’ footsteps and help the needy, clothe the penniless, and feed the hungry. After all, Jesus accepted the tax collector and forgave the woman caught in adultery, in the very act. He shows care and love to those in the midst of sin. He also spoke truth to them, and allowed them to choose what they wanted to do. So, we need to and are absolutely called to show compassion and acceptance of others where they are.
However, that does not mean acceptance of ideologies that mislead us and go against God and His laws.
That brings me back to the sign I posted at the top. There is no mention anywhere in the article of repentance. Repentance is required for the remission of sins. Jesus shed his blood for the sins of the world. Yours and mine. So, we should respect His ultimate payment on our behalf and show God through our actions and our hearts that we are appreciative of His sacrifice.
Jesus calls all of us- rich and poor, smelly and clean, the Charlie Browns of the world and the popular, the beautiful and the forsaken- to repentance. There is no such message in the cited text above.
I am reminded of an illustration that was used in 2004. A man is enamored with his sin, which is represented by two handfuls of dung. God says he wants to give the man a present, but the man looks into his hands, which are being used to carry his dung, and says “But I have no room to carry a new gift.” God calls us to let loose of the things of the world. To let go of them. Completely. Then to cleanse and wash ourselves, and take up our cross and follow Him. For it is written, His yoke is easy and His burden is light.
The church in Corinth was messed up in a major league way. People were involved in sexual sin. They were cutting in line and hogging when the Lord’s supper was observed, even getting drunk on the wine. Others were being greedy. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the church in Corinth, gives the people encouragement. “SUCH AS WERE SOME OF YOU.” He reminds them that they had been called out from their previous sinful behavior. He reminds them that they had been forgiven much, and had turned away from their previous way of life.
So, we accept others where they are without judgement. That is the good fruit. Then, we help them out of the place they were. We encourage them with scripture. We show them there are different choices that can be made, and that we do not have to be defined by our past.
Then we come to ideas in the above selection, which are questionable. And dare I say, heretical. The bad fruit. There is great danger to those who live in unrepentant sin. Let God be true and every man a liar. It goes against Romans 1 and many other scriptures. I have already written about “When a Friend is Heading Towards Danger.” One does not remain silent when that is happening.
So, we need truth. Truth comes from the word of God. Jesus Himself is the Word. The writer is correct that we all are guilty of sin. All of us. Myself foremost. That does not mean that it is okay for me to continue in what I was involved in before. Rather, there must be a concrete wall of separation where I never, ever look back. Like Lot’s wife who turned back in longing to Sodom and Gomorrah and in lagging behind, was turned into a pillar of salt. It cannot be an option.
It is because we are dirty that we need to be cleaned. Our cleansing starts with turning to Jesus and asking forgiveness. It continues when we turn our thoughts to Godly things instead of what we used to fill our thoughts with. However, the writer says “May we blow the dust of religion out of our souls and choose affection instead.” That is a big red alert and it is wrong. Accepting sin and rejecting Jesus will lead to an eternity without God. Rejecting faith from our souls in the process of showing affection to others is a response made in poor understanding. Jesus himself said Broad is the path and wide is the gate that leads to destruction, and many are they that enter therein. (not a quote, but close)
The writer says that Jesus broke many laws to love. Untrue. Jesus broke no laws of God. He was completely sinless. He came to fulfill the law. This is the accusation that the Pharisees used to condemn Jesus, in order to put him to death. What Jesus broke were the Pharisaical man-derived traditions. Jesus’ true interpretation and understanding of God’s word threatened their power. This idea, that Jesus broke laws to show love, leads me to believe that the writer is just an apologist for liberal checklists and does not know what he is talking about. Another piece of bad fruit.
It's not a bad thing at all to appeal to be kinder to one another. The writer recalls that years ago we were not as divided as we are now. I appreciate that. However, he then closes with a horrible passive aggressive statement. “You don’t have to copy and paste unless you want to, it’s your choice.” What in the world? Like he is trying to guilt trip the reader into sharing the post. And then he closes with Amen. Like the preceding holds the conviction and sanctification of prayer. No. The writer is way, way out of bounds. This saddens me because we need more truth and we need more love in our lives. That comes from God’s word, not watered down, compromised ideas.
So just like fruit, the ideas we consume affect us. If we are to eat good fruit combined with bad, the result will make us very ill. The same is true of the ideas we partake of. I can’t watch Jerry Springer five hours a day without being affected by it. How I spend my time affects my thought life. We all need to be aware of the ideas we consider, lest in our appreciation of good fruit, we ingest some bad fruit as well.
