Orlando Shootings, LGBT, Islamaphobia, Gun Control

          Omar Mateen carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the Pulse club, a gay night club in Orlando Florida.  He killed 49 people.  It was Sunday morning, June 12, 2AM.  I woke for church on Sunday around 6:30.  My son was watching the news around 8AM.  The weather was on.  After the weather, we turned off the TV and began getting ready for church.  I had no knowledge of the shooting. 

          At church, no one mentioned it to me and I did not look at any news outlets.  So, as the service began and then throughout the service, I had no knowledge that the worst mass shooting in U.S. history had happened a few short hours earlier.  During our prayer time, I did not know.  No one mentioned it to me.

          After the worship service, our family ate lunch at home, with no media on.  Then, my middle son and I got in the car for the 3-hour drive to my parents’ place in Roanoke.  We listened to a Hardy Boys mystery on CD the entire way.  Upon arrival, we hung out with my parents, played games, shot baskets on their backyard hoop, and ate.  Finally, around 8:30PM, I was flipping channels and stopped at CNN.  Over 16 hours after the shooting, I finally found out.  If I had known Sunday morning, we would have had a time of prayer in our worship service.

          For what would we pray?  Of course, we’d pray for the family members and friends of the victims. We would ask God to provide solace and comfort.  We would pray for the more than 50 people who were injured but not killed.  We would pray that God would heal their wounds and soothe their shattered psyches.  And we’d pray for the survivors.  They may be alive and uninjured, but they are not unscathed.  We would pray for them as they carry the burden of survivor’s guilt and the horrors of watching their friends die.  The images they see when they close their eyes to sleep will haunt them in their dreams for a long time. 

Yes, there is much to pray for and we carry all of it to God on behalf of these wounded people.  What else?

We must pray for the family of the shooter, Omar Mateen.  They will be ostracized.  American society as a whole feels the shock and the anger of such an event.  Unstable persons could escalate the violence if in a misguided attempt at justice they were to lash out at Mateen’s relatives.  These people will carry shame and will need God’s help to be free. 

What else?  What do else do we say when we pray?  An interesting thing about this story is the convergence of many different political hot potatoes.  There is homophobia, the hatred of the LGBT community.  There is Islamophobia, the hatred of all things Muslim.  That fact that the killer was Muslim and self-identified as an ISIS supporter arms Islamophobs with all they need to demonize the entire religion and all who practice it. 

Then, there is the issue of gun control.  Those who abhor the accessibility of military style assault weapons will have a field day attacking, ideologically, those who defend their 2^nd amendment right to “keep and bear” arms. 

This story has created strange bed fellows.  I read and posted an opinion from a conservative Christian who wants to damn all Muslims and to liken the religion to the circumstances in 1920’s Germany that set the table of the rise of fascism and Nazism.  The Orlando shootings show that if we don’t stop ISIS now, it will become another Hitler-led Nazi type of power that wreaks havoc and propagates genocide. Many of my Facebook friends pointed out several leaps of logic that in the article.  What I found fascinating in it is that the author, a conservative, linked arms with high profile atheists Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, and Ayn Hirsi Ali in order to brand Islam as violent and evil.  And he did this in defense of the victims, gay people.  Recall the last time you remember conservative Christians aligning with Atheists to defend gays from Muslims.  I bet you cannot think of time.  I can’t. 

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

For the record, I know all Muslims are not violent because I spend a week in a community that is 70% Muslim.  While I am there, I talk about Jesus and try to convince people to follow him.  The Muslims react in violent ways. They sell me bread and fruit.  They welcome me into their homes and heap hospitality on me.  And at the hotel bar, they sell me beer and soda.  Smiling the entire time.  I have never felt safer anywhere.

For the record, I do not keep weapons in my home.  Yet, I am good friends with card-carrying NRA members.  I don’t think the issue is as simple as some of my dogmatic anti-gun friends.  But, I do believe it would be helpful to significantly reduce the number of assault weapons and automatic, high volume, rapid fire guns.  Nobody needs those.  You don’t need an arsenal that Rambo would envy to protect your home.  And having a gun doesn’t make you safer.  The guard at the Pulse night club was armed, but 50 people still died.

For the record, I love gay and lesbian people.  Not all of them.  I don’t know all of them.  But, I love the ones I know.  My neighbors.  Old friends who now take care of my nephews and nieces.  Dear friends who are still “in the closet.”  Based on my reading of Matthew 19:1-12 and Romans 1:18-32, I do not believe same sex marriage is God-honoring or sanctified by God.  I believe homosexuality is outside God’s plan for human sexuality.  But I want you to pay attention to something.  I wrote my theology after identifying how many gay and lesbian people I love. 

And please notice this.  I don’t count homosexual sex as an unforgivable sin.  Some Christians don’t think it is a sin at all.  If they and I are to discuss the divergence in our theology, I’d like to do it in an atmosphere of friendship and love.  And I do believe that someone can hold the opinion that same sex marriage is OK in God’s eyes and at the same time that person can be a disciple.  To put it simply, in theological terms, I oppose same sex marriage.  But I don’t think someone is disqualified from the title ‘Christian’ just because they disagree with me on this point. 

So where are we?  I think the way of Christ is the way of compassion.  His encounter with the rich young ruler is an example.  He was working to correct this man’s understanding by helping the man shift his priorities from a dependence on material wealth to a dependence on faith in God.  But, Jesus knew the man would not respond, not the way Jesus preferred.  Still, the Gospel say that when Jesus told him to part with his riches, before Jesus said a word, he looked at him and “loved him” (Mark 10:21).  That’s where we are.  We are to love people.

We – followers of Jesus – are to be peddlers of the Gospel.  When it comes to social issues, we start from the cross and resurrection and base ourselves there.  If we find ourselves in disagreement with someone on any of the issues I have raised, we enter the conversation compassionately seeking to love the other even in disagreement.  Most importantly, we do not settle for the prevailing narrative. We loudly but compassionately proclaim a counter narrative, one in which the love of Jesus rules the day.  That story must be told and lived, and we must be the ones to tell it and live it.

I close with a tweet from Russell Moore:

 Following

Russell MooreVerified account‏@drmoore

Christian, your gay or lesbian neighbor is probably really scared right now. Whatever our genuine disagreements, let's love and pray

I do not Need to Say It …

            Acceptance of same sex marriage is trending in the United States.  “There’s nothing wrong with it.”  I hear this over and over, in conversation, on the radio, on the twitter feed.  Of course, people only say “there’s nothing wrong with it” because so many others are shouting that there is a lot wrong with it.  Many of those condemning homosexuality and doing so with vigor and vitriol are Christian pastors.  Their damning messages come in the form of sermons.  As the drumbeat of acceptance and normalizing of homosexuality gets louder, the sermons from the conservative quarter are more forceful, clear-cut, and accusatory. 

            Thus a situation exists.  Either you are for same-sex marriages and you celebrate that this form of human sexuality is becoming accepted in society; or, you condemn homosexuality as an abomination, the worst of sins, and a harbinger of the end times.  Either you’re for same-sex marriages all the way or you hate them and everyone associated with them.  These, it seems, are the only options. 

            Recently I was talking with a close friend of mine.  He and I are pastors. We discovered we have the same problem.  We do not align ourselves with the angry, red-faced pastors who seem to be more intent on condemning homosexuality than proclaiming the love of Christ.  My friend and I, we do not use words like ‘abomination’ when we think about gay and lesbian people.  We’re more inclined to describe our gay friends the same way we describe ourselves.  They are humans, people made in the image of God, loved by God.  However, my friend and I have reached the same hermeneutic conclusion (‘hermeneutics’ is the practice of interpreting the meaning of a text). 

We have both searched the scriptures.  We have found that heterosexuality is affirmed when intercourse happens in marriage.  There is no scripture that sanctions any form of homosexuality.   There are passages that are eternal, applicable today, not bound by 1^st century social customs, and these passages do identify homosexuality as sinful behavior.  This is where our careful reading of scripture has led us. 

So, we sat together bemoaning our frustration that we don’t fit in the conversation anywhere.  Those condemning all things gay would accuse us of being “too soft sin.”  Those celebrating gay marriage would call us intolerant homophobes.  We sat there together being frustrated, but today, I felt moved in my spirit to take a different stance. 

I do not mean my theology has changed.  I would not officiate as the pastor in a same-sex wedding because I don’t think God wants me to do that.  I believe in my heart I would be going against what God asks of me if I did that.  However, I don’t think it is necessary for me to trumpet this bit of my theology in every conversation on this topic.  And this is where I am feeling myself moved.  I don’t need to shout my position.  I don’t need to whisper it.  I don’t need to talk at all.  I need to take up the posture of a compassionate listener. 

I have had friends come out of the closet.  I have had people share the pain and distress of trying to follow what they had been taught in church and at the same time feeling same-sex attractions.  I have read books, sat in phone conversations that went for hours, and had in-person meetings.  I hope I have been a sympathetic listener.  But even if I succeeded, in the back of my mind I was disinterested.  I did not hate gays.  But I was not full of love – the compassionate love of Christ.  He calls me to love my neighbor and neighbor love as he defines is inconvenient and uncomfortable (Luke 10:25-37).  I was patient and kind, but I failed to show the neighbor love Jesus demands of his followers. 

What began to shift my thinking was a conversation a few years ago.  A friend listened to one my sermons on our church website.  The next time he was in our state and nearby, we met as we would anyway, but this time, he had something to share.  He came out of the closet.  And I genuinely felt his pain and it hurt me.  Then and there, I decided, if he ever got married and I was invited, I would go.  I couldn’t be the pastor to officiate, but as his friend, I could attend out of love for him.

That started moving my needle on how to communicate my own views in conversations related to homosexuality.  Then today, I watched a video of Vicky Beeching addressing a large crowd of LGBT Christ followers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd4jUQxe3Cs).  Yes, I believe one can be gay and can follow Christ.  My theology is not perfect nor is any Christian’s.  I think people who hold to reformed theology are not correct, but I don’t doubt their salvation.  Why would I reject the faith of a gay Christian just because we disagree on this issue? 

I first became aware of Vicky Beeching a while ago when the lead singer of Jars of Clay proposed that gay marriage is not necessarily wrong.  His entire thought process and the reaction to it happened on twitter.  At that time, I was just beginning to use twitter.  Following Dan Haseltine’s saga was one of the first twitter threads I read.  In the process, I came across Vicky Beeching’s feed.  I really did not know who she was and I did not know her music.  But I paid enough attention to her work to be interested in hearing more from her.  Then my interest in her as a writer and public Christian personality faded as other issues crept into my brain.

I do not know what made her pop into my brain today.  But, I decided to check out her twitter feed and saw that she is a musician.  I went to YouTube to hear her music and ended up on the video of her telling her own story.  And I was deeply moved.  She is someone who wants to follow Jesus and is following Jesus with her talents, her personality, and her time.  She is a disciple.  If someone wants to accuse her of being a flawed disciple, well, I am too.  I think, say, and do things my Master does not condone.  He chides and forgives me and loves me.  Jesus did not say I was acceptable after I conquered temptation.  Jesus loves me when I am at my worst.

And I understand that Vickie Beeching or my gay friends would insist that their same-sex attractions and in some cases gay partnerships are not sins Jesus has to put up with.  These Christians do not believe homosexuality is a sin at all.  But even if we disagree, we can agree that no one is a perfect Christ follower.  I, with my views on this topic, must approach someone else who has different views with my arms open offering an embrace, and my mouth shut, keeping my views to myself.

Why?  Listen to Ms. Beeching’s story.  Living under condemnation was so torturous for her; she filled her time including holidays with work so she wouldn’t have to face the tension.  If she stayed busy enough, she did not have to deal with being lesbian and loving Jesus.  The ache in her last from age 12 into adult and was so intense it led to serious physical sickness.  Her story reflects the stories of thousands of believers who want to love Jesus and at the same time feel sexually attracted to people of their own gender. 

Part of the reason this is such a painful thing is the way Christians have picked out this particular topic and pounded it into the ground.  Does anyone ever say gluttony is an abomination, the embodiment of evil, and a sign that Satan has come?  Gluttony is clearly considered a sin in the New Testament worldview (Matthew 11:19) and is the opposite of what the Spirit produces, self-control (Galatians 5:23).  Why is gluttony no condemned?  It is a much more prominent in the United States, a nation of obese, out-of-shape people.  Gluttony is epidemic, but we have fat preachers condemning homosexuality.

Again, I recognize that there is a movement that denies that homosexuality should be mentioned here at all because this movement believes homosexuality is not a sin.  I appreciate that view even if I don’t hold it.  All I am getting at is that we preachers get choosy.  We pick one category (often one we do not struggle with).  Then we stay mum on another category (one of which we are guilty).

Listening to Ms. Beeching, my heart broke for her and for friends I have known.  I thought back to my conversation with my close friend, the pastor who thinks like me.  It is OK if we aren’t heard right now.  Our gay friends have been hammered so many times by pastors; it is OK if they don’t want to hear us tell them we love them even though we think homosexuality is not quite right.  It is OK for us to just be quiet.  And I am completely aware that by writing this blog about being quiet, I am not being quiet.  But how else do you let everyone know you’re being quiet?  The irony abounds.

The passage I referenced, Galatians 5:23 is the famous “fruit of the Spirit” passage.  One of the things produced, the fruit, by the Holy Spirit is self-control.  Another is gentleness.  And another is kindness.  Listening to Vicky Beeching and recalling as friends have poured their hearts out, I am struck that I need to be intentional about working on kindness and gentleness.  This is true in all human encounters, and the conversation on homosexuality is a good place to start.  One way to practice kindness and gentleness is compassionate, empathetic listening.  I think I’ll add that to the spiritual disciplines I practice. 

I am grateful I don’t have to preach this week and that break has afforded me time to heart a great Christian orator, Vicky Beeching, and recall conversations with Christians trying to follow Jesus.  As you have read my thoughts, I pray God has been at work in you.  In my honest talk with God, I believe God is telling me listen and love the one who is generous enough to invite you into her story.  I think that is what I am hearing from God so that is what I am going to try to do.

Hold Someone’s Hand (Ezekiel 16:46-52, 59-63)

Sunday, October 12, 2014

            Is it easier to hug another person or to avoid being involved with that other person?  This is kind of tricky.  Some folks are huggers: they just hug everybody.  For others, it is less certain.  Maybe they came from a family of hand-shakers.  Maybe in their experience, there has not been much physical affection.   It could be their culture is not as affectionate as other cultures.  I went through a phase in my early 20’s where the only real contact I wanted with other people was of the violent kind that came in rugby matches; no hugging or affection!  I walked around proudly showing off my bruises and blackened eyes.  Then I went on a trip to Mexico.  All the men hugged me and all the women kissed me.  I had more affection in one week than two years.  It was great.

            But, be careful with this.  In my life now, in the sexual climate of the United States, I have to be aware of how my actions could be perceived.  It would be foolishly irresponsible for me to be oblivious to how someone might interpret what I do or how I do it.  I hug female friends, but I also watch for cues or hints that someone might misunderstand my intentions.

            Hugging comes with risks.  Innuendo is one.  Vulnerability is another, and here I mean literally the act of the embrace, and metaphorically, the posture of embrace.  The best book out there on this is titled Exclusion and Embrace by theologian Miroslav Volf.  To present yourself to another, arm open, face inviting, heart expectant is to let your defenses down.  You have opened the gate in the wall that is safeguarding your heart.  You are saying to the other, this is how close I want to be.  I want to pull your body to me.  This is not sexual.  It is intimate.  Intimacy scares us.  Vulnerability scares us.

            It is also risky.  What if you decide the hug is worth it, the relationship is worth it and the other feels differently.  You open, and the other closes.  Now what?  Are you embarrassed?  I certainly am when that happens.  It definitely does happen.  I am left there, arms opened.  More significantly, I have opened my heart, and the other’s closed posture is an unmistakable message.  Stay back.  Stay at a distance.  I do not want you close to me – not in body, not in spirit. 

            Mistaken intentions, unwanted vulnerability, terrifying intimacy, needless risk – is the posture of embrace worth it?  We could leave the gate in the wall locked up tight.  We could protect ourselves by never opening ourselves to anyone.  A lot of people live this way, emotions withheld, arms stiff, bodies rigid; it is a cold way to be. 

            To live rejecting embrace – this is so isolating.  Those who live this way lose the art of living in relationship and God made us to live in relationship.  To live in a perpetual defense mode keeping the world at bay is to say to the creator God, I know you made me to walk with others, but I cannot.  We all go through seasons in which we shut others out.  Sometimes solitude is necessary.  But if rejection becomes our life, we in effect say to God, I know you created me for relationship, but it hurts too much.  I have been beaten up by lovers, by friends, by family, and by strangers.  I cannot do it.  Then your experience becomes more powerful in defining your life than God’s wisdom. 

            Yes, embrace is confusing, exposing, intimate, and risky.  It is all those things.  If you choose to embrace others and relationships of love with other humans who sin as much you do, you will get bruised and burned.  You will also be living in the way God created you to live – life in relationship.  I intend to show that faith is comprised of a life in which we live by God’s designs even when our experience would suggests this is not always the best idea.  No, it is not easier to hug than to not hug.  But it is better.  Embrace is the pathway to life lived as people who are made in the image of God. 

           

            Is it easier to worship God or to rely on the self?  I know that I am asking it in the midst of a worship service.  The answer might seem painfully obvious.  But, let us look at it. 

            When we truly worship – worship in spirit and in truth as Jesus says (John 4) – certain realities are in play.  First, we really believe there is a force, a personality, a being, a reality present – one we cannot necessarily see, feel, or hear.  But this thing – God – is here.  We set ourselves up for a diagnosis of some mental illness.  We gather, study, sing to, pray to, and give our allegiance to this empty space that we claim is occupied by … what?  God.  What is God? 

            Moreover, we not only claim God is real.  We also assert God is all powerful.  Dina typed out the worship bulletin.  Starlyn selected the songs – song that were written by people, humans and sung by the humans you see up on the stage.  I wrote this sermon.  Yet, we all conspire to say God is the one who is in control.  Are we sure?  Are you?  If we are truly worshipping, we have to be pretty convinced that this whole idea of God is real.

             Yet, we cannot be because doubt always has seat in our gatherings.  Some Sundays, you are so in touch with God, you feel a light and see a heat in the sanctuary that normal human senses could not perceive.  You don’t need convincing any more than you would need someone to prove water is wet.  Some Sundays, you know God.  But someone a few rows behind you isn’t so sure.  He got himself here.  He came.  The effort to do that was all he could muster.  He is right now hearing this sermon and thinking, oh, I don’t know.  This whole thing might be a farce. 

            He leaves less convinced than when he came in.  But then, over time, he sees God.  Others don’t what he’s talking about, but he knows it is God.  And in a month, he’s back in church and it is real.  By then, things have happened in your life, and your faith is being hit by gale force winds and you are unsure.  Is this house built on drifting sand or a firm foundation?  You do not know.    Then there is the Sunday where you are sure and your friend is sure and everyone here is absolutely sure of the reality and presence and love and power of God; everyone except the pastor.  He or she has days of doubt too.

            To worship is to acknowledge uncertainty.  If we want a positive spin, we say it is mystery.  That sounds nice.  But often mystery is scarier than it is inviting because it is mysterious. 

            I mentioned the power of God.  That’s another thing to acknowledge when we are trying to figure out if a life of worship is easier than a life in which we eschew worship.  When we worship, we are bowing, whether we literally go to our knees or not.  We say that God is the one in charge, the one with the power, not us.  Do we want to say that?  Do we want to name our weakness?  Do we want to confess sins?  Do we want to have to ask the unseen, unfelt, all powerful one for blessing?  Is life easier like this?

            No!  No, if we put our hearts into worship, life is not easier.  I say this not because getting up for church on Sundays is all that difficult.  It is not.  Thousands of people get up every Sunday, go church, and they do this without fail all their lives.  Not all of them truly worship, truly pour their hearts before God.  For many this is just part of the weekly routine.  If we really believe God is here right now, there can be nothing routine about this moment.  If we seriously think God is all-knowing, we cannot hold anything of ourselves back in this moment of worship.  To hold back would be a pointless waste of the time, time in God’s presence. 

            I say a life of worship is not easy because it is a life in which we give up control.  We pray, often very specifically, but God chooses when and how to answer.  We seek, but it is God’s decision as to how God will reveal God’s self.  God calls us by God’s initiative.  Worship, in one sense, is an exercise in waiting.  In hope and in faith, worship is a life of waiting to see what God will do in the world and how God will involve us in what God is doing.  Of course that is not all worship is.  Some might take great offense at this definition.  Fine.  Take offense.  Or embrace the definition and get to waiting, but always waiting in faith, expectantly, and hopefully. 

            No, this life of worship will not feel easier than a life of ignoring God.  It is though better than the godless life because God does act.  God is involved in the world.  God indeed does call us before we ever step toward Him in worship.  Giving ourselves to a life of worship does not guarantee we’ll be in the starting lineup on God’s team.  But it does orient us toward God – the God of infinite grace and infinite love, the God who calls us to be His sons and daughters.  Living in worship is better than avoiding God.  Living in worship points us to Him.  However it plays out, to choose the opposite of worship is to choose to turn away from God’s love.

            I have made the claim that embrace while not easier is better than a relationless life.  It is better to choose embrace.  I have made the claim that to live in worship while not easier is better than a godless life.  It is better to live in worship.

            What did Jesus name as the two greatest commandments?  Love the Lord your God with all your, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.  Obeying this by loving God begins in worship.  The second of the commands Jesus names is that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Neighbor-love begins when commit ourselves to embrace. 

            The prophet Ezekiel did his work about 600 years before Jesus came on the scene.  But what Jesus said about God-love and neighbor-love was as true in Ezekiel’s days as in Jesus’.  In God’s view of how the world ought to work, God-love and neighbor-love are absolute truths going back to the very beginning, Adam and Eve.  Ezekiel’s prophecies come after God had determined that his people, the nation of Israel, had worshiped idols of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. 

            Idolatry is at the root of all sin.       Idolatry is giving worship that belongs to God to someone or something other than God.  It is a failure of Jesus’ first command – the command to love God.  This failure always leads to a failure of the second command – the failure to love people. 

            Ezekiel was an Israelite priest, but he lived in Babylon.    The Babylonians had overrun Jerusalem, defeated the Israelites in battle and enslaved the most powerful among the people.  Are you one of the educate elite among the Israelites?  Off to slavery in exile in Babylon you go!  Are you an army officer?  Off you go to exile.  One of the religious leaders, a priest?  Off you go! 

The first 25 chapters of Ezekiel are comprised of prophetic allegories Ezekiel wrote and shared among the exiles in Babylon.  He graphically tells of God’s punishment.  Israel practiced idolatry, exploitation, and host of other sins and did so for many generations.

In Ezekiel 16, the prophet likens Israel to Sodom.  The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is found in Genesis 19.  Abraham’s cousin Lot is lives in Sodom.  Along with its sister city Gomorrah, Sodom is known for sexual excess and perversion.  God is going to wipe out both cities, but first, Lot and his family must be rescued. 

Angels come to extract Lot, but when the men of Sodom see the angels, they have other ideas.  These angels appear as human men.  The men of Sodom are going to spend the night raping them.  Lot shelters the men in his home not knowing that it is they who will rescue him, not the other way around.

At daybreak, the angels hustle Lot out of town and then Sodom and Gomorrah are obliterated by fire from Heaven.  Some interpreters believe this story is a condemnation of homosexuality.  The men of Sodom intended to have relations with these angels whom they took to be men also.  That would be rape, a crime of violence that is sexual in nature but not the same thing as consensual homoerotic relationships.  The Sodom account definitely relates to sexual purity, but it would be wrong to hold this up as a cornerstone defense in arguing that homosexuality is sinful.  It would be wrong because it would be missing the point of the story.

Other readers make the case that the real failure in Sodom was a failure of hospitality.  There clearly is this failure by the men of town.  They want to take something from the visitors instead of offering shelter and food to the visitors.  Just as there was sexual sin involved in the story, there is the failure to care for travelers.  But again to say the Sodom account is primarily about the sin of not showing hospitality is to focus on a detail instead of the overarching theme. 

The overarching theme is faithfulness to God.  This is seen in worship and neighbor-love.  In Ezekiel 16, the prophet says to the people of God who now wallow as slaves in exile, “The people of Sodom … were never as sinful as you.  … They had everything they needed [yet] they refused to help the poor and needy” (from Ez. 16:48-49, CEV).  In the verses leading up to this, Ezekiel rails against the exiles for idolatry (see v. 36).  Both idolatry (failure of God-love) and Sodom (failure of neighbor-love) enrage God. 

In verse 60, God reminds the beleaguered exiles that he has not abandoned them.  They have not stopped being God’s people.  They are just under God’s heavy hand of discipline.  God will one day fulfill all his promises to Israel.  We Christians believe that day came in the life of Jesus, his death on the cross, his resurrection, and his sending of the Holy Spirit.  He is God’s final answer to sin.  He defines worship and embrace, God-love and neighbor-love for us. 

We live awaiting the final consummation of the Kingdom – Jesus’ return, the resurrection of all the dead when those in Christ will enter the Kingdom and those not in Christ will be banished.  That’s coming. 

Until then, we bear witness to the goodness of God, and we do it in a posture of embrace as we love our neighbors.  As we await Jesus’ return, we worship, loving God with our heart, soul, strength, and mind. 

In the commentary on Ezekiel Franz Delitzsch and Carl Friedrich Keil translate the Biblical text into German.  Later, James Martin, translated their work into English.  His rendering of their translation of Ezekiel 16:48 sets for me a concept that is the essence of what it is to love in God-love and neighbor-love, worship and embrace. 

“Behold this was the sin of Sodom, [your] sister, [Israel]; pride, super abdundance of food, and rest had she with her daughters, and the hand of the poor and needy she did not hold” (p.219).  The hand of the poor and needy, she did not hold.

We can learn from Israel’s mistake by asking God to help us see the needy in our midst – the spiritually needy, those who suffer from poverty of relationships, and the emotionally needy.  Whatever actions of love we show to help someone come from hearts that beat with love for God.  We have embraced His Gospel when it is said of us they held the hand of those who needed to be held. 

Open your arms in embrace.  Bend your knee in worship.  Live in God-love and neighbor-love.  Bear witness to the Kingdom God and the Lordship of Jesus by holding someone’s hand. 

AMEN

Gay NBA Player - The Conversation

            This is a follow up to my post from yesterday.  I watched a larger clip of the conversation in which the ESPN NBA writer Chris Broussard declared himself to be a Christian.  In his statement he said he could not see how someone could live in open rebellion to God’s decrees regarding sexuality and still claim to be a Christian.  He cited many forms of sexual sin – adultery, fornication, and homosexuality.  His point was if a person is doing any activity in one of those categories and is in that activity as a life style and seeking legitimation of that life style, then that person is living in unrepentant sin and thus cannot be a Christian.  That is Broussard’s point.

            I felt he articulated it well, but while I agree with much of his statement, I come up short of his final declaration.  In the context in which he wrote, I will not state who is and who is not a Christian.  I define a Christian as one who follows Jesus.  I know people who are trying to follow Jesus as Lord in their lives and are openly gay.  I personally believe that creates an unresolvable tension but I think there are many unresolvable tensions.  The most American of these is living with disproportionate wealth, but that’s another topic for another day.

            In the ESPN dialogue, the other conversation partner with Broussard is a LZ Granderson.  He is also a sportswriter and he is openly gay.  The ESPN host moderating between Granderson and Broussard brings up the issue of athletes who have trouble with the whole concept of homosexuality.  Granderson takes that question as an opening for conversation about the way we in society discuss homosexuality.  Up to this point, the conversation has been about how being openly gay will affect Jason Collins as a basketball player.  Broussard had done what he has always done and talked about the NBA scene from a basketball perspective.  But in responding to the host’s question, Granderson, appropriately, I think, takes the discussion in the direction of societal conversation (“the conversation”).

            To his credit, Granderson does not lash out at the tweets of athletes who simply cannot understand the entire notion of homosexuality.  He invites divergent viewpoints.  He shares that he and Broussard have discussed the issue many times.  They are long-time friends and have multiple times had “the uncomfortable conversation.”  Granderson’s point is that the conversation needs to be had.

            Broussard picks up on this and agrees that he and Granderson have had this conversation and continue in their friendship.  They have been on basketball teams together.  They accept each other’s different points of view.  Broussard actually uses the word “tolerate,” but he uses in a context that implies he and Granderson are friends who have covered this ground thoroughly and have done so in off-camera, unfiltered settings.

            The congenial dialogue however becomes a bit pointed and it makes me wonder exactly what Granderson and Broussard have said directly to one another in unguarded moments.  I think the sticking point that sharpens Granderson’s tone is Broussard’s definite contrast between the homosexual lifestyle and Christianity.  Incidentally, I would guess it is anachronistic to say ‘the homosexual lifestyle.'  When talking about the LGBT community, we are talking about millions of people so there are many lifestyles.  But in his remarks, Broussard definitely sets up two poles – gay and Christian.

            Granderson takes exception to this because he self-defines as a Christian and very clearly says, "Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior."  He expresses extreme frustration saying that on one hand “you,” and here there is double meaning as "you" refers to both Broussard and to enforcers of marriage laws that define marriage as man and woman, call sex outside of marriage a sin.  Then on the other hand, “you” won’t let “us” (and he identifies the LGBT community) get married. Granderson’s finishing flourish is that he doesn’t need Chris Broussard or anyone else to tell him he is a Christian.  This turn to more confrontational rhetoric comes when Granderson invites the conversation and the host points out that the player who has come out, Jason Collins, calls himself a Christian.

            Thus we have three self-identified Christians, Granderson, Broussard, and Collins.  Two, Granderson and Collins, are openly gay.  The third, Broussard, says, you cannot live a gay lifestyle and be a Christian.  Is he right?  Or is Granderson right in calling this an “unfair” position imposed on persons who are gay and Christian?  On this point, I recommend the reader check out Christopher Yuan’s book “Out of a Far Country.”  I have blogged on this book and you can read my comments here http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2012/05/christopher-yuans-out-of-far-country.html.

            Yuan, himself gay, concludes there are two options.  Heterosexual marriage and celibacy.  He refers to these options as holy sexuality.  I know LZ Granderson would be upset and cry unfair as this conclusion.  So too would a lot of my gay friends and I can understand why.  Many of my friends who are heterosexual would also call this ridiculously unfair.  But is it?

            Where I live in North Carolina, there are three fairly prominent Baptist Churches that will gladly perform same-sex weddings.  Of course North Carolina as a state does not recognize same-sex unions as marriages.  But I think same-sex couples can get legal paperwork that states they are in a civil union.  And there are other states where they can go and get a marriage license.  At one point, as the temperature rose in the Granderson-Broussard dialogue, a frustrated Granderson said, “You say I can’t get married then you call sex outside of marriage a sin.  Well a brother’s gotta do what a brother’s gotta do.”  Of course the implication is that sex is a necessity and it will happen no matter what.

            That is a mistaken stance for a Christian.  I was celibate until I turned 32 (when I got married).  I was extremely frustrated in my 20’s.  I wanted to say “a brother’s gotta do what a brother’s gotta do.”  But I waited and many times I did not know if my wait was going to end in marriage or not.  For me it did.  And I can hear the retort.  “But Rob, as a heterosexual, you always had the potential for marriage.  You were waiting, not accepting celibacy as a lifestyle.”  I grant that response.  It is a reasonable response to make.  My rejoinder is this.  There are many heterosexual marriages where the sex part of it is either wholly unsatisfying or absent altogether.  Healthy spirituality must take precedence over fulfilling sexuality for the person who wants to follow Jesus.

            Granderson’s phrase “a brother’s gotta do what a brother’s gotta do,” has no bearing for a Christian.  I appreciate his sense of unfairness.  However, he and all Christians must submit every region of life to the Lordship of Jesus.  I do know of Christians who believe this can be done while affirming monogamous, committed homosexual marriages.  When I was in Arlington, VA, I was in a small group of men (we met in DC weekly) who prayed together regularly.  Every member except me affirmed homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle choice if the relationship is for life and is nurturing and beautiful and full of love.  Now in Chapel Hill, I have a friend who is a pastor whom I greatly respect.  She makes the same argument.  My DC friends and my NC friend both make their case from scripture.  I think their reasoning is Biblically weak, but it is Biblical reasoning.

            Granderson needs to revisit his own presentation if he wants to assert the compatibility of Christianity and homosexuality.  While I do not think the two – Christian life and gay life – are necessarily opposite poles, I don’t see them as natural compliments either.  To call Jesus “Lord” is to submit to him in everything.  Listening to Granderson describe his faith, it sounds like it is something he desires rather than something that is true.  It sounds more like Jesus is his than he is Jesus’. 

            I want to be kind about this.  Granderson is a sports columnist, not a trained theologian.  And his comments came in the fluid medium of a live conversation.  My thoughts here are written at my leisure, with the benefit of editing.  Granderson would doubtless be more polished in his articulation if he were writing a piece entitled “the gay Christian.”  Even so, he would need to base his case on something other than his own desires or what is fair.  At some point the advocate of Christianity that allows for gay marriage must make that case from the Bible.  I have not seen that case made with any weight anywhere.

            In conclusion, I reiterate that Christians are called to love.  We must go overboard in extending grace the way Jesus did.  This is true of all Christians, gay and straight.  What matters most is not who one can marry or my right to assert a particular theology. For the one who calls Jesus “Lord,” what matters most is his will which we discern through ardent study of scripture, the teaching of the church, and the prompting of the Holy Spirit.  Everything we do is to be done in obedience to God.  For this conversation to proceed, the outcome cannot be dictated in advance, and all the participants who call themselves Christians must move ahead in submission to God and in a spirit of love.

A Gay NBA Player

            I admire Jason Collins for being true to himself and publically acknowledging his orientation as a gay man.  Violent prejudice against homosexuality had led many young people who feel homosexual attraction to self-loathing.  This terribly is sad and unjust.  I add my own voice to chorus cheering Collins.   I hope it will open the way for others to be honest with themselves and with the world. 

            I am heterosexual.  I cannot understand homosexuality at all.  I don’t understand how a man can look at another man and have the physical and emotional attraction that I have felt all my mature life toward women and in the most intense expression toward my wife.  Nothing could be more foreign and inexplicable to me than homosexual attraction.

            And yet, as I write that, I am aware that people who feel same-sex attraction, probably find heterosexuality as foreign and unappealing and I find homosexuality.  A difference is the world affirms the heterosexual worldview and has trouble with the homosexual orientation.  There are people I love, my friends, who are gay.  Because of their sexual attraction, attractions they did not choose, they have to fit into a world not designed by them.  They have to find their place in a world where they are not always welcomed and often are abused because of who they are. 

            If I am truly a follower of Jesus, I am wounded by that.  It hurts to know someone is fired, denied, bullied, beaten, cussed out, relegated, rejected, and demonized.  Every person is made in God’s image – every one!  God sees every human with the love of a parent for a child.  God’s aches when God’s children are injured and homosexual people have been badly injured.

            I hope that Jason Collins’ statement will make the world safer for gay people.  I hope self-loathing becomes a thing of the past.  No one should hate himself.  When a person drips with disgust at herself, she cannot possibly receive the love of another.  She’s defined by hatred that becomes a filter through which she experiences the world.  I hope this man’s honesty and openness allows a generation freedom from self-hate.

            Equally, I hope people can speak their views honestly, without succumbing to pressure that tries to dictate their reaction when someone like Jason Collins shares what he has shared.  Here I am specifically thinking of ESPN writer Chris Broussard.  He writes about the NBA.  I hear him on the radio all the time.  He does fine work.  I was very interested in his response not to Collins, but to the issue in general.  Remember now, Broussard is voicing what he believes to be the right theology regarding an issue.  He is not speaking for or against Jason Collins.  Here is Broussard’s quote which I saw in the online version the Detroit Free Press (4/30/13).

            ““Personally I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly premarital sex between heterosexuals,” Broussard said.  “If you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that’s a sin. If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, adultery, fornication, premarital sex between heterosexuals, whatever it may be. I think that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I don’t think the Bible would characterize them as a Christian” (http://www.freep.com/article/20130430/SPORTS03/304300034/).

            It is an impressive theological articulation from someone who makes a living writing about basketball.  The strength of this writer’s statement is that he does not single out homosexuality in a prejudicial way.  He attempts to identify a Biblical sexual ethic and I think he does a fine job of it.  The overwhelming reaction to Collins’ announcement has been support.  Writers, players, executives, and voices from outside the NBA – the NFL, tennis and even the White House – have poured forth affirmation for Collins.  I sincerely hope Broussard is not brandished as an out-of-date bigot.  I hope he does not lose his job and is not himself demonized for stating his views, which he did with eloquence.

            He might.  He might be cast as intolerant or unaccepting.  That is unfair but it is reality.  ESPN, in an effort to stay with societal trends which currently flow toward full affirmation of homosexuality as a lifestyle choice, may fire him to avoid any backlash.  That would be as wrong as evil done to a homosexual but in today’s climate it is OK to silence Biblically-coated expressions of faith like the one Broussard made.

In my own assessment of his comments, I find that Broussard takes it farther than I do.  I agree that sexual encounters like adultery and heterosexual intercourse outside of marriage are outside of the Biblical paradigm.  The only models of sexuality the Bible endorses are heterosexual marriage and celibacy.  Anything outside of that is outside of God’s vision for humanity.  However, Broussard goes somewhere with that view that is beyond my own understanding.  He says he “would not characterize that person as a Christian” because the Bible doesn’t. 

I stop short of trying to identify who is and is not a Christian.  Other sin categories (greed, gluttony, and sloth) go mostly ignored.  People live in perpetual guilt of these, are unrepentant, and are defined as Christians.  Can someone be in a life-long, same sex partnership and be a Christ-follower?  I certainly think someone in that situation can earnestly seek Jesus.  In seeking Jesus, the individual must come to terms with his sexuality as he relates to Jesus as a sexual being. 

There is no area of life where Jesus is not Lord.  He is Lord of everything.  It is hard for me to imagine someone submitting fully to Jesus’ lordship and at the same time living in a relationship that is outside of God’s vision for humanity.  I know people who want Jesus and at the same time are openly gay.  I know their hearts.  Can someone live the gay life and be a Christ follower?  I am forced to leave the question open – for God to answer and not me.

My calling in Christ is to love people.  I hope my gay friends will read this and appreciate where I am coming from.  If you are my friend and you are gay, I love you.  You and are I not going to agree with one another’s views about every aspect of life, but let us have a friendship that is so honest and true we can stay in it even when we don’t agree.  As a pastor, reading scripture as I do, I can’t perform your union with your partner.  I believe to do so would put me in open defiance of God.  But I will love your partner because he is a part of you.  Maybe I am wrong about how God sees it.  I don’t think I am wrong, but I know my theology is not perfect, so I state it with humility.

I pray Jason Collins has made the world safer.  I commend him for his honesty and courage.  I also appreciate Chris Broussard.  He stated his faith clearly and without the intention to pass eternal judgment.  I pray for days in the future when these topics can be discussed in peace and love.  Jesus is the Prince of Peace and the giver of perfect love.  In that I try to emulate him though I fail often.  

Turn to Jesus

            Mark Galli, managing editor of Christianity Today magazine, discusses a question millions of people wonder about: how can I trust that there is a God and that this God is good?  The wondering comes out in a sentence repeated countless times daily.  “I could never believe in a God who would _____” and you fill in the blank.[i]

            “I could never believe in a God who would allow children to die.”  We know children die by the hundreds of thousands every day. 

            “I could never believe in a God who creates gay people then declares gay relationships a sin.”  Every one of us knows someone, probably someone we love, who is gay.  I recently in a sermon offered what I think are two Biblically sanctioned forms of holy sexuality – a heterosexual marriage and celibacy.

            “I could never believe in a God who stands by idly while innocent people suffer.”  We know from Hurricane Katrina to the Indian Ocean Tsunami to the Haiti Earthquake to Japan where there was an earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power plant meltdown that suffering hits people with full force – people who did nothing to deserve such suffering.

            You could make your own version of the sentence: “I could never believe in a God who ______” and you name an injustice of particular interest to you.  Galli in the Christianity Today article points out the obvious.  God’s existence is not dependent on us believing.  Nor is God’s existence on our sense of justice. 

            So, the children die, people have urges and impulses and deep desires that lead to lifestyles the Bible says are sinful, and the innocent suffer through no fault of their own.  The follow-up proclamation is “well, I’d rather spend an eternity in Hell than worship a God who stands with his hands in his pockets while children die or  a God who imposes misery by not letting people marry who they want to marry or who a God does nothing while innocents suffer.”  It’s another version of the same frustration.  “I’d rather go to Hell than worship the God who does that” whatever “that” is. 

            Really?

            It sounds tough when Han Solo or Dirty Harry or one of the X-men brazenly says to his foe, “I’ll see you in Hell.”  I can just hear Charlton Heston saying, “They can take my gun when they pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.”  I remember the t-shirt from my basic training days.  “God said, ‘Let there be infantry,’ and the gates of Hell opened.

            Really?  It sounds fine from Charles Bronson or the Rock or the Marlboro man, but let’s be thinking people for a moment.  If we don’t like what God does, we’ll just do without him?  If we get mad at God and say, “to Hell with you,” it’s an exclamation.  If he says back, “To Hell with you,” well, then we’ve got a problem. 

            We either believe in God or we don’t, I don’t think goodness is a sufficient reason to believe in God and I don’t think pain is a sufficient argument to reject the notion of God.  Do we believe there is a God?  If yes, what do we believe about that God?

            In his magisterial work Institutes, the great 16^th century reformer John Calvin writes, “God has sown a seed of religion in all men.”  Furthermore writes Calvin, God has “revealed himself and daily discloses himself in the whole workmanship of the universe.”[ii]  The way God made us, we are inherently disposed to belief in Him.  So any atheism is a direct rebellion in how we were created.  We’re made to believe in God.

            Because of the Fall – Adam and Eve’s original disobedience and fall from innocence – we do rebel against God’s creative intentions.  But even when we do, Calvin says that because God is so clearly seen in nature, “[we] cannot open [our] eyes without being compelled to see Him.”  This point comes from the New Testament, Romans chapter 1.  “Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things He has made” (v.20).  We are created to believe in God’s existence.  The creation around us is evidence of God’s existence.

            Some continue to hold to atheism, that there is no God, but if we accept that God exists then we still have to deal with some painful truths.  Children starve to death.  Disasters happen and millions suffer, including good people.  Young adults in their prime come down with cancer and other deadly diseases.  Cruel dictators inflict persecution and death on people in their own nations and other nations. 

Mark Galli points out that such non sequiturs, horrible happenings occurring in a world ruled by an all-powerful, all-good God lead to the Gospel of Job.  This is the opposite of “I’d rather go to Hell than worship a God who allows ___ suffering of some kind.”  In Job’s gospel, Job, the virtuous man of the Old Testament suffers tremendously and unjustly.  If anyone had reason to gripe to God, it was Job.  He loses his kids and is afflicted with disease and he did nothing to deserve such misfortune. 

So, he expresses every emotion under the sun.  He complains, wishes for death, wishes he was never born, and then demands an audience with God.  God finally grants that meeting, but in it, Job never speaks.  He meekly listens as God recounts his creative, omnipotent, omnipresent glory.  That means God can do whatever God must do, and Job is too small to understand. 

Job accepts that conclusion.  Even though Job suffered unjustly, after God speaks, Job says, “I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (42:6).  Many who go through the paces of (a) belief in God, (b) refusal to believe because of evil and suffering in the world, and then (c) resolution to reject God because God is bad.  Of those who go through these steps of faith, many end up here.  We end up where Job is.  “I cannot understand things, so I just blindly worship God and say that God is good and God is love.”  If I look around and see pain and see suffering, I stop looking around because God is good and God is love and I have to hold to that no matter how much the reality of the world demands another story.  I’ll deny that reality so I can God is good and God is love.

Fortunately, there is more to the story because that blind faith is a sure fire way to drive unbelievers away from God in droves.  It’s not that the Gospel of Job is not true.  It is true that people sometimes – often? – suffer unjustly.  It is true that next to God, each one of us is impossibly small and cannot understand God’s ways.  But, this story, by itself, is not Gospel.  Gospel means good news.  This isn’t good news.  It’s fatalism.  It’s resignation.  It’s the surrender that says, we just want to survive this world, as bad as it can be. Survive and make it to Heaven.

What’s missing?  Jesus!  Jesus is the completion of Job’s gospel.  Job’s defeated submission before God is not good news until we read the Gospel of Jesus Christ – God come earth in human flesh.  Galli points that “I could never believe in a God who ____” is a sentence missing something.  So too is “God is good and God is love and I’ll believe that and ignore any evidence that suggests the world is falling apart.”  Both sentences talk of God, but neither mentions Jesus, and Galli feels and I agree that Jesus is the key.

First John 5:5 – “Who is that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”  The very next verse states that Jesus came by water and blood.  It makes me think of His baptism.  Like all people who want to trust in God, he was immersed in the water.  But he’s the only who, when he came up from the water, elicited a remark from Heaven.  “You are my son, the Beloved.  With you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).  God spoke when Jesus was baptized.  God was there, a proud father honoring His son.

To say Jesus came by water and blood also calls to mind communion.  When we take the juice and are reminded that he said, “My blood that is poured out is the blood of the New Covenant.  Take and drink.”  Water and blood – Jesus truly is God, and he came for us.  In Jesus, God came for all people. 

At the same time, 1^st John’s declaration that Jesus came by water and blood is a declaration of Jesus’ 100% humanity.  When he died on the cross, one of the Roman soldiers thrust  spear into him, and water and blood gushed from his side (John 19:34).  This was a human being nailed to a real cross on a specific day in history, dying a real death.  In 1^st John, the confidence of this telling depends on the witness of the Holy Spirit.  Verse 9, hearkening to Jesus’ baptism and the other moments when God spoke in the gospels adds that God the Father also testifies to that Jesus is the Beloved Son and the Anointed one.  The flow reaches a climax in verse 12.  “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

It’s all about Jesus.  When children die, we turn to Jesus.  When we feel we are imprisoned in a life that isn’t fair and imposes on us impossible expectations, we turn to Jesus.  When disaster strikes, evil lurks, pain rises, and we feel like hope is quickly running out, in prayer, with other believers, in scripture, and in a panicked cry from the depths of our hearts, we turn to Jesus. 

This is not another version of simplistic surrender to fate.  “I just hope Jesus gets me to Heaven.”  Of course we hope Jesus paves the way for us after death.  In fact, we don’t hope that; we confidently declare that he will go and prepare a place for us as he has promised.  But this mantra, turn to Jesus, is for living today.  First John says, “Whoever has the Son has life.” 

In turning to Him, we see the cross, the flow of water and blood, and we see that he has suffered.  He was betrayed.  He was mocked and abandoned.  Physically, he was tortured and killed.  He knows suffering.

His love is perfect and His vision is expansive.  We read statistic that so many thousands of children die of preventable causes.  In turning to Jesus, we discover he knows every one of those children by name.  He knows which ones are good soccer player.  He know which ones laugh loudly, which are talented musicians, and which have scientific genius that would have made discoveries for the good of all humankind had they not succumbed to malnutrition.  We lament the fate of the children.  Jesus eternally weeps with a sadness deeper than we could realize, but we see it when we turn to Jesus. 

When someone is stuck in life, we recall people Jesus met – the woman with the blood flow; blind Bartimaeus; Zaccheus the tax collector; the woman by the well.  These people turned to Jesus and their lives were unstuck.  In turning to Him, we come into a life of joy, laughter, and fulfillment that completes us the way nothing else possibly could.

And there are still unanswered questions.  Why did the tornado hit my house?  And sometimes God still overwhelms people from the whirlwind as he did Job.  But’s that not the only way God speaks.  In Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, God brings grace, mercy, peace, hope, and love to all of us.  When a question is unanswered, we look to the character of Jesus.  That has not changed.  His character was loving and merciful and it still is.  He loved children, weak people, fragile people, the rejected, and the lost.  He still does.  We can cite all kinds of rules about who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell, but a better approach is to turn to Jesus.  We trust His character and His wisdom about the afterlife.  We turn to Him today because we have to make it through today and we don’t want to do that alone. 

Pain guts us – Jesus help me with this.

Injustice frustrates – Jesus, what I do?

Loss devastates us – Jesus, I need you.  And he’s there.  We ask Him to walk with us, and He does!

My whole case here rests on Jesus’ character.  First John is the same way.  The letter’s entire argument rests on the belief Jesus really is the Son of God, really loves us, and really can and will help and be with us.  Life is only truly lived when Jesus is at the center of it. 

As we conclude five weeks in 1^st John, each of us is welcomed to bring our lives right to the Word, right to the cross of water and blood, and right to God’s throne room.  All our hopes, all our disappointments, our frustrations and anxieties – we bring it all because he loves us and will guide us in life so that His joy is in us and our joy is complete. 

The final word is similar to what we see in John’s gospel.  This is written to us so that we who believe in the name of the Son of God may know, absolutely, confidently know that we have eternal life with Him (1 John 5:13, paraphrased).  Turn to Jesus and receive eternal life and eternal joy.

AMEN

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[i] The conversation on page 1 of this message come from Christianity Today, Mark Galli, “’Crucified under Pontius Pilate,’” April 2012, p.32-35.

[ii] Institutes, book 1, chapter IV.1 and V.1.