Three Questions for Christians: The Springfield SOGI Conversation

A Christian has to answer three questions.

1) Who do you say Jesus is? He asks us this question himself (Matthew 16:15).

2) How do you want Jesus to be known in the world? His followers will be his witnesses (Acts 1:8).

3) How will your actions, words, and attitudes make Jesus known? Following Jesus means that “it is no longer [you] who live, but Christ who lives in [you]” (Galatians 2:20).

There is a group of Christians in Springfield, Missouri who, by the witness of their actions, words, and attitudes, seems to have answered these three questions this way:

1) They say Jesus is an anti-gay rights advocate.

2) They want Jesus to be known as one who denies people a job and a place to live.

3) They will make Jesus known in many ways, including by voting yes on Question 1, and hoping others do so, as well.

All due respect, but I answer these questions a bit differently.

1) I say Jesus is Lord and Savior, Teacher and Friend, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

2) I want Jesus to be known as one who saves, one who loves, one who forgives, one who reconciles.

3) I will make Jesus known in many ways, including voting no on Question 1, and hoping others do so, as well.

Of course, another possibility is that this group 1) knows Jesus as a Savior, and 2) wants Jesus to be known as one who confronts sin, so 3) they also confront sin as they see it in their community, including by voting yes on Question 1.

Actually, I can go there too. I know Jesus as a Savior and I want Jesus to be known as one who confronts sin. However, I believe that Jesus confronts sin with compassion, not condemnation. Jesus confronts sin with grace, not exclusion. Jesus confronts sin with love, not with discrimination. And I do not understand how firing or evicting someone will do anything towards convicting them of their sin, anyway. So I would still be voting no on Question 1, even if this were my primary motivation.

If you are a Christian, I hope that you will give prayerful consideration to these three questions. Who do you say that Jesus is? How do you want Jesus to be known in the world? How will your actions, words, and attitude make Jesus known?

And then decide of your own free will how you will vote on Question 1 on Tuesday, April 7. As for me, as a follower of Jesus, I will be voting no.

Why I'm Choosing to Forgive Fred Phelps

The extreme always makes the ordinary seem smaller. An extremely tall person will make a person of average height seem short, for example. An extremely bright light will make ordinary light seem darker.

Fred Phelps did that with homophobia.

His extreme fear and hatred made ordinary homophobia seem innocuous. That was what irked me most about him, to be honest. He gave our nation an automatic excuse, an insidious shield behind which we could hide: “Well, at least I’m not as bad as Fred Phelps.”

I have always approached the Westboro group with an attitude of “ignore them and they’ll go away.” However, I decided to break my own rule today to offer a thought on the day Fred Phelps died.

I need to say, “I forgive you, Fred Phelps.” I know in my head that I need to say that. I know that is the Christian thing to do. I know that Jesus gave his life so that Fred Phelps would know the depth of God’s love for him, and receive the gift of everlasting life.

I know all that.

And yet I cannot stop thinking about all of the ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill homophobia that Fred Phelps’ extremism obscured.

Once a man told me he didn’t want any gay people to sing in church choir because he didn’t want one to put his hand on his knee in the middle of choir practice. Of course, he was no Fred Phelps …

Once a woman in a Bible study got upset that anyone would dare to “accuse” David and Jonathan of being gay. But now, at least she wasn’t Fred Phelps, you know…

Once a man said to me, with a chuckle and a wink, “I don’t care what they do in their personal lives, just so long as they don’t change the definition of marriage.” But hey! Fred Phelps…

It is very hard for me to forgive him for being the extreme that made the ordinary seem smaller.

Because I believe that the hidden homophobia that infects our society is actually a lot more dangerous than the extreme. The extreme is outlandish, a cartoon, a circus. It draws our collective attention away from more subtle but no less hateful actions. The devil is perfectly content for us to spend all our time and energy painting the porch while the true evil is working to erode away the foundation of the house, well outside of our collective attention span.

So let me just say this. Fred Phelps, you have no power over me. You have no power over any of my friends, neither those who happen to be gay nor those who happen to be homophobic. We no longer have you behind which to hide our ordinary homophobia. And now, if we will forgive you, that will set us free to love people – ALL people – like Jesus calls us to love.

We must no longer use your extreme ideas to hide our own hurtful attitudes and actions. Instead, we must confront them, confess them, and allow the grace of God to transform them. And in order for this to happen, we must forgive you. We know that we should. We know that if we do not, you will continue to hold this bizarre sort of power over us. And so…

Fred Phelps, we forgive you.

Dear God, receive Fred into the arms of your mercy, and raise him up with all your people.

Receive us as well. May we live as those who are prepared to die. And when our lives here are accomplished, may we die as those who go forth to live, so that living or dying, our life may be in you, and nothing in life or in death will be able to separate us from your great love made known to us in Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Forgiving Yourself

Sometimes the hardest person for you to forgive … is you.

People tend to be quite gracious toward others, but incredibly hard on ourselves. Guilt, self-punishment, and second guessing one’s own actions are enormous burdens to try to carry through life. And often we can carry them around for years and years.

Why is learning how to forgive one’s self so difficult? Why does it seem to be so much easier to forgive others than ourselves? Why are we so hard on ourselves?

Dr. Joretta Marshall, professor of pastoral care at the Eden Theological Seminary says, “I think people often try to forgive themselves for the wrong things. We think we ought to forgive ourselves for being human and making human mistakes. People don't have to forgive themselves for being who they are.” (http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/learning-to-forgive-yourself)

In other words, it may be hard to forgive ourselves because it is hard to separate our identity from our actions. If you do something that harms another person, and you realize it, it is your action that needs forgiveness, not your identity. Learning how to forgive the action will often help release the burden on the self, and lead to healthier actions down the road.

Forgiveness does not condone your act; quite the opposite - forgiveness acknowledges that the act was wrong. And forgiveness does not altogether eliminate the consequences of your act; those consequences likely must still be faced, and forgiveness is what empowers you to face them.

To forgive yourself, then, is actually quite a selfless move to make. You acknowledge that you were wrong, begin to atone with those you harmed, and address the consequences unencumbered with guilt or self-loathing. It may be very difficult, but ultimately it makes a world of difference.

First Stone

Here's what I wrote for my newsletter article this week:

I have a stone on my desk. I got it a long time ago, so the writing on it is faded a lot. But you can still just barely make it out, if you look closely and squint.

It says, “First.”

I keep it close to me, to remind me of the story from John, chapter 8, where Jesus calmly addresses an angry mob saying, “Let anyone among you who is without sin cast the first stone.”

I keep that stone on my desk because there are times that I really, really want to metaphorically hurl it in the direction of some person with whom I am angry, or who I feel is in the wrong somehow, or even sometimes who is just bugging me. Most of the time I can catch myself before I let loose; a glance at the “first stone” on my desk will remind me of that shocking story in John 8.

That story is shocking not because an innocent woman was about to be stoned by a crowd. It is shocking precisely because the woman really was guilty of the sin the crowd had accused her of, and yet Jesus himself did not condemn her. Earlier in the Gospel, John has reminded us that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the word, but to save it (3:17).

And so, if Jesus himself did not come to condemn guilty people, but to forgive … maybe we should try to follow that lead. It’s funny, isn’t it? We can see ourselves in the crowd, we can see ourselves as the woman forgiven; but how often do we see ourselves as Jesus? How often do we realize that Jesus doesn’t condemn the would-be stone throwers, either?

To borrow a well-worn cliché, it’s either forgiveness or it’s not. Or said another way, forgiveness is either there for everyone or no one. Now, that would be a shock!





As usual, I've been thinking about it a lot since I wrote it. What came to mind this morning was this - we often use forgiveness as a schlocky self-help technique, and remain blissfully unaware of the raw power of grace. How often do we say, "You've got to forgive others ... " or "The hardest thing to do is forgive yourself, but you have to ... " so that YOU will feel better?

It is as if my act of forgiveness is intended only to erase my emotional response to some event that has offended me, and make everything my-pretty-pony shiny and happy again. The more I think about it, the harder it is to swallow.

Our model for forgiveness is Jesus. He did not forgive others for his own benefit. His forgiveness was given so that the one who was guilty would be set free to live a new life. His oft repeated nudge to "go and sin no more" at the end of so many episodes reveals his desire that the one who has been forgiven is now expected to live differently. Sin matters to Jesus, and his standard operating procedure is not to beat people up with how sinful they are, but to forgive them and then release them to do better from here on out.

Another thing I'm thinking about - I absolutely LOVE to throw stones at stone throwers. You know what I mean? When I percieve that stone throwing is happening, I am happy to wade into the fray, if not outwardly, at least in my mind, and often in long gripe sessions to the captive audience of my wife! But in this story, Jesus does not throw any stones himself. His desire seems to be to set the would-be stone throwers themselves free to live a new life, as well.

That's hard for me. Because there are times, when harm is being done, that we have got to stop it from happening. And there are times when the most effective way to stop it is to directly confront the one doing harm. And yet there is no denying that, in John 8, Jesus' approach was effective; he prevented the stoning from happening, got the crowd to confront their own sinfulness, and charged the woman to go and live a new life. Not that I am surprised that his approach worked; he is, after all ... well ... Jesus.

I don't have a pithy conclusion to all this musing. It's just musing, working things out, trying to figure out what questions I need to ask. I would love to hear any thoughts that you might have about forgiveness, condemnation, passing judgement, and the power of grace. To be continued...

Does God forget stuff?

“No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34)

Here's a serious Biblical question and I am very interested in any and all responses you might have. When it comes to sin, does God "forgive and forget"? When we are forgiven, does God actually "forget" that we sinned?

Thanks for your help, I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts.


Also posted here.