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With Love

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Reader,

I hope that this finds you well. As a society, we find ourselves in a *hopefully* once in a lifetime strangeness. Our lives have been disrupted, we’re concerned for ourselves and others, and we are grieving the loss of what we had hoped this season would hold. Weddings and graduations cancelled and postponed, relationships strained, and lives changed. I’ve had my days of despair feeling at my wit’s end with this lonely time, and I’m guessing you may have gotten there sometime over the last month+. I get it. This is hard.

And somehow in the midst of it all, I find myself more connected to what I believe to be the Spirit of God than I have in years. For control freaks like me, I guess in some ways that makes sense. I can’t even trick myself into believing that I have power over my situation right now. Maybe you’re there. I don’t tell you all of this to let you know what a spiritual giant I am, instead I tell you this to let you know that my ego gets in the way sometimes… ok probably a lot of times. And maybe yours does too? These days I am finding truth in the places that I had forgotten to look, or the places to which I had become dismissive. My heart is softening to the earth and those in it. I’m finding that in this more simplistic lifestyle I have been forced into, I can find the Spirit in the little things – the things I often look over.

Anyways, however you are responding to being a person during this strange time, I want you to know that you’re not alone. People love you and miss you, even when you don’t feel like it. Yes, even you! Thankfully, we can still connect in ways that I have scoffed at before. If you feel alone, reach out. Odds are the person on the other end feels similarly.

Breathe in, breathe out, see yourself. You’re actually awesome. A miracle in fact!

Love,

Michael

 

Faith

Is God not mad… just disappointed?

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How do you think God reacts when we do wrong?

I asked this question to a group of 7-12 grade students from our student ministry last night. As always, I told them that there were no wrong answers. If the question asks what you think, and you say what you think, then you get the answer right. While they couldn’t possibly answer the question incorrectly – unless they were lying – I was hoping against hope that they wouldn’t answer, “I think God gets mad at us.”

And they didn’t say, “God gets mad at us when we mess up.” Hooray! Youth ministry win.

They gave the answer that I think a lot of people (including sometimes me) would, “I don’t think God gets mad at us when we mess up… It’s probably more like when we do something wrong and we get caught by our parents. Then they say something like, ‘We’re not mad. We’re just disappointed that you did this.‘ Like I don’t think God gets mad when we mess up, just disappointed.”

 

We’ve come a long way since the Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God theology. Most of us are passing on a view of God that isn’t this powerfully vengeful being watching over us who punishes us when we mess up. We’ve come a long way from our hell-fire and brimstone God who will throw someone into eternal damnation for swearing too much or having sex. We have replaced this angry, vengeful view of God with a view of God that is far more tame and human. In this view, God doesn’t want to punish us, God’s feelings just get hurt a lot. With this outlook, God is a friend who we didn’t sit with at lunch or a good parent that caught us in a lie.

At my private Christian middle school (circa  2007) we often unironically sang a song in chapel time called, Can He Still Feel the Nails. It goes like this:

Can He still feel the nails every time I fail?

Can He hear the crowd cry “crucify” again?

Am I causing Him pain, when I know I’ve got to change?

Because I just can’t bear the thought of hurting Him.

Yeah I know. A song that I think many would fairly deem manipulative.

While myself and many in my thought sphere have – in adulthood – laughed at the vast fallacy of that song and other sayings like it, I think we’re still walking around with much of the residue from those views. We’ve abandoned a view of God who hurts us because of our imperfection, and we have adopted a view of God who is hurt by our imperfection. So while we’ve been so right to run from this vengeful view of God, we may have sat down someplace that we need not stay.

 

This may get fairly philosophical for a bit. Roll with it.

I also just want to say, at a certain point, theology and theological arguments are in some sense broken and unhelpful because we cannot – though we may try – divorce ourselves from our different perspectives. So many people have different ideas and views on the Divine, and perhaps God is big enough to hold all of them. That said, I’ll try and make an argument that may be helpful.

So is God disappointed in us when we fail? Or when we don’t do our best?

A key underlying assumption to even asking this question is God cares about my own personal thoughts and actions. If God does not, then how could we disappoint God? We of course, cannot disappoint someone who does not care. So for the sake of argument, let’s say that God is concerned with me as an individual (my thoughts, actions, being).

Our view of God as a father or parental figure seems to really play into this view of a disappointed God. If growing up, my mom always told me, “Don’t smoke,” and she never saw or became suspicious of me smoking, she would likely expect that I don’t smoke. At that point, if she expects that I haven’t ever smoked, and she catches me smoking, she would be disappointed. Her expectations for me as her son were not met.

Our view of God as a friend can lead to this disappointed view of God too. If every week my friends and I play trivia on Tuesday night, it becomes an expectation of the friends in the group that I will go play trivia with them every Tuesday. At that point, if I bail on trivia, they could be disappointed with me. If I’ve never gone to trivia with them before, and hanging out with them every week is not an expectation, then how could they be disappointed?

Disappointment is a result of unmet expectations.

If we believe God is an omniscient, omnipotent being who is continually creating the universe, it seems unlikely to me that God would be anything less than fully aware of our past, current, and future pitfalls. Does God expect that we will be perfect or close to perfect? Does God even expect that we will give our best effort?

When I truly think about the bigness of God, quippy phrases like “Jesus expects our best” don’t hold up. It may make for a best selling keychain at LifeWay, but upon further examination, where do we even get that? An easy response would be to point me towards literally any of the commands of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount. Good. But have you ever told someone to do something and not expected them to do it? Have you ever pointed someone in the right direction knowing it’s in their best interest, and still expected them to go their own way? I have, and I would argue that this is could be how Jesus felt.

Throughout the stories of Jesus that we have in the Bible, I have a hard time finding one that describes Jesus as disappointed. (Disclaimer: I could be wrong, and that’s the fun part about putting stuff on the internet.) However, I find a lot of times when people come to Jesus with expectations and leave disappointed. When the rich young ruler comes to Jesus explaining his goodness, expecting a warm embrace and pat on the back, Jesus asks for what he knows the man won’t give, obedience at the cost of his stuff. The man left disappointed. The religious leaders often came to Jesus with questions expecting to be affirmed as correct or to entangle Jesus, but they always left disappointed or even angry.

I would argue that disappointment is much more a human emotion that we feel towards God than the way God feels towards us. God lavishes love and grace upon us expecting nothing in return. No conditions. We don’t really get that because even in the purest forms of human connection, we expect some form of reciprocation. Even the best, most loving parents feel hurt when their children turn their backs on them. God is simply not this way.

 

To explain what God’s Kingdom and grace is like, Jesus tells the story of a younger brother who didn’t want to wait till his dad died to get his stuff and get on with it. This son goes to his dad and essentially says, “I want your stuff now, I don’t want to wait.” Storyteller Jesus doesn’t then say, “And the father was disappointed.” The father does what his son asks and gives him his share, and the younger son left. The father gave of his love and treasures with no conditions. While the younger son is off burning the candle at both ends, we don’t hear that the father is up all night weeping. Instead, what we see is a father who is waiting for his son to come home. When the younger son returns home, he expects his dad to be mad, or at least disappointed, but instead what he finds when he gets home is a warm embrace and a party. The only character in the story that is disappointed is the older brother, who didn’t understand the bigness of his dad’s love.

We are loved by God without conditions. Immense, pure love, way bigger and better than we love our girlfriends or our kids. Understanding that God’s immaculate love is unphased by our screw-ups or straight up screw-overs is going to help us let go of a whole lot of shame. Believing that we’ve in some way let down the Creator of the universe is a terribly shame-inducing way to live. And shame wrecks relationship. Our fear of disappointing God has for too long kept us from total communion with God and each other. When we feel convicted that we’re in the wrong, believing that God is disappointed keeps us from running home instead of pushing us to running home faster.

When we’ve taken God’s good things and twisted them for our own devices, God isn’t mad or disappointed, God just wants us home. A warm embrace and a party awaits.

Faith and Culture

boys will be…

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October 7th, 2016

It was a Friday evening, and I was in a hotel room in Atlanta. I had made the trip from Nashville to Atlanta to interview for a youth ministry position at a church there. It was a Friday night,  and it turned out to be one of those times when you don’t remember where you were because something significant happened specifically to you; you remember where you were because something happened out in the world and it seemed eternally significant. After meeting some of the church leadership for dinner, I had returned to my hotel room and turned on the radio coverage of the Chicago Cubs divisional round playoff game against the San Francisco Giants. Then, as had become a habit during the months leading up to that night, I turned on the news to see what was happening with the upcoming election. What I found was more than I had bargained for.

That night the Washington Post had released an Access Hollywood tape of a conversation between soon-to-be-President Donald Trump and television personality Billy Bush from about 10 years prior. They were on a bus pulling into where Trump would be making a cameo on a soap opera that day. The conversation that we all overheard seemed to stop the nation for a night. At one point towards the beginning of the footage, Donald Trump is telling Bush about a failed sexual conquest:

Trump: I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it.

Unknown: Whoa.

Trump: I did try and f*** her. She was married.

Unknown: That’s huge news.

Trump: No, no, Nancy. No, this was [unintelligible] — and I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping.

She wanted to get some furniture. I said, “I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.” I took her out furniture —

I moved on her like a b****. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony t**s and everything. She’s totally changed her look.

This was plenty bad, but it gets worse. The listeners can hear the laughter of Bush in the background. Fueled by the affirmation, Trump continues when they see Actress Arianne Zucker:

Trump: Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Bush: Whatever you want.

Trump: Grab ’em by the p****. You can do anything.

As much as I didn’t want Trump to be elected and had been hoping that something – anything – would derail his campaign, those words made me sick to my stomach. My intestines tightened and my face felt flushed.

I clicked from news channel to news channel, and everybody was covering it. Showing the video. Using the p-word on TV. Somehow, even this was becoming a partisan issue. The Trump campaign and surrogates had already begun to spin this potential deathblow as merely Locker Room Talk. There were men and women alike claiming that this was simply boys being boys. Saying that this type of conversation was normal.

Thinking that this was surely something that people would be unequivocally condemning on social media, I opened up Facebook. Many of my friends had shared articles detailing what the tape revealed, most saying that this was unacceptable behavior from someone wanting to be the President of the United States. But what I found under their posts in the comments section was appalling. So many people replying things like this real comment thread from a friend’s post:

“How about supporting a liar like Hilliary.”

“Trump has his issues bit I’d rather support him than the alternative”

“I’ve heard all kinds of “locker room talk” but I will never stand for a women who trashed other women that were raped and abused in the White House..she admits she is different when public compared to when she is private..laughed when she got a man off with 2 months in jail for raping a 12 yr old girl..the list goes on and on..y’all are beyond insane if you don’t vote for trump..BELIEVE ME”

“Preach it Jeff!!!! I am way more concerned with Kill-liar-y’s actions than something Trump simply said over 10 years ago!!!!”

I was shocked. This wasn’t about the other candidate, who happened to be a woman. It was about human decency and the level of morality we expect from men in our society. I didn’t know what to do, but I felt like I needed to say something. People needed to speak up in reasonable and just ways. So I commented back in the thread:

Jeff, what locker rooms have you been hanging out in? I played sports in high school and spent a ton of time in college dorms with groups of guys, and never did I hear the graphic vulgarity that Donald Trump used while describing his sexual exploitations of women in the video. This “boys will be boys” attitude is the reason that so many are sexually assaulted every single day in our country. My heart breaks for our society that a man like this is in contention for the highest office in our country.

I don’t know what I expected to happen next. Maybe I had hoped that I would change everyone’s mind. Maybe I just hoped that I would “win” this Facebook bout with a stranger. Another guy commented back:

Michael Clinger, don’t even know you, this post just stumbled along my feed but give me a break man. Denying that you never heard vulgarity like that and you are a grown man is simply blasphemy.

For some reason, I remember this hitting me harder than listening to the words on the tape. It hit me harder than seeing people on TV defend Trump’s words. I had entered into a gunfight with only a knife. He was implying that either I wasn’t a man or that I had no integrity. Neither were true. Both hurt.

And there alone in my hotel room with no one to talk to, I cried.

 

You know the rest of the story. Donald Trump went on to win the 2016 Election in a sizable Electoral College victory. Despite being investigated for the last two years, it has been reported that Donald Trump himself was most likely unaware of any Russian interference and did not personally collude with a foreign agent to steal the 2016 Election.

Still the most shocking statistic to me: 81% of white Evangelicals voted for President Trump.

 

So how does someone get to the point where they will talk that way with another television personality? Or for regular folks like me, how does a man get to the point where they will talk in such a demeaning way? And then when that happens, how has our society gotten to a place where that is seen as normal?

Boys will be boys.

A statement commonly made around groups of boys and men of all ages from the womb to the tomb. I don’t know where this phrase originated, but when used it means that when groups of boys are together, they often do things that are reckless, adventurous, and mischievous, and that’s just how it is. We use the same phrase when a 8-year-old accidentally throws a baseball bat into the screen door, and when a pair of drunk 40-year-old men verbally assault an 18-year-old college basketball player. When the older 6-year-old brother cuts the hair of his 3-year-old little brother, and when a group of fraternity brothers throw a pledge into the trunk of their car and leave him there for hours.

Girls misbehavior is not so easily excused with a quippy phrase. Girls will be girls does not apply when two women get into a verbal altercation at a bar. It is not an excuse when two high school girls get caught peeing on their softball teammates mouthpiece.

Parents spend most of their lives warning their daughters about boys. Don’t be alone with a boy. Don’t talk to strange men. Don’t be out alone. Don’t be out late at night. Don’t wear that dress. Don’t talk that way. Don’t lean in for the kiss. Say no. Say no. Say no.

For all of the time that we spend warning our daughters about boys, we spend almost no time teaching our sons not to be the boys that daughters have to be warned about. We don’t teach boys that it’s not ok to refer to women as hoes or b*tches. It’s not ok to talk to your guy friends about women’s breasts and butts and what you’d like to do with them. It’s not ok to stand or sit too close to a girl that you don’t know. It’s not ok to ask personal questions to girls that you don’t know or just met. It’s not ok to touch girls that you don’t know, or even most girls that you do know. It’s not ok to whisper in the ear of a girl that you don’t know. It’s not ok to approach a girl that you don’t know who is by herself and looks distressed. It’s not ok to comment on a girl’s appearance in passing. It’s not ok to ask a girl in passing if she has a boyfriend or to ask what she’s doing later. It is not ok. That’s a lot, but I could go on.

And if you think that those guidelines are too much, or you think “How then can I even talk to women?” Just don’t. They’ll be ok, likely even better off.

A big reason that we have the amount of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment that we do is because we let too many of these seemingly small things slide. No one just wakes up one morning as a sexual predator. If we don’t address these issues as men to other men, nothing will change. 

 

There’s a couple more elements of the Access Hollywood Tape that are important to note, not because they are the most incendiary or the most clearly vile, but because they are the types of things that we don’t often callout or even notice. Understanding their problematic nature may go a long way.

When Donald Trump and Billy Bush get off of the bus, they are greeted by actress Arianne Zucker. After a brief hello and introduction, this is what happens:

Bush: How about a little hug for the Donald? He just got off the bus.

Zucker: Would you like a little hug, darling? [Zucker hugs Trump]

Trump: O.K., absolutely. Melania said this was O.K.

Bush: How about a little hug for the Bushy? I just got off the bus. [Zucker hugs Bush]

Zucker: Bushy, Bushy.

It’s a strange interaction to read through no doubt, and even if you watch it, it may seem rather harmless, but there is something underlying that needs to be spoken about. Neither Trump nor Bush has met Zucker before. These are strangers. When Bush asks for hugs for Trump and himself, it’s not a true ask. There’s power dynamics at play here, Bush and Trump with the clear leverage. “How about a little hug for the Donald?” is said in a way that you would tell a little girl to hug her uncle. Here’s the thing:

Women should not be treated in this way. At least in modern society, we’re starting to empower women to say no and teaching our little girls that their body is theirs and no one else’s, but what we’re not doing is teaching boys that it’s not ok to approach girls in that way. We’re teaching girls not to take it, but we’re not teaching boys not to make those attempts.

Women and their bodies are not objects for the enjoyment of others. Though no one would come out and say the contrary (hopefully no one would), we send that message implicitly as we raise our girls. When we pick our 4-year-old girl up from preschool and see that she’s playing with a boy, we ask “Is that your boyfriend?” As if she being just friends with the boy isn’t pure and good the way it is. We imply this when we say to our aging daughters, “How about a hug for Uncle Jon?” We send this message in churches when we tell our teen girls that they need to save their bodies for their future husbands. We have to be aware of the implicit messaging that is happening.

Men, clearly there are prohibitions for the ways in which we approach women that we don’t know, but there should also be prohibitions for the ways we approach women that we do know. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you’re her teacher, pastor, or relative, there are still ways that you should not initiate physical contact with a woman. If she wants to hug you, she will come in for a hug. We have turned our heads and looked the other way too many times when pastors or family members abuse their power and position. 

 

Here’s the last thing on the tape that I’ll talk about. Talk of sexual conquests and objectification do not happen in a vacuum. As a man who has lived a mere 25 years on this earth, I have both heard and said things that I regret about women in front of other men. It’s not uncommon for men, but especially for teenage boys, to speak about women in ways that are alarming. Locker room talk certainly exists, though very rarely to the graphic degree displayed on the Access Hollywood tape. In every situation regarding this kind of interaction, there are two types of people, the talker, and the enabler. On the tape, you should be able to figure out that Trump is the talker, and Bush is the enabler. In my life, I have been both, and I would assume that most men have. Both positions are born out of personal insecurities and a lack of conviction. Neither are acceptable.

Three months ago, I was with some friends (men and women), and we were heading to our cars in a parking lot in Brentwood. For those not familiar with Nashville suburbs, most would refer to Brentwood as a “good part of town.” I think to most people, “good part of town” just means bigger houses and whiter people. We stopped to talk for a minute, and we were laughing as two boys aged 16 or 17 were walking past us to their car. One of the boys said to our group, specifically the girls, “B*****s always be playing, with your heart and with your d***.” One of the girls I was with responded and the boys proceeded to yell back as they drove away. I was honestly shocked. As far as fight, flight, or freeze is concerned, I was in full freeze mode. Once again, my intestines felt like they had tightened up and my face felt flushed. I legitimately was having a hard time processing what I was feeling or thinking about it. My surprise regarding the situation pointed to my naïvety. The girls weren’t as shocked. They had experienced moments like that before.

As I reflect on that experience, I think about how it was just one of the two boys doing the talking. The other was there, laughing along as if it were the funniest thing ever. And that’s most of us men, most of the time. For too long we have sat on the sidelines and shamefully chuckled as we have let our peers believe that what they do and say is not only ok, but it is valuable. And I certainly know the tension of the moment. There are too many times to count in my life in which I didn’t speak up. Too many times where I was intimidated at the thought of being ousted from a group. But enough is enough. We have to start taking one for the team. Men, let’s call each other to a higher standard. It will be awkward and difficult, but what’s worth doing that isn’t hard?

There is a difference in acknowledging that conversations amongst men in which women are objectified are normal, and in viewing them as an acceptable aspect of life. In 2016, American Evangelical Christians showed that culturally, we are the enabler. As enablers, we don’t really believe that what is being done is right, but we have counted the cost of standing up to the talker, and we’ve decided that it’s not worth it. It’s easier to laugh along at what’s being said than it is to point out the talker for what he is.

We have failed in holding each other to a standard of morality and human decency. Churches have failed in extinguishing the fires of misogyny and objectification and, in many cases, have stoked them. More than that, American churches have for too long enabled male leaders to dodge the issues behind the facade of not wanting to be “political.” The “moral majority” that arose during the 20th century has become the immoral majority. Christians, we need to be speaking honestly about what we will no longer be standing for. It is time to rise up and cast aside our prejudices and broken systems. Even if that means blowing it up and starting over.

It’s easy to see these issues as too big to tackle, but the thing about time is that we can make major progress in just one generation. Let’s not hand down the same baggage to our kids that we were dealt. We have to start teaching boys from an early age that they need to respect the girls in their lives as equals, and that they need to stand up to other boys when they are speaking negatively or harmfully to or about girls. What our young boys hear now will shape who they become. Let’s stop shrugging off misogyny and objectification as “boys being boys” or as “locker room talk.” No more excuses, let’s be better.

Faith, Uncategorized

the blessing of wrestling

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This morning I was having breakfast with a few dear friends at Chick-fil-a.

Have you ever heard a more delicious beginning to a story?

We were sitting there communing over spicy chicken biscuits, frosted coffee (it’s ice cream you can have for breakfast!), and other delicious cuisine when we began discussing something that we mutually decided that we didn’t fully understand.  Apparently we must’ve not been too quiet because a man came up to our table and began to “explain” the topic that we had been wrestling with together.  He was speaking very confidently and using large hand gestures to reinforce his point.

In that moment, we did what people do when someone gives them unwanted explanation.  We waited until he was finished and nodded saying “that’s interesting, thanks.”  As he began to walk away, he looked back and said, “I’m a minister to men.”  I guess what he probably didn’t realize was that the four guys he was talking to are also identified as ministers by church title.  Of course, all followers of Jesus are called to be ministers to others.  Stating that he was a minister as he was walking away seemed to be his way of expressing that he was some sort of authority on the matter.  It was frustrating to me, but I couldn’t really understand why in the moment.

Whether or not this man was correct in his explanation is beside the point.  I guess I was bothered because sometimes we, especially those of us who are referred to as ministers, pastors, or teachers, can try and explain away the mystery of God.

Growing up in church is different than growing up outside the church and coming to faith later.  For me, growing up in church was an exercise in knowing about God.  I believed that I could know everything about God.  I believed that there was someone out there in the world who knew more about God than anyone else, some sort of super Christian or God’s right hand man.  In a way I believed that God delighted in people knowing his stats much like how I can recite the names and numbers of obscure former Tennessee Titans players.  I looked at my dad and thought, “He probably knows more about God than most anyone else, after all, he has a couple degrees in the Bible.  He carries around a Bible with an ancient language in it.”  I looked at my youth minister and thought, “He must know a lot about God, he teaches us twice a week!”

So going to a Bible college myself to study the Bible seemed like a great way to fill my brain with knowledge about God.  Surely that was pleasing to God.  A few years in to my studies in college, I had a harsh, semi-painful realization.  More study of the Bible was not answering all my questions, it was providing more difficult questions that were not as easy to answer.  There is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God.

Looking back, I can identify this as a period of some faith “deconstruction.”  Deconstruction is a word that I had never heard used as a healthy thing regarding faith.  Wouldn’t you want your faith to be constantly constructing!?  Always building taller and taller so that it may reach new heights?  I think this period of deconstruction is natural and happens to all of us in one way or another.  Luckily for me, I did then and still do find myself in communities that are affirming of my questions.

Think about all the times people asked questions of Jesus.  Time and time again people come to Jesus asking questions.  These questions have all kinds of motives, some seeking, some to trap him, and some rhetorical.  Time and time again, Jesus does not answer these questions with a concrete answer that removes the mystery, but instead Jesus answers with another question, tells a story, or remains silent.  Jesus was not a cookie cutter, fill-in-the-blank teacher.  Jesus was a teacher who asked probing questions with which His followers wrestled.

As a community of Christ followers, we must give both ourselves and each other space to have questions and not have answers.  Naturally this is terrifying because we are an anxious people who need to know everything all the time.  That’s why Google is a thing, right?  So we can just Google anything that we don’t know.  And even more than in other realms of our life, our churches can seem like groups of people with whom we are uncomfortable expressing doubt or posing a tough question.  Here’s the thing about that: people will wrestle with doubt and questions regardless, but will they do that in the context of a people who believe that God is big enough for our questions, or will they have to leave our faith communities to ask their questions? 

We cannot place God in a box.  I am a minister who works in a church, and guess what?  I don’t have all the answers.  I went and got that degree in “Theology and Ministry” and guess what?  I am right there wrestling with everyone else.

So let’s try something.  And I’ll try and do this as well.  Next time someone expresses a question or doubt, let’s not be so quick to answer.  Life following God is a mystery.  Let’s spend some time in awe of the mystery of the Almighty God.  I think we will find that there is a blessing in wrestling with God.

-Michael

 

 

 

 

AN ASIDE:

What is it with Chick-fil-a and people trying to explain deep mysteries of God with lackingly short and easy quips?  I once overheard a man at Chick-fil-a attempt to explain the Holy Trinity to a 12-year-old using the metaphor of a buffalo sauce packet.  Don’t get me wrong, I love buffalo sauce, but I think even buffalo sauce in all of its splendor pales in comparison to the Holy Trinity.

Faith and Culture, Uncategorized

Leading with Love

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So maybe you have heard over the past few days about the Nashville Statement.  I honestly don’t know how widespread it has become, but as someone who works in a local church, I guess I might be more likely to have heard about it or read it than some others may be.  If you haven’t heard, a group of evangelical faith leaders met in Nashville in order to come to some sort of consensus on a doctrine regarding sexual stewardship.  They released this 3-page document this week in the midst of nationwide concern for Houston.  Besides Houston, there has been many other tragedies in the U.S. recently, for example, the show of hatred and evil in Charlottesville 3 weeks ago. Much of the Nashville Statement is directly in relation to the LGBTQ+ community.  If you’d like to read the document, you can find it here.

I know, you are all still reading this to find out all about my beliefs regarding marriage and God-honoring sexuality, but that’s not why I am writing today.  I will say that wherever you come down on these issues, I would try my best to understand your beliefs and how they have formed or changed throughout your life.  I write this today because I think many are missing the point as I did when I read the document the first time.

I can honestly say that I know some wonderful, absolutely good-hearted people who fall on either side of the debate regarding the Church’s affirmation of those who have accepted non-traditional sexual lifestyles.  And I do not write this to offend or send anyone into shock.  I write this because I believe that the overwhelming majority of the current dialogue regarding the Nashville Statement has not been fruitful.  There have been a lot of voices falling on deaf ears.

Before I go any further, let me clarify: I 100% believe that members of the Body of Christ have a responsibility to other members of the Body to hold each other accountable to live lives according to the calling that we have received as followers of Jesus Christ.

And now let me say: the only way in which we can or should hold each other accountable is within the context of a faith community in loving relationship with each other.

Think about it this way, has anyone that you did not have a relationship with ever scolded or chastised you?  I would assume that was not an enjoyable experience.  Has anyone that you don’t know ever said to you, “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but…” That probably did not make you feel good.  Throughout my life, I have often resented being told what to do.  I’m working on maturing and growing, but man, that’s the worst!  Now certainly, there are times in my life where I need guidance, and I’m even learning how to ask someone else for their input (what a novel concept), but I will only receive correction well from someone that I know loves me.  Maybe this is just me, but I would bet you have felt similarly.

As followers of Christ, we are trying to be like Christ, right?  If that’s the case, we need to look at the way that Jesus lived to inform every aspect of our lives.  In Luke 19, there’s a story that I think really applies to this topic:

Jesus is traveling with his disciples through Jericho, and there’s a ton of people trying to see him.  There’s this short tax collector (social stigma implied) in town named Zaccheus, and he really wants to see Jesus, but he can’t see over the crowds, so he climbs up in a tree just to catch a glimpse.  Jesus sees Zaccheus up in the tree, and calls out to him, “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today!”  Ecstatic, Zaccheus takes Jesus to his home.  But the people were not happy with this.  They grumbled to each other, “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner.”  That day, Zaccheus’s heart was transformed.  Because of his interaction with Jesus, who just went over to his house, he vows to give half of his money to the poor and to repay anyone he has cheated four times over!

So let’s think about this story.  I would bet that Zaccheus knew that the religious folks disagreed with his lifestyle choices.  But guess what, knowing that a bunch of religious people didn’t like him really didn’t make him want to change.  All Zaccheus needed for radical life change was to interact with the transformative love of Jesus.  People in our world could use a little more of that.

When dealing with people, Jesus always lead with love.  He befriended many other “notorious sinners.”  Jesus offered the Samaritan woman caught in adultery living water!  Jesus had a quality about him that not only tolerated those who had been outcast by the religious establishment, but he attracted them!  You know what’s not attractive?  Someone that you don’t know telling you that you’re a sinner.

So let me bring this back to the Nashville Statement.  Whatever side you find yourself on, there are real people, living breathing people, on the other side who legitimately believe that what they are standing for is right.  People on every side of this issue are created in the image of God, and there are devoted followers of Christ who are still developing thoughts and views on these matters.  We cannot let this be divisive in our faith communities.

Too many times, we, Christians, divide ourselves into different camps.  We split ourselves by how we like to worship, our views on the Eucharist, our traditions, etc.  And in the midst of a world that has an immediate need for the love of Jesus, we have found yet another thing that divides us instead of unifies us.

We need to be known more by what we are for than what we are against.  We need to be identified by our love for one another, our neighbors, and our enemies.  We need to be identified by our desire to lift the lowly, welcome the outcast, and break the chains of the oppressed.  

And yes, we need to be having these important discussions in our faith communities regarding our views on these topics.  But any view that does not begin with a love for God and for our neighbor is not a view that is from God.  These topics need to be wrestled with in our faith communities, but not on Facebook or Twitter.  These are not topics to make decrees about.  These are conversations to be had together in homes and at coffee shops, not on the internet for the whole world to see.  And when we do have these conversations, we must give each other permission to still be working it out in our hearts.

I must say that when it comes to withholding grace from those with whom I disagree, I am the chief of sinners, but I am encouraged because through the grace of God I know I can grow in that way.  I pray that I will be a person who leads with love, and I pray the same for all of us.

Only through the power of God’s grace can we truly become people who can speak truth in love.

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I, Wretch

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“Father, I come before you today as a wretch.  I come as one who has repeatedly, continuously turned from your grace.  For so long have I run from you.  For so long have I kept returning only to leave again.  Time and time again have I fully known what is right and good, and time and time again have I chosen the other way.  Father, for so long have I requested green pastures and quiet waters only to choose to remain in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  My  life has only occasionally been lived in a way that matches Your Gospel.  For so long I have been hypocritical of hypocrites with a plank lodged in my own eye.  I have been impatient in the things of Your will.  I have not trusted that Your plan is better than mine.  I have turned my nose up at the sight of Your will in my life for Your people.

Father, I often do not even see people who are different than me.  I have become so desensitized to the hurt in Your world.  I have taken detours to avoid Your plans.  Over and over again, I have turned away at the sight of those in need.  Constantly I set my mind on the things of this world and block out the things of heaven.  I have turned to the wrong places for comfort.  I have told myself that I belong here.  I have pointed the finger at others.  I have excluded those who need belonging the most.

Father, I have been ashamed of the cross.  I have been terrified of what people will say and what they will think.  I have given you only pieces of who I am.  I have cheated You.  Day in and day out I have put myself ahead of You.  I have proclaimed the words of Your Gospel but failed to live it.  I encourage people to share their faith while masking my own.  I have told half-truths.  I have blamed You for my shortcomings.  I have projected anger at myself onto others.  I have hurt those whom I love.  I have used my words to hurt others.  For so long I have longed for personal recognition.  I have accepted praise.  I have repeatedly fed my own ego by tearing others down.  I have put my wants in front of the needs of others.  I have been afraid of the future.  I have been afraid of my departure from this world.  I have been afraid of Your calling.

Father, for all of these things, forgive me.”

Son, I know.  I know your faults.  I created You.  Since the beginning, I have had a plan for you, yes you!  You are so valued.  I knit you together in your mother’s womb.  I know everything that you have done and everything that you will ever do, and I still want you.  You are mine!  Do not be impatient, for everything that you could ever need is already taken care of.  I got this!  In your time on earth, there are tough times, but I will never leave you!  Come to me, I am all that you need.  I am all that you will ever need.  I created the sun, moon, and stars, but you, you are in my own image!  I have given you a heart, a heart with which to love my creation.  You were not created to count your flaws, but rather, you were created to reflect me!  You are imperfect, you make mistakes, and you always will, but I have made you righteous!  I have washed you and made you clean!  I know how many hairs are on your head, I know all of the sins that you left out, I know what you did last week, and son, even after all of that, YOU ARE MINE!

In all those things, I AM.  From the beginning until now, I AM.  From now until forever, I AM.