March 30, 2010
Would it not be a violation of free will for God to include those who have deliberately chosen by their will to refuse or reject God?
I could take this question in a million directions but instead I’m going to give an answer that ends before everyone’s attention span does. It might be close.
I can choose to reject God but that doesn’t mean I have the power to make God reject me. In Matthew 23:37 Jesus’ said that those who had killed the prophets and stoned those God had sent to them that but instead of rejecting them for their actions, God “longed to gather them as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” To say that God will reject those who reject Him would be to say that human will has ultimate supremacy over God’s will. I can’t fathom that nor can I accept that the will of God could be held captive and bound to human will.
I am sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love–not life or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or the future, and not powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord! Romans 8:38-39
If nothing can separate us from the love of God then it stands to reason that even with all my self-determining mojo unleashed even I can’t separate myself from the love of God. While it’s not possible for the person rejecting God to experience the comfort and assurance of God’s love at the same time, God’s love remains there all the same, as God remains ever near.
But no one who chooses to flee from God will have God’s embrace forced on them. Heaven won’t be bursting at the seams with the unrepentant. No one will be marching into the Kingdom of God bearing placards that denounce the existence of God. No will be held captive in God’s presence who wills to be elsewhere. God will not constrain anyone against their will, and no one will be coerced to surrender their will to the will of God.
Instead what God will do is go to any lengths, travel any distance, and take all the time necessary to pursue those who have yet to return to Him. God will not force them but rather God will woo them like the lover of our soul He is even if it takes beyond this life and mortal death. Yes, even after death will continue to pursue the one who runs from God because neither human will or death will have the final word but the final word will be spoken by God calling “you are mine, you are mine, return to me.“ This is the relentless pursuit of God’s grace the English poet Francis Thompson so powerfully described in The Hound of Heaven, a pursuit that in the end beckoned him to return to the arms of God. The language of the prose can make it bulky to shift through but this introduction to the poem portrays a bit of it’s passion and the relentlessness of God’s love.
The name is strange. It startles one at first. It is so bold, so new, so fearless. It does not attract, rather the reverse. But when one reads the poem this strangeness disappears. The meaning is understood. As the hound follows the hare, never ceasing in its running, ever drawing nearer in the chase, with unhurrying and imperturbed pace, so does God follow the fleeing soul by His Divine grace. And though in sin or in human love, away from God it seeks to hide itself, Divine grace follows after, unwearyingly follows ever after, till the soul feels its pressure forcing it to turn to Him alone in that never ending pursuit. – The Neumann Press Book of Verse, 1988.
Posted in Engaging Conversation, Theology 
4 Comments »
March 29, 2010
So you know how it goes. Someone on the opposite side of an issue, oh let’s say about being gay and Christian for an example, asks you a question but you know they aren’t asking because they really want to hear what you have to say. Instead they ignore the answer you labored thoughtfully over so they can just have the excuse to volley another round at you of “Love you, hate your sin,” or “Oh, you really need to read Romans 2!” or “You’re so deceived but thanks for playing!”
Or is it just me?
Anyway, I thought since I was willing to tackle some questions from you, you might consider taking on a few questions from me every now and again. Questions I ask because I really want to hear your thoughts on them, especially if you have a different take on God’s judgment, hell, eternal punishment and other similar lighthearted fare. Here are two questions I grappled with for a long time:
How will God ever be satisfied knowing that there are some of His creation suffering in hell and eternally separated from His presence?
How can those in heaven ever be free of sorrow knowing that those they love (children, spouse, parents, friends) are in eternal torment?
I could never come up with any answer that was even remotely tolerable to me, but if you’ve found an answer around the conflict between the absence of all sadness in heaven and the existence of eternal damnation, I really want to hear how you’ve worked it out for yourself.
Come on. You know you wanna.
Posted in Engaging Conversation 23 Comments »
March 29, 2010
Monday morning. Gray skies with a chance of rain.
And me at the computer with a cup of lukewarm coffee and a mishmash of questions on sin, judgment and hell swirling around in my head. I usually just have my caffeine with a splash of milk and a spoon of sweetener.
In my post on hell, I offered several key reasons for why I find the concept of eternal punishment or damnation unacceptable but rather I believe in the fullness of time all people will be reconciled back to God. This led to some challenging questions and while I’ll do my best to reply to them I do so knowing that anything I share will have little chance of satisfying the questions for anyone else, and I hope not! I hope not because as my faith is continually being shaped by an ongoing, internal conversation between the Scriptures, church teaching, the Spirit’s moving, and my personal experience of God, I would trust the same is happening in your own life as well.
So here I go.
Can heaven really include brutal tyrants who are directly responsible for the death of thousands if not millions of people and those who for their own greed have robbed the poor when Jesus represented a God who stood up for the poor and oppressed and defended the persecuted? How could it ever be right and just for those who have mocked God and caused immeasurable harm to God’s own, to stand side by side with those who have suffered at their hands?
Last week our Lutheran congregation met with the congregation of the nearby Jewish temple for a shared Seder. It seemed only fitting to share this special meal together since for the Jews the Passover commemorates their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt into freedom and for Christians we recognize that it was at the Passover meal 2000 years ago that the sacrament of the Last Supper began.
There’s a story in the Talmud that says when God caused the Red Sea to close down upon the pursuing armies of Pharoah so that they had all perished, the angels began to celebrate their destruction with song but God rebuked them saying “Will you chant hymns while the work of my hands is being drowned in the sea?” Even though the Eqyptians had been the torturous captors of His people and had made themselves into pursuing enemies, they were still counted among God’s creation and as such God suffered because they were suffering. Over bowls of sweet haroset and the story alive in us we wondered over the question, “Are we vengeful people because we’re made in the image of a vengeful God or do we worship a God of vengeance because we are vengeful people?” Among Jew and Christian we all came to the conclusion that it seemed more likely we have a vengeful God because as people we need to believe that there is divine vengeance for evil doing.
According to Scripture and ancient oral tradition, Pharoah and his armies committed hideous acts of cruelty and oppression against the people of Israel and though we lack black and white footage documenting the atrocities and there are no survivors to give first-hand account of the torture and human degradation meted out by Egyptian hands, we know of comparable crimes against humanity in more recent history. The Christian Crusades. Slavery. The witch hunts. The Holocaust. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Apartheid.
There’s no question God stands on the side of the oppressed for Scriptures abound, declaring that God will defend the poor, the widowed, and the oppressed. In the Old Testament, God judges the oppressor and executes justice where there has been injustice and when God is shown as angry it’s injustice toward the poor and oppressed that serves as the kindling to God’s fury.
I believe God will avenge the oppressed. I believe God will judge the oppressor. I not only need that to be true but I believe it is true and right and just, but where I can find no compassion in my heart or soul for those who have brought such cruelty onto the human stage I worship a God who as judge holds justice in one hand and mercy in the other and is a judge who exercises both according to His good and perfect will. If I must see God in the black robes of a judge, then I must envision Him as one who looks down from His seat of judgment and recognizes in the face of both the abused and the abuser, the persecuted and the persecutor, the oppressed and the oppressor, the face of His very own, created by His hand, born out of His love. The suffering of either past, present, or future is suffering shared by God.
I didn’t say hell doesn’t exist or that there would be no divine judgment cast or no price to be paid for wrongdoing. What I said was I don’t believe in eternal punishment and as much as it runs contrary to my desires to say this, neither do I believe there will be divine punishment for the sake of punishment alone but when God punishes it is for the purpose of bringing correction, repentance, reconciliation and restoration of all God’s creation. I will take it as far as Philip Gulley does in If God is Love:
I believe God will accomplish the salvation of every person, in this life or the next, no matter how long we resist. If Satan does exist, he will one day repent, be forgiven, and take his proper place in the divine order. If hell exists, it won’t be the final destination for anyone. It will merely be another tool in God’s work to purify and redeem.
Like I already said, I don’t think my answer will satisfy anyone who believes in heaven for the righteous and hell for the sinner. I just know that I can no longer believe any differently than this and coming to this understanding, even though it’s still evolving, has done nothing but enrich and increase my faith and relationship with God. Believing what I believe has changed me and the change has been for the better.
Posted in Love and Grace, Theology 8 Comments »
March 28, 2010
Because our faith as Christians is such a personal thing for each of us, (we don’t call it a personal relationship with God through Christ without reason!) I tend to stay away from grinding through Christian doctrines and specific theological concepts on this blog unless they directly impact the spiritual reconciliation of GLBTQ people. This is the only reason why I ventured into sharing my personal faith conviction on hell and eternal punishment in the first place, because I know how many Christian GLBTQ people there are who fear that living into the wholeness of who they know they are will end in the ultimate price of eternal damnation.
And so I responded to such fear by saying No. No, (I do not believe) God will not condemn you because being who you are and loving who you love is not a sin. No, because the concept of suffering eternal punishment at the hands of an unconditionally loving God of mercy and grace is unfathomable (to me). No, because God’s will and purpose is that all would come to Him and (I believe) the will and purpose of God will never be left unsatisfied in the end.
In the past few days there have been some incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking comments that have followed my post and a whole lot of questions raised I could never begin to answer, not only because the answers I’ve come to for myself would be a grueling task to attempt to communicate to others but also because I don’t pretend to have everything figured out. I don’t expect I ever will. What I can tell you is that some of the questions raised are the very questions I’m already grappling with and will continue to grapple with throughout my life. I will also tell you that some of the questions make me really uncomfortable because I want things to fit and make sense and sometimes they just don’t, because embedded in every area of faith is the mystery of God, and the presence of such mystery means there will always exist irresolvable tensions that each of us either need to find a way to live with or to settle in the best way we can for ourselves and in a way that speaks most true for us and our understanding of God. As history and the present have proven the process will lead many of us to arrive at very different places and I hope that can be okay for us.
With that said, over the next week I’m going to try and give what answer I can to the questions that have been raised in reaction to my last post, namely
- If there is no judgment (or hell), then why did Jesus come?
- Where does the concept of sin fit in when there is no final penalty for those who live a life of sin?
- If there is no consequence or judgment then what is the purpose of right and wrong? Why defend the helpless and vulnerable? Why do good?
- How do we weigh the limitless love, grace and mercy of God in light of the holiness, justice, and righteousness of God?
- Would it not be a violation of free will for God to include those who have deliberately chosen by their will to refuse or reject God?
- Can heaven really include brutal tyrants who are directly responsible for the death of thousands if not millions of people and those who for their own greed have robbed the poor when Jesus represented a God who stood up for the poor and oppressed and defended the persecuted? How could it ever be right and just for those who have mocked God and caused immeasurable harm to God’s own, to stand side by side with those who have suffered at their hands?
And this is where I jokingly say, and then on Tuesday….
Like I said, these are BIG questions and understandable ones given my previous post. Since I’m the one who opened the door to them, then I’ll do my best to give a thoughtful response to what’s been asked but even as I do, how I answer is limited and directed by what I have come to personally believe and whatever I say in any post is left to the 2.6 of you who actually read what I’ve written to examine in the light of the Spirit and in your understanding of God’s Word. What is true, hold on to so that it might increase your faith. What you judge as foolishness, toss to the wind as so much chaff. All I would ask is that you be generous in trusting my intention is simply and always to share my faith and not to change what anyone believes…unless you believe that God doesn’t love you or that you’re not worthwhile. If that’s the case then all bets are off!
Posted in Faith, Theology 2 Comments »
March 22, 2010
Maybe I should ease into this post by doing my usual schtick of rambling around the edges before getting to the point, and there are times, believe it or not, when opinionated and straightforward me taps lightly around my beliefs because I know for those located in, or coming from, a conservative Christian tradition as I did, it can feel unsettling when people you connect with on other levels seem to be walking dangerously close to the ledge in others. All I can tell is ledge walking might not be the safest place but once you’ve seen the horizon from that viewpoint there’s no going back.
Though at first glance it might seem so, a post on hell isn’t so far off-topic for SisterFriends, not as long as there are GLBTQ Christians in the process of reconciling their faith and sexuality who continue to wonder “Will I go to hell because I’m gay?” Normally when someone poses this question in an email I avoid the topic of hell altogether realizing that the belief in hell and in retribution theology (punishment for bad, reward for good) runs deep through many raised in conservative Christianity. Instead I tend to address the fear that underlays such questioning and center my response on those passages that dispel the idea that God would ever be at the heart of such anguished fear.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. — 2 Timothy 1: 7
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. — John 14: 27
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. — 1 John 4: 18
But as long as people believe there’s a chance at the end of their lives that they will have messed things up so bad or fallen so short of where God would have them to be that they risk damnation there will always be fear and so it seemed as good a time as any to expose the ledge I’m standing on and to give a more complete and honest response to the question for the next one who would ask it of me.
So here we go.
I’m not about to say that hell doesn’t exist, neither am I saying I believe it does. The fact is that hell, as a locale, can no more be denied than it can be proven since despite all the theological arguments made for or against such a place, certitude on the matter is outside the grasp of all of us until the moment of our death. Until then all we can do is abandon ourselves to our faith and in what we believe…whether it’s traditional church teaching on the matter or personal belief.
There were far too many years when I believed that while God loved me God could and would condemn me to hell if I had sinned too much or strayed too far outside God’s will. Should I die “in sin” my parting glimpse of God wouldn’t be of his love but of his wrath, but fortunately, as it happened, I believed the right truth and was living the right life (Self-Righteous, party of one, your table is waiting!) so I didn’t fear hell but looked ahead confidently to heaven.
But in recent years I’ve had a change of heart and mind and I no longer believe God would or will ever condemn anyone to a permanent state of punishment and torment. The change has come about not because I’ve spent years locked in academic research and study on the Christian doctrine of hell. The change has come simply, though not easily, through my changing understanding and experiences with the love of God. I’ve reflected on what it really means when we say the love of God is unconditional and infinite, and that God is the giver of undeserved mercy and extravagant grace. After 53 years of being in love with God I’m only now beginning to understand what it means when we declare with assurance that “nothing will ever separate us from the love of God.”
I don’t believe in eternal punishment because I believe in the unconditional, infinite love of God.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails (I Corinthians 13:4-8).
At this point in my faith journey, to believe in the unconditional eternal love of God and to believe in eternal punishment as the will of God is, in my opinion, irrational. It simply makes no sense to propose that these two teachings stand harmoniously beside one another when the truth is that no two beliefs could be more oppositional to one another than these. I’m all for a God who works in mysteriously ways but I reject the idea of a God who acts irrationally and contradictory to his own nature. God may be full of surprises but when it comes to His steadfast love and unwavering grace, God is more predictable than that the earth will keep spinning.
I’m baffled that we’ve somehow managed to justify in Christian theology a Heavenly Father/Mother/Parent who behaves in a way that would appall us were we to witness the same behavior in an earthly parent directed toward their child and I said as much in my last post. God’s love is unconditional, immeasurable, limitless and forever. God loves you. God loves me. God loves them. For that reason if so much as one single person in all God’s creation falls outside the covering of God’s love, even the most vile and depraved among us, then God’s love is diminished for all, even for the most righteous and pure among us.
I don’t believe in eternal punishment because I believe that the perfect will and desire of God will be fulfilled.
In other words I believe God will ultimately get what God wants, and what God wants is that through Jesus He would be able to “reconcile to Himself all things” (Colossians 1:19-20); what God desires is that “all will be saved and come to the knowledge of truth” (I Timothy 2:3-4); what God wills is to bring “all things in heaven and earth together under one head, even Christ” (Ephesians 1:9-10), and what God does not want is that “any should perish but that everyone would come to repentance” (2 Peter 2:9). God wants, desires, and wills that all would be brought back to him and so the question is whether God will get what God wills or if for all eternity God’s will be left unfulfilled. If God wills that all would be returned onto him then it is impossible that even one person will be cast out of God’s presence. Even one soul separated from God would leave God discontent, like the Good Shepherd who wouldn’t rest until his entire flock was restored (Matthew 18:10-14) and like the poor woman who wouldn’t stop searching until she found her lost coin. (Luke 15:8-10). Neither the good shepherd or the poor woman were able or willing to celebrate until all that had been lost were found. And so it is with God. God is not willing that any would be lost and so, if we believe the perfect will of God will be fulfilled then we also believe that all will be found.
I don’t believe in eternal punishment because I believe Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the World.
Jesus was God revealed in human flesh. In his life and his words Jesus was the greatest manifestation of God’s love that we have ever witnessed and there’s nothing I can see in the witness of his life or in the content of his teaching that would lead me to accept that Jesus’ ultimate purpose was to be the determining factor in who would go to heaven and who would be cast into hell based on individual acceptance or rejection of his identity. Instead I believe that the love, forgiveness, compassion, and full welcome Jesus showered on everyone he encountered will be the very love, forgiveness, compassion, and welcome that God extends to all.
I also believe that had Jesus not come, had he not preached and lived out the Good News of the Gospel, had he not died on the cross and been brought forth into newness of life, this world would be different in a way we can’t begin to imagine, for in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection salvation came into the world and through him the world was saved. “I did not come to judge the world, but to save it” (John 12:47) and that’s what Jesus did. Through Jesus the world and all of creation was redeemed by the glory of God that spilled upon the earth through the work of Christ and salvation was given to all.
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came through Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23).
God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on all men (Romans 11:32).
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (I Corinthians 15:22).
We put our hope in a living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe (I Timothy 4:9-10).
I know what I believe on paper echoes a theology of universal salvation but for me it’s not about labeling my beliefs or aligning them with what others profes. I only know that I can’t reconcile the idea that some will go to heaven and some will go to hell when I keep bumping into “all” and “every” in the Scriptures. Receiving the grace of God isn’t dependent on whether I believe the right things, attend the right church, pray the right prayers, or do the right things. Grace doesn’t depend on me being right. As Philip Gulley said in “If Grace Is True” grace is a gift, not a trophy. Grace gives no thought to whether I’m Protestant or Jewish or Agnostic. Grace isn’t determined by my sexual orientation. Grace depends fully on God. The grace I’ve been given. The grace you’ve been given. The grace they’ve been given. We’re all under God’s grace because the love of God would have it no other way.
Of course, coming to this place has meant I’ve done a whole lot of soul-searching and spiritual reflection on a wider circle of Christian doctrines. Redemption, salvation, the cross, sin, and atonement are all concepts of the Christian faith (my faith) that I continue to grapple with as my understanding of God’s love and grace for all evolves. But given my upbringing within a conservative Christian tradition do you know what the hardest part has been for me in moving from hell for some to hell for none?
It was overcoming my need for eternal punishment to exist.
The more I found my theology defaulting to the love and grace of God, the more troubled I was that there was a chance that those I thought deserved an eternity in hell for all the hurt they had brought into the world, the more I had to deal with the possibility that in eternity they’d be standing in the same brilliant light of God’s glory as would I. As a human being, I have an innate need for good to be rewarded and evil to be punished. I want those who have damaged or taken the lives of others to be held accountable and made to pay for it, whether the life of one child was harmed or it was the murder of six million. This is why I haven’t fully given up the idea that hell exists since a consequence for wrongdoing doesn’t seem completely contradictory to a God of grace; not if the punishment leads in time to them being restored to wholeness and reconciled back into the presence of God. Even though in my flesh I want those who cause suffering to suffer, given what I know to be true about the grace of God that’s been extended to me, I’m working to come to terms with the idea that even the most vile and depraved along with the most righteous and pure will all return to God. Shoulder to shoulder we will stand. Equal. Made clean.
So this is my excessively long answer to “Will I go to hell because I’m gay?”
No. You won’t go to hell for being gay because being gay isn’t a sin.
No. You won’t got to hell because God’s love and grace would never allow it. God’s love will never fail you even when you wonder if you’ve failed God.
And for any who need this disclaimer I want you to understand that what I’ve written here is what I believe, not what I think you should believe. I’m just one Christian expressing my beliefs and in stating them I’m not saying this is the only way to believe. I’m only being honest to what rings most true for me as I continue to work out my own faith which in the end rests firmly in Christ and in the God who sent Him.
Posted in Love and Grace, Periodic Reflections on the Love of God 22 Comments »
March 17, 2010
Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem. And more than once, that impression which I can’t describe except by saying it’s like the sound of a chuckle in the darkness. The sense that some shattering and disarming simplicity is the real answer. C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
The problem is that waiting for the real answer until the sweet by and by comes at the cost of needless suffering in this life for far too many. To wake up each morning and fear you’re going to hell unless you expend all your emotional and spiritual energy denying who you fully are sounds like hell without a need for dying. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200.00. Go directly to hell. Do not die. Do not fully live.
And from where I sit it sounds like nothing short of hot flames and sulfur-tainted air to face the death of a child and be “comforted” with the well-meaning assurance that God has allowed it to happen for a greater purpose, or to be told God must have a reason after being given the diagnosis that a debilitating terminal disease has invaded your body. Spare the purpose and give me my child back! Keep the disease and the reason and let me live!
The pain behind all these very true to life human experiences of suffering comes down to, as C.S. Lewis experienced through the dying and death of his beloved wife, our contradictory notions. We know what we are experiencing in the moment. We’re living it, breathing it, feeling it; and we know what we believe about who God is and what God can do and at times the two smash head-long into one another and leave us either doubting what’s right before our eyes or doubting in the existence of a God who truly loves us and has our best interest at heart.
I don’t know what the chuckle in the darkness came to be for C.S. Lewis but I can tell you what it is for me, and I’m so convinced that I have this one right that I’m willing to tether my entire life on it even before having it confirmed before being measured for my form fitting white robe with matching feathered wings. The chuckle in the darkness, the real answer that will shatter all our questions is….oh come on….say it with me….the love of God.
What do we continue to muck up the most one true thing? What is this human need we have to complicate it, burying such a priceless radiant treasure under the murky mire of Christian beliefs and notions that repeatedly weigh the scales on the side of human agency rather than on the side where Divine Love and Grace reside? Honestly, there are days I just don’t get it and this is one of those days.
Everything we believe, however long we’ve believed it, however strongly we believe it, however sure we are that we have it right must, absolutely must be held up to the lens of God’s love if we have any chance of knowing anything at all in this life and experiencing any deep sense of peace. How I understand the stories and teaching of the Scriptures, how I view suffering in this life, what I believe of the life that follows this one, what I think God requires of me, how I comprehend who God is in character and in relationship with me, how God sees me, how God values me, how God judges me and everything else. Every speck of an idea I have of what it means to faithfully walk the path of Jesus must be held up to close examination through the lens of God’s love and should any belief I value or idea I hold as true to the Christian faith conflict with or tarnish by a single shade the perfect love of God then the other thing must change but never never the unconditional love and extravagant grace of God.
For far too long and for far too many when a conflict has arisen between traditional Christian teaching and the love of God, it’s been the love of God that’s been compromised and cheapened, if it was ever considered at all. When that happens we run the risk of ending up with a God who would make a lousy parent. I mean seriously, we call God our Heavenly Father and yet if my earthly father had ever reflected the kind of parent that God is often made out to be, I would have either run away from home or been removed by Family and Social Services. Think about it. What kind of parent would permanently disown their child for breaking the rules of the household whether they were broken in ignorance or in willful disobedience? For crying out loud, there are serial murderers on death row whose parents visit them in prison and yet we live with the idea that we’ve given our lives over to a God who should we error will cast us into eternal torment before returning to the party in heaven surrounded by his good children. And what would any of us think of a father who stands in a corner while his child is being tortured at the hands of others without doing everything in his power to intervene? What would we have to say about a mother who provides ample food and protection for her daughter while allowing her son to live out in the cold starving to death? Both of these would appall us, and yet some Christians espouse a concept of God that’s even more negligent and cruel.
Please hear me on this. I’m not saying throwing out everything you believe and hold dear to your faith. What I am suggesting is that you hold each belief up to the lens of God’s love and ask, “How does what I believe about this reflect upon the love of God?” and “How is God’s love seen here?” I’m saying that before we respond to someone elses painful questioning of why me? or why now? we ask ourselves how the words we would speak to them would exude the infinite, matchless love of God rather than offering a familiar answer that rings empty in the soul of the one who is suffering more than we might ever know.
I don’t know what doing such a thing will do in your own life but in mine, it brought about a monumental shift in my theology that’s taken place over a number of years. Some beliefs remained the same, others shifted to encompass a wider understanding and a few were abandoned altogether. And still, it’s a work in progress. It always will be because I’m a slower learner who has a lot of questions remaining.
Re-evaluating faith is for some a scary proposition. When faith has always been central to your life, there’s a fear of looking too closely and questioning too much, but if I can, let me offer you this bit of comfort if you can take it as such. When the love of God is the litmus test for what you believe, all that you’re risking is failing on the side of love. The worst you can do is give the love of God more credit than it deserves, conclude than it reaches farther than it really does or fail to take into account some pre-existing conditions to the unconditional love of God.
If I’m going to be wrong then I’d rather be wrong in thinking too much of the love and grace of God than too little of it.
But then, that’s me.
And by the way, the title of this post expresses the God that’s sometimes communicated through our contradictory notions but not the God who really is; and certainly not the God I worship and adore.
Posted in Love and Grace, Theology 10 Comments »
March 15, 2010
I know that there are a number of you who follow this blog through various subscriptions which means SisterFriends comes to you via email or RSS feed rather than you coming to SisterFriends. As someone who regularly follows more than 100 blogs myself I appreciate the convenience of doing it that way but it comes with the downside that while we’re notified as to any new posts that are added by the blogger we miss the opportunity to read comments that have been contributed by readers, and when it comes to SisterFriends I think there’s where some of the most meaningful content is found as each of you share powerfully and honestly from your own experiences and faith journey.
For that reason, I’m posting just three of the most recent reader comments that have been added to SisterFriends so that their wisdom, faith, and encouragement won’t be missed in the small print at the bottom of a posting. Enjoy!
Sister 1 -
Wow! I had no idea there were other people out there with all these same feelings that are running through my head, but mostly my heart. I was raised that homosexuality is wrong and that you are going to hell if you are gay. I am 33 years old and came out a year ago. For the most part everyone was supportive, considering their world was just turned upside down. The one that mattered the most, my mom has been awsome through it all. Don’t get me wrong. She has cried and denied that her daughter is a lesbian! But now has come to terms with it and just wants me to be happy. I have lost some very close relationships and that saddens me deeply, but I just think about it this way…it’s their loss! I spent my whole life being someone I was not to please everyone (God, my family, society) but at what cost (ME)! I just came to terms with my sexuality and embraced it! Nothing has changed, well I am a lot happier, but I am the same person with the same faith. I love God with all my heart and soul and believe that He died for me…so yes, I have gone through how can I be a lesbian and a Christian? I am just holding on to my faith and the love I have for my Lord and Savior, thank you Anita for this website I needed to know I was not the only one out there! It’s funny how we are so self-centered and like to pity ourselves…oh I’m the only one going through something like this…I should have known better! My heart goes out to everyone out there going through all the heart ache of coming out, just be true to yourself…the rest will follow. And be strong because it’s not going to be easy just hold on to the love and faith you have in God because if you lose that my friend you have lost it all! In God’s love, Yvonne.
Sister 2 -
I only came upon this site in January this year and all I can say is that it has broadened my mind to consider many perspectives on the subject of homosexuality. I am so interested in all the articles and still going through them one at a time. I am throughly enjoying the challenging thinking as I read each article and at the end of it I am most guided by the 2 laws that Jesus gave us – To love God first and to love your neighbour as yourself. Love is all encompassing and I think we humans cannot grasp this mystery easily due to our some form of conditional upbringing.
All I want to say for now is “thank you” for your efforts to bring us a new perspective. It is so liberating to keep challenging our thinking and moving the goalposts. That is what Jesus did in His time here on earth. I enjoyed this article and Dr Walter Wink’s article as well on this subject. I also thought the comments in response to the Wink article that addressed Judaism were good so that we do not clear our understanding of one thing at the expense of another. Good work all around. You should be so proud. You will see me here in the future I hope. For now I am enjoying moving through the thought and heart provoking articles.
Sister 3 -
(This comment was in response to the question “What loss has been your gain?”) It was last Easter during Lent that I found this site. I was struggling with the realization that I was gay and that I knew I could no longer hide and live being dishonest with myself, with my Lord, and with others. And yet, I feared that I would lose everything in my life – my relationship with Jesus, my family, friends, church, leadership and I would ruin my son’s life. I entered a depression as I realized that for 25 adult years, I had eaten to avoid being seen by anyone romantically and to numb the pain and the emotions. It allowed me to pretend that I was in control. The day before Easter, some of the losses had started, and I was ready to no longer live on this Earth. I just wanted to be home with my Father. I didn’t follow through with my plan because God intervened and I realized that nothing could separate me from the love of my God. Certainly not being gay. And that day, I lost my self-righteousness, my view of a God that would judge me for creating me gay. I lost hypocrisy, dishonesty, and my thought that I was in control of my life.
What did I gain? In the year since this momentous decision, I have gained a glimpse of the grace of my God. The kind of grace that makes me fall down on my knees and cry and wonder how I could ever be acceptable to Him, and yet the knowledge that I am. I have gained the knowledge that He created me, and He did so in His fashion, and that He has the perfect plan for my life. And wow, even when I don’t see it, it is indeed the perfect plan. I have gained my emotions, and the ability to turn them over to God for healing when hurt, instead of reaching for the first cookie I could find. I have gained the experience that physical intimacy and touch from a woman is acceptable to my Lord, because He created me as not only an intellectual being, but a sexual being who desires intimacy. I have realized that friends and family who only love or want a relationship with you because you are straight, are not really worth having. And while my parents may still wonder what they did wrong, they still love and want only my happiness for me. My son, wow — I learned that I have a son who loves unconditionally, who does not see race, creed, or sexuality as a reason to treat anyone differently. And while he still can’t pick up his socks or toys, he will be able to pick up life as an adult. I gained a bunch of new friends along the path, and reclaimed ones from my past that I walked away from because they were doing things I didn’t approve of. And finally, I gained a love for me, just as God created me, not perfect by any means, but growing and allowing Him to be in control. This time, it is an honest love – the kind of love that won’t allow me to hide from myself, others or God.
Your question made me look back at the past year, and I have gained so much more than I ever lost. While church, ministry, and even some close friends are gone, there is a new church, a new ministry, and new friends. And those are deeper and more fulfilling because they are based in honesty and the knowledge that my God loves EVERYONE, ALL THE TIME, AND IN THE MOST PERFECT WAY. Now that is a knowledge that surpasses all human understanding and calms one’s heart!
Now that’s what I’m talking about people!
Posted in Affirming, Perspectives, Questioning, SisterFriends 1 Comment »
February 24, 2010
Peace Lutheran is the church were D and I are members. Following our horrific nightmare of a departure from another church in another denomination the pastor and congregation of Peace welcomed us with open, healing arms. Though ordained in another denomination, they honored me by recognizing my heart and commitment as a pastor and have continually received me as such. Each Sunday we worship in the sanctuary where we were married eight years ago this coming Spring and listen to the Good News preached by the pastor who joyfully declared us wife and wife on that most precious of days in our life together. Peace Lutheran is also the congregation that supports this ministry in prayer and conviction and affirms YOU in your humanity and as an equal member in the family of God.
My point being that Peace Lutheran is a wonderful place, a sacred and safe refuge for D and I and for so many others who have stumbled into this house of worship filled with genuinely good and imperfect people and heavily influenced by some of the finest Swedes you’ll ever meet this side of the fjords.
I wish you could all just show up one Sunday morning, worship with us, and feel their welcome….but if you ever all decide to turn up in mass, all I ask is that you give me a heads-up. I need to be sure there are enough cookies for the hospitality hour.
D and I originally went to Peace for a couple years when we first got together and then were away for about four years while I fulfilled my ordination requirements. When we returned, Peace was different. The pews once full on Sunday mornings were now only occupied by a few dozen dear and familiar faces. The entire clergy and support staff had been reduced to the pastor and the office administrator. The choir that had once filled the three rows near the glossy black grand piano could now barely fill a standard-sized station wagon. The diverse array of outreach ministries and community involvement that Peace had been known for in the area had largely been set aside or abandoned because of limitations of budget and bodies. The Sunday School Hour, including their amazing children’s program was no more.
In our absence, this thriving congregation had confronted one of those agonizingly painful times that occurs in any number of churches where humans are involved. Life in the church got messy and uncertain. Conflicting stories developed. A few families left. Feelings were hurt and spirits wounded. And those who remained, who had faithfully endured the fire, showed the exhaustion and battle scars of their collective dark night of the soul. Though D and I were depleted from what we had just experienced at another congregation, we wept for Peace and we worried about their future, now our future with them.
But as Walter Bruggemann wrote in his Lenten prayer, through loss comes gain, through death comes new life.
Battle scars are healing. Weary souls are being restored. The rows of once sparsely-filled pews are being filled again; filled with joy and life and thankfulness, and with a people living out their individual commitment to the Gospel of Christ through being an inclusive, justice-minded, creation-conscious community in and to the world. In financial difficult times we’ve just accomplished an amazing feat together. Last Sunday morning we gathered outside in the rain around a round red charcoal grill and burned our mortgage papers, celebrating that with no debt remaining, we can look ahead to investing ourselves and our resources toward ministries that will reach beyond our walls. Last Sunday was also the first time in nearly five years our children gathered before worship in their new Sunday School classrooms. Tonight over bowls of steaming soup and warm bread we’ll gather for Soup and Sacrament, our weekly Lenten meal and meditation. Yes. Peace is breathing deep again and breathing with life that’s extending beyond our four walls to embrace the world. Once a month the sanctuary is over-flowing on Sunday nights with our Jazz at Peace series that brings people in from all over the Bay area. Neighbors to Peace come with dogs, cats, lizards, ponies and bugs in tow to our annual Festival of the Animals and every fall Peace hosts Holy Convergence, a spectacular interfaith worship service and afternoon that brings together Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Bahia and every seeking soul.
There’s so much more happening at Peace these days but most of all what’s happening is the unfolding of hope long unrealized. There were days I wondered. I wondered if Peace would survive. I wondered if these dear people who had been through so much and been through it with so much dignity could hold on a little longer.
I wondered, but I don’t know why I did when in my own life every loss has led to gain and every death has brought the dawn of new life. There are times I get so stuck in the sorrow and suffering of the Lenten seasons of my life that I forget it’s not the destination where I’ll reside forever but instead it’s merely a moment on the path, a path that always and unfailingly leads to yet another Easter morning and to resurrection and new life.
Today your spirit might be empty from all the loss and death is a veil separating you from life but your spirit will be filled and the veil will be lifted. And if you can’t believe that for yourself today, if you can’t believe it for God, then I and all the others who have already walked that road and caught a glimpse of what lies ahead will believe it for you until you can. You can and you will. Just wait and see.
Posted in Church, Holidays and Special Times 4 Comments »
February 24, 2010
.
Loss is Indeed Our Gain
The pushing and shoving of the world is endless.
…..We are pushed and shoved.
…..And we do our fair share of pushing and shoving
……….in our great anxiety.
And in the middle of that
……….you have set down your beloved suffering son
……….who was like a sheep lead to slaughter
……….who opened not his mouth.
….We seem not able,
….so we ask you to create the spaces in our life
….where we may ponder his suffering
….and your summons for us to suffer with him,
….suspecting that suffering is the only way to come to newness of life.
So we pray for your church in these Lenten days,
….when we are driven to denial -
……..not to notice the suffering,
……..not to engage it,
……..not to acknowledge it.
So be that way of truth among us
….that we should not deceive ourselves.
That we shall see that loss is indeed our gain.
We give you thanks for that mystery from which we live.
Amen.
- Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann
So here’s the question for your own self-reflection and then if you will, to share with us….
Has loss been your gain, and if so, what did you gain?
Okay, that’s technically two questions. Indulge me.
Posted in Holidays and Special Times 3 Comments »
February 11, 2010
How long will grown men and women in this world keep drawing in their coloring books an image of God that makes them sad? – Meister Eckhart
I’m not a big fan of coloring books for children, the ones with the thick black outlines with the white space between them that all but demands where the child will color and what color they will use. There’s no room for the preschool artist to create and dream. A bold outline of a pony filling the page leaves no space for the child who imagines space ships and dragons to bring them to life on paper. The excited new owner of a freshly-opened green and yellow 64 count box of crayons is discouraged from taking all those amazing shades of purple and blue out for a test run when the perfectly shaped stemmed apple limits their choice to red and green. Give a kid a coloring book and you know what you’re going to get but give them a blank sheet of paper and a box of still-pointy crayons and anything is possible. The greatest treasures I’ve been given over the years have come from children, made of cheap recycled newsprint and adorned with drawings of a smiling Jesus with big buck teeth, a wax colored masterpiece of me holding the stick figure hand of the artist who drew it, and pile upon pile of papers covered in rainbows, floating hearts, and sun rays breaking through billowing clouds outlined in cotton candy pink or denim blue. Forget the Guggenheim in New York and the Uffizi in Florence. The most stunning works of art in all the world are hanging just down the street on your neighbor’s refrigerator.
For some of us our faith began as a coloring book we were given as children, pages already imprinted with lines that told us who God was and all that God wanted and expected and demanded of us. Sure, God is love but God also requires. Don’t forget that God loves you just as you are but don’t forget that God also wants you to change. Oh yes, God loves everyone equally but at the same time God consigns that a large number of these everyone’s will spend eternity in hell’s torment.
Leave this space blank. Fill in this space here. Stay inside the lines. Use this color because no other color will do; every other color is wrong. You might as well trade in your box of 64-count crayons for one black crayon and one white crayon; those two over-used crayon nubs at the bottom of the box. No other colors need apply.
When you go through life with a coloring book filled with bold simple static outlines of God there’s no reason to imagine a God beyond the lines. There’s no motivation to dream of something outside and beyond the cardstock cover, and even when we break free and dare to imagine a God who lives and breathes and loves outside the lines, the lines are still there, etched even deeper in our hearts than on the printed page. It would be easier to erase the permanent ink lines printed in a child’s coloring book than it would be to erase the images of God that have followed us, and often haunted us, through our lives. A God of conditions and expectations, a black-robed judge who swings a mean gavel, an unpredictable God of contradictions who demanded the full-scale annihilation of the heathen while providing a means of salvation for all creation.
There are few things more tragically poignant to me than when someone is haunted by their image of God; when the very thought of God passing through their mind causes them fear and sadness or to be hit with nauseating icy bouts of guilt and shame; when talk of God’s love makes them feel as though they are the sole exception from receiving such a thing. I hear it all the time. All the time. I want to believe what you’re saying. I want to believe God loves me. I want to believe God delights in me. I want to believe that who I am is who God has created me to be. But I can’t. I’m afraid God is judging me. I’m afraid of failing God. I’m afraid of what God will do. I’m afraid of going to hell.
That unidentified sound you just heard in the distance was God’s heart breaking accented by my gut wrenching.
All I can think to do is offer you one small suggestion to consider and it goes like this….if your image of God causes you to fear, if the idea of God looking on you makes you feel like a failure, or if there’s even the smallest hint of a doubt that you are being tenderly held this very minute in the love of God, then please, just consider trading in that old battered coloring book you’ve been carting around all your life for a blank canvas and a bottomless multi-tiered box of crayons. Close your eyes. Dream of how big love really is when conceived and held in the heart of God. Imagine a God who dances in delight at the sound of your name. Envision the God of Christ; a gentle shepherd, a compassionate father, a woman giddy at having found her one lost coin. Try to put a picture to unconditional love, unending mercy, and the wonder of divine grace.
And once you see the picture, every a blurry shadow of it, grab a crayon and draw….and draw….and draw.
Oh, in case I failed to mention, the black crayon and white crayon are missing from your box. I took them and you can’t have them back. Ever.
Posted in Periodic Reflections on the Love of God 12 Comments »
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