Once upon a time, an itinerate preacher came to a particular town.  His style was different and appealing.  He quickly gathered a following.  His lessons were unorthodox at best, heretical at worst.  The respected religious leaders of the town got together and discussed what should be done about this preacher.  They agreed to keep an eye on him and see if he ever tripped himself up over his unorthodox presentation of doctrines. 

One day they saw him engaged in an activity that they thought was inappropriate for someone committed to preaching God’s message.  This could be their chance to catch him and expose him for the charlatan he was.  They began asking questions of his followers.  “So how does your pastor justify this sort of behavior?”

I dare say we’d all be behind these leaders.  We trust them.  They are trained, ordained and equipped to deal with such things.

Turn back the clock some 2000 years.  When Jesus called Matthew (Levi) into his fold, he spent the evening at Matthew’s house dining with tax-collectors and sinners.  The Pharisees who were suspicious of Jesus’ unorthodox behavior questioned the disciples asking why Jesus chose to dine with tax-collectors and sinners.  Jesus, overhearing the conversation, told them he came to heal the sick not the well.

Forgive me if I skip the easy sermon and take the path less travelled.  We can all identify with the sinners and many of us can identify in one way or another with the tax-collectors who were universally disliked in the community.  I want to write from the perspective of the Pharisees.

You see, their actions and question were legitimate.  We, with our gospel hindsight, know what was going on under the surface here but the Pharisees did not.  While today, the word Pharisee is synonymous with “self-righteous hypocrite,” back then they were the bible scholars of their day.  They were experts in the Mosaic law, both its substance and its application.  When they saw someone being called rabbi who was doing something unorthodox, they had every right, even responsibility, to inject themselves and make sure the purity of doctrine was being upheld.

I ask myself if this story is in the bible just to point out their hypocrisy or is it in there really for my benefit?  If I take a moment to identify with the Pharisees, I realize that we share some important characteristics.  Like them, we Christians have some pretty clear definitions about what it means to be right with God and to live according to his word.  And we also have a long history of working out exactly what Christians should believe.

Just like these Pharisees, when we run across someone who doesn’t fit the mold, our antennae go up and if our suspicions are confirmed, even slightly, our hackles raise along with them.  We are sometimes quick to engage in a swashbuckling clash of bible verses in defense of the truth.

So there is something of a Pharisee inside each of us and I can’t say that this is a universally bad thing.  The inner Pharisee has an important function.  It keeps us from automatically following every wind of doctrine that blows down the lane.  It protects us.  It can warn us off the cyanide-laced grape drink and make us think twice before we give into winds of doctrine that tickle the ears.

But the inner Pharisee also has a handicap because we may come to rely more on our understanding of the bible than learning to identify and understand the voice of God in our lives.  The Pharisees in Jesus’ day knew their scriptures.  They valued the teaching of respected rabbis.  They did their best to live according to what they understood to be the will of God.  Frankly, that sounds like a lot of Christians I know.  And yet, those Pharisees had difficulty recognizing Jesus for who he was.  They were blinded by their understanding of the scriptures and, dare I say it, a kind of pride in the level of “goodness” they had achieved.

We do this too.  No matter how bad we are, we can always find someone who, in comparison, can make us feel better about ourselves.  We take our understanding of the bible and make a kind of idol out of it.  Trusting our own understanding is, in my book, the very nature of the sin of Adam.

For me, the saddest bit about these Pharisees is that their suspicion, fear and perhaps a bit of arrogance did not allow them to enter the tax-collector party and sit down with Jesus.  What would have happened in their lives if they had learned to hear and trust the voice of God even when it seemed to clash with their understanding of the ways one lived according to the law?  You see, their confidence wasn’t in God but in their understanding of God.  They trusted themselves.  They were taught to love the law because it was a gift from God but they came to love the law more than the one who gave it to them.  They had a covenant with God and had been promised a new one from old but they dared not consider it because it seemed to contradict that which they already knew.

We Christians do the same thing far more often than we are apt to admit.  When we run across people that don’t fit our pretty definitions, we pinch our noses, look askance, and even wage mental war listing the things we disapprove of when we encounter them.

We boldly and confidently assert that God will not contradict the bible and we learn to dance around the times when the bible contradicts itself.  Simply saying there aren’t any contradictions or vague passages is fatuous and ignorant but they scare us and we prefer not to look at them.

We never stop to think that if God is truly in-charge of that book, he was in-charge of every contradiction and every vagary.  There in we find both the mystery and magnificence of bible for it is not a stagnant book that we learn about, memorize, master and live up to.  The bible was not designed to replace our relationship with God.  It is not our only access to Him.  The bible isn’t a text book but a user manual which God has designed to require that the earnest reader absolutely maintain a relationship with the author in order to understand and effectively apply it.

My prayer is that unlike those Pharisees, when we meet someone who doesn’t quite fit our pattern of what we think it means to be a Christian, we learn to sit down with one another and listen.  We need to recognize the inner Pharisee for what it is and not allow our fears rob us of the fellowship and a good meal even if the room is filled with tax-collectors and sinners.  After all, Jesus is in there and inside each of us lives the Holy Spirit who is our teacher.

Some gay Christians successfully get married to people of the opposite sex.  They create beautiful families and live quite happily having only sacrificed a satisfying, fulfilling sex-life for the early part of their marriage when they struggle to fight off and sublimate their same-sex attraction.  In their middle-aged and later years, they can rationalize that sex isn’t so important anyway and they get along fine.  They truly love one another.  If they have survived all the temptation for extra-marital relations and/or have healed all the wounds they’ve inflicted on one another in their sexual frustration either with or without infidelity, they would say it was well worth it. Unfortunately, a fair number of people never make it that far and most bear the scars of half-healed wounds.  Damaged families, broken lives and bitter relationships are as likely.

Some gay Christians successfully adapt to a celibate lifestyle.  This is easier said than done and far easier at 60 than at 22.  I’ve met a number of these folks—usually in their later years.  I admire them for having kept their faith for so long.  I just wish they were a little more understanding of the ones who are still in their younger years who are still behaving in a messy manner.  Some of them, even in later years, are dreadfully fearful that someone will “find out.”  Some spend their sex-lives masturbating and repenting while others develop a perspective on sex that is akin the relationship an anorexic or a bulimic has with food.

Some learn to live with double vision.  One side of them comes into focus when they go to church, the other when they are hanging out in video rooms in porno shops.  Yes, there are lots of people who lead double-lives, two faces, two lives.  They keep them nice, tidy and separate.  They hook-up on the Internet or take odd little vacations to clothing-optional hotels inPalm   Springs.  They show up on Sunday looking nice, neat and appropriately Christian.   The thing is that it is the same person who does both.  (Aside:  Before you start casting aspersions toward these folks, consider the things in your life that you don’t want to get out while you deal with them.)

You know what I’ve never ever found?  I have never ever met a person who successfully transitioned from gay to straight.  Never!  I’ve met bi-sexual people who opted to remain faithful to their spouse.  I’ve met “ex-gay” men who married “ex-lesbian” women and who live in a virtually sexless marriage.  I’ve met lots people who claimed that they had been changed but things aren’t always as people say.  Yes, my dears, even Christians tell lies.)   “Oh, you meant that God healed you in faith!  See, I misjudged you.  I thought you were lying.  You are heterosexual by faith.”  I hate to break this to you but a miracle isn’t a miracle until it’s a miracle.

Some say it’s their cross to bear, their version of Paul’s thorn.  “Dear brother, it’s no sin to be tempted.  It’s what you do with that temptation.”   Instead of “dear brother” it should be “Oh Brother!”  You see, I thought if someone lusts for someone, s/he is guilty of adultery in his/her heart.  So I am to believe that God allowed them to be homosexual to see how much will-power they could muster?  God wants to see how long they go before they wipe the lust from their minds.  How insane is this?  How petty is their vision of God?  As for me, I don’t seem myself as a victim but as God’s creation.  God made me the way I am and I trust him with it.

From what I can see, the damage many Christians think comes from homosexuality, actually comes from their own fear of homosexuality.  (Some Christians actually believe there is some sort of demonic hidden agenda being implemented by homosexuals.)  This is absurd.  The only real thing that makes the gay community a community at all is that it is sanctioned and marginalized and all those people are put into one isolation unit.  Who could blame them for making friends on focusing on what makes them similar since differences are what caused their marginalization in the first place?

There is far more damage done to our society, to the church and to the lives of Christians by those who promote hate, anger, bigotry and fear against a group of people who are merely human beings who want to live decent, peaceful lives.  Of course there are extremes on both sides but we can’t fairly paint this picture with a broad brush unless we admit that the vast majority of homosexuals are just like everybody else outside their bedrooms.  In fact, the lion’s portion of kink and perversion—if you want to call it that—happens in heterosexual bedrooms.

Look, if you are one of  those people who have struggled with same-sex attraction (Christian for gay) all your life and have come to a place, in later years, where sex isn’t so important and you are happy, congratulations.   You’ve made it through!  You’ve probably trained yourself to look away when you see an attractive person. Otherwise you are probably repenting for your lustful thoughts.  Fine!  Great!  Love ya to bits!  See ya in church.

But subjecting other people to torment, isolation, marginalization or segregation for something you know will not, cannot change, ever, is nothing short of hell-inspired.   I’m not suggesting that you aren’t “saved.”  Heaven isn’t part of this equation. But compare your experience to the testimonies of survivors of reparative therapies and ex-gay and you see horrors beyond conception and that such horrors are perpetrated in the name of Jesus is artfully demonic. There, I said it.

If God, who can do anything he wants, doesn’t see fit to change it or fix it, I’m not going to try.  I’ll accept his will for my life and it seems that his will is that I go through my life as a gay man.

You may say I am deceived because I maintain that homosexuality is not a sin and LGBT people can live healthy fulfilling Christian lives.  I suggest that perpetrating emotional, physical and spiritual abuse against the LGBT community in the name of Jesus, effectively driving them from our midst, is an even stronger indication of deception.

Homosexuality is not a mental or physical illness.  It does not result in insanity or death except at the hands of homophobic bigots.  There is nothing to cure.   It is not an addiction.  (Yes, sex can be an addiction but equally so for heterosexuals.)  Homosexuality as we know it today is not destructive of anyone or anything except under conditions of suppression and repression created by those who don’t understand, who don’t want to understand, who don’t care and who think the church should be a nice, clean place where good people gather.

Homosexuality isn’t destroying people’s lives.  Let us put the responsibility where it belongs…in the laps of fearful, hate-filled bigots.

I ask you to consider something.  Should church really be a nice, clean place where good people gather?  If so, go dust off your pews and sing your hymns.  Take up your collections and sponsor the political candidates of your choice.  Hold your ice-cream socials and host the annual rummage sale.  Go ahead and send your money to people who aren’t afraid to do the dirty work but who do it in a way that doesn’t offend your sensibilities and who are willing to pander for access to your pocketbook.  “Thank you for helping with our ministry.  Thanks to you thousands of people are healed and saved.  We couldn’t do it without you.”  See, you don’t have to get dirty or put yourself in nose-pinching situations.  You can just write a check.  Don’t forget to claim it as a tax-deduction. God bless you.  There is room in God’s kingdom for everyone who calls on the name of Jesus.

On the other hand, they asked, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?”  Think about this.  Tax collecting isn’t a sin, yet they were suggesting it was equally vile.  In fact, while a government may be corrupt, there is nothing wrong with people paying their taxes.  Jesus even endorsed it, “Give to Caesar…” Tax collectors were simply people that everyone hated.  Sounds like the way our society thinks about LGBT people, doesn’t it?  The only real difference is that tax-collecting was a decision and homosexuality most definitely is not.

And when Jesus responded, what did Jesus mean when he said he came to heal the sick?  What illness was he treating at that moment?  We know about the sin part.  We talk about that all the time.  But only those who have been reviled like tax-collectors perhaps understand the true nature of that illness, its causes and its side effects.  Perhaps the balm he applied was the soothing salve of unconditional love.

Lord, let your church be a place where tax-collectors and sinners gather, where dirty and wounded people are drawn to fresh, flowing, living water.  Let it be a place where the pews never need dusting and hearts sing louder than voices.  Let each of us learn to walk and live in love and in peace with one another and at one with you.  Express your love and desire through us that we may come to experience and understand the greatness of your glory and the power of your word.

Conviction or Confusion?

Last time I wrote, I was pondering a healthy way to talk about sin and for many of us, sin equates with failure, failure to keep our promises, failure to remain obedient, failure to live in the kind of righteousness that we assume is God’s way, usually based on a few favorite bible verses.

From the biblical beginnings we see that sin has a way of building a barrier between us and God.  It has the apparent ability to turn the heavens into brass, convince us that God is not on our side and that we need to make things right.  We say that sin separates us from God but the bible says that nothing, [not even sin], can separate us from the love of God.  (Romans 8:38)

Now,  one of the things just about any ordained minister can say is that once one holds a position of leadership in the church—especially the role of pastor—people start confiding in the leader and confessing their failure.  Sometimes it’s a direct confession.  Sometimes it comes in the form of indirect questions.  “Pastor what if a guy…”

I’ve found that when someone comes to me with such a question or a confession, no matter what it is, the real answer they are seeking is the one that will restore their relationship with God.  They may be asking for alternatives, debating theological questions but what they really want is unincumbered fellowship with God.  AMEN!

Unfortunately too many of us are so impressed with the sins they confess, that we fail to focus on this restoration.  We use verses and platitudes to remind the poor soul what is wrong with what he or she is confessing.  [Thanks for pointing out the obvious, pastor.—if s/he didn’t already know this, s/he wouldn’t be in your office.]  We pray with them, pray for them and encourage them to stay strong.  We assure them of Gods forgiveness and faithfulnees to forgive what they confess.  (1 John 1:9)  We may even offer suggestions for avoiding the sin.

Let me be frank here.  If the awareness of sin is erecting a barrier between a Christian and God, the Christian has just one decision to make.  Either s/he stops sinning entirely [Good luck with that.] or s/he learns to receive the grace of God.  Now we know that never sinning again is not really an option, don’t we?  I mean we can put a dent into the quantity of it but we know that eradicating sin from our lives is impossible.  (1 John 1:8-10)  The troubled person confessing his sin may actually, eventually stop committing a particular sin but there is another one right behind it, ready to take its place in the devilish role condemnation.

Do I really want to wait to eradicate sin entirely in my life before I can fellowship with God?  If this question is ridiculous, so it is with particular reference to any particular activity on our sin list. When someone confesses his or her sin, and we mostly address the sin itself, what message are we sending?  When we qualify grace in any way and particularly when we link it to obedience, we reduce grace to something that is earned.

We must learn to receive and bask in the grace offered us because we can never earn God’s blessings.  Ya gotta learn it, not earn it.  If we maintain mindfulness of grace, the role of sin in our lives withers.  Yes we can hasten the process by our discipline and effort but the very moment we attach any other value to obedience, we undo the grace and replace it with the false ego-centric virtue.  The bible calls this pride.

I was recently speaking with a youth minister who told me that one of his charge came and confessed “struggling with same-sex attraction.”  (That is Christian lingo for “gay.”)  Now he and I disagree on whether or not homosexuality belongs on the list of sins.  I say it doesn’t and he says it does.  Long story short, I asked what he told the teenager?  He gave the typical response.  While he admitted that the temptation may never go away, (some enlightenment there) that the young person would need to develop healthy, Godly relationships with the opposite sex or choose celibacy.  Of course, they prayed together, asking God to help the young person to do just that.

I am appalled at this response on many levels.  First, it focuses on the sin and not grace.  I maintain that doing so is contrary to the gospel and nothing short of hell-inspired.  “God loves you son but you will have to fix this in order to maintain your relationship with God.”  No minister of any training would say something this bluntly but the intention is there all the same and it is heard loudly and clearly by the poor frustrated soul.

Second, it sends the message that the person needs to obtain a certain degree of righteousness of his or her own before s/he can fully experience God’s righteousness.   This is vile and invalidates the work of the cross.  “God loves you daughter but until we see that this thing is under control, we’re going to limit your role in the kingdom and be suspicious of your motives and of anything that comes out of your mouth.”

Third, it cuts off any dialog or opportunity to counsel and direct this young person into a Godly relationship with God and with another human being who may well be of the same gender.  We criticize the licentiousness we perceive in the gay community but we have denied young gay people the ability to learn about Godly relationships within their own context.  How can we teach a young gay man or woman what it means to be a Godly man or woman if we exclude them from “Godly” because heterosexual Christians can’t get beyond the letters LGBTQ?”

As a child of the living God and a worker in his kingdom, I’d rather have the opportunity to teach a young gay man or woman what it means to be a Godly gay man or woman than to lose the chance because we’ve marginalized gay people in general.  Mark my words, we will answer for our bigotry and I thank God for his mercy and grace!

So one of the ways we can have healthier conversations about sin is to place sin in its true context.  It is something we all struggle with not matter which line-item pertains to us.  We are all learning and growing in the body of Christ.  Our progress is defined by our experience of God’s grace as evidenced in our ability to offer pure unconditional love and not by our lack of apparent or visible sinfulness.

In fact, I’ll press the point.  Anyone who seems to be without sin in the congregation has something to hide, especially if that person is vocalizing against the sin and sins of others.  Such preaching is a festering wound.  Let the preachers of hate and bigotry take note.  Nothing is in the darkness that will not be brought out into the light.  (Proverbs 26:26)  I pray that when the time comes, by grace we can express the pure unconditional love of God toward everyone.

In high school and college, it sort of made sense because I went to the school and one might say, the school won but I live in Pittsburgh, pay lots of taxes, don’t make anywhere near the money earned by virtually anyone associated with the team and have never even bought a ticket.  Yet whenever I meet someone from somewhere else, they often just assume that I am as knowledgeable about the Steelers as they are.  In fact, in Pittsburgh, if you are job hunting, you’d better keep up on the local teams.

This very morning, as I lay in bed focusing my attention on God and the blessings in my life, I started to think about the Steelers.  I began to see how the Steelers are like the kingdom of God.  OK, hold onto those stones for just a few minutes.  Let me explain.

Steelers fans really are part of the team.  The franchise is worth little if people don’t buy tickets and shirts and towels and hats and gloves and parkas…ad infinitum.  It would be great if they really, visably showed their appreciation but the Steelers need the peanut vendors, the people who sew the shirts and the ones who cheer the team on.  The Steelers need the ones who buy tickets, talk about the game with their friends and invite others over to watch.  The Steelers need the ones who fashion bean dip into the shape of a football and who anticipate the game on Sunday.

In the kingdom of God, the vast majority of us who are on the team aren’t in the line-up.  No one knows our names and our sins are not fodder for public scandal.  We are not all cut out to be quarterbacks or defensive linemen.  In a real sense, you see, without the vast variety of who we are and how we fit into God’s plan, the body of Christ just might be lame.  We need the people who make the coffee, who set up the chairs and who organize church events.  We need the people who enjoy talking about the message as much as we need the preacher who preached it.

Just as a fan might quietly wear a hat or carry a key-chain, we need the people who know how to deliver comfort with a smile even if there is no preaching going on.  We need the ones who do not hesitate to help even if it is an inconvenience to them.  We need the ones who drop coins into buckets because the Holy Spirit told them to help.  We need the ones who remember to pray and who aren’t afraid to love.

Yes, we are all part of the team.  Oh that we would come to see and appreciate everyone in our Christian family as much as we might admire someone whose role is a bit more public!

There is a downside.  Pittsburghers have more than demonstrated their fickle faithfulness.  When one of our teams doesn’t win the game, the fans seem to lose their enthusiasm and don’t fill the stands.  And so it is with some Christians.  When they see things they don’t like, they don’t fill the stands.  They may not change their key chains but they are the first and often the most vocal critics.

These days, the body if Christ is being challenged because of our apparent bigotry, hate and lack of love.  God forgive us.  Some of us are pulling in ranks and standing by our bigoted guns.  In December of 2011, the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church in Kentucky banned interracial marriage and then quickly overturned the ban because of public outcry.  For most of us, the ban itself was lunacy and unadulterated racism and I ask myself if they overturned that ruling in their hearts as well as in their bylaws.

The ruling to ban interracial marriage is an example of how, in challenging times, many Christians would rather circle the wagons than offer the hand of fellowship to those that are superficially different from us.  Now we are facing challenges and God is working.  Who among us will hear his instruction?  Who among us will risk taking a step in faith?  Who among us, because of fear, will circle the wagons and shoot drawing needless and pointless blood?  How many more games might the Pirates win if they knew Pittsburghers stood behind them?  I realize I’ve mixed my metaphors but you get the point, don’t you?

We are all part of a really big team.  We need even the ones we may not like, the ones we don’t think fit the mold.  We need big folks and little folks.  We need tough guys and broom pushers, and peanut vendors and coffee makers.  We need people who pray as much as we need people who preach.  We need all of us.  Let us learn to love and learn to ditch our egos for humility of Jesus who did not hesitate to wash the stinky feet of the people who followed him.

On the other side of the issue, I also know people who are tired of the browbeating preachers who spend their time warning people off sin and threatening them with hellfire and consequences like missing out on the rapture.

In our society the notion of sin seems to be irrelevant.  What I see has happened is that we lack the vocabulary and the social framework to talk about it in a healthy way.  Understanding sin, sin nature and what it means to commit a sin is important but we don’t seem to be able to talk about it without polarizing and taking extreme positions.

You and I may never agree on a list of sins.  The bible presents more than 600 rules to follow, some of them clearly irrelevant.  Unless you are an expert at Hebrew, you can’t tell which ones are actual sins.  Further complicating the mix are all the nuances and conditional circumstances that come out of  both talmudic and church tradition.  Frankly, in both  rabbinical and Christian circles, there is disagreement.  In short, it’s a loser’s game to try coming up with a definitive list of sins—and as Christians who have canonized the writings of the Apostle Paul, most notably the books of Romans and Galatians, why would we?

Paul actually mentions a number of little lists but surely he knew he wasn’t dealing comprehensively with the subject and if we understand his context in which he was addressing specific situations in specific congregations, we see he wasn’t really dealing with the sin list.    You see, back then Paul mostly was dealing with gentile Christians who were being influenced to take up the Jewish law and he had to take his stand in a clear way.  He was most definitely warning Christians off taking up adherence to the law.

But somehow, for us, his position may not be so clear, especially when we are looking at Paul’s own lists as if there were halos and glowing sparkles around them.  In a nutshell, in order to understand what Paul was on about, we also need to think about the atmosphere of gods and religions in which those gentiles lived and breathed.  In those days, people picked their gods from panoply of choices.  Often these “gods” were as flawed and warped as anyone else.  Just try holding up a morality scale to the Roman and Greek pantheons!  To the gentiles of the day, a good number of the gods available were just a gang immortal creeps who could be bribed through ritual to act favorably on behalf of the supplicant.  They were not admirable characters but ones that had to be placated, satisfied and appeased.

It wasn’t in the paradigm of the gentile that one’s own actual human nature changed as a result of coming into a relationship with the ONE true God.  Additionally, the Jewish system of sacrifices and prescribed ritual didn’t appear to them all that different from what they knew already, which is why those who sought to get gentiles to conform to Jewish prescription, most notably circumcision, would be convincing to them.  (Can you imagine why a grown man would consider this option if he didn’t think it would somehow warrant favor from an immortal being?)  Paul fought the battle against the reapplication of the Jewish Law throughout his ministry and even confronted the Apostle Peter for superficially buying into it.

The argument is familiar to us in the form of the faith vs. works debate and many of us still have trouble with it.  Our community wants to define Christian standard behavior and though many Christians say they believe they are justified by faith, it’s difficult to take them at their word because they also seem to believe that we need to prove it to each other by behaving according to the standard.

It seems obvious to me that Paul was consciously attempting to shift the paradigm of their thinking. (Romans 12:1)  That is, the thinking of the gentiles.  Buy accepting Christianity they became vulnerable to those who, with more experience with the God of the Jews, the one that Jesus professed.

In using those illustrations, most often addressing specific issues within a particular community, Paul was demonstrating that when people follow Jesus, they change.  It wasn’t about going to gatherings, listening to the public reading of scripture and performing rituals like baptism or communion so that God would then bless them.  (How many of us today behave this way for that very reason!)   A relationship with Jesus fundamentally alters a person from the inside out, even though the changes themselves may seem gradual.

OK, so now some 2000 years later, we have a difficult time talking about sin, mostly because we bicker about the lists.  What did Paul mean when he said…?   This is just another way of getting distracted from the point.  (1 Timothy 1:4, Titus 3:9)

Christians range from drawing lines in the sand and attempting to erase them.  We may harm people, ridicule them, belittle them when we disagree with them.  We may develop self-righteous attitudes when comparing ourselves to others.  We may question our own faith and sincerity when we don’t see ourselves living up to the lists that others or we ourselves have accepted or created.  None of these ways of dealing with the sin are healthy.

I believe it is fear, pure fear that causes us to raise a finger of caution when we are engaged in a discussion of grace.  “Oh brother but that doesn’t give us a license to sin…” Of course not, who is looking for one?  Only the law has loopholes.  There are no loopholes in grace.

Why draw a line in the sand when we know that it doesn’t take much for sand to shift?   In one age it is considered wrong for slaves to disobey their masters and in another, slavery itself is the sin.  The sand has shifted and the lines are blurry at best.  I’ve said it time and again, as Christians, we know it isn’t wise to build our spiritual houses on the beach but we surely need to learn to walk in the sand.  Any list of sins that we create will prove faulty in some way, eventually.  It’s not about lists.  And as Paul said, if you are going to keep the law, you’d better keep it all.  (Galatians 5:3)

I know people get angry when I say this but lists are the Old Testament way of dealing with behavior.  Those people, except on rare mention, did NOT have the Holy Spirit in them, guiding them.  God may have been with them but Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit to be IN us.  There is another law, one that is now written in our hearts.  (Romans 2:14-15)

I’ll go out on a limb here.  For us, sin isn’t or shouldn’t be defined as breaking a tenant of the law but it is anything, absolutely anything that gets in the way of our relationship with God.  Forget the lists—holding to a list, even one of Paul’s, doesn’t demonstrate any righteousness at all if you have no relationship with the living One.  We don’t avoid sin because we think it ticks God off when we fall.  We avoid sin in our lives because we don’t want anything to get in the way of our being able to relate to God.  Nothing can truly separate us from the love of God but if our minds and our lives are cluttered with conflict and guilt, we are blinded to the fact that the love of God has changed us.

Early in my Christian walk I was involved in a fellowship that exercised a fair bit of accountability and self-discipline.  I learned a lot of self-control from them.  But when it comes to sin and understanding my freedom from it, I for one, wasn’t so good at that.  Maybe I just missed it but for me back then, it was about identifying those areas in my life that I thought the bible called sin and, presumably with the help of the Holy Spirit, eliminating those habits.  Sometimes it worked.  Sometimes it didn’t.  I wasn’t the only one with this experience or perception.

If we start the clock when I prayed the sinner’s prayer, I’ve been a Christian now for more than 30 years.  And I can say something that should not really offend anybody but it probably will.  I got rid of a lot of bad habits early in my walk with God but honestly that did nothing to reduce or eliminate sin in my life.  It’s like going to the gym.  One works out, gets in shape, feels better about him or herself and ultimately looks better to other people.  Terrific!

However over the process of 30 years, I see that the things that really got in my way of the my relationship  with God have gradually atrophied and some have disappeared.  I cannot honestly put this down to my discipline.  I have simply changed.  I have been transformed.  My mind has been renewed.  (Romans 12:1-2)

Certainly we all mature whether we walk with God or not—some for the better others for the worse.  I am not talking about mere maturation.  If I were, I’d be pretty much done.  But the process continues.  My self-discipline has never come to more than self-discipline.   The change, the fruit f my relationship with God is just that…a natural product of my relationship with Him.

Why do we struggle with trusting God with this for ourselves and for others?

Once when I was in the hospital a nurse woke me up and told me to breath because a monitor told her I was oxygen deprived.  I never knew or realized it.  Sin is subtle like that.  Sin is a poison but it is more like lead than cyanide.  Lead gradually kills and cyanide does the job in a few seconds.  Anything so bold and obvious as to be placed on a list is a symptom, not the disease.  To this poison, there is only one antidote and it is administered continually throughout our physical lives.  It’s called grace and it has no comprehensible limits.

As we walk with God, we experience more and more of his Grace, not because there is more but because we are more able to experience it.  You see; it heals us.  In deed, it changes us.  So if you are struggling with sin or sins or sinning, the answer is more than not allowing yourself to indulge the habit or feeding the flesh.  The answer is grace.  If you want to see your life change, spend time with him.  When you cooperate, the bible calls this obedience,  the process of your renewal really seems to happen more quickly.

I think it is important to note this because if a future dance career wasn’t the motivation, what was? Could it have been anything other than she wanted her child to be happy? I ask all the parents out there, at your kids’ worst behavior, how many of you want anything less for them than happiness in life. Even all the discipline you dole out, isn’t it because you believe it will help them have a better life in the future, be more prepared for what lay ahead?

I think now of the father of the prodigal son. He gave that snippy little brat his inheritance up front and let him go. In the weeks, months and maybe years while that kid squandered his father’s wealth, did he lay away resenting his son? Did he burn with anger over the absolute nerve of that little brat? Did he punish himself for having done something wrong with that kid? Or in his deepest desire, did he really hope that his son was happy?

My cousin has been at times in a frightful mental state. He is estranged from us. While we both grew up in a time and in a family that firmly believed in a slap for bad behavior, neither of us were abused but he thinks he had a terrible childhood and has cut himself off from the entire family, including his mother. (I have say here. We were all there. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in the Sahara that he was abused. It just couldn’t have been hidden from us. If it had happened, we would have known. We might well have covered it up but we would have known. You’ll just have to take my word for that.) I go to such extent only to tell you that the thing that keeps his mother up at night isn’t that he thinks he was abused and has made that clear to the entire family but that he is unhappy.

Jesus said, “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil (sinful), know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:9-11

Talk to God today. If you are unhappy, tell him. Ask him to take care of you. He isn’t first going to go through the litany of your wrong doing and mistakes. He isn’t going to tell you to get it together before you ask a second time. My cousin has no chance to know that his mother, and the rest of the family, truly love him because he is estranged from us. How, if he is estranged from us, can we ever show him our love?  In the same manner, if you think of God as an abusive, cruel task-master, how are you ever to learn of his parental love?

Today was the day Mr. Camping predicted would be the real day for Jesus to return. Mr. Camping, (Rev.) is apparently recovering from a stroke he suffered yesterday, or so the news reported this morning.   I guess Mr.  Camping and I are in the same boat.  Still here.

When I hear people expound their ideas about the end of times, the preachers who warn us, the evangelists who threaten us, the nice people at dinner who spend hours every week discussing bible prophecy, I wonder what good they think they are doing.

Certainly, the preachers and evangelists have the idea that they are influencing people to “get right with God.”  The bible recounts a number of times when Jesus himself spoke  apocalypticly though it can be argued that compared to whatever else he said, most of it not memorable enough to get into the books, far outweighs those few pithy end-of-times exhortations that the writers of the gospels felt were newsworthy.  (Before you get mad at me, read on!)

I also wonder at the quality of converts these guys who focus on the end times think they are getting. If they are anything like those people who fill their days with bible prophecy, I can’t see what good they are.  They spend so much of their time thinking about what will happen they miss what is happening all  around them.  Events in the world are merely more evidence for them that the end is near.  I’ve heard them called, “So heavenly minded, they are no earthly good.”

I suppose if we focus on the apocalypse, there really is no point is doing anything other than preaching and evangelizing.  Why bother feeding the hungry, caring for the sick or clothing the naked or comforting those who mourn?  I suppose there is no point in making peace, standing up for what is right, fighting to change the world.  Since Jesus is coming so soon.

Why not live as if he has already come?  Forget your end-of-times philosophy and get to work.  Jesus needs you.

How?  In the book of Matthew, Chapter 25—go and read it if you dare—just after one of those pithy end-of-times speeches, Jesus told us plainly.  If there is anyone hurting, hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, lonely or in prison,  Jesus is hurting, hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, lonely or in prison.  Add to that list any of our current social ills. If anyone is addicted, abused, unable to afford healthcare, homeless, facing eviction or foreclosure, therefore  Jesus too is suffering those ills.

Quite frankly, I’m not interested in the evangelist who preaches a moving sermon but who fails to motivate people to do more than “get right with God” –as if some prayer at the end of the meeting makes everything ok.  The preachers who so passionately warn us that the end is so near, should likewise stop passing around the collection plate.  What need have they of money when Jesus might return before the secretary can get the deposit to the bank?  And all those people who sit around the dinner table discussing bible prophecy need to get off their fat sitters and get to work.

I once heard a comedian say, “Jesus is coming, look busy.”  Frankly, while it made me laugh, it wasn’t a bad message –with some editing.  Jesus is coming someday, so while you wait, get busy.  You don’t have to start a prison ministry to participate.  Everyday you have opportunities to make life better for someone else.  I dare you to attempt to live a day without seeing at least one of those opportunities come your way.  Why not offer a helping hand, a smile and some respect to others?  If you have a few extra hours, you might volunteer a little–and not only at church where you are surrounded by people you like.  Take a risk, will ya?

In my childhood mind, the answer was always, yes and a sort of hidden agenda that we should be responsible for one another in one way or another. Flash forward to my early time in college fellowship during a time that would later be labeled the accountability movement.  We felt a real responsibility and commitment  toward one another.

We often shared with one another the things that disturbed us, the struggles we confronted, even if those struggles related to some problematic sin.  James 5:16 was our practice. In response, the rest of us would encourage one another with scripture basically quoting verses we thought applicable.   We remembered one another in prayer and when we met, if we had a private moment, we might ask how things were going with the struggle.

For the most part, it was a safe and nurturing environment.  Certainly, there were things that some of us did not confess or share either out of fear or embarrassment.  There were other times when it seemed obvious that we were utterly unequipped to deal with some of the things we did share.  We were quite young, after all.

There were times when a brother or sister would be discovered in some activity that drew the disapproval of the rest of the group and at the time, we as individuals or perhaps the leaders felt the need to address the issue directly.

Matthew 18:15-18 seems to support this idea.  In the NIV translation it reads: “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of  ou. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to  listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

There is some debate over whether or not the original Greek warrants the catchy phrase, “against you, as in: If your brother sins against you…  Some translations leave that part out and I’m not enough of a Greek scholar to argue the difference in translation.

Jesus was very clear when he addressed the practice of confronting one another about sins we see in others.  He said in Matthew 7:3-4: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye.  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see
clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Now, I wonder about this contrast.  It certainly causes me to prefer the “against you” emphasis, which is more consistent with Jesus sawdust/plank illustration.  But then I ask, what should my response be if I see my brother engaged in sin, say cheating on his wife?

If he confesses to me, James 5:16 comes into play but what if he doesn’t confess?  Should I approach him?

In college, we certainly thought it was our duty to do so.   Am I my brother’s keeper?  What do you think?

I bring this up because yesterday’s sermon, by a guest speaker at church, was about the second coming of Christ and all the apocalyptic mess that will come with it.  I preface what I am about to say by pointing out that everything the man said was “biblical.”  I don’t even have much to debate in terms of his interpretation of the scriptures.  But I do wonder at what it was exactly he hoped to accomplish through the message.

I trust he prayed and believed he was delivering his message from God and perhaps he was.  That is a matter that is between my brother and his father.  But, my days of blindly  accepting what is spoken from in front of a church are long over. (Thank you Jesus for the Holy Spirit.)  I don’t rely on anyone to hear God’s voice for me and I don’t automatically trust what I hear in church no matter how biblical it sounds.  So, let me say, the Holy Spirit did not convict me in the slightest by the message.  I did not question the veracity,  validity or quality of my relationship with God and when I walked out, my heart wasn’t hardened, it was broken and grieving.  We’ve been taught that the word of God is a two-edged sword and too many of us wield it a little too carelessly and end up having to nurse unintended wounds.  But God’s grace is present even for that.

Jesus taught us to judge a tree by it’s fruit.  I imagine that a significant number of hands went up at the end of the message and that is seen as fruit.  (I don’t know how many hands went up or even how he concluded his message; I left early.) It doesn’t matter how many hands went up at the alter call.  It’s low hanging fruit.  In business consulting we always look for the low hanging fruit because it impresses our client.  It’s a big show for little work.  Sometimes however, low hanging fruit leaves an aftertaste.  In the business world, one has to think through the consequences before picking low-hanging fruit which looks tasty but can leave a company with a kind of corporate dysentery.

Here’s what I mean.  The person who decides to serve God out of fear of punishment, or in the case of yesterday’s sermon, the fear of being left behind at the rapture, starts off on the wrong foot. While I do not intend to debate the doctrine of the rapture, I certainly understand the scriptures referenced to support that doctrine were intended to be a comfort not a threat.

We are called into a relationship with God.  Jesus was very direct in pointing out that our relationship with God is one of child and parent, not servant and master.  Certainly raising a child will require some form of instruction and discipline and we as God’s children need to receive that instruction and use it.  But, if our relationship with God is predicated on the fear that he might drop a bomb on on us if we don’t live up to his expectations, we’re doomed to struggle and fail.  Not only that, as we progress in our lives and continue to fail, as we all do, we are likely develop a kind of brooding resentment that will later require therapy of a drastic sort.

Defusing the Bomb:  How can I trust him if his kindness and grace are, in my own perverted thinking, dependent on my obedience?  Can I be sure that I’ve even understood what obedience is?  Earthly parents fall short of perfect grace toward their children and I think that is why we have such trouble receiving such grace from God.  Even so, how many parents among us would be willing to threaten our children with disowning and abandonment to obtain superficial, fear-based obedience at the cost of a true relationship with them?

So, if your relationship with God is based on fear of punishment or abandonment, I encourage you to spend more time getting to know your heavenly father.  Your pastor or the guest preacher at your church is not charged with hearing God’s voice for you.  You’ve got to do that on your own.  (John 10:27)

“As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you man instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor pay attention to myths (stuff people make up to explain what they do not understand) and endless genealogies (BTW: found in scripture) which give rise to mere speculation (Ah, so we can indeed, misuse the bible.) rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith.  But the goal of our instruction (perhaps toward those teachers who are messing up?) is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”  (1 Timothy 1:3-5 NASB.)

I think that when we focus our obedience on avoiding some action, thought or intention we are missing the point.  Certainly, we have a lot of information about what is and is not good for us to do or think and we would do well to pay attention to that.  I just don’t think that obedience means NOT doing something—a misconception many of us have.

Is it not important to understand that obedience is active?  Obedience involves doing something, behaving in a certain way, thinking in the way God indicates and when that way conflicts with the ways of society or those around us, it means making a decision to choose what God has commanded.   And we need to remember that Jesus took a strong stand on the issur of what God’s commandment actually is.

Jesus commanded that we love one another.  (John 13:34)  He called it a new commandment but it is clear that he knew this commandment was not in conflict with the law. (Matthew 22:36-40)  Paul later emphasized the point that no matter how wonderfully we behave, if we do so outside of love, there is no value of obedience in the act.  (1 Corinthians 13)

Love is not easy thing to accomplish.  Love isn’t all about plush animals.  It isn’t hearts and cupids.  It isn’t even the tough love we have to employ sometimes.  Jesus’ command that we love one another as he loved us is virtually impossible unless that love, His love, resides in us.  Before his acsention, he promised us something that is astounding.  The Holy Breath (breath = spirit) of God would come and reside in us.  God
in us.  God IN us.  GOD IN US!

Yes, there is a decision to be made.  Will we submit to the love of God, which will result in effectively changing virtually every aspect of our lives or will we, like Adam before you, choose to judge everything item per item using the knowledge of good and evil which we inherited from Adam and also which God said would surely bring death?  (Genesis 2:17)  How proud we seem of the ability to know good and evil!  It is dispicable especially when aimed at someone else–and especially so when we think we are doing it in love–which is a perverted love at best.  Why do you think Jesus instructed men who had been educated in the law to not bother attempting to remove the specks one another’s eyes when they had a plank in their own? (Luke 6:42)

Why is it that when we hear the word obedience, our minds immediately go to areas we think we haven’t obeyed?  Yet we seem to so easily over look the fact that our first and foremost commandment is to love and if we are not actively engaged in love there is no obedience at all.  No matter how hard we fight sin, no matter how often we pray or go to church, no matter how much we sacrifice to give to others, no matter how hard we try to follow the rules:  If it isn’t love, it isn’t obedience and it isn’t God.

Surely in the context of the new covenant and especially after the day of Pentecost, the way we obey is no longer merely a matter of following the rules, which we could never fully do anyway.  (Thus we needed Jesus, the whole point of the Gospel.)

Obedience is truly a matter of submitting to the God who has decided to live in us, speak to us, teach us, guide us and demonstrate his love through us.

We used to sing a song, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”  Making that true in our own lives is the first matter of obedience.  Let us submit to the Spirit of God that he may teach us to love others as he loves us.