Pushing Back – and Coming Out

I pastor a small community in the heart of the Bible-Belt. The following email conversation occurred a few weeks ago between a friend and me.  Given the conversation and the much deserved push-back from my friend, I decided to read the following to the community I pastor a few Sundays ago…

Friend:

Mark,
I got this e-mail from a friend that I work with today. I know the friend that she is talking about. Read this and let me know what you think. I'd like to give her your e-mail address if you say it is okay. Peace!

“…do any of you guys know of a gay-friendly church in the central Arkansas area? A friend of mine wants to be baptized and she stepped out on faith, to ask my extremely Pentecostal father-in-law if he would do it, but he’s not comfortable with that. So, I’m trying to find somewhere she might feel valued and included. Would you let me know if you know of someplace that might be a good fit?”

Me:

sure... have her contact me.

our "church position" is somewhat nuanced - will explain when i have a little more time but, bottom line, everyone is welcome.

friend:

I've thought about this. I can't do "church position" is somewhat nuanced." I have done that. Love ya'll. Always will. Can't do hidden agendas anymore. Why doesn't God love us all with no "nuance"? 

Me:

what i mean is that all of our community are not in lockstep on this issue (or any other) one of our values is that we do not have to agree on theologies or doctrines in order to love one another. so, by nuanced, i simply mean that i can't promise that everyone in our community has the same opinion or view on homosexuality - we are too small and organic to have an official "church position" on anything.

that said... MY position is that we are affirming of anyone seeking god; gay, straight, black, white, liberal, conservative, democrat, republican. Also, i have emphatically stated that inclusion is one of our core values and have explained that position like this:

when you hear the word inclusion, when I say "everyone", if you are asking yourself "do you think he means ______..." whatever you put in the blank - the answer is yes! That is exactly who i mean.

so... as a tiny little community with very little official structure, we have no written policy on the issue of homosexuality but the PASTOR's position is that he will baptize, serve communion to, and happily follow jesus with anyone who shows up at r street.

so, again... i would love to meet her and talk with her... and would love to have her be a part of our community if it felt (to her) like a fit. regardless of theology, i can promise you that she will be loved and treasured by all in our community because that is how we roll... family is family and we do not exclude or segregate anyone from our family.

so... my initial response was inadequate but the best i could do with limited time. i hope this clarifies a bit. thanks for pushing back and making me think through my response. it helps me and i hope it helps you as well. families are messy and we have embraced the mess. "church positions" are tidy and we don't do tidy very well. what we DO do well is love god, love each other, and love our neighbor. everything else is secondary.  peace...

 “there are some who see it as their job to stalwartly guard the boundaries of the tent to keep it from crashing, and some who think it our job to be bravely inclusive and stretch the tent.

Either way, it’s misguided because …it’s not our tent.  It’s God’s tent. The wideness of the tent be it the church or society, should only concern me insofar as it points to the great mercy and love of a God who welcomes us all as friends. And of Jesus who welcomes all to his table.

You think I like that?  You think I want to sit at the heavenly banquet next to Ann Coulter?  Not so much.

But that’s what I’m stuck with because I’m in the Jesus business.  And in the Jesus business there is not male or female, jew or greek, slave or free, gay or straight, there is only one category of people: children of God. Which means nobody gets to be special and everybody gets to be loved.”  ~nadia bolz-weber

Most in our community received this well… some did not… but we are all continuing to love one another and trust one another to let love lead and overcome our doctrine. It is a journey well begun.

his kingdom come...

no, seriously... love one another

John 15:9-17
New International Version (NIV)
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit —fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

So… like… seriously – LOVE one another.

I mean it… love one another.

Thomas… pay attention… love one another.

When All We Need is Not Enough

1 John 3:16-24
New International Version (NIV)
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children,let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence:20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

I grew up in a church tradition where phrases like “born again”, “saved”, and “sinner’s prayer” were as common as the rain.  These words and phrases carried deep meaning for me… still do, I guess (although I probably understand them differently than I did as a kid.) Another phrase that takes my back… way back to 1st Baptist Church in Monticello… is this one:

“Personal Relationship with Jesus Christ”

Me and Jesus…

Jesus is my Co-Pilot…

When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death; who is by my side?

Jesus… Just Jesus… Christ alone… All I need.

Jesus plus nothing… A personal relationship.

And I wanted that. I wanted the personal, intimate, “me & Jesus” kind of experience. I pursued it. I prayed the prayer. I received Him in my heart. I believed that he was with me and that he walked with me and that I didn’t need anything or anyone else.

Me & Jesus…

He was all I needed; until I lost him.

My world began to come apart my last two years in high school. My parents divorced when I was 5 and my mom remarried when I was 7. I rarely saw my dad after my mom remarried but reconnected with him when I was about 16.  So did my mom.

When I was 17, my mom told me that she was leaving my stepfather to return to my dad (who was also married at the time). Leaving my home and my school and my friends to return to the man she had left some 12 years earlier.  Things got very real very quickly… my mother realized the foolishness of her actions and my dad realized that he did not really want a “family”. My step-dad took her back and all was forgiven; the crisis was averted… except he didn’t… and it wasn’t.

Over the next year, my step father’s bitterness grew and in the spring of 1982, he left my mother for another woman. My family fell apart and my mother came undone.

And I realized that my personal relationship with Jesus was not enough. I lost my faith… I lost my trust… and I was completely alone.

Genesis 2:18
New International Version (NIV)
18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.

Throughout the creation story, at the end of each day, God uttered this simple and beautiful phrase: “it is good”. Everything he had made was good, perfect, right. Until he looked at the one he had made in his own image… Until he looked into the eyes of the man he had created with this beautiful idea of a personal relationship with his own creator. And for the first time God said: “it is NOT good”

This man; this image of God, was alone. He walked with God. He had a personal relationship with God. He knew God intimately; and yet he was alone.

When I left home for college, I felt more alone than I had ever felt in my life. My family was wrecked beyond repair – and would never really recover. And I had lost, not my belief in God, but my trust and my relationship. I was alone.

I fell in love, married my college sweetheart, and tried to find something to fill the empty space where Jesus used to live. I loved my wife. She loved me. But I was still alone. Lonely. Empty.

I could spend hours telling you what happened over the next few years, about how my wife met Jesus, about how I at first recoiled from her faith and then; found my own faith again. Those are beautiful stories but they are simply the seeds of what God had planted in me… only the beginning of a beautiful story that would soon begin to unfold.

As I re-found my lost faith, I discovered something new… something surprising… something strange. It was no longer “me & Jesus”. Jesus alone was no longer enough. I needed others. I needed family. I needed community. I needed to experience the love of God as it was poured out on me by others. I needed to pour out his love on others.

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

The phrase “one another” appears over 50 times in the new testament.

“be at peace with each other”

 “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

“serve one another in love”

“be patient, bearing with one another in love”

and over and over again…

“love one another”

“love one another”

“love one another”

“love one another”

We are each image bearers of the God who made us. Each of us carry that spark.  It is when those image bearers, those tiny sparks, come near to one another that Christ’s glow becomes the light of dawn. It is when those sparks come closer still that He shines like the light of noonday. It is when we love one another best that he is most visible to us and to the world.

“This is how we know…”

My journey back to my faith did not truly begin to transform me until I brought my faith into community. He did not become fully visible until I saw him in the faces of others - In my wife, in my kids, and in my faith community. I saw him in the joy of birth. I saw him in the grief of death and loss. I saw him in acts of great faith. I saw him in acts of desperation and doubt. He became greater as I became less; and I became less when I became part of a community. Less… and yet more. Not just me and Jesus… not just a personal relationship… Not Christ alone… He became greatest when I began to not only to see him, but to experience him in others. I began to know him as I began to know others. I began to love him as I began to love others.

And… I began to believe that He loved me when I began to be loved… by others.

“This is how we know what love is…”

Over the years, other disappointments have come. Death and loss, dreams unfulfilled. I have faced other circumstances where my faith was in crisis… even in question. I have even experienced the loss of my personal conection to Christ… just as surely as I did when I lost Him in the wreckage of my broken family… but with this difference… even when He is far away, I am not alone. When Jesus seems to have abandoned me… he is still beside me as he is seen in the faces of my community. When I doubt him, my community loves me. When I despair… my family carries me; and by their hands, Jesus carries me. 30 years ago, to lose faith meant to walk alone. Today, when I lose heart, my family sits with me… hopes with me… and waits with me… waits for me to find my way back to Him.

And so… if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, who is by my side..?

Jesus; yes. But not just Jesus…

You are by my side… and you… and you…

And when you reach your valley; I will be by your side.

Many of you have heard me say this…

It’s not about me… it’s about us... It’s not about you… it’s about us.

One of my favorite verses:

Psalm 68:6
6 God sets the lonely in families…

Humanity has two issues… brokenness and loneliness… Christ heals our brokenness and we heal one another’s loneliness. He heals our loneliness when He “sets the lonely in families”.

He sets the lonely in families and then - he brings families together. Small families join with other small families… and his light shines more brightly… more beautifully… more intensely.

We attach ourselves to one another to bring our small and tiny sparks together. We are warmed by the light we see in one another. And one community journeys 80 plus miles to share their sparks with the spark of another community; a beautiful family holding their own fire close to their own hearts. And we bring our fires together… we feel the warmth of the sun… of the SON. and we see Him… we know Him… we experience Him… and He is beautiful.

His kingdom come.

*sunday ~ april 29 - new mt pleasant missionary baptist church ~ cotton plant, ar

Out of Touch

Mark 1: 35-45 (NIV)
35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. 36 Simon and his companions went to look for him, 37 and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”
38 Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” 39 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
41 Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.
43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

Last time we met, Jesus was speaking in the synagogue and then cast an unclean spirit out of a man in the crowd. In the following verses, Jesus’ fame continues to grow as he heals Simon’s mother of a fever and as others brought their sick loved ones to Jesus for healing. We read today that Jesus went away from the village to be alone; to pray in solitude. Even there, he found only a short break as Simon and the others went out and found him, interrupted him to tell him that “everyone is looking for you”. And then Jesus replied “Let’s go somewhere else”.

Not TO the ones looking for him, but to go somewhere else. Make a note there… we’ll come back.

They left the area and went to other areas of Galilee. Preaching – in the synagogues – casting out demons – but notice… no mention of healing.

And then, while in Galilee, a man with leprosy falls on his knees before Jesus and says:

“If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

And Jesus was “indignant”. Indignant?

It is interesting that the NIV uses this word. Most other translations say something much softer; “filled with compassion” or “deeply moved”. But the NIV says “indignant”

So far in our story, Jesus has called his disciples and begun to teach in the synagogues (no mountaintops or wilderness sermons… yet.) Jesus was walking the path of a Rabbi; a teacher. And yet his teaching, his rabbinic ministry, is constantly interrupted by the sick or the possessed or the needy. Even in moments of needed solitude, in private moments with the Father, the press of need would not leave him alone. Look again at verse 38.

“Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

Is it possible that Jesus’ understanding of his call was being challenged? Is it possible that this is why he was frustrated… indignant… because his plan was being interrupted… by his Father’s plan? With those questions in mind, read the rest of the story:

40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
41 Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.
43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

My oldest daughter just turned 22. That is a long time to be a parent. In those 22 years (and 3 additional children) I cannot tell you how many times I have been engrossed in some task I deemed important; reading a book, watching a movie, writing a sermon… only to have a child enter the room and say “hey Dad!?” or, maybe from another room, “daaaaaaaaa-dy…”

I, of course, always put my work aside and look approvingly into my son or daughters’ eyes and say something awesome like, “yeah, honey. whatcha need?”

Right… always… that’s what I do… except when I don’t.

I am a bit ashamed to say that my response is, too often, to forcefully set my work aside, peer over my glasses, sigh, and say… “WHAT…?”

Maybe not exactly indignant, but you get the idea

Jesus had a plan. He had some revelation of his mission but maybe he had not yet seen the whole thing… did not yet know all that he was called to do or be. Maybe he did not see himself as a healer or a miracle worker. And yet what he saw, even if limited, could not limit who he was. And who was he? I don’t necessarily mean his power or his ability to heal. I mean who he really was, as a human. Compassionate, loving, merciful, empathetic.

The world is filled with powerful people; people with the power to make a difference, to change the circumstances of those around them. Power to end hunger or sickness. Power to be a friend to the lonely. Power to see and acknowledge those others do not see. Humanity has power. All the power we need. In fact, Jesus said that our power would allow us to do more and greater things than even he had done. But our power is not who we are. Our power does not define us. Who we are is what is inside. Our acceptance or our intolerance; our mercy or our judgement; our kindness or our cruelty. Power is a tool but the end of power depends on who we are and how we chose to use our power. Are we heroes or villains?

Perhaps Jesus was frustrated; perhaps even angry. But… we was also a man of deep compassion; compassion that would not allow him to turn away anyone in need, no matter how much they might interrupt his plans. The man asked Jesus “if you are willing?” and Jesus replied, “I am”

And Jesus touched this man, a man that was actually illegal to touch, and the man was healed, made clean. A man who had spent maybe years with little or no human contact. A man who had been forced to draw away from society, away from the villages and away from community. Jesus touched him, healed him, and made him clean. Jesus restored this man to the community and gave him back his connection to the human race. And then Jesus makes an odd request.

“Don’t tell anyone.” Why?

Now… remember verse 38?

“Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

Maybe this is a clue?

See, the story ends with the man telling EVERYONE and Jesus’ desire to move through the villages, to preach and walk among the people… that wish is off the table. In the end we are told that:

“Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.”

Jesus healed this man and then… they traded places. The man was restored to his community and Jesus was forced to “stay outside in lonely places.” Jesus moved from one vision of his calling to a larger vision based not on his great power but on his great love for his people… a love that would ultimately drive him further from his people and a love that would ultimately drive them to crucify him. They would crucify him because they too had a vision of his ministry that was interrupted and frustrated. They too became indignant at this man whose heart led him to use his power in ways that would continually frustrate their expectations.

May we be open to the power he has given us and may we find the mercy and love and compassion to use those powers to see his kingdom come.

sarcastic swearing

Nadia Bolz-Weber is one of my "must read" blog heroes. (she had me at "sarcastic")

Great post today that includes this quote:

"I’m not a role model. I’m not really that nice (but I hope that I am kind). I’m just trying to figure out what it looks like to confess the truth about being deeply faithful and deeply flawed at the same time – and how to have humility in all of it without being self-apologetic."

Pretty good place to stand for all of us who are trying to lead (whatever that means) and a really encouraging word for me in light of my 2012 mantra/prayer: "confidence with humility"

his kingdom come