So it’s January 1, 2009.
What a last few weeks we had in 2008.
It began with inviting a comedian to take our entire Sunday service to kick off Christmas – even my open minded, golf playing, now also pheasant and Bambi hunting wannabee yuppie younger brother who loves the music of Queen and has over 5000 songs on his iPod sync’d to his big Merc thinks that was pretty risky!
Then it was running a church service with two adults suspended on a plank of wood at what seemed like 30 feet high (it was more like 4 feet) all to illustrate Joseph going out on a limb for God. It felt like 30 feet high because inadvertently one of the people I spontaneously chose to help me suffers from acrophobia. And then another couple I chose might be more than a couple …maybe there were three people out on the plank. Of course we’d calculated the weight to anchor measurements – hopefully we had it right…..as we heard the plank make a breaking sound!!!
Sunday service planning and execution is no easy business.
But then came the request to host a funeral service in our worship center – for the local Buddhist congregation – incense, Buddhist altar and all.
The last month of the year was a risky month.
But is love not always risky.
We went ahead with the Buddhist ceremony in our facility because Jesus told us very clearly to ‘love our neighbors.’
Never easy to love.
Risky to love.
Hard sometimes to love.
But is that not the core of our faith.
Love.
Love moved God.
Love moved Jesus.
Love called us.
So we sit at the start of 2009.
I know this year will have its share of risky decisions. Not because our church staff is sitting around dreaming of what next whacky thing to pull off just to be controversial - although sometimes we get up to that also (how else do pastors have fun) - but because we are committed to following the way of Jesus which is a way of love.
Love can’t not be risky.
What is so sad, and so urgently in need of fixing, is that this risky form of love is the very opposite to how people perceive Christians.
Let’s take the Prop 8 battle of November.
Whether right or wrong (check out my blog of June 11, 08 “Are you martyring or being a martyr.”) Christians cannot enter into this debate without being viewed as bigots with hate and homophobia because for way too long Christians have failed to show any love - even a crumb of love towards those who do not share their views.
That historic failure leaves Christians with no right now to speak.
There is a warning Christians in America need to heed from what happened in the UK in the late 1980’s. Christian hate and bigotry left them powerless to speak with any impact and subsequently Christianity slid from a place of influence to a silent, mocked voice. The results - Evangelicals dropped from 25% of the population down to a mere 7% and are still slipping.
May 2009 be a year we put the brakes on our arrogant assumption that because we’re right we should be listened to, and may it be a year that we hit the throttle of demonstrating risky love.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
It's difficult to respond because I am so struggling with loving others right now and must continually look to God for the answers outside my own biases as well as the biases of those around me. However, I feel compelled to say something. I was in a meeting the other day and a fellow worker shared with me about the Buddhist funeral. He attends the Buddhist church and said, "It's great to see that we can all come together as one family of God and put aside our differences". I was deeply troubled by his words. I have quite a bit of respect for this person. He is a man of integrity with a heart for those around him. However, either he misconstrued the act of hospitality or we are way out of line in opening our doors to another religion. I further felt troubled when we had communion and you rightly said that God meets us at the communion table. It is a holy and deeply mysterious celebration of God's presence when we share communion. I couldn't help but think of the incense being burned to the Buddhist god in a place of worship committed to our God. Are we not, then, inviting a demonic Spirit into our midst through their sacrament just as Jesus' presence is manifest in ours? I hope I'm wrong and that you can possibly clear this up for me.
I dont disagree with you that as christains we have lost our balance as far as loving our nieghbor. But i think you use the minorty to represent the majority, but i can be wrong about that. my biggest concern is that in the fifteenth chapter of John, Jesus speaks about love and truth, and in chapter one of John it says that Jesus came from the father, full of grace and truth 1r
Sorry for the premature comment that I sent which is the second comment, I hit the publish your comment by mistake. But to finish my thoughts as far as christains standing for truth in love and grace. There is going to be a tension as John said regarding the world hating us for following Jesus and the truth that he gave us. Many christains today do not want to be hated by the world, so in holding to both truths, that we are to love our neighbor with grace and truth, we usually fall off one side or the other. I hope you struggle to maintain the balance, its not easy as I know my own heart. But as I read the gospels I see that Jesus never compromised his love for the world and the truth that he lived.
Unfortunately, perception is reality in most cases. However, we can't control how others are going to perceive our loving actions as disciples of Christ. Love is messy. I love what the church is doing because God takes messes and gives them purpose and identity. He created us from mud and spit. I would think that he can take our messy love and bring about radical change in Reedley and beyond that we can't even fathom.
I have a confession to make. This is good stuff because I’m realizing that I want to go deeper in my relationships. I, too, am one who posts anonymously when I feel led to speak in a way that seems controversial or confrontational. However, I want moiré in my relationships with God and others. We are called to speak the Truth to each other in love and this includes risky, potentially hurtful communication. I’m the one who posted on Musings of a Scottish Pastor, “why we deserve to lost prop 8” with the post beginning “it’s difficult to respond…”. I felt convicted yet didn’t want to risk relational tension for the sake of finding out the Truth. However, the real truth is that to experience true relationship, we need to come out of the shadows and dialogue through the tough issues.
In John Burke’s book, “Soul Revolution”, he mentions Bill Hybel’s concept of speaking the last 10 percent. “Sometimes love must be bold. Bold enough to say things to one another that we usually lack the courage to say.” I want to find those blind spots in myself that keep me from growing relationally in the Spirit. However, withholding that from others will also withhold that from me. I want to go deeper and it begins one conversation at a time. Thanks Ed and thanks anonymous for showing me this truth.
Maybe this is more an issue of, what are we comparing ourselves with? rather than, did we deserve to or not to lose Prop 8? Sure there are theological and biblical reasons for holding a position on this issue, however, there are theological and biblical reasons for holding positions on gossip, drunkenness, lying (even those 'little white lies'), jealously, etc. So, what are you comparing yourself to? Are you saying that you aren't as bad as someone else because you haven't experienced their sin even though your jealous over that co-worker, or constantly lie to those at school or work about why you can't do certain things? You see, the reasons behind Prop. 8 are meaningless if we aren't taking care of our own issues. The book of James say's that if you are living by the law and break any one of them, "your guilty of breaking all of them". God's standard is perfection- are you there? When we finally come to the realization that it's only through Jesus death and resurrection that we or anyone else can come to him - I know that we mentally ascend to this, but do we really believe it?- that we will finally be able to love like Him. When we finally love like Him, then we can begin to minister and chat with those who are struggling with their own issues. You see, we will never be able to love like Jesus if we don't know what it means to truly come to Him. If we are proudly holding on to some kind of comparison that puts us above someone else we will never be able to broach the theological hurdle or those points that separate us on Prop. 8. The fear here is this: a lot of Christians say that they are "saved by faith" and yet live like they are under the law. If you say you do or don't do certain things and this is what separates you from those 'non'-Christians', you are totally wrong. What separates those who believe in Jesus as savior is the understanding that the blood He shed on the cross was for our sins and his life after death was for our hope. God loved us enough to do this for us. When we understand this and are able to share this with those who don't share this faith with us because no 'christian' has ever loved them enough to simply be their friend- instead, most have only heard how sinful they are and then they are hit over the head with bible verses-then and only then will we be able to discuss Prop 8. So, did we deserve to lose Prop 8? To use a word of Solomon, it's 'Meaningless'. If we love them to Jesus, realizing that we aren't better than them we just know someone that they need to know, Prop 8 will take care of itself.
Post a Comment