This past week has been a terrible example of who Jesus is, and what Jesus is all about. Jesus is not a psychopathic God who would suggest or condone the burning of the Quran if the Islamic Center in New York City is not moved further than two blocks from Ground Zero. Some how Pastor Jones in Florida got a lot of media attention because he and his 50 member congregation planned an act of violence towards people who were not Christian. The media blew up the story and evil became the center attraction and attention. The idea that God would condone a psycho-path became a media frenzy and Jesus got a bad name.
Every time Rev. Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson, Bryan Fischer, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Lou Engle, and Concerned Women for America open their mouths and terrorize lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning and queer people and women who have had abortions, Jesus Christ gets a bad name. When an ex-gay ministry promotes changing an individuals sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression by telling an LGBTQ person to lie to themselves about who they are, who and how they love, Jesus Christ gets a bad name. Jesus is portrayed as a nice guy, who just couldn't love a member of the Islamic religion, or someone who is LGBTQ unless they were totally Christian. The impression given is that God can only love and work in the lives of those who are heterosexual, or single gender minded, everyone else is left in the cold.
In our political election cycle it is being suggested that it is more important to give voice to corporations and businesses with multi-billion dollar profits. Those who are unemployed, have no health insurance, who have lost their jobs, small businesses, homes, careers, hopes and dreams for a future, their voices are not as important as the unlimited dollars corporations can spend on elections. God is given a bad name, because the Deity we call God, is suppose to be some mighty CEO of a universal corporation, and not the Savior of those who are in need, who wonder whether or not they have any hope of having what they need from one moment to the next.
The readings for this weekend, suggest that God is the Good and Loving Shepherd. God wants to enter into the hearts and minds of all those who feel that they have lost their way and cannot find their way home. In Luke 15: 1-10 Jesus says that God is the Shepherd who after having lost one sheep goes looking for the one sheep that cannot find their way back to God. Upon finding the lost sheep, God places us on God's loving shoulders and carries us back. God rejoices when those who have become lost, because chased out by oppression and discrimination by wolves in the sheep's clothing of "Christian Values", find their way back to God, so that God can heal us and help make us whole people. God is like a woman who has lost a single coin. She so wants to find that coin that she sweeps out her entire home literally turns her home upside down until she finds that coin. When Mother God finds that coin that has been lost, God calls together a party to celebrate that we have been found again by God, and placed into the treasury that is God's loved children.
All of us are sinners. Every single one of us have "fallen short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23). For someone who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning or queer, we fall short of the glory of God when we deny the very reality of who we are. When we refuse to love as someone who is LGBTQ because we want to live up to the expectations of a society that prefers someone be heterosexual or single gendered minded, we are deceived and we are being deceived. When we choose to hide ourselves in the closet of death, and play around with people being irresponsible with others, our loved one's and those who are married to someone else but lying behind someone else's back, we are sinning. When we choose the celibate Priest hood to avoid admitting who we are, and how we love and we use our confusion to ruin relationships with other people and between other people, we are lying and we are sinning.
God wants us to come home to God as we are, not as others want us to be. God's love is stronger than our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression. God's love is better than all of the rejection that we experience from our families, friends, church communities and work places. God's love is extravagant and all inclusive. God's love does not scape goat anyone. God's love in Jesus does not make Christianity a "monopoly on truth" that gives us the right to completely disregard the common good of others who are not Christian, Straight, Single Gender minded, male, wealthy, able to speak or write English, able to work full time, healthy or able to bear children. Regardless of who we are or what we have done, God is searching for us to bring us home to God.
In today's second Reading of 1 Timothy 1: 12-17 Paul admits that he once was one of the worst sinners. If only Paul knew how much his writings would eventually affect women and LGBTQ people, would he be saying today that he was the worst of sinners? Would Paul confess to persecuting Jesus in those who were different from himself? Yet., even in his day Paul knew that the only way that he would know forgiveness and inclusion was to trust in God and believe in Jesus. Are those who know God as Allah and believe in the words of Mohammed to draw them closer to Allah so that they may know peace and love in their lives, really condemned by our God, who is the Allah that they worship? Do we really think that God is that narrow minded or that exclusive? The Christian Gospel and the Bible do not suggest such.
In today's Old Testament Reading we read an exchange between Moses and God in Exodus 32: 7-14. God is disappointed because the Israel that was led out of slavery has chosen to worship the molten calf. God wants to destroy them. But through Moses' plea with God, God changes God's mind. God is the God of Extravagant and Inclusive love, and that never changes. What changes? Our understanding of just how extravagant and inclusive God's love is. When we think we have come to the end of the road, and all the junk of life has dropped us to the very bottom and it seems there is no way out, God's love helps us know that we are not alone. God's love helps us to take things one step at time and find our way to where God wants us. Our addictions? They do not have to own us. Our own internalized homophobia, islamophobia, anti-semetism, sexism, self torture? They do not have to own us and keep God from bringing us where God wants us. God wants to love us to the very core of our being. God's love wants to show us that we are never alone, that we are always the "apple of God's eye, and under the shadow of God's wings" (17:8).
Who ever you are who reads my blogs. Who ever you are who disagrees with the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ, and many other churches because we stand with LGBTQ people, Islamic people, Jewish people and all other minorities. May you know what we know, that God's extravagant love is unconditional and all inclusive. May that realization stop the violence, cruelty and hate speech. May the world, our country and the Church become a better place of peace, love and full acceptance of everyone, so that God's love may become better known, and Jesus will finally get the good name he so richly deserves.
O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Proper 19, Book of Common Prayer, Page 233).
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen. (Prayer for Mission, Book of Common Prayer, Page 101).
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. (Prayer Attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, Book of Common Prayer, Page 833).
No comments:
Post a Comment