As anyone who's read my past blog posts know, it's been quite a while since my last entry. Just about 7 months. I guess you could say that I've been embodying the Prodigal Son over that time. Yes, I've still been attending church fairly regularly. Yes, I'm still listening to a lot of Christian radio (both music and sermons and homilies). That said, I've definitely been living below God's expectations of me in other areas of my life. I'm probably drinking alcohol a little more than He would appreciate. I'm still probably not as good a father/husband/friend/brother, etc. as He would want me to be. I'm still probably more judgmental than He would like to see. I certainly don't seek Him as often as He'd like me to.
I could sit here and say that life has gotten in the way over the last several months with new roles at work, loss of friends and family, volunteering with my son's Cub Scout's group, etc. After all, who has the time to devote to living a Godly lifestyle? It's too hard, right? The honest thing would be tell you that I've gotten lazy. There is all too often a sporting event on the TV that I'd rather watch, or some other program to watch with the wife and kids. A large reason for my absence from the blog is that I've not really felt like I had much to contribute.
So why return to the blog at this point? Today's sermon at church really struck a chord with me. The message was appropriate for this time of year and seemed magnified when coupled with recent news events of the last several days. It was a message I feel needs to be shared. And before I begin, I must say I can't take credit for much of what is to follow. This will largely be a paraphrase from a our visiting rector, who was a representative from the Diocese. With apologies, I can't remember her name and I neglected to bring home the service booklet that named her.
As practicing Christians know, we are in the Advent portion of the church calendar. We are preparing for the coming of Christ through his birth in Bethlehem. Advent is kind of a unique season. While in the scriptures we read lessons that are preparing us for the coming of Christ through his birth in Bethlehem, it is juxtaposed against the larger backdrop of preparing, in a general way, for the coming of Christ in His return in what many call the Rapture. His Second Coming.
Today's Gospel reading was from Matthew (Ch. 11, verses 2-11). In it, we find John the Baptist in prison for professing the coming of the Messiah. We can imagine him in the darkness of a cell, second-guessing everything he'd done up to that point in his life. If Christ was the Messiah, why wasn't he toppling the regimes and bringing peace and prosperity to the Jewish people as was being proclaimed by all of the Old Testament prophets? Why hadn't he been able to keep John the Baptist out of prison? He was supposed to be all powerful, right? In his doubting mind, John the Baptist sends his own disciples out to Jesus to ask if Jesus is in fact "the one". Jesus answers them by telling them to go tell John everything that they're witnessing. Blind receiving sight. Lame walking. Lepers being cleansed. Deaf gaining hearing. Dead being raised to life. The poor having good news being brought to them.
The message in the Gospel seems pretty straight forward. While the Jews had certain ideas about what the Messiah was supposed to be and was supposed to do and what the outcome of his arrival would be mean for them, they weren't sure how all of that was supposed to come about and what it would really look like. They knew things would be different. They just misunderstood how the change would come into being. Instead of the fire and brimstone and battles and blood they had come to expect, this change would be fostered through different means.
We could stop there and we have a pretty darn good lesson to go home and stew on for the next week. What she talked about next was the frosting on an otherwise already delicious cake. She talked about everyone having in their proverbial backyard two beasts of burden. An ass of expectation and an ox of passion. True, the ass, that most stubborn of animals, can keep us trudging through the tough times when we'd rather stop. But the ass will all too easily keep us with eyes fixed on unrealistic expectations. Likewise the ox. It's power is often what we need when we find ourselves carrying loads we would otherwise think are too cumbersome to carry. But passions carried too strongly can blind us to what we truly need for ourselves, or more importantly, for others.
The last several months have been filled with events that would understandably make even the most ardent believer question where God is in midst of our everyday lives. Just in my life alone I've experienced two sudden and unexpected deaths of family and friends. Another young, healthy, ardent Christian I know is taken by cancer. Colorado communities have seen devastating fires and floods. And this past Friday we learn of yet another occurrence of inexplicable violence in inexplicable places. There is an awful lot to make one doubt. There is an awful lot to make one think that the "dark times" are the norm and we can't do anything about it. That God has abandoned us. Or worse, that there is no God.
You see, it's far too easy to have expectations of perfection for our God, or in John the Baptist's case his Messiah. After all, as we are told in sermon after sermon and reading after reading, God is the perfect "being". Why can't He cure cancer? Why can't He stop wars from happening? Why can't He keep hurricanes and tsunamis and tornados from killing people? Why can't He stop the violence we see in the world. In the case of John the Baptist and his expectations of Jesus, why hadn't he overthrown the establishment religion and governments and reigned supreme as the prophets before had foretold?
I would humbly suggest that God can do the things we'd like to see Him do. And He probably does more often than we can see or would be willing to admit. But would stopping us from experiencing pain, grief, sorrow, etc. teach us anything? Jesus tells John the Baptist's disciples to look at the positive things He is doing through love and compassion. Everyone already knows what violence and oppression can do. It had been going on for thousands of years at that point (and sadly continues today). Jesus, and God through Him, has chosen to put Love and Compassion at the forefront of what he wants and expects from us. That is what will ultimately bring about the change that the prophets have spoken about. These are the weapons He has given us. The veiled hand of God averting disasters and giving us everything we desire would be great. However, I would submit that without those awful experiences that bring about pain and sorrow and grief we can't possibly fully comprehend or appreciate the powerful affect of Love and Compassion.
Robert Louis Stevenson used to spend his evenings as a young boy in Scotland looking out the windows at dusk. He would watch the lamp-lighters walking down the streets lighting the kerosene street lamps of the time. His mother once asked him what he was doing when he looked out the windows. He answered "watching the lamp-lighters punch holes in the darkness." That's a pretty awesome and powerful image. Imagine John the Baptist's disciples arriving and telling John about what Jesus is doing. I can see the light bulb, or lamp-light, go on over his head as he sits there in the darkness of his cell and he realizes that this world-changing arrival of Jesus and coming revolution was to be forged on the sharp blades of Love and Compassion.
Yes, it is very easy to get discouraged by world events. We expect a perfect world and perfect people. It is very easy to begin to doubt, not only God's existence, but what we are doing ourselves. It is very easy to descend into darkness and wallow there in general malaise or self-pity. Yet is also very easy to see the hand of God in our everyday lives if we choose to let our eyes see it. I see it in the impromptu fundraisers at work for a colleague who had considerable damage to his home during the flooding. I see it in mass relief efforts and fundraising after natural disasters here and across the country (indeed, around the world). I see it in the way our communities come together in the aftermath of senseless tragedies. Outpourings of the Love and Compassion that God so wants us to embrace. We are a decent people who have an overwhelming capacity to come to the aid of others when needed, and often times without being asked.
Sure, there are bad people and bad things too often happen to good people. That happens when we have the amazing gift of free-will. But humanity, in general, is very good. It is up to us to help other people see it. Be lamp-lighters. Donate time or money to a charity that helps the less-fortunate. Take a sack lunch to that homeless person you see everyday on your drive to or from work. Cook a meal for the recent widower and offer a listening and caring ear. Talk about Christ's message of Love, Hope, and Forgiveness. Have the strength and courage to be an example of that message. Punch holes in the darkness so that others can see.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Am I a Christian???
First off, i want to apologize for the length of time between my last post and this one. Things have been pretty busy with a new role at work and with family things going on around the house, etc. Those are secondary excuses, really. I suppose the most prevalent reason for the absence from this blog has been a lack of inspiration in regards to what to write about. I have many different ideas that I've floated around in my head and that i want to tackle in this blog at some point. However, the ideas aren't totally flushed out yet and they need some time to ferment before serving.
So I thought I'd go back to the basics. Back to the beginning, if you will. Back to where it really all begins for most of us. What does it mean to be a Christian?
In reality, this isn't quite back to the beginning. Being a Christian presupposes that we already faith. Even though it shouldn't be, for some the Faith and Christianity thing is kind of like the chicken and egg. Which came first? I'd imagine that for a whole lot of people, myself included, we were "Christian" before we knew what that fully entailed. For others, maybe you were "Jewish" before you knew what that fully entailed. For me at least, I was baptized into the church before I could talk and most certainly before I could ever read or think for myself. My parents had grown up in a church, as had their parents, and their parents before them. It was just something that we did. Truthfully, it was my mom who dragged us to church and forced my sister and brother and me to participate as choir members or acolytes. Dad avoided churches except for funerals and weddings. But the fact remains, I was definitely a "Christian" before i had any notion of what that really meant. I don't think it was until I went to private school in the eighth grade and was exposed to people of the Jewish faith that i even really understood that there were other religions out there to choose from. Religion just wasn't something that 13 and 14 year-olds went around talking about. If I had friends who were not "Christian" at that time in my life, I certainly didn't know it until I was in the 8th grade.
To fully grasp what it means to be a Christian, I thought it might be useful to examine what a Christian is. Is it someone who was simply baptized in a church? Is it someone who regularly attends church? Do you have to be baptized and attend church to be a Christian? Can you do one and not the other? Is it something completely different? So, what IS a Christian?
If you had asked me to answer that question 20 years ago, I probably would have said a Christian is someone who believes that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God, that he died to pay for my sins, and that he was raised from the dead after three days in a tomb. That's Christianity in a nutshell, isn't it? In a basic sense, yes (those three beliefs can certainly be expounded upon in far greater depth and detail). And for far too many of us, that's where our Christianity ends. I would suggest that there are at least two more critical components of what makes a person a Christian.
The Christian faith's core foundation comes from the Old Testament and is largely shared by our Jewish brethren. It is set in the idea that humankind can never live up to God's perfect expectations and we are in need of a saviour. We are, in our very nature, fallen beings. The Old Testament set out to arrange a system in which humans could atone for their own transgressions through ritual sacrifices of animals (often times these animals were expected to be biggest, strongest, and purest of the herd or flock... perhaps to impart a stronger sense of regret for those transgressions... perhaps to strengthen the ideas of value of life?). The animals were the saviours. Paying with their lives to wipe the slate clean. This set the tone for the ultimate sacrifice which was foretold by Isaiah and other Old Testament prophets and came centuries later in the form of human flesh. Jesus died that we may be saved (John 3:17).
While Judaism is still waiting for the Saviour, Christianity has already seen and acknowledged our Saviour. It was Jesus. But does the fact that Jesus died and was sacrificed for us all we need to be saved? According to the Gospels, no. Romans 10:9 says "if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.". It is not enough to simply accept Jesus' sacrificial act and move on. We must confess it and we must also believe it. In our hearts.
One last thing that makes a Christian a Christian is the act of repentance. The idea that repentance is needed in order to be truly saved can be found throughout the New Testament. For most people, repentance is thought of as simply a "confession of sins". But it is more than that. Merriam-Webster defines "repent" as "1) to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one's life; 2)to feel regret or contrition; 3) to change one's mind". Most people would feel comfortable with the second definition only. The more important aspects of repentance, at least in my opinion, are found in the first and third definitions. It's not enough to just feel sorry about our sins and regret them. We need to then make conscious efforts to change ourselves and steer clear of those transgressions in the future. If we just continue on down the same old path and find ourselves making the same old confessions week in and week out, have we truly repented? And to compound the issue further, repentance also includes changing one's mind. In the Christian sense, this isn't simply deciding that today I'll wear black shoes instead of white shoes. Truly repenting should include changing the way we think about ourselves, others, and our relationship with God.
So am i truly a Christian? I'd like to believe so. I believe those three basic beliefs (Jesus is the Son of God, He died for my sins, and He was raised from the dead by God). I have confessed it. And I truly believe it with my whole heart. I have confessed my sins and professed my inequities before God. But I don't think I pursue repentance as fervently as I could or should. This is largely due to the fact that my new relationship with God is just that. New. I am still trying to figure out what the "righteous" path is. My gut tells me that the righteous path is the path spelled out by Jesus in the New Testament. The simple answer is to love one another and Christ loved us. But there is much more to than that. Jesus taught much more than this. If I am to truly and properly repent, I need to know what that change should look like.
Next time we'll explore this path to change and explore what it means to be Christian in the light of Jesus' teachings. I'm guessing that I will find that I have fallen far short of the ideal and that I have a lot of work to do. And that will be okay. I know I'm not perfect. I know I need help. I know it's going to take work. The important thing for me is recognizing that there is work to do. I am ready and willing to undertake the task.
As always, thanks for reading. Please feel free to comment and share any words of wisdom or encouragement! All comments are welcome!
So I thought I'd go back to the basics. Back to the beginning, if you will. Back to where it really all begins for most of us. What does it mean to be a Christian?
In reality, this isn't quite back to the beginning. Being a Christian presupposes that we already faith. Even though it shouldn't be, for some the Faith and Christianity thing is kind of like the chicken and egg. Which came first? I'd imagine that for a whole lot of people, myself included, we were "Christian" before we knew what that fully entailed. For others, maybe you were "Jewish" before you knew what that fully entailed. For me at least, I was baptized into the church before I could talk and most certainly before I could ever read or think for myself. My parents had grown up in a church, as had their parents, and their parents before them. It was just something that we did. Truthfully, it was my mom who dragged us to church and forced my sister and brother and me to participate as choir members or acolytes. Dad avoided churches except for funerals and weddings. But the fact remains, I was definitely a "Christian" before i had any notion of what that really meant. I don't think it was until I went to private school in the eighth grade and was exposed to people of the Jewish faith that i even really understood that there were other religions out there to choose from. Religion just wasn't something that 13 and 14 year-olds went around talking about. If I had friends who were not "Christian" at that time in my life, I certainly didn't know it until I was in the 8th grade.
To fully grasp what it means to be a Christian, I thought it might be useful to examine what a Christian is. Is it someone who was simply baptized in a church? Is it someone who regularly attends church? Do you have to be baptized and attend church to be a Christian? Can you do one and not the other? Is it something completely different? So, what IS a Christian?
If you had asked me to answer that question 20 years ago, I probably would have said a Christian is someone who believes that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God, that he died to pay for my sins, and that he was raised from the dead after three days in a tomb. That's Christianity in a nutshell, isn't it? In a basic sense, yes (those three beliefs can certainly be expounded upon in far greater depth and detail). And for far too many of us, that's where our Christianity ends. I would suggest that there are at least two more critical components of what makes a person a Christian.
The Christian faith's core foundation comes from the Old Testament and is largely shared by our Jewish brethren. It is set in the idea that humankind can never live up to God's perfect expectations and we are in need of a saviour. We are, in our very nature, fallen beings. The Old Testament set out to arrange a system in which humans could atone for their own transgressions through ritual sacrifices of animals (often times these animals were expected to be biggest, strongest, and purest of the herd or flock... perhaps to impart a stronger sense of regret for those transgressions... perhaps to strengthen the ideas of value of life?). The animals were the saviours. Paying with their lives to wipe the slate clean. This set the tone for the ultimate sacrifice which was foretold by Isaiah and other Old Testament prophets and came centuries later in the form of human flesh. Jesus died that we may be saved (John 3:17).
While Judaism is still waiting for the Saviour, Christianity has already seen and acknowledged our Saviour. It was Jesus. But does the fact that Jesus died and was sacrificed for us all we need to be saved? According to the Gospels, no. Romans 10:9 says "if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.". It is not enough to simply accept Jesus' sacrificial act and move on. We must confess it and we must also believe it. In our hearts.
One last thing that makes a Christian a Christian is the act of repentance. The idea that repentance is needed in order to be truly saved can be found throughout the New Testament. For most people, repentance is thought of as simply a "confession of sins". But it is more than that. Merriam-Webster defines "repent" as "1) to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one's life; 2)to feel regret or contrition; 3) to change one's mind". Most people would feel comfortable with the second definition only. The more important aspects of repentance, at least in my opinion, are found in the first and third definitions. It's not enough to just feel sorry about our sins and regret them. We need to then make conscious efforts to change ourselves and steer clear of those transgressions in the future. If we just continue on down the same old path and find ourselves making the same old confessions week in and week out, have we truly repented? And to compound the issue further, repentance also includes changing one's mind. In the Christian sense, this isn't simply deciding that today I'll wear black shoes instead of white shoes. Truly repenting should include changing the way we think about ourselves, others, and our relationship with God.
So am i truly a Christian? I'd like to believe so. I believe those three basic beliefs (Jesus is the Son of God, He died for my sins, and He was raised from the dead by God). I have confessed it. And I truly believe it with my whole heart. I have confessed my sins and professed my inequities before God. But I don't think I pursue repentance as fervently as I could or should. This is largely due to the fact that my new relationship with God is just that. New. I am still trying to figure out what the "righteous" path is. My gut tells me that the righteous path is the path spelled out by Jesus in the New Testament. The simple answer is to love one another and Christ loved us. But there is much more to than that. Jesus taught much more than this. If I am to truly and properly repent, I need to know what that change should look like.
Next time we'll explore this path to change and explore what it means to be Christian in the light of Jesus' teachings. I'm guessing that I will find that I have fallen far short of the ideal and that I have a lot of work to do. And that will be okay. I know I'm not perfect. I know I need help. I know it's going to take work. The important thing for me is recognizing that there is work to do. I am ready and willing to undertake the task.
As always, thanks for reading. Please feel free to comment and share any words of wisdom or encouragement! All comments are welcome!
Sunday, April 7, 2013
"'Til Death Us Part" --- Who is the "Us"?
WARNING: SYSTEM FAILURE
We’ve all seen the message. Whether it’s the annoying “check engine” light that comes on when you first start the car in the morning, or the infuriating little box that pops up on your computer screen when you’re trying to open that funny email attachment all your friends are talking about on Facebook. The underlying meaning is the same: something somewhere isn’t communicating properly with something else somewhere else and thus your system is about to breakdown. I don’t know about you, but my usual reaction (after the initial WTF!?!?!) is to simply ignore the flashing lights and sirens and hope the system figures itself out. Sometimes this works. Often times it doesn’t.
I was greeted with this message, in the figurative sense, several months ago when the whole Chic-Fil-A fiasco blew up in the press. After reading much discourse on the issue, both in mainstream and social media, I sat down and tried to make sense of both sides. I wrote a lengthy “treatise” that I was going to post on Facebook at the time but thought it better to sit on it a while and let it stew. It didn’t’ smell quite right to me. However, with the recent happenings in the Supreme Court over the last couple of weeks, there has been a resurfacing of some pretty hateful and ignorant speech on both sides of this issue. One post that I saw, which referred to Christians as having “shitty beliefs”, was particularly offensive to me.
As anyone reading this blog knows, I do consider myself to be a Christian man. I might even go so far as to say “born-again” after my dad’s passing a little over a year ago. I’ve gone to church since I can remember, but not until recently have I really tried to truly understand what is in the bible and what it says. I also am a man among the masses, which is to say that like just about everyone in the world today I have relationships with folks who are gay/lesbian, whether as family, friend, and/or co-worker. It’s pretty unavoidable in this day and age. This dynamic begs the question: How does a Christian man reconcile what the Bible says about marriage and homosexuality with his own desire to love others and treat everyone with respect? For me, it is definitely a Jekyll and Hyde type of coexistence within myself. I hope that you will find the remaining dialogue an open and honest assessment based on reason and what can be found in the Bible.
First, I do not presume to know exactly what God said (and subsequently the meaning of His words) to Moses and his people thousands of years ago. I do not presume to know exactly what Jesus said to His disciples. The only record we have is what is portrayed in the Bible. As such, we are left to trust that the record takers got it right and remembered and recorded that history accurately. Theologians and Bible-thumpers the world over like to say that the writers of the Books that make up the Bible must have been possessed by the Holy Spirit at the time of their writings, so we should be able to trust that what is written therein is exactly what God wanted to be written. If you believe in a God that had the power to make the world and all of its creatures, then it really isn’t that much of a stretch to believe that that same God would be able to take over someone’s conscious and tell them what to write or say. That would be a minor compared to actually creating the Universe.
Context of Marriage
To even begin to understand the issue, I needed to really think about marriage in a historical context. When you do that, as far back as documented history will take us, “marriage” has been between a man and a woman. It’s origins began as a societal contract between a man and a woman that would help people keep track of who’s kids are whose and who gets what when Caveman Bob didn’t return from his mammoth hunting expedition. I may be wrong here, but I can’t think of a single societal context anywhere in history where we see a same-sex couple being “married”. Tradition has always been man and woman as a married being.
In the biblical context, this would also seem to be true. According to the Concordance of my King James Bible the five words “marry”, “marriage”, “marries”, “married”, and “marrying” are used 29 times total in the entire 1317 pages of Scripture. Not once does it allude, ANYWHERE, to marriage being between anything but a man and a woman.
Many scholars quickly point to the creation of Eve in the Garden of Eden and Gen. 4:23 as the bedrock of the marriage definition (“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh”). My Bible even calls this God’s ordaining of marriage (although the term “marriage” is not used here in the verses). The important idea that I take away from the beginning of Genesis is that when God decided man (Adam) needed a companion, He gave him a woman (not another man) and ordered them “to be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). This “intelligent design” is scientifically supported in the fact that two men, nor two women, can create offspring together. Man and Man or Woman and Woman simply isn’t a natural expectation.
As a Christian, I must ask: How did Jesus view marriage? Very little is actually said about his views on marriage throughout the New Testament. The most compelling evidence of Jesus’ opinion comes from Matthew 19:3-5. After being asked by the Pharisees “is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”, Jesus answers: “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female… and for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?”. This is widely believed to be Jesus confirming and upholding God’s vision for marriage. Interestingly, we again find an absence of the word “marriage” or any variant of it in these verses.
So here we see God, and later Jesus, talking about a man and a woman coming together to form “one-flesh”. Hard-core adherents to the Bible will see this as a black and white definition of marriage. I have to admit, I’m hard pressed to disagree.
Beyond what the Bible has to say on this, I do believe that the best situation for raising children is with one mother and one father. I’m not suggesting that same-sex couples are incapable of raising children and doing so in a loving, nourishing environment. I’m just suggesting that having an active participant of one mother and one father is the better way to go. Having had the fortune of being reared by a loving mother and father, I can honestly say that there are things that both of them have brought to the table that I wouldn’t have gotten with just one. Fathers are able to impart certain things to a child that mothers can’t, and vice versa. There are a myriad of studies on both sides of this issue that can support and undermine both sides. I’ll just put my opinion out there and leave it at that.
The Bible and Homosexuality There were 29 mentions of “marriage” in the Bible. There are far fewer references to homosexuality and sodomy. A mere two. And both in the same verse. Unfortunately though, it is pretty clear where the Bible stands here. 1 Corinthians: 6-9 states: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites”. Pretty clear, right? There are other allusions to homosexuality in the Bible. There is of course the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where God rained down fire and brimstone on the two towns for their perversions and imperfections. The term “sodomy” supposedly comes from this story. Leviticus is probably the most well-known and often quoted Scripture pertaining to condemnation of homosexual behavior. Leviticus 18:22 states: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman.” Then it goes even further by stating “It is an abomination.”
What I find interesting is that the Corinthian passage then continues in verse 10 and lumps all of these other types of people in with homosexuals (“nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the Kingdom of God”). This is a pretty large and rather inclusive group of people who are doomed to never make it to Heaven. I dare say all of mankind. The interesting thing about the Leviticus passage is the additional “it is an abomination”. Many folks latch on to this as an exclamation point to this particular sin that makes it more substantial than others. “God says it’s an abomination, so it must be doubly terrible!” According to Proverbs 11:1, a dishonest scale is also an abomination (scales were used to change money, among other things). Go figure.
There are some folks who might point to a couple of passages that may actually support homosexuality, albeit tacitly. One commonly quoted piece of Scripture is Mark 7:14-15, which says “And when He had called all the multitude to Him, He said to them ‘Hear Me everyone and understand: There is nothing that can enter a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that can defile a man.” Some people claim that this is saying that engaging in homosexual behavior is not sinful. Taken in context, I have a hard time with this. The chapter taken as a whole was in reference to a discussion between Jesus and the Pharisees regarding eating bread with unwashed hands. I can see how someone might want to make the connection to homosexual acts, though I can’t personally make it.
Another passage which alludes positively to homosexuality can be found in the same Matthew chapter cited above. In it, Jesus and his disciples are discussing divorce and the idea that going without a wife from the beginning may be a better option than marriage. Jesus responds “For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mothers womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by man, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heavens sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.” In context of the times, eunuchs would be translated as “emasculated men”. There are a couple of trains of thought on this term. Emasculated could be “castrated”, as in the “made eunuchs by man”. Emasculated could mean “celibate”, as “made themselves for the kingdom of heaven”. Emasculated could also mean “effeminate”, as in having feminine or homosexual qualities. This would appear to lend considerable credence to the argument that people are born in fact born gay.
So What About Same-Sex Marriage? So is there any wiggle room for same-sex “marriage”? If you accept the passages cited above as the word of God and Jesus’ view on marriage and homosexuality, I’d have to say no. I think any reasonable and rational person could reach that conclusion. If you decide to dig a little deeper into the Bible though, I believe you can find room for same-sex marriage.
“Whoa…. Wait! The Bible says same-sex marriage is okay???” Maybe. More on that in a second. I want to first preface this next part of the discussion with this “food for thought”. There are over 39,000 recognized denominations of Christianity. Christianity is based on the Bible. The Bible has dozens of translations in dozens more languages. I think it is safe to say that there are probably tens of thousands (maybe millions??) of interpretations of the dozens of Bible translations. Do the Quakers have it right and the rest of us are screwed? Or maybe the new age evangelicals have it right. Or the Lutherans. Or Catholics. You get the idea. We can all believe something. However, none of us who are still upright and breathing in this world can really, honestly know. We can say we know it with our heart, but we don’t truly know it with absolute certainty. That’s the beauty and mystery of Faith.
That said, this is how I read it.
The first passage which might be construed to mean that same-sex marriage is okay is found in the book of Hebrews. Chapter 13, verses 1-5 address love in the social realm. It states: “Let brotherly love continue. D o not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels. Remember the prisoners as if chained with them and those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also. Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Let your conduct be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’”. Marriage. Honorable among all. Not among same races. Not among just man and woman. Among ALL. God will be the judge. Not us.
A second passage can be found in First Corinthians, Chapter 7, verse 39. All of chapter 7 basically talks of the principles of married life, principles for the unmarried and principles of remarriage. Verse 39 states: “A wife is bound by law as long as the husband lives; but if the husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.” She can remarry anyone she wants? Evidently.
I point out the above in hopes of illustrating how easy it is to go the Bible and find something that appears to contradict another seemingly rock solid basis of Christian beliefs. Anyone can pick and choose passages to support what they think are right or wrong.
So Where Do I Stand?
I think it’s fair to say that I predictably take a stance somewhere in the middle. I do truly believe that a marriage between a man and a woman is what God envisioned when He created male and female. What I have hard time with is that none of the uses of the term “marriage” or its variants in the Bible expressly prohibit marriage between people of the same sex. In fact, in my KJV Bible there is a section titled “The Laws of the Bible” which begins on page 1336. It breaks out all of the different laws that the Bible prescribes and tells you where to find them. Surprisingly, where the Bible takes great pains in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy to lay out the original laws of God as explained to Moses, there isn’t one single place where it expressly says that marriage between two men or two women is prohibited. While it makes certain to forbid marriage with stepmothers, aliens (non Jews), sisters, aunts, grandchildren and daughters-in-law, it is conspicuously silent on man marrying another man (or woman marrying another woman).
I also believe that homosexuality is a sin. It is pretty clearly stated as such in the Bible. However, there are about a hundred other sins called out in the Good Book as well. Only one stands out as “unpardonable”, and that is non-belief. All others are just “sin”. Each one just as worthy of a stoning or sacrifice as the next. Have you ever wished anyone ill-will? Ever thought bad thoughts about someone? Ever thought of someone in a sexual way who was NOT your spouse? Ever had too much to drink? Yeah? Me too.
Hard-core traditionalist Christians will likely point out that because the Bible calls out homosexuality as an “abomination” that clearly God wouldn’t want two people of the same sex to be married. Allowing such, according to the logic, would promote unrighteous behavior and lead to the further demise of an already sinful world. Well, we’ve already established that homosexuality is on the same level as someone using a dishonest scale. Both, according to the Bible, are abominations. Further, we currently, in both the church and society, allow marriage between sinners. And we do it openly and without remorse.
Have any of you partaken in pre-marital sexual relations with your spouse? I know I did. And I know the church and minister knew about it because we talked about it in our pre-marital counseling. There was no discussion of how it cheapened the sanctity of the marriage institution. How many of you know of someone who committed adultery with a married person and then ended up marrying that person? I can think of a few. In most cases, a church is going to know about this. Yet, we turn a blind eye to these sins and still allow marriage to take place. There are no earthbound laws forbidding these occurrences even though it may have an adverse affect on the sanctity of marriage, or worse, promote unrighteous behavior and lead to a further demise of an already sinful world. Who are we, as a society, to say that one specific group of sinners is unworthy of expressing their love and devotion to one another through marriage? I just don’t see homosexuality as any worse of a sin than any heterosexually “abnormal” behavior that any number of us likely commits within marriage on a regular basis.
The Traditional Family Christian Bigot
I obviously believe in God. I believe that God has certain expectations for His people. Jesus says that first and foremost of those expectations is to love one another as God loves us. I also believe that God intended marriage to be between a man and a woman. Am I absolutely certain of it? No. But I do believe it. I believe that the man-woman marriage is the ideal and I support that ideal. (Does that make me a bigoted homophobe? I don’t know. Does being against polygamy make me a hater of women because I’m limiting the marriage opportunities of women? I don’t think so.) What I don’t support is any one person or group of people judging another group of people and denying them the rights that others are afforded based on their perceived sin. We are all sinners in this world and there is only one judge that ultimately matters. None of us living here on earth are that judge. If a couple finds a church which subscribes to the belief that God is okay with same-sex marriage, then by all means, get married. If two people of any sex decide they want to proclaim their love for one another before God and make a Godly promise to support one another, honor one another and cherish one another until death do them part, who am I to say that that is not only wrong but illegal? God will be the ultimate judge on the sinful nature of whatever goes on behind closed doors (just as he is on a heterosexual marriage). We really have no say on the issue. It is an issue between God and the married couple.
Open Discourse
Does being a supporter of traditional marriage make me a homophobic bigot? I hope not. I’d like to think that I can say with absolute honesty that don’t hate anyone. I hate some actions that individuals take. But I don’t think there’s anyone that I could hate.
Does being open to same-sex marriage make me a bad Christian? Again, I sure hope not. I think that the Bible is fairly ambiguous about the issue. Maybe because it wasn’t an issue in the days when it was written. Maybe because God doesn’t care whom marries whom as long as we’re all loving each other as Christ and God love us. That’s something I won’t know until I come face-to-face with my maker.
What I do know is that I sin every day. Every day. Some things I know full well what I’m doing. Other things I do and have no idea that God might consider them sins. The point is, I sin. Everyone sins. Homosexuals, heterosexuals, asexuals. Everyone.
What I also know and what I don’t have to hope for, is that Christ was sent to this earth by God as a sacrificial lamb for all of mankind’s sin. The adultery, the fornication, the sodomy, the dishonest scales and all the rest. And that anyone, yes anyone, who believes in Him is pardoned of their sins. Does that give us carte blanche everyday to go out and commit more sin because we know we have a backup plan? Absolutely not. The Christian is called to spread the love, the hope and the comfort of Jesus Christ. Part of this entails not only being as close to Jesus as possible in our actions, but also of confessing to God that we have sinned and that we need His help to live the righteous path He has intended for us. If I, as a heterosexual male, can acknowledge the existence of God and confess my sins to Him and profess my need for Him in my life and subsequently be allowed to marry, then why can’t we allow the same courtesy to same-sex couples who ascribe to the same beliefs in God and follow the same prescriptive path?
What would Jesus do? I’m not sure. But I could make a somewhat educated guess based on my interpretation of the Bible. What is very clear is that no matter what side of the debate you fall on, there is room to acknowledge rational reasoning on both sides. If we’d all just stop and listen to each other, I think we’d all reach an understanding. We don’t have to agree with each other. But we do need to respect each other. We certainly need to love each other. We can’t just pick up our toys and go home and forget about each other. If the civil discourse stops, then we’re definitely headed toward a system failure.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
This blog is an endeavor to lay bare the spiritual journey I find myself in the midst of. My sincere hope is to post at least twice a month. Hopefully more. I am hoping that by sharing my own journey, fellow believers may find themselves wanting to know more and that non-believers may start to question their own faith and perhaps even seek out their own relationship with Christ. Pious? Perhaps. Honest? Absolutely and always. I am no scholar on the subject of religion and Christianity. Indeed, I would classify my knowledge as being in a fledgling state. Just seeding and ready to grow. If you are averse to the terms "God", "Christ" and "Jesus", this blog probably isn't going to be for you. If you want to challenge yourself and are open to other thoughts and opinions, I invite you to read on. You may find something you like.
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Prodigal.
Adjective meaning "characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure."
Or, noun, meaning "one who spends or gives foolishly."
Merriam-Webster says the roots of the word come from that latin prodigus or prodigere, which means "to drive away, squander".
I am prodigal. I live a prodigal life. I am not proud of this. I am not alone.
We've all heard the story of the Prodigal Son. It's one of my favorite parables put forth in the Bible. One of two sons wants his inheritance before his time. He is impatient and wants what's his, now. His father acquiesces to the his demand and the son promptly runs off with his fortune and wastes it, losing everything. After living for a time in squalor, the son decides he'd be better off returning home and working as a slave for his own father. Upon returning to the home after much time away, the father accepts the son back into the fold with no questions and even throws a party for the returning son. The second son, who had stayed and worked with the father, is jealous of the attention and love his brother is receiving from their father. The father simply says "rejoice, your brother was gone and now he has returned."
I am a son. I am a brother. I am now a father. I have wandered from home. I have squandered much of what has been given me. I am trying to return, just happy to be a footstool for my family. How will my Father react? How will my Brothers react? How would I react if I were the father and the brother?
I would guess that many of you still reading at this point share many parallels with my own backstory. I was baptised at an early age. Too early to remember, as is the custom in my family. I have been an on-again, off-again church-goer for most of my life. I served as an acolyte ("altar boy" for the uninitiated, non-Episcopalians) for most of my post-elementary school childhood, stopping only when i went away to college (and even then, i filled in at the church if i showed up and they needed a fill-in). By the time i fully stopped serving the church, I could have performed the entire service rituals, without the collects, Gospel readings and sermons (which changed weekly), and felt quite comfortable doing so. However, there was still an awful lot of the whole thing that I just didn't "get". I knew God was the Creator. That Jesus was His Son. That He died on the cross for my sins. But there was something missing. I never felt strongly about much I heard in the readings and sermons. I never felt a connection to what was going on. I was there in body. My mind was often elsewhere. These were my teen years after all.
After marrying and subsequently moving away from my hometown some 14 years ago, I basically stopped going to church altogether. I found mysefl rationalizing that living in Colorado offered me what I needed on a spiritual level. Anyone who has seen the sunrise over the Eastern Plains or the sun set over the mountians to the west can certainly back up this idea. There is something spiritual about wide open spaces and high mountain peaks with views that seemingly go on forever. I called it God's Church of the Rocky Mountains. I worshipped here whenever i could. After having kids, my time in the mountains began to dwindle. Sure, we still did our camping trips and hikes. But the time for those things was harder to come by. Anyone with children can certainly relate. Eventually. my wife and I decided we needed to get back into the "God thing" and we started looking for a new spiritual home. We found a very welcoming and comfortable church and we've been attending on a semi-regular basis ever since. This has been for the last 6 years or so. Usually we end up going on unintended hiatuses during the summers when it's all too easy to do so. We like to blame it on the fact that there is no Sunday School for the kids (at our church Sunday School is actually held during the service, so Andi and I love that we can worship without the hinderance of disinterested 5 and 8 year olds at our sides). But in reality, we simply find it easy to fall into a malaise about going. One weekend camping trip takes away one sunday. You miss one sunday and then missing a second isn't so hard to do. Then the third, and the fourth, and before you know it you've gone all summer without crossing the threshold of God's House.
Last February was a turning point in my life. Not the kind that one reaches because one has hit "rock bottom" But one that is no less important. My Dad died. From cancer. We knew it was coming. So did he. Dad was not a church-goer. Or really even a Christian. He had been raised in a Methodist church but lost the faith somewhere along the line. Some might say in Vietnam in the late '60s. All i know is that for my entire life, I had only seen him in churches for weddings and funerals and once for my Confirmation and first Communion. He believed in God, but not "the Jesus stuff" as he put it. He prayed, but avoided mention of Christ. I never put much thought to it until he was dying.
After his death in February, I found myself longing to know how a man as seemingly wise as my father had been could believe in a God and His power, but not believe in the miraculous story of Jesus of Nazareth. I began to read some books on Christian Apologetics and over time found myself tuning into a couple of the local Christian radio stations. The music became a calming force for me. Some of the pastors and preachers that I heard became teachers. The books became eye openers. Not so much because I didn't believe. I always have. But for the way they reinforced what I already thought but just didn't know how to put into words. Today I regularly listen to a pastor on the radio during my drive to work. I take notes. I want to know more. I want to connect more.
Have you ever been walking around somewhere, thinking to yourself how everything looks so familiar and feeling that you know exactly where you are. Then all of a sudden you see a street sign and realize you're in a completely different place? That's how it was when my Dad died. My worry about my Dad's faith opened my eyes to see that my own needed help. I was lost and I didn't even know it. I'd like to say that i'm found. God has certainly found me again. But will i follow Him where He leads me?
We all have a bit of the Prodigal in us. We are prone to wander. We are prone to over spend whatever cache we have. I know the answer the above question. I humbly invite you to share in my journey as I walk as the Prodigal Son. Follow me as I undoubtedly react as the Prodigal Brother. Walk with me as I try to live as the Prodigal Father. We're all doing it. Living the Prodigal Life.
For the next post, we'll be jumping into the deep end as i tackle the issue of same-sex marriage. Stay tuned....
______________________________________________________________________
Prodigal.
Adjective meaning "characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure."
Or, noun, meaning "one who spends or gives foolishly."
Merriam-Webster says the roots of the word come from that latin prodigus or prodigere, which means "to drive away, squander".
I am prodigal. I live a prodigal life. I am not proud of this. I am not alone.
We've all heard the story of the Prodigal Son. It's one of my favorite parables put forth in the Bible. One of two sons wants his inheritance before his time. He is impatient and wants what's his, now. His father acquiesces to the his demand and the son promptly runs off with his fortune and wastes it, losing everything. After living for a time in squalor, the son decides he'd be better off returning home and working as a slave for his own father. Upon returning to the home after much time away, the father accepts the son back into the fold with no questions and even throws a party for the returning son. The second son, who had stayed and worked with the father, is jealous of the attention and love his brother is receiving from their father. The father simply says "rejoice, your brother was gone and now he has returned."
I am a son. I am a brother. I am now a father. I have wandered from home. I have squandered much of what has been given me. I am trying to return, just happy to be a footstool for my family. How will my Father react? How will my Brothers react? How would I react if I were the father and the brother?
I would guess that many of you still reading at this point share many parallels with my own backstory. I was baptised at an early age. Too early to remember, as is the custom in my family. I have been an on-again, off-again church-goer for most of my life. I served as an acolyte ("altar boy" for the uninitiated, non-Episcopalians) for most of my post-elementary school childhood, stopping only when i went away to college (and even then, i filled in at the church if i showed up and they needed a fill-in). By the time i fully stopped serving the church, I could have performed the entire service rituals, without the collects, Gospel readings and sermons (which changed weekly), and felt quite comfortable doing so. However, there was still an awful lot of the whole thing that I just didn't "get". I knew God was the Creator. That Jesus was His Son. That He died on the cross for my sins. But there was something missing. I never felt strongly about much I heard in the readings and sermons. I never felt a connection to what was going on. I was there in body. My mind was often elsewhere. These were my teen years after all.
After marrying and subsequently moving away from my hometown some 14 years ago, I basically stopped going to church altogether. I found mysefl rationalizing that living in Colorado offered me what I needed on a spiritual level. Anyone who has seen the sunrise over the Eastern Plains or the sun set over the mountians to the west can certainly back up this idea. There is something spiritual about wide open spaces and high mountain peaks with views that seemingly go on forever. I called it God's Church of the Rocky Mountains. I worshipped here whenever i could. After having kids, my time in the mountains began to dwindle. Sure, we still did our camping trips and hikes. But the time for those things was harder to come by. Anyone with children can certainly relate. Eventually. my wife and I decided we needed to get back into the "God thing" and we started looking for a new spiritual home. We found a very welcoming and comfortable church and we've been attending on a semi-regular basis ever since. This has been for the last 6 years or so. Usually we end up going on unintended hiatuses during the summers when it's all too easy to do so. We like to blame it on the fact that there is no Sunday School for the kids (at our church Sunday School is actually held during the service, so Andi and I love that we can worship without the hinderance of disinterested 5 and 8 year olds at our sides). But in reality, we simply find it easy to fall into a malaise about going. One weekend camping trip takes away one sunday. You miss one sunday and then missing a second isn't so hard to do. Then the third, and the fourth, and before you know it you've gone all summer without crossing the threshold of God's House.
Last February was a turning point in my life. Not the kind that one reaches because one has hit "rock bottom" But one that is no less important. My Dad died. From cancer. We knew it was coming. So did he. Dad was not a church-goer. Or really even a Christian. He had been raised in a Methodist church but lost the faith somewhere along the line. Some might say in Vietnam in the late '60s. All i know is that for my entire life, I had only seen him in churches for weddings and funerals and once for my Confirmation and first Communion. He believed in God, but not "the Jesus stuff" as he put it. He prayed, but avoided mention of Christ. I never put much thought to it until he was dying.
After his death in February, I found myself longing to know how a man as seemingly wise as my father had been could believe in a God and His power, but not believe in the miraculous story of Jesus of Nazareth. I began to read some books on Christian Apologetics and over time found myself tuning into a couple of the local Christian radio stations. The music became a calming force for me. Some of the pastors and preachers that I heard became teachers. The books became eye openers. Not so much because I didn't believe. I always have. But for the way they reinforced what I already thought but just didn't know how to put into words. Today I regularly listen to a pastor on the radio during my drive to work. I take notes. I want to know more. I want to connect more.
Have you ever been walking around somewhere, thinking to yourself how everything looks so familiar and feeling that you know exactly where you are. Then all of a sudden you see a street sign and realize you're in a completely different place? That's how it was when my Dad died. My worry about my Dad's faith opened my eyes to see that my own needed help. I was lost and I didn't even know it. I'd like to say that i'm found. God has certainly found me again. But will i follow Him where He leads me?
We all have a bit of the Prodigal in us. We are prone to wander. We are prone to over spend whatever cache we have. I know the answer the above question. I humbly invite you to share in my journey as I walk as the Prodigal Son. Follow me as I undoubtedly react as the Prodigal Brother. Walk with me as I try to live as the Prodigal Father. We're all doing it. Living the Prodigal Life.
For the next post, we'll be jumping into the deep end as i tackle the issue of same-sex marriage. Stay tuned....
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