I'm happy to announce that I have been accepted into The Reformation Project's (TRP) 2018 Leadership Cohort program. We started coursework last week and will study and engage in discussions together through March. In April (4-7) we will meet in Chicago for an intensive summit where we will learn from each other, and scholars and leaders in Biblical Studies & Theology as well as intersectional justice, and grassroots organization. TRP has not yet updated their website to introduce the cohort members, but they have a description of the program, its mission and goals up: https://www.reformationproject.org/trplead18/.

Here is an excerpt from my application video:

In January 2016, I heard Broderick Greer* speak at the Gay Christian Network conference in Houston. His words inspired and challenged me. I come back to them again and again:

“While some do theology from the perches of power and privilege, others of us do theology as a form of survival.”

The phrase “theology as survival” named my need and passion for studying the bible. “And I begun to wonder,” Broderick went on to say,

“If theology can be used to oppress, murder, and brutalize women, black people, trans people, queer people, bisexual people, and people with disabilities, then why can’t theology be used to liberate us, dignify us, renew us?”

I believe it can, and I want to be part of that work.

“Only a few have the luxury to theologize as sport, to theorize how Christians should or should not make sense of God’s presence and activity in our lives. The rest of us - the everyday folk who don’t quite have the verbiage for what we’re experiencing - make do with what we have: each other. And this happens on the go: as we are collecting the pieces of our shattered existential dreams; dreams of straightness; of cisness; of whiteness; of being anything but ourselves.”

I want to advance “theology as survival” efforts focusing on LGBT inclusion and intersectional reconciliation.

I hope to write more regularly throughout (and beyond) this cohort experience, so check back for new posts periodically. Also, if you are interested in conversation about my journey, LGBT inclusion and/or the intersection of LGBT and racial justice, please email me, find me on Facebook or invite me out for coffee!

*Visit Broderick Greer's website to read the full manuscript of his GCN keynote speech and to learn more about his work.

Second Week of Advent, 2017

Last night’s reading from Walter Brueggemann’s Celebrating Abundance: Devotions for Advent (2017) reflects on God’s steadfast love, “a term always on the lips of ancient Israel, a term that most fully characterizes the God of Christmas for whom we prepare in Advent” (24). Hesed is difficult to translate because its meaning is so rich. For example, it appears twice in Psalm 25:6-7 and has a range of translations:

NRSV (Brueggemann’s choice)
Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD, and of your steadfast love,
    for they have been from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
    according to your steadfast love remember me,
    for your goodness’ sake, O LORD!

CEB

LORD, remember your compassion and faithful love -

   they are forever!

But don’t remember the sins of my youth or my wrongdoing.

   Remember me only according to your faithful love

   for the sake of your goodness, LORD.

KJV

Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindness;

   for they have been ever of old.

Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions:

   according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness’ sake, O LORD.

NASB

Remember, O LORD, Your compassion and Your lovingkindness, 

   For they have been from of old. 

Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; 

   According to Your lovingkindness remember me, 

   For Your goodness’ sake, O LORD.

NIV

Remember, LORD, your great mercy and love, 

   for they are from of old. 

Do not remember the sins of my youth
   and my rebellious ways; 

according to your love remember me,
   for you, LORD, are good.

Too often “love” gets watered down in our vocabulary to refer to warm, fuzzy feelings one person has toward another yet without much substance. So how do we understand the nature of God’s love? Kind, faithful, steadfast, merciful. Still, these descriptors still seem lackluster. In our world it is easy to lose sight of what faithful or kind or merciful looks like, so again we resort to boiling down what should be active and dynamic to a feeling that comes and goes. Our inability to practice love wholeheartedly and consistently with one another corrodes our understanding of God’s love. So many people have given up on God because they can no longer see God’s love, and tragically, they can no longer see God’s love because of the lack of love offered by God’s people.

Brueggemann fleshes out the meaning of hesed: “Steadfast love means solidarity in need enacted with transformative strength… What human persons and human community most need is abiding, committed, passionate transformative solidarity” (24). Though he admits that our world does not readily extend this solidarity, he invites us to:

Imagine a whole company of believers rethinking their lives, redeploying their energy, reassessing their purposes. The path is to love God, not party, not ideology, not pet project, but God’s will for steadfast love that is not deterred by fear and anxiety. The path is to love neighbor, to love neighbor face-to-face, to love neighbor in systemic arrangements, in imaginative policies… It will take a village to exhibit this alternative, and we are citizens of that coming society. (25)

This Advent, I am longing for God’s steadfast love to break into the lives of his people in powerful ways that will liberate us to enact transformative solidarity with our neighbors…

… those shivering through the night without a home 

.… those hungry for a meal when so much feasting surrounds them 

.… those grieving the loss of a loved one who used to bring such joy during the holidays 

.… those maligned and attacked for beliefs that do not say, “Merry Christmas.” 

… those afraid to come forward to expose the abuse they have suffered, and 

… those facing further abuse for telling their stories #metoo 

.… those rejected by family, friends and church communities because of who they love 

.… those marginalized by individuals and systems of power for not being white.

Most holy and merciful Father:

We confess to you and to one another,

and to the whole communion of saints

in heaven and on earth,

that we have sinned by our own fault

in thought, word, and deed;

by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

 

We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

(Litany of Penitence)

Exclusion & Privilege, part 1

Lately it seems I cannot finish what I set out to articulate in a timely manner. Maybe what I'm feeling and thinking just isn't going to be "finished."  So, here's part 1... something I wrote over a month ago:

September 26, 2017

We have eaten of that fruit, and we are dying. We have broken covenant, and we are painfully out of joint. We are in exile. And instead of seeing our sin, instead of recognizing the deep need we have for reconciliation, we search for someone to blame. Because we’re “very fine people,” we resist acknowledging our complicity in “this present evil age” - its denial, depression and desperation. We shut our eyes in order to deny all the ways we are threaded into the fabric of injustice. It may feel warm and comforting to us, but it gags others and swallows them up like body bags. But their “blood cries out… from the ground” and eventually it seeps in through the cracks in our self-righteousness: we feel anxiety rising, threatening to drown us in depression. Still we refuse to come to our senses and repent. Instead we desperately patch the cracks: we hold ourselves together with numbness, lose ourselves in amusement, or spew rage and ready for a fight when threatened.

Because we are unwilling to expose the injustice in which we participate, and because we cannot hold depression and despair at bay indefinitely, we turn on our neighbors. “Let us go out to the field,” we beckon, and then we wash our hands of the blood we spill. Death is the end result of our culture of exclusion. When we organize the world for “the powers that be” and those who are privileged by that power, we inevitably view all resources as scarce and orient ourselves in competition against “the other.” If there is only one of [insert valued item here] and two of us, you pose a threat and I must find a way to exclude you. Within this worldview, there are no neighbors; all those outside of my group are either strangers or enemies. If I can segregate you so that you are invisible, then I can comfortably go about my life with you as a stranger. If you will not keep your place on the margins, then you become an enemy. If I cannot silence you, I must discredit you. If I cannot discredit you, I must eliminate you.

I am often disheartened by the number of Christian people who defend this exclusionary pattern. It seems that “believing in Jesus” and “personal salvation” are disconnected from the cycle of exclusion playing out in our families, and in local and global communities. Somehow, Christians are living within an Empire, pledging allegiance to its violent system of power, and congratulating themselves for “defending the faith.” Jesus was executed as an enemy of the state in a very publicly humiliating and painful manner: crucifixion was Rome’s statement of ultimate power and authority used to make a spectacle of any would-be revolutionary. We follow a messiah who ushered in “the upside-down kingdom” where “what looks like weakness can do anything / and what looks like foolishness is understanding / when what is powerful has not come to fight / it looks like you’re going to war / but you lay down your life” (Derek Webb, https://youtu.be/w8ciShf0KjY).

We seem more like the “lawyer [who] stood up to test Jesus,” asking “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Like him, we ask the question assuming the answer we already have in mind is right. Jesus “said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ [The lawyer] answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ And [Jesus] said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’” Just to make sure we are certain of our “salvation,” we ask, “And who is my neighbor?” (NRSV, Luke 10:25-29)

Who is my neighbor? What are we asking when we pose this question? Who is in and who is out? Who can I exclude? Who am I obligated to share my precious resources with and who can I ignore and let starve? Who can I steal from so that I might have more? I deserve it, after all. As we “look out for number one,” we calculate who we can “afford” to let on the inside. We are on a limited budget, and so we start crossing people off the wedding reception guest list. Let’s get realistic: there is just not enough to go around. Find a smaller table, because we have got to disinvite people. I know we said, “Liberty and justice for all,” but who is going to pay for that? It costs too much. And so we become us and them. Walter Brueggemann writes and preaches extensively about this “myth of scarcity” plaguing us:

Today, the fundamental human condition continues to be anxiety, fueled by a market ideology that keeps pounding on us to take more, to not think about our neighbor, to be fearful, shortsighted, grudging. Over and over, we’re told to be sure we have the resources to continue our affluent lifestyles, especially with the approach of our “golden years” (which are “golden” in more ways than one). That same market ideology powers the multinational corporations, as they roam the world, seeking the best deal, the greatest return, the cheapest labor and materials. Whether it’s global policies or local poverty-wage jobs, those who fear scarcity refuse to acknowledge any abundance that extends beyond their own coffers. (http://www.jmm.org.au/articles/1181.htm)

I hear this myth in the voices of “us” excluding “them.” They are stealing our jobs. They are lazy and cheating the system. They don’t belong here (and so we label them illegal). They want special treatment. They think they are entitled. They need to get over it. They are disrespecting us. Whether we draw lines between “us” and “them” based on race and ethnicity, gender and sexual identity, socio-economic status, religious affiliation, or other identity markers, “we” seek to remove “them” from within or among “us.” The more distance we see and feel between “us” and “the other,” the more we are able to justify ourselves as we dismiss, vilify, and harm “them.” While we take life away from “those people,” we sit around believing we deserve what we have: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector” (NRSV, Luke 18:11).

Reflections on the Election, Pt. 2

Part 2 - Longing for a Savior

Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent.  This is a season during which we step into two stories: after the prophet Malachi, Israel waits in the thick of God’s deafening silence for her Messiah; after the vision of John, the Church waits for the return of her Messiah.  Both stories are stories of longing for God to establish his rule and restore shalom within his creation.

Malachi’s word for Israel

Israel returned from exile, rebuilt the temple and has lived in the land for two generations waiting for God:

“[N]early a century [has passed] since the great prophet of the exile gave comfort to those of his nation who longed again for the hills of Palestine.  What has taken place during this period… Have the brilliant promises of the Deutero-Isaiah come to pass?… The phrase that best describes these sixty years is that of Professor G. A. Smith, who calls them ‘a time of disillusion, disheartening, and decay’” (see Clifton Gray’s article, The Historical Background of Malachi - http://www.jstor.org/stable/3137078).

The people of God may have escaped Babylon, but only to find themselves ruled by the Persians (and later the Greeks, and then the Romans).  This is the setting in which the people of God heard Malachi speak.

“See, the day is coming… the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings” (New Revised Standard Version, Malachi 4:1-2).

“[Malachi] appears to have represented a class, a remnant of people, who had not been engulfed by the popular pessimism.  They were made of sterner fiber, and, notwithstanding hope so long deferred, still believed in Yahweh’s love for Israel… Malachi raised his voice in protest against the evil tendencies [distrust in God that leads to despair, defiance and immorality] of the time” (see link above).

John’s vision for the Church

Revelation, a letter to churches faced with increasing pressure to compromise in order to avoid persecution, urges Jesus followers to resist “the powers that be” and live according to their confession of faith that Jesus is Lord.  (Check out Kurt Willems’ discussion of Revelation on the PangeaCast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/revelation-1-we-all-need-revelation/id878056251?i=1000318634790&mt=2.)  In the midst of a world of injustice and tears, John describes his vision:

“I looked again and could hardly believe my eyes.  Everything above me was new.  Everything below me was new.  Everything around me was new because the heaven and earth that had been passed away, and the sea was gone, completely.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride on her wedding day, adorned for her husband and for His eyes only.  And I heard a great voice, coming from the throne.

See, the home of God is with His people.  He will live among them; They will be His people, And God Himself will be with them.  The prophecies are fulfilled: He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more; Mourning no more, crying no more, pain no more.  For the first things have gone away.

And the One who sat on the throne announced to His creation,

See, I am making all things new… Yes. I am coming soon.” (see The Voice translation of Revelation 21:1-5, 22:20)

This week as we begin our journey through Advent, these stories are our stories: in our chaotic world of suffering where justice feels absent for so many, we long for new life to overcome deathliness, for light to eradicate darkness.  In our desperation, too often we travel the path of the people in Malachi’s day.  Instead of clinging to God and his way of love and peace, we “put [our] trust in princes” (see Psalm 146) and walk in their way of scarcity, of vying for power so that we might feel secure.  Our suffering may be legitimate.  But our choice to “build the kingdom using the devil’s tools” mirrors Israel’s plea for a king: “Samuel was upset to hear the leaders say they wanted a king, so he prayed about it.  The LORD answered: ‘Samuel, do everything they want you to do.  I am really the one they have rejected as their king” (Contemporary English Version, 1 Samuel 8:6-7).

Released in 2007, Derek Webb’s A Savior on Capitol Hill (On The Ringing Bell, INO Records)

exposed the futility of thinking that “all our problems gonna disappear when we can whisper right in that President’s ear”: 

you can render until Caesar everything that’s hisyou can trust in his power to come to your defenseit’s the way of the world, the way of the gunit’s the trading of an evil for a lesser oneso don’t hold your breath or your vote untilyou think you’ve finally found a savior up on Capitol Hill(listen: https://youtu.be/ok0ntGj4WWM)

The way many Christians overwhelmingly support Trump feels like they’ve accepted him as a savior.  I understand that many who cast their vote for Trump did so because they thought that he could deliver something Clinton would not.  When asked about qualities that mattered most in selecting a candidate to vote for, the majority of those polled chose “can bring change,” and of those responses, 83% voted for Trump.  Trump supporters overwhelmingly believe that he can “change” things.  Sociologist Arlie Hochschild “spent five years listening to Tea Party conservatives who later came to support Donald Trump - mainly working-class whites.”  She reflects on the reasons for “regarding Donald Trump as a hero”:

“Most came to him ambivalently, at first.  They didn’t think he was a truly good, moral person.  One evangelical was very horrified by him mocking the disabled.  Another woman feared he would start a war.  But they all voted for him eventually. 

And the reason, I think, is that he spoke to their 'deep story.'  Emotions are at the bottom of anybody’s political beliefs.  Those emotions are evoked by a story that feels true.  So a deep story is a story that feels true.  You take facts out of a deep story, you take moral judgments out of a story…

I think there’s a group that has felt silenced, who are the losers of globalization.  And they found a guy who pointed to them and said, 'You’re not losers and you’re not silenced, and I’m your guy.'  They found a guy who’s very good at brand promises, magical promises, who says he’s single-handedly going to reverse the trends of globalization, who’s quick with blame and shame” (read the whole interview at http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_we_need_empathy_in_the_age_of_trump/success).

There are legitimate concerns fueling Trump support; however, in voting for “change” one must ask: What kind of change? and At what cost?

Trump demonstrated a particular vision of a “great America” that capitalized on restoring or increasing the security and fortunes of some at the cost of others who have historically been marginalized.  This has fueled further division, distrust, and animosity between “us” and “them.”  One of the core values of the gospel is reconciliation: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us… that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it”  (NRSV, Eph. 2:13-16).

David Gushee, reflecting on the human “need to believe in something, or someone, or Someone,” ends his article for Religion News Service on November 7 by saying, “Hopelessness is not generally viewed as a virtue.  But in this context it is to be commended.  Of course, I do not mean hopelessness in a general sense.  I mean the loss of hope that here is a candidate in whom we can invest True Belief.  I have come to believe that no political candidate is ever worthy of such belief.  Having lost unrealistic hope this time around, perhaps we will be forced to move to a move mature posture.  Perhaps we will recognize that the future of our society, our institutions, and our politics rests in our own imperfect hands” (http://religionnews.com/2016/11/07/our-need-to-believe/).

The first Sunday of Advent, we light the candle of hope.  Who or what shapes our hope?  What is the story our hope promises?  Who is included in that hope?  The words Rev. Elizabeth Armstrong, priest at St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Rocklin, CA, shared on Sunday brought tears to my eyes and reminded me that countless others weep in this time of uncertainty as a Trump presidency approaches (watch: https://vimeo.com/193278644).  She challenged us to “stand up [and]… have the courage to help God’s love win.  Doing what [we can] for [our] brothers and sisters on this planet who [are] facing life-shattering prejudice.”  As David Gushee said, it is our “imperfect hands” that are called to bring shalom - wholeness and harmony within and between people and communities.  In our waiting, in this season of Advent, we must actively resist the patterns of this world and work to create the conditions of shalom.

Next week we light the candle of love.

Reflections on the Election, Pt. 1

Part 1 - What story are we living?

As of November 15 at 12:17am (ET), the popular vote for president was 60,834,437 for Trump (47.2%) and 61,782,016 for Clinton (47.9%) (see CNN’s election results at http://www.cnn.com/election/results/president).  The country is deeply divided.  Everyone is saying this.

As I watched the election results on November 8, I became increasingly stunned.  By the time Trump had clinched the necessary 270 electoral college votes, I sat in utter disbelief.  For days I was in shock.  I am finally feeling the shock subside, but as it does, other feelings are rushing in with great intensity.  The easiest feeling to identify is fear.  I am not alone.  CNN’s exit poll results indicate that 56% of voters would be “concerned” or “scared” if Trump won (surprisingly, up to 34% of those who voted for Trump are included in this number).

One of the responses to the feelings of fear and uneasiness that some people are experiencing is validation.  For example, many are wearing safety pins to communicate solidarity with those who feel unsafe.  This is a silent yet powerful way to say, “I am safe: I will make safe space for you.”

Another response to the fear and uneasiness some people are feeling is to belittle or mock.  As I scroll through my Facebook feed I see articles, blog posts, shared memes and comments that basically say, “To those of you who are crying about Trump winning, shut up and quit being a baby.”

Within my intersectional self, the strand of me that feels most immediately threatened and afraid is my sexuality.  Again, I am not alone.  95% of voters polled are non-LGBT, and they were mostly split regarding candidate choice.  However, though LGBT voters only made up about 5% of voters, 78% of them voted for Clinton.  Again, as I scroll through my Facebook feed, my LGBT friends are expressing grief, fear and anger because Trump won.  These are people who are living in a world where some are “weeping with those who weep” (see Romans 12:15 in many translations) by wearing safety pins, and some are “shaking their heads in mock lament” (see Mark 15:25-30 in The Message) by deriding the idea of needing a safe place.

When I first heard Trump was running for president, I thought it was a joke.  When I finally heard he had won, that joke was no laughing matter.  For many who are marginalized, a Trump presidency feels like a backhanded slap in the face meant to keep us in our places of oppression.  Trump has spent his campaign mocking and dehumanizing so many of us, and that has been difficult to watch.  That almost half of the country voted for this man who traffics in the marginalization of others is worse: it is gut-wrenching.  Electing Trump is a vote for the marginalization and oppression of so many communities of people.

I think the statistic that hurts the most is that 81% of white evangelical christians voted for Trump.  51-62% of Protestants, Catholics, Mormons and Other Christians voted for Trump rather than Clinton (25-45%).  On the other hand, non-Christian religiously affiliated voters favored Clinton (58-71%) over Trump (24-33%).  Voters’ frequency of attending religious services correlates to Trump support: more regular attendance translates into more votes for Trump.

The Church is supposed to proclaim the “good news of the Kingdom” breaking into this “present evil age” (see Galatians 1:3-5).  Living out that proclamation is supposed to be a “ministry of reconciliation” (see 2 Corinthians 5:17-19).  Following Jesus should look like actually following Jesus: a life of counter-cultural welcome and inclusion, a self-giving love extending itself in working for shalom.

Two Sundays ago, just a few days before the election, the sermon at my home church centered on the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount that calls his followers to “work actively to create the conditions of shalom” (see Matthew 5:9).  The lives of those who love Jesus and confess him as Lord are to be framed and characterized by “non-violent resistance of evil” and “creative initiatives of peace” (listen to Tim Geddert’s November 6 sermon at http://www.clovismb.org/sermons/).

So many people bearing the name of Christ chose Trump, a man who was reluctant to answer the question, “Have you ever asked God for forgiveness?”  Trump, in talking about wrongdoing and forgiveness, said, “I don’t bring God into that picture” (during the 2015 Family Leadership Summit in Iowa).  This statement indicates a foundational problem within Christianity: God has become something we add on as a compartment of our lives instead of laying down our lives in order to join God’s life.  In narrative terms, we write God as a supporting character into our story instead of giving up our story in order to accept our role in God’s story of new creation.  When we “accept Jesus,” we should be doing more than acknowledging some statement of doctrine - “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and died for my sins” - we should be wholly transformed (see Romans 12:1-2).  That transformation begins with a total worldview shift (“the renewing of your mind”) and through a new pattern of life produces the fruit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).  Instead of new creation breaking in with light, so many have experienced the threat of increasing darkness.

Brothers and sisters - faith is not a compartment, one sphere of life containing many spheres.  Neither is politics compartmentalized.  Both permeate every aspect of being human: living in relation to self, others and the earth is shaped by one’s guiding narrative of faith expressed through politics (the way we make decisions and order life for each group within a society).  Every preconception, attitude and action weaves together to fashion a pattern of life, and every pattern of life reveals a story playing itself out in our hearts.  What story are we living?

**Note: I have been struggling to organize my thoughts and articulate them since the election.  Today I decided that instead of trying to capture everything all at once, I'll share my reflections in parts.  I hope to have the next part posted soon.**

From Despair Toward Justice
Michelle Ferguson Morrow
April 2016

For most of my life I’ve been taught that my gayness was the sin that separated me from God.  My sexuality epitomized me as a sinner.  In church, when we sang about disobedience or heard sermons about depravity, I had no further to look than my attraction toward women.  This attraction was the thing that God hated; this was the thing that was going to send me to hell.

In college, I took a course in English Renaissance literature and was introduced to Edmund Spenser’s The Fairy Queen.  In the first book, there is a scene where the knight Redcrosse, the hero of the story, enters into a dingy cave and meets a gollum-like figure.*  His name is Despair.  Despair strips Redcrosse bare: as a protective garment is shed, Despair removes Redcrosse’s good works, honor, and confidence, leaving him naked before the truth of his sin.  Despair reminds him of his imperfection.  Each example he spoke exposes Redcrosse until he faced Despair naked and ashamed.  At last, Despair hands the knight a dagger, slowly putting the thought in Redcrosse’s mind that he would be better off taking his own life than to continue to accumulate sin and so face more judgment from God.

This scene has remained with me because it tells the story of a Christian on his journey meeting the reality of his sin and staring despair in the face.  In my own life, I could not hide from my “sin.”  And as I struggled with it, the despair that ensued stripped me of any confidence I might have placed in my Christian life.  No matter how many good deeds I did, no matter how many prayers I prayed, no matter how earnest my worship, the truth I believed was that I was tainted.  Again and again I was reminded of my imperfection by those around me in the church.  Despair’s voice embedded itself into my psyche.  And as in the aforementioned scene, there is only one conclusion that despair offers: death.  And so I struggled with suicidal impulses.

When I first came to Christ as a teenager, because my sexuality was equated with sinfulness, repenting and following Christ became an endeavor to “leave behind homosexuality.”  Any attraction I felt toward women was interpreted as a temptation to overcome, a symptom of deep brokenness.  In college I was introduced to Exodus International, a ministry serving those who wanted to “overcome” their homosexuality.  Hearing stories of “change” gave me hope that I too could finally cast off my burden of same-sex attraction and be made whole (aka. straight).  I spent the summer after my junior year interning in Orlando, FL for Alan Chambers.  And when I graduated, he offered me a job as Publications Manager at Exodus.  I packed up my bags and moved across the country, ready to embrace my new calling into ex-gay ministry.

A year later, the differences I experienced with the Exodus leadership led me to resign.  I was completely confused about what that meant for my journey, as I had begun to picture a future as an ex-gay leader.  If I didn’t have that, then who was I?  What was I going to do with my life?  How in the world was I going to prove myself to God?  It was during the aftermath of my Exodus experience that I fell into a deep depression.  More than anything I was afraid I wouldn’t be pleasing to God if I wasn’t actively involved in repudiating my homosexuality and helping others do the same.  If I wasn’t part of the ex-gay “in” crowd, I needed a new identity, and without one readily discernible, I fell apart.  I entered into Despair’s cave and began to listen to him speak his shaming words.

You are good for nothing.  Your are a failure.  You are worthless.  You are irredeemable.

I couldn’t find my footing or catch my breath.  The questions that crashed into me were like relentless waves.  What am I going to do with my life?  What is my calling?  How does God want to use me?  Does God want to use me?  Does God want anything to do with me?

In Despair’s cave, the knight Redcrosse stands with dagger in hand contemplating his demise.  Just as he is about to thrust the dagger into his belly, Una appears.  She is the reason for Redcrosse’s journey: it is her royal parents that he is supposed to rescue.  In this story, she is a representation of the Church.  She throws the dagger on the ground and confronts Redcrosse saying,

“Fie, fie, faint-hearted knight!  What meanest thou by this reproachful strife?  Is this the battle which thou vaunt’st to fight with that fire-mouthed dragon, horrible and bright?  Come, come away, frail, feeble, fleshly wight, ne let vain words bewitch thy manly heart, ne devilish thoughts dismay thy constant sprite: in heavenly mercies hast thou not a part?  Why shouldest thou then despair, that chosen art?”**

Redcrosse is saved from Despair’s attempt on his life and he remembers the mission before him.  Una leads him to a place where he can recover until he is ready to face his foe, the dragon that threatens her parents.

I love this story of rescue.  It provides a beautiful picture of the Church and its ministry of liberating people from the darkness of despair.  It inspires me to dream of Church as a family of believers who refuse to let go of its hope of salvation and its mission to usher in the Kingdom of God by rescuing others from their dim imaginations of judgment through the powerful prophetic imagination*** that infuses the body of Christ.  When truly embodying Jesus, the Church saves and gives life on the other side of despair.  We are not kept from entering into the cave, but we are brought out with the promise of “heavenly mercies.”

When I became depressed after returning home from Florida, despair handed me a dagger.  Then entered Una.  In my case this was seminary.  I began a theology degree at Fuller Theological Seminary, and it saved my life.  For most of my Christian life, I have felt communion with God through the sacraments, but during seminary I realized how much academic biblical study should be counted among the sacraments for me.  In it I encountered a mystery whereby I was drawn up into Christ and given the grace I needed to continue.  I was reminded of God’s mission for God’s people, and after a year and a half of wrestling with despair, I rejoined the journey.  But I was badly wounded and drained from that fight, and I needed a “house of healing.”  Fuller, and a small community that walked alongside me provided the context for that healing.

I’d like to say that I never entered into despair’s cave again, but depression is something with which I have continued to struggle.  Like Frodo’s wound from the ring wraiths in The Lord of the Rings, my wound remains with me and is painful whenever the darkness comes near.  As I have sought and walked the path of faithfulness as best as I know, my wound reminds me of the fallenness of this world.  It reminds me that the Christian journey is dangerous, and there are forces that work against the mission of God.  Whenever that wound is opened, it threatens to push me into despair’s cave once again.

I wish that the Church was always there to rescue and heal me, but my times of greatest wounding have been at the hands of the Church.  So many people give up on the Church and walk away from faith because they have been deeply hurt.  So many gay people have been turned away from the Church.  I refuse to give up, and I refuse to be excluded.  I still believe in the Church.  Derek Webb sings,

I haven’t come for only you, but for my people to pursue.  You cannot care for me with no regard for her.  If you love me you will love the Church.

I love the Church.  I love what it is called to be.  It is Una’s voice giving life to fresh imagination that renews love for the Church when all seems dark.  I will give my life to the mission of helping others hear that voice and inviting others into a more robust understanding of being Church.

People want me to prove “from the Bible” that it is ok for me to be gay.  Oh the difficulties fraught in that request.  It assumes a nearness between our cultural context and that of the biblical writers that is naive and not useful.  It assumes a proof-texting hermeneutic - as if I could just point to one or several verses that explicitly condone same-sex orientation and/or same-sex marriages.  It also assumes that one or several verses “clearly” condemn same-sex attractions and/or relationships.  How, when so many scholars can debate these same passages over and over, can anyone say that there is a “clear” interpretation?  Is there even a notion that interpretation is inherent in reading these or any passages of scripture?  We all bring something to the text when we read.  Do we see that?  Can we admit that?  Are we self-aware enough to name those things?

One of the things that I bring to the text is my experience of same-sex attraction and my subsequent understanding of my sexual identity.  There is no setting that aside.  Not even heterosexuals can set aside their heterosexuality when they come to the text, and it would be helpful if they would recognize their position of power and privilege in their act of reading and interpreting.    So, if I bring my experience and sexual identity to the text, let’s talk about that.

I experience my attractions as persistent and unchanging despite a dozen years of desiring and pursing change.  (Some will say that I never really tried to change because I did not become more “feminine” or do what I needed to do to attract a man.  The patriarchal and heteronormative power structures present in those kinds of statements appall me.)  So, the reality in which I live is that I am sexually oriented toward the same sex.  I did not create that situation, and I cannot undo that situation.  It is, therefore, core to who I am, and I must decide how to live within and out of that identity.  Thus, any attempt by someone (even myself) to “change” my orientation can be understood as an act of oppression and violence.  There is no separating out my sexuality from the rest of who I am.  Sexuality is that center from which we as gendered beings relate to and within the world around us.  It is how I perceive of myself as a woman, and as a woman, how I relate to other women, to men, to children, to married people, to single people, to friends or strangers.  It is how I connect emotionally to other human beings.  When someone I am in relationship with says, “I love you, but I cannot accept that you are gay,” they do not realize that even our relationship is contextually linked to my gayness.  It seems to me that those people have the idea that people are fundamentally or intrinsically heterosexual but that on top of that capacity for opposite-sex attraction is this nagging same-sex attraction.  If only I could ignore or resist the same-sex attraction, my God-given heterosexuality would be free to function.  Again, my reality is that God did not make me straight.  I do not know if he “made me” gay, but I know that he did not gift me with heterosexuality.  So, if we are in relationship with one another, then you are relating with a gay person, not someone who is a person and happens to have a separate gay compartment that can be set aside.  If you do not “accept” my sexual identity, then you do not truly embrace or understand me.  There is an exclusion happening that makes safe and healthy relationship very difficult.

While I may not be able to “prove from the Bible” that being gay is ok, I am a person of the text, and as such I turn to it for guidance in all aspects of my life.  I really don’t like starting from the normal “clobber passages” because, honestly, at the end of the day, we cannot be sure they condemn same-sex covenanted relationships (they do condemn other forms of homosexuality such as temple prostitution, rape, pedophilia, etc.).  With all of the solid scholarship on both sides of the issue, it seems there is an impasse when it comes to using those passages to argue for or against same-sex covenanted relationships.  It wasn’t until I began looking at the “moral logic” (thank you James Brownson) of the biblical witness that I shifted in my theological understanding of sexuality.  The following are a few thoughts on a few texts I turn to.

1. The Creation Narratives point us to what it means to be human, and core to humanity is partnership and community.  It is not good for humans to be alone.  Not even a relationship with God can replace or make unnecessary the “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” relationship.  The core relational connection between humans is the “one flesh” relationship.****
2. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “But if [the unmarried and the widows] are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion” (NRSV, 1 Cor. 7:9).  In this chapter, Paul is refuting the Corinthians’ idea that “it is well for a man not to touch a woman” (v. 1).  He talks about the need of married people coming together and affirming their relationship by having sex.  He would like to see more people choose the unbound/single life like he has (for the purpose of serving Christ in an undivided manner), but he does not condemn married life.  In fact, he talks about marriage as having the potential to make an unbeliever “holy.”  I don’t think Paul is against or down on marriage.  I hear him especially urging single people to marry if they don’t have the “self-control” to remain single.  It does no good to commit to the single life in order to serve Christ if one is going to be battling sexual/relational desire in a way that pulls energy and focus away from their service.  In this passage I hear an affirmation of the Creation Narratives’ message that sexual union is a good and natural human need, one that must be taken seriously.  I also hear the affirmation of celibacy (not just abstaining from sex, but living an unbound, single life) as a gift from God (1 Cor. 7:7).  Paul goes on to talk about spiritual gifts later in his letter (1 Cor. 12-14).  I do not know what to make of it, but it is interesting to me that celibacy is not listed as a spiritual gift here.  Spiritual gifts, however, are mentioned as manifestations of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7).  Each member is given a gift in order to build up the Body of Christ.  It seems that not everyone is given every gift (1 Cor. 12:27-30).  The Corinthians are urged to “strive for the greater gifts” (the ones that build up the body, not just the individual) (1 Cor. 12:31a).  And then Paul tells them an even more “excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31b): love.  All spiritual gifts have their limit or will come to an end (1 Cor. 13:8), but love endures.  Love is to characterize every believer, regardless of spiritual gifting.  Love is other-centered and focused on all things good: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (NRSV, 1 Cor. 13: 4-7).  All practicing of spiritual gifts should be within the context of love.
3. The breaking down of barriers in Paul’s thought: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (NRSV, Gal. 3:28).  This verse could be Paul’s thesis statement for the gospel.  Whatever Christ accomplishes through his life, death and resurrection, it entails the removal of barriers that once organized the world and its relationships.  Ethnic, socio-economic, and gender distinctions were strictly observed in the Greco-Roman world of the first century when Paul was writing.  Breaking the customs - described as the natural order - threatened the fabric of society.  And that was the point.  Jesus turns the world upside-down and inside-out.  He ushers in a new world order, the Kingdom of God, where all relationships and organization of humanity are made new.  Consider the following passage:

So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. (NRSV, Eph. 2:11-22, italics mine)

The peace accomplished in Christ is described as the breaking down of a dividing wall of hostility.  This wall once kept out the Gentiles, and its destruction then invites them into the people of God.  This idea was so earth-shattering, that it caused some conflict in the early church.  Peter had to be convinced through a vision (Acts 10).  The church leaders eventually convened to work through this issue at the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15).  The decision? Gentiles should be welcomed into the church without the restriction of first becoming Jews: circumcision and food laws (the hallmarks of Jewish identity along with Sabbath keeping) were not required.  This is monumental.  God commanded the Jews to do these things in order to be the people of God, and they were setting it aside in order to welcome in the Gentiles.  Again, the gospel is about the breaking down of barriers, a reordering of human relations.

From the above texts, I get a sense that the gospel bends toward new patterns of human relationship and community.  Let’s call this justice.  God’s intention from the beginning was that humans should flourish together, they should partner with each other in order to create community that draws all people in peace.

How does this relate to the LGBT community?

1. There are a minority of people who experience persistent sexual/romantic/relational attraction to the same sex.  I am one of them.
2. As attested to by the former president of Exodus International: 99.9% of LGBT people he knows still experience same-sex attractions regardless of efforts to diminish or eradicate those attractions.*****  So, a majority of LGBT people do not “change.”
3. Thus, we must deal with the reality that there are LGBT persons in our midst.  And we must deal with their reality of having same-sex attraction and needing to decide how to live (There is NOT a “gay lifestyle.”  There are, like with heterosexuals, many lifestyles that gay people may adopt.  Though gay people are often demonized as promiscuous, unfaithful, and sexually deviant, there are those who reject those aspects of sexuality.  It is not helpful or  fair to compare the couple who have been committed to each other for 30 years with the 25 year old partier who has sex with a different partner every night.)
4. The gospel reorders human relations, offering us peace in the midst of hostility.  Social structures that systematically oppress any group of people are unjust and the Church has a responsibility to speak justice into those situations.  Sometimes the Church is an oppressive and unjust system, and prophetic voices that would speak justice are desperately needed.
5. Justice can be understood as inclusion, a radical welcoming of the stranger, a becoming one.
6. The presence of spiritual gifts give evidence to God at work.  There are many LGBT Christians who have been given such gifts, pointing to the reality that God is with them.
7. The capacity for celibacy is given by God to some.  Nowhere does the Bible suggest that whole groups or categories of people are gifted in this way.  Asking the LGBT community to remain celibate is to deny them a fundamental human need - partnership - regardless of gift or call.  Imposed celibacy is problematic and does not promote health or wholeness.
8. The appropriate response to the need for partnership is marriage.  Gay and straight alike should reserve sex for covenanted relationship.  The Church should affirm and bless the marriage covenants of same-sex couples.

In November 2015, I married my best friend and partner, Kim.  We stood on a patio overlooking Lake Tahoe surrounded by friends and family.  We vowed to live a life of embrace that teaches us the love of God and empowers us to serve his people.  Being in relationship with Kim has indeed allowed me to experience God’s love deeper than I ever have before.  Our partnership is one that seeks to make each of us able to follow Christ more faithfully than if we were apart.  I am not sure what our journey of church will look like in the future****** - where we will be accepted and welcomed home - but I am eager to see what God has in store and how he might use us to contribute to the dialogue happening surrounding this issue.

Notes

* Gollum is a sub-human creature from the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien.

** Edmund Spencer, The Fairy Queen, Book 1, Canto 9, Paragraph 52-53.

*** Read Walter Brueggemann's The Prophetic Imagination.

**** James Brownson, Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church's Debate on Same-Sex Relationships.

***** Paraphrasing Alan Chambers at the 2012 Gay Christian Network conference.

****** Currently we are living near Nashville, TN attending a predominately LGBT congregation, Holy Trinity Community Church.  It has been a healing experience to worship among so many LGBT brothers and sisters.  Soon we plan to move to Fresno, CA where I have roots in the Mennonite Brethren church.

July 20, 2014
11th Sunday after Pentecost
First Mennonite Church, Reedley, CA


I don't know about you, but I am in need of a grand promise today. The kind of promise that grows hope within me. The kind of hope that renews my imagination for not just the future, but for this present day, these present times. This is a gospel kind of promise.

What do we mean when we talk about "gospel" or "gospel promises"? We can turn to old favorites: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (ESV, Jn. 3:16). We can sing: "Just a few more weary days and then, I'll fly away; To a land where joy shall never end, I'll fly away." So often I hear the gospel presented as a promise for the future, for after death. But what about now? Does the gospel speak to us here and now? What might its promise sound like if we were listening to it with ears attuned to the daily cries and joys of life? There are many who cannot hear any promise for us at all. They look around and see pain and struggle without end that, in their view, renders the gospel impotent. Words without power. Popular singer, Sarah McLachlan sings a song called, "Dear God" that captures this worldview well:

Dear God, I hope you got the letter, and I pray that you can make it better down here. I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer. And all the people that you made in your image, see them starving on their feet cause they don't get enough to eat from God. I can't believe in you. Dear God, I'm sorry to disturb you but I feel I should be heard loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in the amount of tears. And all the people that you made in your image, see them fighting in the street cause they can't make opinions meet about God. I can't believe in you.

McLachlan presses God to account for death and sickness and injustice, concluding that "You're always letting us humans down." She sings, "The hurt I see helps to compound the Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax." This song makes me uncomfortable because, in addition to it being a blatant challenge to evangelical Christian faith, it also stabs my heart with the truth that all is not as it should be. So often, the gospel is presented to promise undisturbed health and wealth for those who claim it. But when the gospel is reduced to the promise of prosperity, it's claims seem fradulant. We must remember that even as we announce "the Kingdom of God is among us" that it is equally true that the Kingdom of God has not yet come. We experience both the already and the not yet of the promise of newness and redemption. For many, the "not yet" is reason enough to reject the gospel claim. Can anyone take seriously a gospel promise in a world where so many atrocious things happen?

Each of our passages today insist, "Yes!" In fact, it is in the midst of suffering that the gospel promise becomes most clear. Isaiah's words to us today make big claims: "I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god... Is there any god besides me? There is no other rock; I know not one" (NRSV, Isa. 6, 8). Old Testament scholar, Walter Bruggemann, sets the scene for us: court is in session, and God is on trial. The people of God have seen disasterous events occur: they have been carried away into Babylonian exile. In a world that understands military and policital events on earth to mirror heavenly events among the gods, exile suggests that the God of Israel has been defeated by the Babylonian gods. Yet, when pressed in court, God claims the titles "King," "Redeemer, and "LORD of hosts" (Isa. 44:6). He asks, "Who is like me?" (44:7). This question transports me to the story of Job. When God finally addresses his situation, he asks a series of questions: he basically says, "Where were you when I made the earth? Are you the one who makes creation thrive? Do you understand how it all works?" (Job 38). In other words, "Who is like me?" Job was facing his own personal exile of loss and suffering. Even his wife told him to give up hope. I imagine that through Job's experience, especially because he insisted on his innocence - he wasn't suffering because of his sin - that he wrestled with the question of theodicy. If God is who he says he is - loving and powerful - why this suffering? In the same way, the Israelites must have asked the same question in Babylon: if God is truly "LORD of hosts," how is it that we have been defeated? The implications of such a question are clear: our defeat means God's defeat; our suffering, his inadequacy. Right?

Not at all! Our text from Isaiah moves us forward from exile to a declaration of comfort. "Do not fear, or be afraid" God encourages his people. This portion of Isaiah, chapters 40-55, was written much later than the beginning chapters that announce Israel's captivity and exile. Brueggemann calls this "the long pause."

As we finish chapter 39, we are permitted, by the shape of the book of Isaiah, to look into the defining abyss of the life and faith of Judah. IN 39:1 we have been brought face-to-face with Babylon, a force that will dominate the book of Isaiah in the coming section... The prophet, moreover, anticipates that Jerusalem 'shall be carried to Babylon,... shall be taken away;... shall be eunichs in the palace of the king of Babylon' (39:6-7)... The reader of the book of Isaiah must endure a very long pause before taking up chapter 40, for the space between 39:8 and 40:1 signifies the defining interruption in the life and faith of Israel... The gap between 39:8 and 40:1, reckoned in chronological time, is thus about 160 years, a long pause indeed. (Brueggemann 8)

After 160 years of devastation and suffering, the declaration of comfort comes. And in our passage, a statement of encouragement - God is God and there is no other like him. Fear not! In the grand courtroom of life, we are witnesses to God's claims - King, Redeemer, Lord of Hosts. "The poetry [of this section of Isaiah] revolves around the contest between Yahweh and Babylon, and the passionate bid for Judah to trust Yahweh rather than Babylon" (Brueggemann 11). There is no contest: there is no god besides Yahweh. He is the one who calls for Israel's release, and he is the one who calls for our redemption as well.

Jesus' parable of the wheat and the weeds as told by Matthew also makes a big gospel claim. Think of these lectionary readings as a conversation. Isaiah and Matthew are telling a gospel story, promising a gospel promise. The first century may not have seen God's people in Babylonian exile, but they were experiencing an exile all their own. Rome was now in charge, the power of the day making a bid for ultimate allegiance. The actor, Babylon, on the world stage may now be the Roman Empire, but the struggle is the same: who will Israel turn to, who will they trust for life and a future? Caesar? Or Yahweh? Each Jewish group, whether the Saducees or the Pharisees, the Essenes or Zealots, had to make sense of their political situation in light of their theology and choose a way of living in the world that might usher in God's kingdom. Their worldview determined their life choices. In this parable, Jesus gives us one example of what the Kingdom of God is like. He helps us see a bit more of the big picture.

As we heard read, the parable utilizes an agricultural scenario that communicates an eschatalogical truth. This morning I'd like us to focus on a couple of aspects of that truth: there is a harvest coming, and there is an enemy at work. For a people constantly under the power of another nation, the Jews must have wondered whether or not God was ever going to restore his Kingdom. Their prayerbook, the Psalter, contains many utterances of "How long, O Lord?" This was a question burning in their minds and hearts. When would God decisively act to reestablish his Kingdom? In Jesus' parable, we learn that there is a harvest coming. There is no question of if; we just don't know when. This given in the story is a gospel claim in itself. It asserts that Yahweh is the God of heaven and earth, and that other so-called gods amount to nothing. Yahweh is the one writing the story of human history. He is the one who is moving his people toward redemption. He has a goal in mind, and it will come to fruition. In a world that inspires songs like Sara McLachlin's, in a world that questions the very existence of God, Jesus asserts that Yahweh's presence gives us eschatalogical hope.

But what of the atrocities of life? This parable also tells us that there is an enemy working against Yahweh. Jesus interprets the parable and tells us that this enemy is the devil and he plants his own children among God's children. His children are the ones who do evil, who perpetuate sin the world. This accounts for the suffering that God's children experience. The Master of the field does not want to risk uprooting any of the wheat, and so the weeds remain until harvest time. They will be dealt with; however, in the mean time, they can and do cause all sorts of trials and tribulations. Sin is a force to be reckoned with in this life. It has not yet been eradicated. When we experience the effects of sin, we may be tempted to doubt God's love and/ or power, but, according to this parable, we would do better to hear the gospel promise that in love, God is working to set all things right. The enemy will not previal. God's will will be done on earth as in heaven.

Yet we wait, and in the waiting we experiencing suffering. The apostle Paul writes to the Roman church, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us" (NRSV, Ro. 8:18). Paul is certain of what both Isaiah and Matthew communicate: the God of Israel is the God who wins out in the end. Our God is the agent of redemption in this world. Paul sees that the entire created order is in need of redemption, and that it will come by God's hand. Romans 8:18-25 reads:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (NRSV)

I had the privilege of teaching two sections of the class "Theological Ethics & the Environment" at FPU a while back, and one of my main goals was to show the students the connection between human sin and suffering and creation. I wanted to change the attitude that "the environment" does not really matter. We focused on food ethics. In the Western world, people may be challenged to care for the environment because it provides them greater health to, for example, eat organically. It is a bit harder to convince someone who does not struggle to get enough to eat or clean water to drink that the whole system needs healing. There is a strong connection between social justice and food. In a world where, as Sara McLachlin sings, "The people made in your image see them starving on their feet because they don't get enough to eat from God," there is so much room for Christians to serve the "least of these" by working for greater justice in the food system. This, of course, is just one example of how we can be part of God's redemptive plan.

Earlier in Romans 8, Paul compares flesh with spirit. To set one's mind on the flesh is to be hostile to God, not submitting to his instruction. To live according to the Spirit is to be dead to sin and alive in Christ. Romans 8:12-17 reads:

So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh - for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ - if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (NRSV)

Notice the call to suffer with Christ. This is a common thread running throughout each of our lectionary texts for today. The gospel does not shy away from the reality of suffering. Why is it that so much of the church does? Might "setting the mind on the flesh" be done by trying to avoid suffering and living according to the comforts we crave? How much sin might we engage in by our lifestyles of relative comfort? How much do we shield ourselves from the suffering of others by trying to keep suffering at arms length in our own lives? Christ gives us a different example to follow.

The section of Isaiah that we read from belongs to a larger portion of the book where an odd character emerges: the suffering servant. After the "long pause" when we begin to hear words of comfort, we meet an agent of God who will bring about the promised homecoming and redmeption. You can get a good description of this servant in Isaiah 53: he is a surprising character because of the way he brings about the promise. "Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities" (Isa. 53:11). In Jesus' parable, the Son of Man is the one who sows good seed and who will manage the harvest. The identity of the Son of Man is also connected to suffering. Jesus spends much time telling his disciples that the Son of Man must suffer and die in order to fulfill God's mission. The Kingdom is coming via his suffering. This is not what they expected. In fact, it would have been an affront to their notions of a victorious Messiah. Yet, Jesus says, this is how it will happen. Those whose minds are set on the flesh cannot understand it; those who are empowered by the Spirit will embrace it and follow its way.

Allow me to quote at length from Brueggemann's words regarding our section of Isaiah:

If, however, we are to take the text seriously as a contemporary theolgical resource, we must do more than enjoy its generic "evangelical" buoyancy. I do not think the text can be simply reapplied directly to our time and place. Nonetheless, I suggest an avenue of interpretation. If we take the triad of Yahweh-Babylon-Judah as the players in this dramatic enterprise and seek contemporaneity, it is easy enough to continue to acknowledge the identity of Yahweh, the same God who rules in judgment and deliverance. In parallel fashion, it is obvious enough to take Judah as the contemporary community of faith, surely the synagogue and by derivation the church. But it is with the third player, Babylon, that we are summoned to more disciplined reflection for an equivalence that is not obvious. 

The term Babylon has become a code word for any rapacious social system. It is used in the book of Revelation to refer to imperial Rome and its demanding emperor worship (Revelation 18). Martin Luther used the term to refer to what he saw as the oppressive sacramental system of the Roman Church. In our time and place, as a believing community in the United States (or anywhere in the West), I suggest a powerful - though not precise - equivalence of Babylon in the ideology of free-market consumerism and its required ally, unbridled militarism. I refer not to particular players, parties, or leaders, but to the unexamined, dominant ideology that encompasses everyone, liberal and conservative, and that sets the limits of what is possible and what is good, what is to be feared and what is to be trusted. 

There is no doubt that this powerful ideology is such that it robs the human community of its humanness and reduces all of life to commodity. The gospel question in our time, as it was for those ancient exiles, is whether there is or can be life outside the ideology and whether there is a good-news offer of such an option. The announcement of life emancipated from the endless demands of this ideology is indeed gospel news that the ultimate claims of the ideology are not credible and have been nullified. It is not easy to speak or hear or trust such a gospel, because the ideology is seemingly all pervasive. But it was not easy when this gospel of life beyond rapacious ideology was uttered in that ancient sixth century. 

Perhaps that is why (a) the announcement is provisionally disputatious and (b) the figure of a suffering servant is, in the end, necessary to the credibility of the gospel. So it was then. So it is now - still a quite unattractive suffering, but one still needed. Only such suffering confirms the gospel news. We keep refusing the claim that we are healed by someone willing to accept the bruises (see 53:5). But we see it was so for the ancient Jews. We see it was so in the life and death of Jesus. And we dare face the staggering chance that it may continue to be so even to our time and place. It is this ancient yet contemporary text that insists that needed bruising is a present, inescapable reality. The text gives 'comfort' from the God of all comfort, but not easily and not obviously - perhaps only hiddenly (see 45:15). (Brueggemann 14-15)

As I said when I began, I am in need of a grand promise today. A gospel promise that means everything for how I see the world and live in it in this present time. I want to live according to the Spirit, and our texts this morning challenge me to see that that life will include suffering. As I groan with creation, my imagination is freed from the ideology that binds us, and I can make choices outside unjust social systems. Whether I work with Christ to usher in God's kingdom by the food I eat, the way I feed others, or whether by some other way, there is always something we can do. May we have the faith to do it. "Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart to revere your name" (Ps. 86:11). Amen.