Loving Hard in a Hard World

On February 23, 2025 By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany.

Delivered at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Coldwater

Sermon recording:

Photo credit: Image of Archbishop Desmond Tutu by Elke Wetzig (Elya), CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons

There is no manuscript this week. Here is my outline:

I. Introduction – “I love Jesus, but sometimes he makes me mad.”

1. “That’s not what I said”

(1) You be nice to me and I’ll be nice to you

(2) I’ll try to be nice to people who aren’t nice to me, but there’s a limit

(3) Be nice to terrorists and racists, approve whatever they do

Being nice doesn’t enter into it
- Nice is a tool

(4) Like your enemies

II. What Jesus actually said:

1. “Love your enemies.”

(1) Love is a choice, not a feeling

2. “Turn the other cheek”

(1) Cultural context: Walter Wink

Insult, not injury
- Open right hand only
  - Left hand too degrading (used for sanitation purposes)
    - Turning face gets nose in the way, assailant liable for damages
    - Closed hand (fist) reserved for equals

(2) Nonviolent resistance

Make them hit you like an equal
- Take the power back, but don’t return violence for violence

III. The heart of the Gospel

1. In a hard world of violence, God loves even harder

(1) Radical love, impractical love, offensive love

2. When humanity turned away from God and fell into sin, God did not turn away from us.

(1) God took on flesh and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus Christ, who taught and demonstrated love in every moment of his life

(2) When the political and religious powers-that-be tried to shut Jesus down, he spoke up and acted out even louder

(3) When that didn’t work, they unleashed all their powers of hate and violence at Jesus in order to silence the voice of love, once and for all

(4) But even that didn’t work, because Love Itself cannot be contained, even by death, which is why Jesus rose from the grave on Easter morning, conquering the power of death, and bursting open the gates of hell from the inside

Easter Sunday is the biggest jailbreak of all time

3. Eucharistic Prayer D in the Book of Common Prayer sums it up beautifully (p. 373)

“When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death. In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you. Again and again you called us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation. Holy God, you loved the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior. Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, Jesus lived as one of us, yet without sin. To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation; to prisoners, freedom; to the sorrowful, joy. To fulfill your purpose Jesus gave himself up to death; and, rising from the grave, destroyed death, and made the whole creation new.”
The Book of Common Prayer, p. 373-374

IV. As Gospel people, we ought to love with the same wild and reckless abandon: radical, impractical, offensive

1. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Truth and Reconciliation Commission

(1) Mother of murdered son, to his murderer:

“I am very full of sorrow. So I am asking you now – come with me to the place where he died, pick up in your hands some of the dust of the place where his body lay, and feel in your world what it is to have lost so much. And then I will ask you one thing more. When you have felt my sadness, I want you to do this. I have so much love, and without my son, that love has nowhere to go. On turning to the policeman she said ‘So I am asking you from now on – you be my son, and I will love you in his place.”

2. On a smaller, more personal/local scale

(1) Nonviolent Communication Strategies (Marshall Rosenberg)

“When you did ____.”
“I felt ____.”
“Because I value/need/want ____.”
“I request that you ____.”

V. Conclusion

“Goodness is stronger than evil,
Love is stronger than hate,
Light is stronger than darkness,
Life is stronger than death.
Victory is ours,
Victory is ours,
Through God who loves us.”
Prayer by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The Whole Truth: Working With Feelings of Inadequacy

On February 9, 2025 By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany.

Delivered at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Coldwater, MI

Click here for the biblical readings.

One of the many things I love about our liturgy in The Episcopal Church is our lectionary. For those who may be newer to our church: the lectionary is a cycle of prescribed Scripture readings that repeats every three years. Whether you attend St. Mark’s, Coldwater or St. Stephen’s Church in Durham, North Carolina, every Episcopal congregation in the country will be hearing the same readings that Sunday. I think that’s a neat way for us to stay connected to each other.

The other benefit of our lectionary is that it gives us a very thorough and robust diet of Scripture to mentally digest during our Sunday worship. Each week, we have four readings: one from the Hebrew Scriptures (a.k.a. the Old Testament) or the Acts of the Apostles, a Psalm, an Epistle, and a Gospel. The fact that we read so much of the Bible in each service keeps us preachers accountable to the whole witness of Scripture and prevents us from preaching the same sermon, over and over again, based on our favorite few verses.

My usual practice for sermons is to pick one of the readings in a given week and focus my message on that particular text. Most of the time, that helps me stay focused and allows me to delve deep into one reading, rather than trying to force a connection between all four readings. This week, however, I’m going to break my usual rule.

When I was looking over the readings for this Sunday, a repeated theme jumped out at me from three of the four readings. That theme is the felt sense of inadequacy. I found the theme of inadequacy in the readings from Isaiah 6, I Corinthians 15, and Luke 5.

In our first reading, the prophet Isaiah experiences a mystical vision of God during a time of political upheaval. The passage begins: “In the year that King Uzziah died.” The death of a king was always a fraught period in the ancient world. The power vacuum left by the former king was often contested by rival claimants to the throne. The people held their breath while they waited for the administrative dust to settle. They probably wondered things like, “What kind of ruler would this new king be? Would he uphold their sacred traditions? Would the people have peace and prosperity during his reign?”

It is during such a time of upheaval that Isaiah writes, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne.” I think that detail is significant: the old king was dead, but the throne was not empty. The people may have felt uncertain about the immediate future, but their ultimate destiny was secure, not because of their political leaders, but because God remains eternally on the throne of the universe. This is a thought that can continue to comfort us today.

In the midst of this vision, the prophet Isaiah is overwhelmed by the sight of divine glory. He says, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts!” Standing in the presence of God, Isaiah is overcome by the felt sense of his own inadequacy and insignificance.

St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians in our Epistle reading this morning, talks about experiencing a different kind of inadequacy. He writes, “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” For Paul, his experience of inadequacy comes from the guilt he feels over his past actions. Earlier in his life, Paul had been part of a systematic attempt by the authorities to wipe out the Christian faith. He had hunted and killed Christians in the same way that Nazi officers had gone door-to-door in search of Jews during the Holocaust. To imagine what Paul must have been feeling, imagine a Gestapo officer ripping the swastika armband off his uniform and asking, “What have I done?” Paul’s felt sense of inadequacy says to him, “What you’ve done is so horrible, so irredeemable, you can’t possibly hope to play any part in God’s plan for this world.”

In today’s Gospel, St. Peter (a.k.a. Simon) experiences his own sense of inadequacy when Jesus borrows his boat to use as a pulpit. After the sermon, Jesus tells Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon, a career fisherman taking advice from a carpenter, is skeptical at first, but eventually goes along with the suggestion. When the nets come back up, overfull to the point of breaking, Simon is dumbstruck by someone who knows how to do his job much better than he does. As an amateur guitar player, I’ve had that experience when listening to professional musicians who can play circles around me. Whatever skill or talent you may have, you’ve probably met someone who is much better at it than you are, and felt completely inadequate. Simon, when he saw how full the nets were, fell down on his knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

All three of these biblical figures, Isaiah, Paul, and Simon, experienced a felt sense of inadequacy because of the enormity of their situation, shame for their past actions, and the limitations of their own abilities.

In that sense, they are not that different from you or me. Who among us has not felt overwhelmed by the state of the world? Who among us has never felt regret for our past actions? Who among us does not occasionally get overshadowed by a talent much greater than our own? All of us have been there, at one time or another.

The conventional wisdom of pop psychology and self-help books encourages us to repress these feelings of inadequacy by “staying positive” and allowing “good vibes only” in our thinking. The problem with this approach is that, if we ignore the voice of inadequacy, it just shouts louder than before. We end up self-sabotaging our lives, jobs, and relationships in our attempts to prove that voice wrong. We transform ourselves into egotistical poseurs or delicate wallflowers in our efforts to numb the pain that says, “You’re not good enough.”

The Gospel, on the other hand, offers us a different solution than the one suggested by the strategy of repression. In Isaiah’s case, an angel takes a burning coal and presses it to his lips, the very part of himself that he had bemoaned as “unclean.” Fire is a blacksmith’s tool that has been used, since ancient times, to purify metal and temper steel. The angel says to the prophet, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” In Simon’s case, Jesus calls the man into a new and deeper dimension of his profession, not as a fisherman but as an apostle. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus says, “from now on you will be catching people.” In Paul’s case, the experience of God’s grace leads him to find his identity, not in the sum of his past mistakes, but in the unconditional love of God. Paul writes, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.”

The Word of God transforms the inadequate feelings of Isaiah, Paul, and Simon, not by ignoring or going around them, but by embracing and moving through them. The voice of our inner critic tells the truth, but not the whole truth, about who we are in the eyes of God. God looks at us with unconditional love and teaches us how to view ourselves with compassion, courage, and curiosity. Each and every one of us is greater than the sum of our mistakes, inadequacies, and feelings of overwhelm.

There is, deep in our heart of hearts, a calm center where Christ sits on the throne, seeing and guiding all with wisdom and love. This calm center is who we truly are. As we sit next to Christ on the throne, he teaches us how to see ourselves and our world as he sees it. Using the tools he gives us in our spiritual exercises, we grow in self-awareness and self-compassion. In time, that inner transformation begins to leak outside and influence the world around us. Under the influence of grace, the concerned citizen becomes a prophet, the Nazi persecutor becomes a theologian, and the fisherman becomes an apostle.

This is the work of God’s amazing grace in our lives. If we let it, God’s grace can change the way we see ourselves and lead us out from there to change the world. Amen.

The Amazing Grace People

On January 26, 2025 By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany.

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church,
Coldwater, MI

The biblical text is Luke 4:14-21. Click here to read.

In the 2001 movie Shrek, the titular ogre tries to explain to his friend, the donkey, how ogres are complex beings.

“Ogres are like onions,” says he.

The donkey replies, “Why? Because you smell bad?”

Shrek: “No.”

Donkey: “Because you make people cry?”

Shrek: “No… because we both have layers. Onions have layers; ogres have layers. You get it.”

Just like ogres and onions, today’s gospel also has layers. Specifically, it has three layers: Jesus, Isaiah, and Jubilee. We are going to have to unpack each of those layers in order to fully appreciate what Jesus is saying in this passage of Scripture.

In the first layer, we have Jesus preaching a sermon at the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. This would have been very exciting for the people of that town. Many of our parishioners at St. Mark’s will remember the late Bishop Tom Shaw, who grew up in this parish and later became a monk, a priest, and a bishop in The Episcopal Church. We still keep a candle burning in his memory between the pulpit and the altar. Imagine how exciting it would be for Bishop Shaw to come back and say Mass here, at the parish church where he grew up. That’s how big a deal it would have been for the people of Nazareth when Jesus came home to preach.

This story is also a big deal in the gospel according to Luke because the author uses it as Jesus’ inaugural address at the beginning of his ministry. In the same way that a president’s inaugural address sets the tone for that president’s term of office, this sermon is Luke’s way of setting the tone for the rest of Jesus’ ministry.

So, what is the tone that Luke is trying to set? To understand that, we need to look at the second layer of this passage: Isaiah.

The passage of Scripture that Jesus read in the synagogue comes from the book of Isaiah, chapter 61. The prophet, in this section of Isaiah, is writing to the Jewish people as they return from a half-century of exile. In 587 BCE, the Babylonians invaded the southern kingdom of Judah and hauled their leaders away as slaves. During the next 50 years, the Babylonians tried to do to the Jewish people what white settlers did to indigenous tribes in North America: They displaced the people from their homeland and tried to erase their culture by outlawing the speaking of their language and the practice of their religion.

Thankfully, the early Jews resisted this attempt at forced assimilation. They pushed back against their enslavers, wrote down their ancestral stories in the Torah, taught those stories to their children, and went on strike once a week, on the Sabbath, to remind themselves and their captors that they were not the property of the Babylonians, but beloved children of God. After two generations of resistance, the Persians conquered the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to return home and rebuild.

Isaiah 61 was written as the Jews were beginning that process of rebuilding after the Babylonian Exile. During this time, the people were looking for some kind of inspiration to guide them in that process. The prophet provided that inspiration by looking even further back into Israel’s history. When Isaiah talks about “good news to the poor,” “release to the captives,” and “the year of the Lord’s favor,” he is talking about the year of Jubilee, which leads us to the third and final layer of this story.

The year of Jubilee was prescribed as one of God’s laws in the Torah. It appears in chapter 25 of the book of Leviticus. According to this law, there was to be a general amnesty of debts, once every fifty years. All debts would be forgiven, all enslaved people would be freed, and all land would return to its original owners. Practically, this would mean doing a hard reset on the economy. It would interrupt patterns of generational poverty and allow a fresh start, so that grandchildren were not still paying for the mistakes of their grandparents. Spiritually, the year of Jubilee communicated to the ancient Israelites that their God was a God of fresh starts and new beginnings. The God of Israel is, not just a God of law, but also a God of mercy. Compassion and forgiveness were established as foundational principles in the Torah, which is why Isaiah pointed to them as foundational principles of the new society that Jews were rebuilding after their return from slavery and exile in Babylon. The people had just been through a horrible period of collective trauma, so the prophet wanted to ensure that their new society would be a safe place to heal from that trauma. That’s why Isaiah pointed to the year of Jubilee as the model for what this new society would look like. The ancient prophet Isaiah understood what the 21^st century prophet, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, also understood: that “there is no future without forgiveness.”

This brings us back to the first layer of our story: the layer of Jesus. Jesus appeals to the prophet Isaiah, who appeals to the year of Jubilee, to establish the fact that the foundational principle of God’s kingdom on Earth is the principle of mercy.

Mercy is the driving force behind everything that Jesus says and does. He demonstrated mercy by healing the sick and feeding the hungry. He showed mercy by welcoming tax collectors and sinners. He taught mercy by saying, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” (Matthew 5:7) and “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). Finally, Jesus embodied mercy in his death on the cross, praying for his executioners, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

The reason why the author of Luke’s gospel has Jesus quote this passage from Isaiah, who refers to the year of Jubilee, in his first sermon, is to establish the fact that mercy is foundational principle of Jesus’ ministry on Earth. Therefore, if mercy is the driving principle behind Jesus’ ministry, then it ought to be the driving principle behind the Church’s mission as well.

Mercy is, and ought to be, an unsettling topic. Mercy takes away any sense of power from those who need and receive it. Mercy is shocking to those who still cling to their illusions of control. Mercy is offensive to the self-righteous, but, in the words of the late author (and Episcopalian) Rachel Held Evans, “What makes the gospel offensive is not who it keeps out, but who it lets in.”

Scripture and history are rife with examples of people for whom the mercy of Jesus became the central fact of their life. St. Paul the Apostle was transformed, by God’s mercy, from a persecutor of the Church to its first theologian. He writes, “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain” (I Corinthians 15:9-10). In the same way, the Rev. John Newton, who began his career as the captain of a slave ship, later experienced the mercy of God, repented of his sin, and became an Anglican priest. He dedicated the remainder of his life to ending the Atlantic slave trade and penned the most famous hymn in all of Christian history: “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

According to Luke, in today’s gospel, mercy lies at the heart of everything Jesus does, therefore it ought to lie at the heart of everything the Church does in his Name. As receivers and conduits of God’s mercy, we are, and ought to be, the “Amazing Grace People.” The world ought to look at us with shock and awe when they see how indiscriminately we lavish the mercy of God upon those who deserve it least. As sinners, saved by grace, we ought to be offensive in our witness to the mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Mercy was the driving force behind the year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25; mercy was the foundational principle of the new society that the prophet was rebuilding in Isaiah 61; mercy was the theme of Jesus’ ministry in the gospel according to Luke; and mercy is the Church’s reason for existing today.

Kindred in Christ, we have opened the Scriptures and examined Church history to wrap our minds and hearts around this overarching theme of God’s mercy. One question still remains: Where does this leave us, today? Will we be Christians or not? Will we risk everything to be conduits of God’s shocking and offensive mercy or not?

Thankfully, because of you “Amazing Grace People,” I don’t have to look very far to find an answer to that question.

Last Friday, I had the privilege of touring and speaking with the staff of Tommy’s House, which you may already know as a transitional residence for women recovering from the disease of addiction. The director of Tommy’s House, a parishioner in our congregation, explained to me how Tommy’s House provides a safe and supportive environment for its residents, helps them get back on their feet, and empowers them to begin new lives, beyond the shackles of chemical dependency.

During the tour, one of the staff members (who had previously been a resident in their program), asked me, “Why is it that, wherever we go, we always find that it’s the Episcopal churches in a city that open their doors to our Twelve Step recovery meetings?”

What a great question! There are two answers.

First, Episcopalians were there when the Twelve Steps were invented. Bill Wilson, the original author of the Twelve Steps, had a spiritual mentor named Fr. Samuel Shoemaker, who was an Episcopal priest. Bill W. often referred to Fr. Shoemaker as “the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.” Fr. Shoemaker, of course, denied this allegation and gave full credit back to Bill. The fact remains, however, that The Episcopal Church was there when it happened and continues to be recognized as a safe space for Twelve Step recovery meetings.

The second, and more spiritually significant, reason why Episcopal churches are frequently known as reliable hosts for AA and NA meetings is because we are an “Amazing Grace People.” We believe that God is a God of second chances. We understand that a finite sinner cannot out-sin the mercy of an infinite God, therefore we are “the Amazing Grace People.”

Friends, I send you into the world this week in full assurance of the infinite mercy of God, which easily overwhelms the finite number of your sins. May the mercy of God be the foundation of your new life, from this day forward, just as it was for Isaiah, Jesus, and all who continue to minister in his holy Name. And “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen” (II Corinthians 13:14).

Faithful Wounds and Tough Love

On September 12, 2014September 12, 2014 By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Today’s first reading at the Office of Vigils was from Jonah 1:11-17.

Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them.

I love the story of these sailors at the beginning of the book of Jonah. So gentle and humane are their spirits that they would even defy the pronouncement of divine judgment for the sake of their fellow human being. It reminds me of my own approach to life and ministry: Let theology be flexible; only let me care well for those entrusted to me.

Generally speaking, I think we need more people like these sailors in today’s world, where relationships are often sacrificed on the altars of ideology: opponents are demonized, gay and lesbian children are kicked out of homes by their parents, and friendships are ended (or never begun) because two people see the world differently. Where are kind souls who would risk their own lives (or their theologies) for others’ sake?

Nevertheless, there comes a moment in the development of relationships where it becomes impossible to go on, to grow as human beings in relationship, unless we risk confrontation and have the courage to tell one another the bad news.

This takes an incredible amount of trust between all parties if it is to work well.

St. Benedict writes in chapter 69 of his Rule:

Care must be taken that no monk presume on any ground
to defend another monk in the monastery

This sentence is written for those people who have made a lifelong commitment to one another in the intentional community of a monastery. Such commitment is not made lightly and only comes after an extended period of formation in the novitiate. People who have reached the point of professing permanent vows have presumably built enough trust with one another (and their superiors) to engage in the difficult work of truth-telling. We should be able to say the same about marriage, parenthood, and a handful of other relationships in life.

Rescuing (Benedict calls it “defending”) one another, so that our loved ones never have to experience any pain or hardship can sometimes short-circuit God’s work in their lives. There are trials we must endure if we are to grow as human beings and we must be able to trust God and a few others to help us work through them, rather than avoid them.

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” goes the old saying in Proverbs 27:6 (KJV). Speaking the truth in love is an icky-tasting medicine. It should be used like a surgeon’s scalpel: as rarely as possible and only with great care by one who has earned the right to be heard.

The sailors on Jonah’s ship reached the point where they could not go on any longer. Like the addict who has “bottomed out”, they had to make a choice between drastic action or death. After a final prayer, they did what had to be done: they tossed Jonah overboard.

As it turns out, this hard act of trust had salvific implications, not only for their physical lives, but their spiritual lives as well. They came away from this encounter with a deepened reverence for Yahweh. Likewise, the sailors’ willingness to do the hard thing opened up the possibility for Jonah to fulfill his own destiny. The doom he feared did not come upon him: Jonah was rescued (albeit in the most disgusting way possible) and he went on to be the vessel of Ninevah’s deliverance from destruction. An entire city was saved because of the sailors’ willingness to let go and cast Jonah overboard.

Do we have that kind of faith in God and each other? Are we willing to do the hard thing and “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) when necessary?

Many who participate in Alcoholics Anonymous or other 12 Step groups have learned that kind of trust through their sponsors and the power of the group. Tough love makes recovery possible.

I learned it from a trusted mentor when I was in college. He loved me enough to back me up against a wall and tell me some hard truths when I needed to hear them. He did not employ this technique often or lightly. He did not do it just to “be right” or for the sake of his own ego. He earned the right to be heard by me. Faithful were the wounds of this friend.

The Well in the Desert

On June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized4 Comments

Have you ever experienced rejection?

If you’ve ever been a sixth-grader at a school dance, chances are you have.

“Eww, I’m not gonna dance with you, you dweeb!”

It’s a hard thing to go through, especially when you’re a kid. Those painful memories stay with you forever. Those of us who have kids of our own or care for other people’s kids know that crestfallen look in their eyes when they come home from school. We remember what it was like to be that age and experience rejection. It’s like our body still remembers the feeling of that knot in the stomach. We didn’t know how to fix it then and we don’t know how to fix it now. The best that any of us can say is that, by the grace of God, we got through it. So, when we see the kids we care about going through it right now, our heart goes out to them. Knowing that we don’t have any way to fix it (or even answers as to why it’s happening), all we can do when we see that look in their eyes is put our arms around them and say, “I’m so sorry.” We know that it’s just puppy love, but it’s real to the puppy. We know that our love for them can’t take away the shame of rejection, but we hope that somehow, it will help them get through it.

If we’re honest, we grown-ups can admit that we still feel that same pain sometimes. It might not come from the same sources (e.g. a twelve-year-old calling me a dweeb today will not phase me much), but there are certain things that other people can say or do that take us right back to feeling like that sixth grader at the middle school dance. It’s like the worst kind of time-travel. People can say things to us like: “I don’t have room in my life for a relationship with you… We don’t feel like you are a good fit for this position… Not tonight, I have a headache.”

It hurts, doesn’t it? And even though we are now adults facing adult situations, the pain we feel is still rooted in that childhood experience of rejection. Our brains may know the difference, but our bodies and our hearts do not. That old pain is still with us: the pain of not being chosen or wanted.

In our first reading this morning, from the book of Genesis, we heard the story of Hagar and her son Ishmael, two of the Bible’s most famous underdogs. They were two people who understood better than most what rejection feels like; what it feels like to be “not chosen” in ways that really matter.

Hagar and Ishmael are not “main characters” in the biblical story by any stretch of the imagination. They are the supporting cast, they are “extras” in someone else’s story. In this part of the book of Genesis, Sarah and Abraham are the main characters; they are God’s “chosen people.” God appeared to Abraham and said to him, “You shall be called the father of many nations. I will bless you and make you a blessing to all the nations of the world.”

Now, there was a problem with this arrangement because Abraham and his wife Sarah were already too old to have kids. And Sarah, being a very rational and practical person, came up with a solution: “I have this slave-girl, Hagar. She’s young enough to bear children. Here, Abraham, you go ahead and have a baby with her, so that God’s promise can come true.”

And this is where things get complicated. At this point, the biblical story almost starts to look like a “reality TV” show. Jealousy and rivalry set in quickly. Hagar and Sarah never seem to get along after this point.

First, Hagar does have a baby with Abraham and names him Ishmael. And Sarah is jealous of Hagar for this. Later on, after Sarah does have a baby against all conceivable odds, she decides that she doesn’t need Hagar anymore, so she tells Abraham to break up with Hagar and send her packing.

It’s interesting to note that Hagar never has a say in anything that happens to her. She is Sarah’s slave: an object who just gets passed around and used like a piece of property that can then be disposed of when she is no longer needed. Sarah and Abraham were the chosen people, but Hagar and Ishmael were leftovers… afterthoughts.

Sarah comes across as pretty heartless in this passage. Abraham fares a little better, but not much. The text says that he is “distressed” (we might say “stressed out”) by Sarah’s demands. After all, Ishmael is his firstborn son. He loads them up with as many supplies as they can carry, but it’s not much: a loaf of bread and a bottle of water. And then he sends them out into the desert, knowing that he will never see them again and they will most likely die there.

Out in the desert, Hagar’s water runs out pretty quickly. And here she is: all alone in the desert with a baby and no water. She’s been used, abused, and eventually abandoned by the people who were supposed to take care of her.

She keeps going for a little while: as long as she can, which is obviously not long in a place like that. But eventually her strength gives out. She knows what will happen next: she and her son will die out here and their bones will probably never be found.

If there is anyone in this story who is lower-down and worse off than Hagar, it’s Ishmael. He is just a baby at this point. He owes his very existence to this twisted situation. He didn’t ask for any of this. You could say that he never even had a decent shot at life. The playing field of opportunity was never really level for him. And now, because Sarah and Abraham, God’s chosen people, were acting so petty and hard-hearted, he was going to die.

This is where Hagar reaches her breaking point. She can’t go on, so she gives up and throws in the towel. Above all, she can’t bear to watch Ishmael die, so she abandons him: she sets him down under a bush and walks away. She can hear him crying behind her, but she won’t turn around. It’s too late for them. It’s over.

And then… in that moment… the moment after all hope is lost, hope finally begins to dawn. That’s when God finally decides to show up in this morbid scene: not alongside the chosen people, but with the rejected ones; not in the city or the camp, but out in the desert; not with the rugged, faithful, positive-thinking overcomers who soldier on no matter what, but with those who have given up and given in to the worst parts of their humanity. As G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “It is only for those who hold on for ten minutes after all hope is gone that hope begins to dawn.”

God shows up in the least likely places. In this story, there is a definite hierarchy among characters: At the top there is Sarah, who just doesn’t care. Next you have Abraham, who is caught in the middle of his two wives and sons. The text tells us that he is “distressed” by what is happening. After that, you have Hagar, who is rejected, abandoned, and heartbroken. And finally, at the very bottom, there is Ishmael, who never asked for any of this. This baby is going to die because God’s chosen people are too hard-hearted to see past their own petty issues. (Sounds like the Church sometimes, doesn’t it?)

And where is God in all this? Sitting on heaven’s throne, objectively evaluating the situation? Does God make excuses for the chosen people, justifying their selfishness, no matter what the cost?

Whose voice does God listen to in the end? Not Sarah’s, not Abraham’s, not the chosen people’s, not even poor Hagar’s. Genesis tells us that “God heard the voice of the boy.” Ishmael. The voice that mattered least. The voice that no one else wanted to hear (not even his own mother, in the end). Ishmael was the least of the least in this situation, the one who even the rejects rejected. He didn’t even have words to form, much less a theology for calling out to God and arranging salvation. The only thing that came out of him was the wordless wail of a child who has just been abandoned by his mother.

Rejection. Ultimate rejection which, in his case, meant certain death. And God heard the voice of the boy. God shows up where the pain is greatest and the hope is gone. In spite of the sacred covenant established with Abraham and continued through Isaac and Sarah, God cannot help but reach out to be with these forgotten folk, particularly this baby boy.

God speaks to Hagar his mother and says, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. I’m listening. Go, pick up your son and hold him close, because this kid has a future. I will make a great nation of him.”

And then, according to the text of Genesis, God opened Hagar’s eyes and she saw something: a well of water in the desert. Not just a bottle, like Abraham had given her, but a full-on well where she and her son could drink and drink to their hearts’ content.

According to the text and history, God made good on that promise to Hagar and Ishmael. They learned how to survive out in the desert. They made a life for themselves. Ishmael grew up, got married, and became a great bow-hunter.

He even became “a great nation,” as God promised he would: our Muslim neighbors trace their ancestry to Abraham through Ishmael, just as Jews and Christians trace their lineage through Isaac, Abraham’s son by Sarah.

What I take away from this story is God’s special love for the least of the least of the least. God really does seem to have a thing for underdogs. Church teaching has historically referred to this as “the preferential option for the poor.”

God is not neutral or objective when it comes to injustice. God sides with the poor and powerless people of the earth in their suffering. It’s not that God loves some people more than others; it’s that some people need God’s love more than others. God stands in solidarity with the oppressed peoples of this world, therefore we, as God’s people are called to do the same.

I believe the Church is called to be a safe haven for our outcast sisters and brothers. We’ve all heard stories of faith communities rejecting certain people, sending them packing, or kicking them out for one reason or another, perhaps sending them off with a single bottle of water to sustain their faith in the spiritual deserts of this world…

I believe the Church’s call in those moments is to be present with those rejected people, like Hagar and Ishmael in the desert. Rather than turning our heads and walking away because we can’t bear to see their suffering, I believe we are called to hold each other close in the darkest hours, to open the eyes that are blind, and inspire our hurting neighbors to believe in a future for themselves that they would not even dare to imagine.

We are not meant to pass out little bottles of water and then send people on their way. We care called to be that well in the desert, where exhausted travelers and fellow rejects can find rest and build a new life together out of the ashes of their rejection.

This is the kind of ministry that North Church has been doing for over a generation. We are the well in the desert. We stand together today, poised at the brink of an unknown-but-promising future, facing new challenges, ready to pursue new opportunities, and certain of this: that God is with us. We know this because we are the poor, we are the homeless, we are the addicts, we are the disabled, we are the mentally ill, we are often overlooked and outcast, we are the freaks and the geeks, we are the queer, like Hagar and Ishmael, we are the rejected ones: and that’s where God lives. Amen.

Redefining Success

On February 2, 2014 By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Károly Ferenczy [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Introduction

What would you say are the marks of a successful church?

Here are some of my ideas for North Church:

We’re going to court some billionaire investors. Not donors, but investors. We want to incentivize their giving by promising a lucrative return. Once we have their money, we’re going to make use of it.
First of all, because we need to keep them happy (so they’ll keep sending us money), we’re going to turn our upstairs balcony into a skybox where our wealthiest members can observe the service in comfort, with leather recliners and a full wait staff serving champagne and caviar.
For our music ministry, we’re going to hire a full-time, paid, professionally trained choir (we already have the best organist in Michigan, so we won’t need a new one of those). Our contemporary worship team will get brand new, state-of-the-art AV equipment.
We’re going to get TV cameras so our service can be broadcast live via satellite around the world.
We’ll get paid endorsements from celebrities like Derek Jeter (add Christina Hendricks and George Clooney for sex appeal), who will tell everybody how great North Church is.
And finally, we’ll need to protect all this new stuff, so we’ll need to get a security force to guard the church. And I’m not thinking just some smiling, helpful rentacops either… I’m talking about SWAT team gear with assault rifles: I want such an overwhelming display of power that nobody will even THINK about messing with our church.

If we had all of those things (i.e. money, fame, and power), we would be a successful church, right? Wrong.

Blessedness

Jesus’ definition of the word success is different from the one accepted by the rest of the world. The world has a very self-centered definition of success, but Jesus presents us with a God-centered definition of success. The word he uses is blessed, which can also mean successful or lucky when you take away the spiritual side of it. That word blessed, by the way, comes from the Latin beatus and is where we get get the word Beatitude from. Blessedness, from the God-centered perspective of Jesus, is quite different from the world’s self-centered idea of success.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The world sees wealth as a sign of success: the Armani tux, the Vera Wang dress, the Italian sports car, the yacht, and the mansion. The world looks at people who have those things and calls them successful/lucky.But Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The kingdoms of this world (governments, corporations, institutions) cater to the desires of the haves, but the kingdom of heaven (Jesus’ vision of an ideal society) will serve the needs of the have-nots. On the day when God’s dream for this world comes true, no more will Senators and CEOs vote to give themselves raises and go on vacation while the people whose jobs they cut sleep in shelters and line up outside soup kitchens. That’s not going to happen anymore.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

The world looks at people who seem to be happy and calls them “successful.” Today is Super Bowl Sunday, the one day a year when people watch TV just as much for the commercials as they watch it for the program. How many people plugging products in those commercials will be average-looking folks, looking bored, and saying, “Meh, I guess this product is okay…”? Not very many, I think. TV commercials are full of beautiful, smiling people who are excited to tell you all about how a particular cleaning solution changed their lives forever. They want us to believe that we’ll be as beautiful and happy as they are if only we buy what they’re selling. The world says that happy people are successful people, but Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Jesus invites us to not buy into that “cult of happiness.” Jesus doesn’t want us to turn away from the pain of this world, he wants us to look at it and do something about it. That’s what compassion is: Showing up with food or clothes, visiting the shelter, the drop-in, the hospital bed, the courtroom, and the prison cell. That’s the kind of love Jesus showed us and it’s the kind of love he wants us to show others. Wherever there’s pain, there’s Jesus, so that’s where we should be too.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

The world says that successful people are tough-minded alpha-dogs who stand their ground and don’t compromise. Those are the big-shots who end up in running the show. The world puts them in charge of things. But Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek (i.e. gentle, flexible), for they will inherit the earth.” I like this one because I read a book by a couple of biologists last year that talks about how competition is not the only driving force behind evolution. They make the case that cooperation plays just as big a role in the ongoing development of life. When God’s dream for this world comes true, the ones in charge will be the ones who know how to work well with others and value relationships more than ideologies.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

The world believes that truly successful people lack for nothing. They have everything they could ever want. They benefit from the way things are. Insulated by wealth and power, they don’t sense the urgency of the situation or feel the need to challenge the system. But Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (i.e. justice, fairness), for they will be filled.” That last part is especially ominous because history has shown, time and again, that poor people will not stay quiet and submissive forever. If the leaders will not change the system, the people will change the leaders. Jesus has been proven right more than once: “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”

The world says that successful people know how to give as good as they get. If you hit them, they hit you back. They make an example of you so that others know not to mess with them. That’s the politics of power. But Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” Real power, according to Jesus, comes from knowing that you could rip your enemies to shreds but choosing not to. What’s more is that mercy is contagious: it comes back to you. It stops the cycle of violence from going around and around and escalating until the situation is out of control. The United States and the Soviet Union spend the latter half of the twentieth century with nuclear missiles pointed at each other in the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). But then the Cold War ended, not with a mushroom cloud, but with a party: people singing and dancing as the Berlin Wall came down. The doctrine of MAD-ness did neither side any good in the end.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

The world says that successful people are savvy: they know how to read between the lines and close the deal. They’re street-smart; they have guile. Successful people know how the game is played and stay two steps ahead of the competition. These savvy, successful people are sure to see great big dividends on their investments. But Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Savvy, street-smart people see the world for what they can get out of it, but they’re missing a whole other dimension of reality. Those who see the world like Jesus does get to see the hand of God at work in creation. These blessed folks know that they’re not alone and that life has meaning. I like to compare this one to the scene in Star Wars when Han Solo is laughing at Luke Skywalker as he trains to be a Jedi Knight. Luke says, “You don’t believe in the Force, do you?” Han replies, “Kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen *anything* to make me believe that there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything. ‘Cause no mystical energy field controls *my* destiny. It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.” Han is savvy but Luke is pure in heart. Luke is learning how to see the world through a different set of eyes and so, as Obi-Wan Kenobi said about him, he’s taking his “first steps into a larger world.”

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

The world defines success by winning. Whether it’s trophies on the shelf or notches on the bedpost, the world wants to know about your conquests. This was especially true in ancient Rome, where the empire was built on the doctrine of Pax Romana: world peace through global conquest. They believed that Roman order would prevail over the barbarians of the world by the mighty hand of Caesar. And Caesar himself was worshiped and given a very special title: “The Son of God,” Sol Invictus, “the Unconquerable Sun.” But Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers (not the conquerors), for they will be called children (lit. ‘sons’) of God.”

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Finally, the world says that respect is a measure of success. They say a good name is as good as gold. If people listen to what you say, you’re successful. If you get invited to the White House to advise the President on a matter, you’re successful. The world says it’s good to be admired and respected. Those who possess the kingdoms of this world are accorded respect, whether they deserve it or not. But Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Notice the parallel with the first beatitude. God’s ideal world belongs to the have-nots, the disrespected, the ones without a voice, and those who suffer and die for standing up and speaking out for what’s right. When God’s dream for this world comes true, these are the people we’ll be listening to, not the flattering bootlickers who only tell powerful leaders what they want to hear. We need people of conscience who will “speak the truth in love” to the powerful ones in charge. That’s what prophets do, but they’re almost never listened to or given the respect they deserve. Nevertheless, Jesus calls them “blessed” and commands us to keep doing it.

Conclusion

Jesus redefines success. He takes the world’s self-centered idea of success and replaces it with his own God-centered idea of blessedness. In the mind of Christ, success is not a blessing and blessing does not look like success. God’s blessing is upon the poor and oppressed peoples of this world, the ones without a voice, the ones who weep in the night, and the ones who are literally starving for change. God’s blessing is upon the gentle, the compassionate, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers.God’s blessing is upon those who face the pain of this world and do what they can to make a difference. God’s blessing is upon those who are a blessing. And so it is that I say to you:

May God bless you and make you a blessing, this day and every day. AMEN.

16 Ways Progressive Christians Interpret the Bible (Reblog)

On January 22, 2014January 22, 2014 By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Reblog from Patheos.com by Roger Wolsey:

I’ve long stated that

Atheists and fundamentalists each tend to read the Bible in the same wooden, overly literalistic manner. The difference is that atheists reject what they read in that manner, while fundamentalists believe it.

There’s a lot of truth to that – enough that it tends to piss off members of both of those groups off when they come across what I said.

However, I’ve also said that

All Christians pick and choose which portions of the Bible literally, progressive Christians simply admit this and share how we discern.

That observation has resonated with many people – including many fundamentalists who are honest with themselves and who rightly contend that they don’t read “all of the Bible literally.” Some of these more self-reflective fundamentalists have asked me, “So, how do you progressives “discern” and interpret the Bible? Seems like you just read into it what you want it to say; twist it; and don’t take it seriously.” I generally respond by reminding them that – that which we criticize most in others, is often that which we struggle with most ourselves.

While no doubt true, and I fully stand by holding that mirror up to them, they deserve an actual response.

I can’t speak for all progressive Christians, but here’s how many progressive Christians approach, discern, and interpret the Bible:

Click here to read the full article

God Is With Us (in the little things)

On December 29, 2013 By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Do you ever get scared? I get scared sometimes. I get scared of all kinds of things:

What if I get sick? What if we run out of money? What if I lose my job? What if my marriage falls apart? What if something happens to one of my kids?

What if this election doesn’t turn out the way I think it should? What if the stock market crashes again? What if essential relief and education programs get their funding cut by policy makers?

We live lives surrounded by fear. The famous philosopher (and sometimes crankyperson) David Hume once went on a rant about all the things in this world that scare us. First, he said, there are our natural enemies: those things that threaten our physical existence (i.e. predators, disasters, diseases). Then there are our societal enemies: tyranny, oppression, injustice, inequality, violent rebellion. Next you have our internal enemies: guilt, shame, fear. Finally, as if all that weren’t enough, we have our own imaginary enemies that we make up ourselves: superstitions, taboos, mythical monsters.

Surrounded by so many enemies and things to be scared of on all sides, life hardly seems worth living, says Hume. Why then do we go on? Why don’t we just end it all? Well, says Hume, because we’re scared of that too. Death is the ultimate enemy to fear because no one knows for sure what lies on the other side of it. And so, because we are ultimately afraid of death, Hume says, “We are terrified, not bribed, into the continuance of our existence.”

Now, this is a pretty dark portrayal of reality (David Hume was kind of famous for that), but I think he has a point in noticing that we live our lives surrounded by fear. There’s always something to be worried about or afraid of. This is the way it’s always been.

Way back in the 8^th century BCE, there was a Jewish king named Ahaz who had a lot to be scared of. His reign had been fraught with constant conflict. Two of his enemies, the Ephraimites and the Arameans, had joined forces and were threatening to lay siege to the city of Jerusalem. Ahaz was understandably scared out of his gourd. The most sensible thing he could think of to do was to seek out support from a bigger, meaner bully down the block. Back then, the biggest, meanest kid in town was the Assyrian Empire.

This, by the way, is the same rationale that leads some people, especially teenagers and young adults, to join gangs: they’re looking to garner a sense of safety when they feel like no one else cares about them. But, as is so often the case with these kinds of things, there is a hefty price to pay and very little safety after all. In King Ahaz’s case, he and his people would pay dearly for whatever protection they received from Assyria. Having sacrificed freedom for security, they were no longer in charge of their own house. The people of Judah paid tribute to the Assyrians and owed them allegiance, even to the point of worshiping Assyrian deities in the place of the Jewish God. Because of fear, Ahaz lost sight of who he was and what he was supposed to stand for in the world.

It didn’t have to be this way. Isaiah the prophet, who was a pretty insightful dude, saw the bad end coming and tried to warn Ahaz. He said, “These troubles are only temporary. It’s not worth selling your soul in order to ensure your survival. Have a little faith!” He pointed to a pregnant woman and said, “You see this young woman? By the time her baby grows up and is old enough to walk and talk, these conflicts will be nothing more than a distant memory. Look at this woman and remember her. Let her baby be a sign to you that God is with you, therefore you don’t need to be afraid.”

This was a powerful message. And it’s one that has endured for thousands of years, even though its intended audience didn’t listen to a word of it. Isaiah told Ahaz to look for God, not in grandiose displays of power or guarantees of success, but in the little things of this world. The sign of God’s presence was that little baby, whose name would be Immanuel, which is Hebrew for “God is with us.”

Over seven hundred years after Isaiah first spoke these words, the early Christians would look back at them and say, “Hey, you know what? Isaiah’s prophecy kind of reminds us of Jesus! He wasn’t very powerful or successful by this world’s standards, but when we looked at him, we got that hunch that maybe “God is with us.” Besides, Jesus taught us to look for God in the little things as well: in the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, in farmers sowing seeds and bakers baking bread. Jesus got us looking at all those little things in life that most people never pay attention to. Because of him, we know that God is with us, just like Isaiah tried to tell Ahaz with that little boy Immanuel.”

I love that. God is with us in the little things. As we live our lives, surrounded and overwhelmed by fear, we often forget to pay attention to those little, everyday signs that God is with us. Like Ahaz, we can sometimes be quick to lose sight of who we are and what’s really important, especially when we’re afraid. It’s in those moments of overwhelming anxiety that we most need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and look… really look at ourselves, our lives, and our world. We need to pay attention to those little things, the things we’re too busy for, the boring, ordinary things that happen every day, the things that don’t seem all that important: babies, bread, birds, flowers, seeds… because those places are the places where God meets us.

There may be no grandiose sign, no light from heaven, no singing angels. There will be no guarantees of security or success. Just the little things, little signs of Immanuel, that God is with us. All we are promised from these encounters is a renewed perspective on who we are what life is all about. The strength we find in these encounters is the strength to stand by our core values and central beliefs, come what may. God is with us in the little things of this world to remind us that some things in life are more important than success or survival, therefore we don’t need to live in fear. Fear is not the foundation of reality. Deeper than fear, deeper still than the natural, societal, internal, and imaginary enemies who surround us on every side, at the very heart of reality, we have a friend who is always with us… a love that will not let us go. My esteemed, late colleague, the Rev. Fred Rogers (host of the children’s TV show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood) said it best:

“I believe that at the center of the universe there dwells a loving spirit who longs for all that’s best in all of creation, a spirit who knows the great potential of each planet as well as each person, and little by little will love us into being more than we ever dreamed possible. That loving spirit would rather die than give up on any one of us.”

With a God like this on our side, what do we have to be afraid of?

Immanuel, God is with us, even (especially) in the little things. This is the message that Isaiah tried to deliver to King Ahaz, although Ahaz wasn’t willing to hear it. This is the message we are meant to take with us from the Christmas season. The question for us is: are we willing to listen?

Immanuel, God is with us. Do not be afraid.

A Biblical Guide to Debunking the Heterosexual Agenda

On November 5, 2013January 13, 2014 By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized33 Comments

By Carloxito (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

SATIRE WARNING
Don’t get your knickers in a twist

If you want to get the non-satirical version,
read my follow-up post: The Real Story (Not Satire)

As a baptized, ordained, practicing, Bible-reading, Spirit-filled, Jesus-loving Christian, I just have to say how sick and tired I am of these straight-marriage activists spreading their heterosexual agenda all over my church and country!

Their sinful, detestable practices are unbiblical and unnatural in the eyes of science and God. It may not be “politically correct” to say so these days, but I refuse to “tolerate” these perverts and their lies anymore…

Don’t take my word for it, here is what the BIBLE says:

Genesis 4

After God made Adam and Eve, they had three sons: Cain, Abel, and Seth. No daughters. Yet is specifically says that Cain got married to a woman. Did you know that Cain, the first murderer, was a STRAIGHT? Heterosexuality and murder have gone hand-in-hand since the earliest days of the human race.

What’s even worse is that Cain got married to a woman even though the Bible very clearly states that there were no human women (other than his mother) in existence at that time. The conclusion is inescapable: Cain married an ANIMAL. Heterosexual marriage sits at the top of a slippery slope that leads directly to bestiality.

Not only that, but the Bible tells us how Lamech, an early descendant of Cain the hetero and murderer, took two wives and was a very violent person. Elsewhere in the Bible, there are other flagrant, unrepentant heteros like Abraham, David, and Solomon who have multiple wives. Judah, another heterosexual pervert, impregnates a prostitute who turns out to be his own daughter-in-law! Here again, we see the Bible clearly showing how sin begets sin and straight-marriage leads directly to POLYGAMY and FORNICATION.

Genesis 19

In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Bible is VERY clear in its condemnation of the heterosexual lifestyle. While the men of Sodom were at his door, Abraham’s nephew Lot (another known heterosexual) offers his virgin daughters to be raped. After Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, Lot’s daughters, burning with heterosexual lust, get their father DRUNK and have SEX with him so that they will get pregnant. The Bible is crystal clear on this point as well: Heterosexuality leads to drunkenness and INCEST. That’s what these straight-marriage activists are pushing for. DON’T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT!!!

Leviticus

The Old Testament book of Leviticus spends significantly more time condemning straight sex than it does dealing with sexual activity between people of the same gender. Therefore, heterosexuality is obviously a far bigger problem in the eyes of God.

The most direct and clear condemnation of heterosexuality can be found in Leviticus 19:19 –

“Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.” (Lev. 19:19, KJV)

God gave us an orderly and organized universe, therefore he is offended by different kinds of things mixing together. If God went to such lengths to condemn the mixing of different cattle, seeds, and fabrics, why wouldn’t he also condemn the mixing of genders and their bodily fluids? Do you think God would be so foolish as to overlook something that big? Obviously not. The meaning of this verse is clear: God never intended for people of different genders to mix sexually.

Matthew 5:27-29

Jesus never had a bad thing to say about same-sex relationships. He obviously didn’t consider them to be much of a problem. But he had quite a bit to say about the sin of heterosexuality! In his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells us that even those who secretly harbor heterosexual tendencies are in danger of burning in hell:

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

If the heterosexual orientation is so “normal”, as straight-marriage activists claim it is, then why is there no evidence that Jesus ever married a woman? If the Son of God thought it was worth avoiding, then Christians should too.

1 Corinthians 7

The apostle Paul stated very clearly in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 7, verse 1: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” This is his first condemnation of heterosexuality, but he doesn’t stop there. In verse 27, he advises young men to “seek not a wife.” He tells us why in verses 33-34: Paul says that a married person “careth for the things that are of the world” whereas an unmarried person “careth for the things that belong to the Lord.” Once again, the Bible is clear in stating that heterosexual marriage puts people into a spiritually compromised position.

Conclusion

Don’t get me wrong in all this: I don’t hate straight people. I love them as Jesus commanded me to. I live in a part of town that has a rather large heterosexual population. There’s even a straight couple that lives down the block from me. In fact, one of my very best friends is straight, so I can’t be heterophobic. I’m no bigot; I’m just a Bible-believing Christian who follows what the Word of God says, and the Bible is quite clear in its message that heterosexuality is less than God’s best for human beings.

My heart breaks when I see the youth of our nation getting sucked into a heterosexual lifestyle without knowing the clear and present danger that lurks there! The mainstream media refuses to talk about this, but I have come to believe, through prayer and the study of Genesis 3, that God has sent the plague of pregnancy among the human race as punishment for the sin of heterosexuality. Pregnancy and childbirth was one of the leading causes of death for women throughout history. Recent medical advances have lessened that probability, but they can’t erase the fact that heterosexuality is still a SIN.

Statistics and medical data clearly show that people are more likely to get pregnant from straight sex than they are from sexual activity shared with a partner of the same gender. Why would the numbers be so dramatically higher for straight folks unless GOD was trying to send us a message?

The message is clear: REPENT of your heterosexual perversion and turn back to God’s plan for your life!

Go find a good church that preaches what the Bible REALLY says about heterosexuality. You can tell them by the rainbow flags hanging outside. You can also find them by looking for words like:

Integrity (Episcopal)
Dignity (Catholic)
More Light (Presbyterian)
Reconciling (Methodist)
Open & Affirming (United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, or Baptist)

This is a free country, so I don’t mind sharing it with straight people, so long as they don’t flaunt it in public. Whatever sins they commit behind closed doors is between them and God. But I have a big problem with the way these straight-marriage advocates push their unbiblical heterosexual agenda in the media and the government. Did you know that some of them are even trying to get LAWS passed that FORCE you to marry people of the opposite gender?! Some of these sick hetero perverts have even set up RE-EDUCATION CAMPS that brainwash kids and adults into accepting their agenda! Before long, these fanatics will even be doing away with the separation of church & state in order to FORCE pastors and churches to marry ONLY straight people.

This is my country too and I WANT IT BACK!

Remember to get out and VOTE!

Only you can stop this heterosexual menace from conquering America!

(Reblog) The Problem With Assuming Liberal Christians Hate the Bible

On July 2, 2013 By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Gutenberg Bible. Image by Raul654. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

by Derek Penwell

Reblogged from Huffington Post

Liberal Christians aren’t liberal in spite of the Bible, but because of it. They don’t pursue justice for LGBT people because they haven’t read Scripture, but precisely because they have. And in the arc of the narrative of God’s interaction with humanity, liberal Christians find a radical expansiveness, an urgent desire to broaden the embrace of God’s hospitality to include those whom the religious big shots are always kicking to the sidelines.

Click here to read the full article

Hopping Hadrian's Wall

Tag: bible