Slaughter of the Innocents Versus the Law of God...

The last two posts, one leading into this week's sermon, the other lamenting the contrast of the multiple lives lost in the nightclub attack in Orlando versus the tragic loss of a boy to an alligator in Disney, illustrate a sad point.  My lamentation was that we would too soon forget.  And I am the proof of the matter.  What a unique ability we have to compartmentalize our feelings and our focal points.

Do these points of life really intersect?  Actually, they do in a very vicious way.  The slaughter at "the Pulse" came under the point of view that the law is still our judge, jury, and, when necessary, our executioner.  If this view of the massacre is not the proof of how wrong it is to take the law as our means of judgement today, as our means of daring to stand in God's shoes, as our means of the most extreme arrogance that a human might hope to achieve, then I do not know what is.

Yes, it was the presumption of Muslim law that the killer used to justify his killings, but there have been enough active and passive nods of approval from Christendom to make this our issue as well. 

One of the points often made in the debate about the salvation of the LGBTQ community is that Jesus never talks about them.  The condemnation comes from other places, like from Paul the misogynist or from the antiquated and backward reaches of the Old Testament.  The point being made is that since Jesus does not see fit to mention the issue of 'those' people, then it is not an issue.  In other words, if Jesus does not condemn the LGBTQ community, then condemnation is not to be considered.

That is fair, as far as it goes.  But Jesus did things broadly with the law that make this argument very difficult to sustain.  He made the law harder.  He included motives and thoughts in the stable of guilt-making offenses, not simply the activities.  His point of view was that the law was impossible for anyone to follow, that everyone was condemned under it, not just the LGBTQ community but also the Christian community who accuses them of being so particularly evil.

Because Jesus was getting at something.  He never said, "the law is the way, the truth, and the life, nobody comes to the Father except by the law."  Going by the law, NOBODY gets to the Father at all!  He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."  All that condemnatory stuff died with him on the cross.

What the law has become is a means of instruction in the life of faith.  It is a presentation of the love of God and the love of neighbor.  And all the Christians who take the law, point the finger, and claim the authority to condemn somebody else, anybody else, they have missed the point most completely.

Because every single person Jesus comes across, every person he would point the finger at, every one he would call out, he would call them out and declare "You are beloved by God."

The Law...What Shall Be Done With the Law of God?

This Sunday, I am preaching about the Ten Commandments.  It is the second in a cycle of sermons this summer offering an overview of the bible, from one pastor's perspective.  The tough part is in the consideration of what the Law still has to offer in light of Jesus Christ.  I grew up in a Calvinist tradition where the Law pre-Jesus condemned us for our inability to obey it, but post-Jesus, teaches us how we ought to be reshaping our lives in the presence of Christ.

I got really excited about a bible-nerd discovery connecting the Ten Commandments to Jesus' summary of the law, loving God and loving neighbor. 

But it is truly challenging to apply my conclusions to the popular judgments that are so much part of Christendom.  This is not simply another rant about how so much of Christendom condemns the LGBTQ Community, not simply that, but it is more broadly focused.  When judgment is passed about something, what is the Church doing with the law?

I should define terms here, a little bit.  Christendom is the sum total of the Christian cultural and societal presence in the world, at least it is to me.  Liberals, Conservatives, Fundamentalists, Christo-communists, you name it.  Some are great, in my opinion, some are wacky, in my opinion, some are dangerous, in my opinion.  We are all gathered together under one roof.

The Church is a more organized part of Christendom.  For me, it is the assembled voices of pastors and church leadership.  Kind of what shows up in the news, I suppose.  It is drawn from Christendom, but is not exhaustive of Christendom. 

If the Law of God has changed roles, as I argue, from the condemnatory tool to the formation tool that I believe it is, then we have a new world order to bring into being.  Speaking in the name of God to condemn is an awesome responsibility to undertake.  And I am really no longer sure that is what the Church is called to do. 

The responses are already forming in my head, 'if not us, than whom?'  Is everything then acceptable?  What are you, crazy?  But Jesus died that I might live.  He did not die that I might condemn someone else to death.  There are some big questions to shape here.  I hope you will walk with me to seek to shape them.

Tragedy Versus Tragedy

There was a very odd contrast going on for a number of days last week.  First, 49 people were killed at the "Pulse" nightclub.  Then a young boy was killed by an alligator in Disney World.  It was a double whammy of pain and grief for Orlando.  Watching the coverage and listening to the commentators and conversations going on around the pair of events, I felt an undercurrent.

Anyone read "Mad Magazine" growing up?  Anyone a fan of "Spy vs. Spy", the character in white versus the character in black blowing one another up?  I had a sense of that in the aftermath of Orlando. 

Maybe I am being overly sensitive to the whole matter, but there seemed to be a sense out there that the life of one boy killed in Disney was on par with 49 killed in the nightclub.  Maybe it was an attempt to move the hate crimes of killing homosexuals off the front burner with something-anything else.  The tragic circumstances of the death of a toddler in one of the most famous places on earth, could that have been a coincidence to be exploited to take eyes off the issue of tragedy and homosexuality?

I type that out, repeat the phrase out loud to myself, and I feel like a conspiracy theorist.  This seems beyond consideration.  Tragedy is tragedy.  The nightclub massacre and the death of the toddler are both going to result in grief and emotional destruction for their families.  49 versus 1?  Do we even make such numeric comparisons in the measure of tragedy?  Can it be?

I do not know.  But in the aftermath of the "Pulse" massacre, hearing stories of clergy who refused to carry out funerals for the fallen, hearing stories of certain types of Christians who will go so far as to protest at those funerals, hearing-if not outright approval-certainly approbation that the justice of God has been carried out by the hands of an insane shooter. 

But, as always, time moves forward and news slips into the past.  The stories will come off the front page, off the lead for the nightly news, fading from memory and consideration.  What shall we learn?  What shall we consider?  What shall we do to prevent this from happening again?

When we pose those questions, will people think more quickly of Disney?  Or of the "Pulse"?

Standing Up Against The Church

The church may appear to be this megalithic structure with structures on every street corner in some neighborhoods.  Many towns even have 'holy row', a particular street where you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some hallowed hall.  Some have their brand names on the signs, "Catholic", "Presbyterian", "Baptist", "Methodist", "Lutheran", "Episcopal" and so on and so forth.  It's like Cath, Presby, Bapt, Meth, Luth, and Episco were disciples or something.  Okay, maybe not Meth... 

In my church, we follow the disciple "Presby", the patron saint of committees.

The 'church', as a single minded entity, is how I fear most people without direct experience about us see and feel the church's presence.  And the loudest voices from the 'church' seem to be crying out about who God is going to hate/punish/exterminate/hell-ify or they are claiming a Godly 'wealth-management' scheme, where the wealth you have is directly proportional to how much God likes you.

To be serious for a moment, the 'church' seems to use a disproportionate amount of its sound volume to tell us who to condemn.  Jews, Muslims, Women, American Indians, people of pretty much every color other than White, Homosexuals, Communists, Liberals, whomever.  Notice, I said sound volume.  Anyone who is on the edges of need will see that there is truly a 'silent majority', to borrow a VERY loaded term, doing real work in the name of Jesus to help others.

I am an employee of, vocationally devoted to, and irretrievably linked to the 'church' when it is seen as a monolith.  You have to get closer to see the cracks and splinters, the multitude of voices that speak in many different directions in the name of Jesus.  Some of them are all about loving, some are all about judging, some are all about helping, some are all about saving, some are all about wandering alone.  Most of them have a combination of all of the above and more.

Tomorrow night, from one obscure, urban corner of the 'church', one pastor, probably far more self-confident and overbearing than he ought to be, is going to speak, at least in part, against that 'church', the monolithic, judging entity.  It is Father's Day, but the followers of Presby do not have 'fathers' running the church the way the followers of Cath do. 

I am a father by virtue of having children, not being a priest in the service of one of the slices of the church seeking to serve Jesus.

The message is pretty straightforward-love.  The tone is probably going to be a little on the angrier side, given the lack of love this pastor has seen coming from too many of his colleagues in the 'church' monolithic.  My prayer is to avoid the double whammy of anger and insult that Jesus teaches is murder in the Sermon on the Mount.

Forty nine people are dead because they were declared unfit to live by a man who completely missed the mark of the power and focus of Islam.  Forty nine people are dead and my faith, the faith of Jesus, throws out hateful vitriol and condemnation of those innocents in the name of a perverse sense of God's judgment taken into their own hands.

There is a huge part of me that does not want to be part of the 'church' that feeds into so much of that hatred.  But there is not another game in town.  I do not have the energy to start a "Pete" that will run in contradistinction to the 'church'.  No, I have to be arrogant enough to believe that Jesus is going to speak to me as I cry out to my brothers and sisters across the 'church' and ask them to share love and not hate, that they re-evaluate what they think the Bible says, and they GET WITH THE PROGRAM.  (All-caps, that is yelling in texting and typing and the such, yes?)

Jesus has a great line about bringing a sword into the world because of what he taught.  I get that, maybe for the first time.

The Pain of Fifty Fathers

In the darker places in my heart, I imagine a conversation taking place at some Father's Day in the future.  On that day, the father of the shooter who killed 49 in Orlando is going to have to try and answer the question of the shooter's son, his grandson, now three years old.  "Why did he do it?"  That three year old is going to have ever Father's Day to consider that question which is going to haunt the hearts and minds of every father of every victim.

Why did he do it?

This Sunday, we are having a memorial service and vigil in our church to remember those killed at the "Pulse" nightclub.  I was reminded it was Father's Day-that this may not be the best choice of dates.  As a father myself, I do not know a better date.  There will be no celebrations for the fifty fathers of the dead.  I would offer this small tribute to them.

We need to grieve, we need to give people the place and opportunity to grieve.  But too many won't.  Too many are too jaded or too numb or too judgmental of the lifestyles of those who were killed to even consider grieving.  It implies they have something to be sad about. 

What is a father to do?  What is a religious father like me supposed to do?  The shooter was a religious father, but he twisted his faith beyond recognition.  Maybe the answer is that our children must come first.  If our faith traditions do not grant us the permission to look to our children first, maybe it is time to change our faith traditions.

Because if we truly put our children first, if they are the most precious things in our lives, how could we ever, ever consider putting somebody else's most precious thing at risk?  How could we pick up a gun?  How could we scope them out?  How could we tolerate a God or a faith that told us that the children of 'those people' need to be punished?

Even as I say that, I must admit I come from a religion that defies that basic premise.  The God I work for sacrificed His only Son on the cross.  Sacrificed one child that the rest of us can become Children of God.  Don't get me wrong, I like being a child of God.  I am grateful for the sacrifice that Jesus made for me on the cross.  But it is indicative of what is so sick and twisted in humanity that God considered this God's only option.

My other option is to consider my God to be so sick and twisted as to kill His own Son.  That, I cannot bear.

These children are dead and their fathers will grieve.  In some small, insignificant way, I will grieve with them, but it seems woefully inadequate.

I do not mean to discount the pain felt by the mothers of these children.  That one piece of news footage of one mother outside the club, crying piteously for some sign that her child-grown matters not-still lived will haunt me.

But my experience is fatherhood and I want this Father's Day to be one where we can comfort the fathers and families that are grieving and where fathers can come together to do our part to keep this from every happening again.

So say we all?

When It Comes to Guns, Lets Back the Constitution!

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."  Second Amendment to the Constitution, I love it.  There are T-shirts with slogans about this that I have not bought because they were just too good.

Bring back real, well regulated Militias.  Want a gun, be in a 'militia'.  I am not talking about military-style units akin to the National Guard units.  I am also not talking about those 'militias' forming up to do battle with our governmental authorities.

What I am talking about is a place where people can receive proper instruction on gun use and gun safety, where they can practice, where their guns can be inspected to be in proper working order, where they can be disposed of if someone so chooses.  There are enough military vets, retired cops from agencies local to federal, and capable, trained individuals to lead these militias.  The NRA has done fantastic work on gun safety so there are materials ready to go to teach and train people.

The Constitution speaks of the right to keep and bear arms.  Those are two different things.  The first implies collectability.  The second implies competency.  That is where the militias come in.  Register and regulate these militias at the state level.  Mandate some level of competency and responsibility for the leadership of the militias.  Provide some minimal standards of safety and competency. 

The right of the people to keep and bear Arms is not a right that exists in a vacuum.  This right is derived from the necessity of the security for our nation.  That requires some kind of standard.

Standards exist.  I cannot drive a car unless I have passed a driver's test.  I cannot get drugs legally unless I consult with a competent medical authority.  I think it is reasonable to demand that people have some competency and responsibility when they exercise their right to keep and bear arms.  A well regulated militia is tailor made to answer those concerns.

And it is already there for us, right in the Constitution. 

In A Time Of Need, Who Might Be Hating?

In the aftermath of the Orlando shooting, as my heart ached for the families and friends of those so ruthlessly gunned down, my head is in a far darker place.  This was a religious killing, the gunning down of 'the guilty' in the name of God-in this case known by the Arabic translation, Allah.  But this is not a diatribe or an accusation against Islam.  No, I fear for those of my own faith. 

I wonder in what corners of Christendom there are those who feel this was for the best.  Maybe they will not jump on social media and tell the world they thought that this man was carrying out the justice of God, but in their hearts and in their halls, this was the consensus. 

It grieves me to wonder when the mercy of the Lord will outweigh the vengeance of the Lord in the hearts of so many of my fellow Christians.  How many people have to die before someone says 'enough'?  Or are we so jaded that, while we might not pull the trigger, we will not condemn the nut who does.

I was "we" because, in other circumstances, I might sing to the Lord with brothers and sisters of such belief.  I may not know about it, because I know not their hearts.  But someone else might know their hearts and assume that I am as they, haters and not lovers of forgiveness. 

It is my conviction that the love of God will overcome the prejudice that stalks the church.  Many, many Christians rally with thoughts and prayers and good wishes to those who were lost.  Sexuality is not a measure of faith.  But for many more, this incident may cause stirrings of the mercy of God, but when judgment is so ingrained, it seems only the power of God can overcome.

May God's power overcome the prejudice against people because of their sexual orientation.