My dear friend Adi asked me if I’d like to write something and share it on her podcast, 8000 Promises. I wanted of course to write something thoughtful, moving and profound. I wrote two different pieces but really didn’t feel super great about either of them. I shared them with my daughter Sarah, and she questioned a couple of spots, but I still wasn’t happy with either. I’d set a deadline for myself of January 22nd, and here I am on January 21st. Ugh.
But as I was getting ready this morning I had some thoughts that I’m hoping might amount to something worth reading and listening to. You see, I wanted to present something really solid theologically. Something that many could relate to, agree with and feel good about…but then I thought, that’s not really where I am right now in my faith journey.
In hindsight I think some of my consternation started when I went to seminary. I had been somewhat firm in my stance that LGBTQ+ believers should not be in church leadership. My church, without really taking a public stand, was fairly clear that’s where we landed. I did not dislike or hate LGBTQ+ people. In fact, I made suggestions of outreach and support for community projects that supported their community. But when it came to the church, I felt it was fine to welcome gay folks, but leadership was a place I couldn’t go. Then I went to seminary.
In seminary I met Tony. Tony is gay and loves Jesus and wanted to go into the ministry. And the more I thought about Tony and people like Tony who, like me, heard the call to ministry and ended up in seminary, the more I thought that keeping people like Tony out of church ministry does not align with how Jesus lived and much of what I read in scripture. (I often go back to the text in Acts 11 where Peter explains to the Jewish Christians how God showed him in a dream it was ok to eat unclean food he’d been raised in the faith to avoid, and also how the Holy Spirit came upon some gentiles and Peter was moved to baptize them because he remembered that Jesus had said that, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Peter goes on to admit that if God gave these gentiles the same gift as he gave the disciples, who believed in Jesus, he says, “who was I to think that I could oppose God?”
All this to say that seminary gave me more questions than answers and it hasn’t stopped since then. I know that there are many Jesus followers who struggle with this and other issues, who have questions because what they read in the Bible and what they see the Church and church people living out don’t jive. They hear messages of how God loves and how we are all made in God’s image, but still exclude various people groups from the church, let alone leadership.
I’m not here to proclaim that I have answers to all of these really hard questions. But here’s what I do know… Throughout scripture people make all sorts of mistakes. People sin. People kill each other; downplay or exclude women, children, people who are ill or unclean in some way, among many others. But God continues to open and reopen the door to himself time and time again.
Throughout the Old Testament we see this cycle of the people being faithful, then the people falling away and really deep diving into lives of sin, God allowing consequences to happen, and then God welcoming the people when they eventually turn back to him. And then it happens over and over and over again. We have a God who desperately wants relationship with all of his beloved creatures, US!
Jesus showed us in so many ways how to love well: forgiving (numerous times!), touching and being with outcasts, listening to women and other shunned people, spending lots of time talking with God his father, journeying through life in community - as well as with very close companions, and sharing meals with others.
There was a book I read and actually went through and discussed together with friends called Jesus Life, and it really stuck with me. It talked about things like living a sustainable rhythm of life, thinking about how Jesus might have spent time with God considering he didn’t have a Bible - what might his praying, thinking or meditating have looked like? It looked at how Jesus defined family, served others, redefined and reframed rituals and it asks great questions about how we might have lost some of these Jesus ways of living.
This is the direction I am going in my faith these days. I think in many ways in my faith I’d gone into auto-pilot for a while there. Then COVID hit and we went online, many of us went into a bit of a depression, and coming out of it we felt very disengaged - disconnected - and unsure if returning to our churches was the direction we wanted to go.
For my husband Kim and I, we invited some friends who also hadn’t reengaged with the larger church and came together as a house church. This group that started with eight people has blossomed to seventeen now and we continue to meet every two weeks on Sunday evenings in our home. Our worship is simple with singing, scripture, prayers of confession as well as for the people and the world. Sometimes I share a message I’ve found that’s appropriate but more often than not we have a discussion of what God might be saying through the scriptures we read and how they apply in life right now, this week. It’s intimate, it’s refreshing, and it’s very imperfect. And anyone is welcome. We don’t concern ourselves with deciding who’s in and who’s out. I may prepare our time but we share reading, leading and discussion is for everyone. We serve one another, as well as people and organizations in our community, and try to live out our faith in our daily lives, again, very imperfectly.
I’m not quite sure what the point is I’m trying to make here except that our faith is always evolving. Hopefully, as we learn and experience different people, ask hard questions, try to find some maybe not always easy answers, discuss the mystery with others and try to follow Jesus, we can each be uniquely transformed as we continue this wild journey of faith. We continue to look for and sometimes even experience the Kingdom of God in our world, despite all of its imperfection and brokenness.
I do not have all the answers that is for certain. In fact I have very few. But I surround myself with people who share a love of Jesus or maybe just a curiosity of God, people who love well and help me learn to do the same, who are willing to share life and dive deep, and who tend to bring out the best in me. I’m listening more these days. Trying to connect in meaningful ways . And more and more I’m staying off of auto-pilot and actively and intentionally pursuing the presence of God - hands out and open wide, ready to both give and receive all the he has for me. It will never be perfect, but it’s definitely good. I think God’s ok with that.
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