Love the Sinning Sinner.

“Ahh love the sinner, Ahh just hate the sin.” Say it with a deep drawl. Ahh= I.

“I love Jesus yes I do, I love Jesus but I will participate in any h-o-m-o-sexual behavior I want to and no one can tell me any different.”

The second quote, directly from a preacher, here in Durham, in a mega church where given the demographics of the church, he was a preachin to the choir, I’d swear I was the only gay person there at the time. Oh, wait, I was there through both Sunday morning services because I was on greeter/usher duty, and so then the only “gay” person at both services, yeah right, you should have seen my small group. At first I wasn’t sure that I’d heard right, kind of like when you get hit suddenly and by surprise, so I went to the good pastor’s blog-cast once home and yep, there it was. I NEVER went back and will NEVER go back. I can’t change his mind. It’s a pity too; he is so gifted, yet, so, maybe damaged, perhaps, and if not, then I’m left asking, why did he do that?

Here’s one for the record book; you know what Jesus said about homosexuals...NIL, NADA, NOTHING. What Gospel will we find Jesus saying, “I [God] love the sinner but I [God] hate the sin?” He didn’t and like the Christmas nativity scene that we yearly see set up in parks, on church front lawns...you cannot find it in the Bible. This swipe by the preacher, now at TWO locations, simple I think, someone’s got to be the whipping dog. It is unacceptable to use race, that’s been done, religion, well that’s still being done, sex, ok; they can teach Sunday school but can’t preach or handicap. It is A OK and easy to use sexual minority. Bullying at its best, the law offers “them” no protection. I’m not saying he advocated beating anyone down with fists...words do nicely thank you and can be as, if not more brutal.

As for the first little wonder, some ascribe its origin to Gandhi. Who knows and who really cares; it has been co-opted by those who use words to abuse. The how and why it was originally said are of little consequence. Are we charged in the Bible and in the Gospels to pick and chose the aspects of our brothers and sisters that we are to love? NO! In fact the Messiah sent to Earth, in human form, was delivered to us to put an end to the codification of our relationship with our sovereign God.

Is it any wonder that LGBT and others bristle at the love the sinner statement? Break it down, what does it say? The person making the statement...I am so magnanimous that I can lower myself just a touch to love you in spite of your vile sin, oh yeah, and aren’t I so much like Jesus by doing so, didn’t He kiss a Leper? Or, my sin is so insignificant that I can put it aside just a little bit and find it within myself to love you in spite of how wicked, disgusting and horrible your sins are. Or, I can overlook your wickedness and be a big person and still love you. Do you see how that might push the fur the wrong way?

Try this one on for size. I will love you, the sinner and hate your sin; so why don’t you, just not sin, you know, in “that” way. Oh, ok, I see, so I should spend my whole long life alone, marginalized so that you don’t have to “deal” with who or what I am. I can come to your parties where you’ll quiz me about my “wife” and “children” and I’ll nicely smile and say there are none. Or, I’ll be trying to conduct business with you, and you’ll ask, “Do you have a family?”

My answer, “Why yes I do.”

But you’ll push when I don’t volunteer more and say, “Wife? Children?”

And when I say “No.”

You’ll smile knowingly, having finally cut the truth from me, yet indicting me with that smile because you know my manners are too strong to simply come out to you there, at the negotiation table, because it might make YOU feel UNCOMFORTABLE. How loving and how kind is that behavior?

The commission is to love humanity, all of humanity. What is humanity at its core? Broken. We are all broken and that is what makes us wonderful, beautiful and special. Look at it this way, if we were perfect, if there was nothing to work on then, why do it? Christ came to highlight our broken-ness and to give us something to work to, perfection and a meaningful relationship with God and all of God’s children. So, when from the pulpit, or stage managed stage, as it were, a preacher verbally punches, and it just wasn’t gays, it was adulterers and others too, then he is denying love to aspects of society.

The Messiah came to pull us, humanity, out of the Old Testament and into a better place. God recognized that we were focused on “rules” and not God and that was no place for God’s people to be. God knows that people can’t live a meaningful life, a life of joy, a life of love by trying endlessly to remember and abide laws and rules. God knows the simplest of rules, to love, which in turn is to accept others where they are is the easiest and most fundamental rule to live by. Those who are religious and practice religiosity must live by codification, it is their snug harbor, and it is their security blanket because it excuses a lack of critical thinking, a lack of ownership and frankly a victim mentality. It is with an eye to that; that I am not bitter or angry, sad maybe for the preacher who bashes, for my client who questioned and for all others of a fundamental bend. Sad that they will never really know us because they won’t accept us for what we are and where we are. They cannot love our sin which is our brokenness just as their sin is their brokenness which leads me to this; does God stop loving us because of our sin and brokenness?

Nope; it is as easy as this, Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. I’ll love the sinner and hate the sin, is, in a word, a boast. We are ALL saved by God’s grace, love, through faith, and that’s it, end of story and really, it is enough.

Grace and words Ephesians 4:29

Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

In his letter to the Ephesians Paul encourages the use of good words and hence thoughts to pour out of the human mouth and then as such it become a grace or a blessing to the people hearing it. In today’s contemplation of cultural cannibalism I will attempt to meditate on that. I read a Craig’s list rant today about a woman in a Lexus in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; who was tailgating another car near the neighborhood of Southern Village. The venom poured out in this particular rant was horrid to say the least and scary to say the most. It was as if the person being tailgated thought or perceived that the driver of the Lexus woke up and intentionally went out searching for him as a victim. What the person ranting on Craig’s list didn’t realize is that he made himself much more a victim by his rant and words.

I see it this way and I believe that God does too; when you spew venom and ill will it does indeed poison those who hear your words. This is made clear in the passage quoted above from Ephesians. That being said, it is impossible for us, even if we are deaf to escape our own words. Our words are our thoughts, our cognition made real, live and human. Our words, our thoughts are our reality and the reality that this ranting person created on Craig’s list was self inflicted poison. Of course I’d be naïve if I professed not to be somewhat poisoned by the rave too. I was which is why the meditation. Horrid words move us away from God because even in the beginning there was the word. The word was in and of God. For people of deep and abiding faith it is very simple and clear and in fact in those people I have a deep admiration, I can see at work in them daily kind and compassionate words and it does indeed color their lives.

Paul in further writings to the Colossians says; 4:6; Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man. So, like salt your seasoned words, words of passion should be used sparingly. If not then you risk over seasoning your own mind and the minds of others with your words. It’s kind of simple really, our words become our reality. Think hatefully then one becomes hateful. Think and speak lovingly, then one becomes loving. Think peacefully then one becomes a pacifist. The same holds true to others who hear our words. Nelson Mandela in prison could have allowed himself to become enraged, angry, hateful and full of revenge, he could have “talked” himself into it easily while sitting alone in his cell. Had Mandela done so then I’m sure he wouldn’t have become an effective president of South Africa and such a role model, leading that nation to truth and reconciliation and isn’t reconciliation grace?

Christ through his persecutions didn’t rail against his abusers, he asked God to forgive them for they didn’t know what they were doing. Had he reacted in anger or rage he would have then moved away from God. This of course given the persona and passion of Christ was impossible, he was fully human and fully God and therefore fully good and perfect and as such he couldn’t move in an angry direction at that time. Jesus Christ didn’t allow poisonous words to fall from his lips. As fully God and fully human he knew poisonous words are the easy words, the convenient words; he rather chose enlightened and loving words and that is what we are challenged to do.

I think that this is why Paul spends so much time in his writings to the early churches discussing these kinds of issues. He knew from personal experience that hate filled words are the easy words to find. He knew from his persecutions of the early church that hearing those words made a believer out of him. Of course not the kind of believer that Christ and God were looking for. It took a strike by God on the road to Damascus to bring Saul to Paul which was where he needed to be. It took the awe inspiring might and love of God to get him there and that is the lesson for us. Trust and love God; think good, loving, peaceful thoughts and speak those words and grace pours out in abundance to all who hear them including ourselves.