Open Mike

Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality

I've had another uptick in Starbucks appointments to talk about homosexuality, the Bible, how to be a loving church, and (the unavoidable connection) the politics of sex.  Our view of what the Bible teaches is very clear, so that's where the conversation begins (just search the topic in my blog sidebar).  Its also always important for me to share that we don't think our view of homosexuality is essential to the good news of Jesus, nor to being a part of our church.  Its a non-essential issue of Biblical interpretation, though a tough one (I continue to find) over which to 'agree to disagree in love.' 

I just finished reading THE BEST BOOK on the subject (it helped that its a beautiful morning to be reading on my back deck). If you care about this issue, if you have same-sex attracted friends whom you love, if same-sex attraction is your own orientation, BUY THIS BOOK NOW. Its by Wesley Hill:

This book is not primarily argumentative or biblical commentary.  It is personal story of a gay man who loves Jesus, finds the Bible to teach that same-sex actions are against God's best for him (i.e. sinful), and aims to faithfully follow Jesus as a gay man who is called to ministry. Along the way he deals with subjects like 'what the Bible teaches about homosexuality' and 'is my attraction nature or nurture,' and all the other major questions that attract so much heat. 

You'll find some of his views not easily categorized (for instance, like me, he thinks there is an inborn aspect to same-sex attraction for many).  This book is most helpful to me as a heterosexual in its examination of the cost of discipleship, the suffering involved in following Jesus in this world, for everyone no matter what their burden is.  As a church leader, its helpful to me for the insights into making the church a safe place for people like him to wrestle with faithfulness amidst their struggle, without begin rejected because their struggle is with sexual identity. 

Here's a bit from the book jacket.  Go get this book, and perhaps you and I will discuss it someday over a cup of Pike Place at Starbucks:

'Gay,' 'Christian,' and 'celibate' don't often appear in the same sentence. Yet
many who sit next to us in the pew at church fit that description, says author
Wesley Hill. As a celibate gay Christian, Hill gives us a glimpse of what it
looks like to wrestle firsthand with God's 'No' to same-sex relationships. What
does it mean for gay Christians to live faithful to God while struggling with
the challenge of their homosexuality? What is God's will for believers who
experience same-sex desires? Those who choose celibacy are often left to deal
with loneliness and the hunger for relationships. How can gay Christians
experience God's favor and blessing in the midst of a struggle that for many
brings a crippling sense of shame and guilt? Weaving together reflections from
his own life and the lives of other Christians, such as Henri Nouwen and Gerard
Manley Hopkins, Hill offers a fresh perspective on these questions. He advocates
neither unqualified 'healing' for those who struggle, nor their accommodation to
temptation, but rather faithfulness in the midst of brokenness. 'I hope this
book may encourage other homosexual Christians to take the risky step of opening
up their lives to others in the body of Christ,' Hill writes. 'In so doing, they
may find, as I have, by grace, that being known is spiritually healthier than
remaining behind closed doors, that the light is better than the darkness.'

 

Just One Beggar

There are some words that once you've said them, you should never stop saying them over and over. Like "I love you."  Words like that kindle a blaze every time.  Sometimes those words relight a fire that's almost smouldered out, other times "I love you" is like piling a dry Christmas tree onto an already-crackling bon-fire.

Here are some words like that for Lake Forest Church that I haven't said enough lately:
"I'M JUST ONE BEGGAR TRYING TO SHOW ANOTHER BEGGAR WHERE TO FIND BREAD."

That is all I do, really. And when I try to do more than that - to serve any meal other than the Bread of Life in Christ, then I am a whitewashed tomb and a false guide (to echo phrases from my Master). I'm humbled and overjoyed when I see you living this out - humbly, insistently pointing the finger of your life to Jesus, the satisfying Bread of Life, to precious people who are hungry for God.  People whose hurts and even their willfull sins are ways of begging, begging for sustenance in a dry and weary land.

"OUR CHURCH ISN'T A REST HOME OR CRUISE SHIP FOR SAINTS, ITS A HOSPITAL FOR SINNERS." (STAFFED BY WOUNDED HEALERS)

I am overjoyed when I see our tribe (or in Jesus' words, 'little flock') creating safe relational space for hurting people to reveal woundedness, fear, sin, and despair.  This happens most often through vulnerability, honesty and trust given in smaller regular circles of community, including mentoring relationships.  I am overjoyed when I see hurting people both accepted and coaxed toward healing.  By the Great Physician, Jesus.

So friends, forgive me for not saying these formative words more often, words that have meant so much to who we've become (at our best) as a church.  Please say them to one another, often, as you cooperate with the Holy Spirit in weekly construction of counter-cultural, redemptive Christian community with others. 

Here are exceprts of two notes I've received recently that give me joy by telling me 'yep, there's an LFC person who sees themself as just one beggar trying to show another beggar where to find bread.'  These notes represent more than just 'bringing someone to church,' but a lifestyle of friendship that 'welcomes who Jesus welcomed - people who've given up on church but not on God.'  Well done, beggars:

"Mike - today I brought 5 people who never go to church...I don't know if they know Jesus but I keep praying for them.  Today is a huge step for all of them just to come to church...I shared my experiences...of the most wonderful, Jesus loving followers (and of course who doesn't want to hear Mike Farris?)...I pray the Holy Spirit touches them today...the Lord knows their hearts."

"Mike - thank you for today's message.  For years we've been inviting X to visit LFC with us...she's a huge skeptic...a tough crowd shall we say.  She agreed to come this morning! She loved the service and the message and her comment was "Wow, I've never been to a church like that before.  Seems like people are there because they want to be and not because they feel obligated"...pray that she comes to know the Lord..."'

Stupid Stuff People Say When Someone Dies

Sometimes I have more to say than time to say it during a sermon. Week 4 of 'House of Blues: Death' was certainly one of those times.  My final (wished for) point was that we HOPE in the face of death by giving hope away to others when they lose someone to death. 

My primary hope in this final point was to arm members of the Lake Forest tribe with the best things to say to someone in grief, as well as banish for all time from our midst (if not the culture's) the WORST buttholish things to say to someone in grief.  Here they are, an amalgamation of my experience and grief.com:

The Worst Things to Say to Someone in Grief:

1. At least she lived a long life, many people die young
2. He is in a better place
3. There is a reason for everything
4. You can have another child still
5. She was such a good person God wanted her to be with him
6. I know how you feel
7. She did what she came here to do and it was her time to go
8. Be strong

The Best Things to Say to Someone in Grief

1. I am so sorry for your loss.
2. I wish I had the right words, just know I care.
3. I don’t know how you feel, but I am here to help in anyway I can.
4. You will be in my prayers.
5. My favorite memory of your loved one is…(be bold and tell stories, this counteracts their greatest fear that their loved one will be forgotten)
6. I am always just a phone call away
7. Give a hug, bring food, or send a card instead of saying something
8. We all need help at times like this, I am here for you
9. I am usually up early or late, if you need anything
10. Saying nothing, just be with the person (sit shiva - if you are Jewish or have been at Lake Forest a long time you know what this means.  Shut up and be there. For days)

Last but not least, angels and people are the two races or species we are aware of (from the Bible) whom God created to be in relationship with God. When people die they cannot, do not, become angels.  Nor vice versa.

The Marriage of Heaven and Earth: Jesus Loves Cats AND Tom Brady

The most original parts of my sermons are when I sing a pop song (Maroon 5 was my head's playlist today instead of the 80's), or when I spew my hatred of the New England Patriots or cats.  I received this jewell of a text from a college student after church today:  "Hello Mr. Moses! This is Rachel C.  My dad wants you to know Jesus loves Tom Brady and my mom says Jesus love cats! Don't you want to be more like Jesus?"  Now that's good biblical theology, Rachel.  I am stumped and struggling to obey.

My best sermons are my own distillation of the teaching of much better biblical scholars and heady Christian theologians than myself, made hear-able by the afore-mentioned simplistic originality.  I promised my next post would address the physicality promised in the Bible of 'the new heavens and the new earth.'  The best I can do is point you to N.T. Wright's "Surprised By Hope" for a full treatment on the subject.  Even better, read Randy Alcorn's "Heaven," the two books I recommended in my sermon on Death a week ago.  Second best is to provide you with this excerpt from Wright.  Enjoy, search the scriptures, and allow your paradigm of eternity to shift from conventional Christian to biblical.

 "The Marriage of Heaven and Earth (pages 104-107, emphases mine):

We thus arrive at the last and perhaps the greatest image of new creation, of cosmic renewal, in the whole Bible.  This scene, set out in Revelation 21-22, is not well enough known or pondered (perhaps because, in order to earn the right to read it, one should really read the rest of the Revelation of St John first, which proves too daunting for many).  This time the image is that of marriage.  The New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.

We notice right away how drastically different this is from all those would-be Christian scenarios in which the end of the story is the Christian going off to heaven as a soul, naked and unadorned, to meet its maker in fear and trembling.  As in Philippians 3 (treated in previous pages), it is not we who go to heaven, it is heaven that comes to earth; indeed it is the church itself, the heavenly Jerusalem, that comes down to earth.  This is the ultimate rejection of all types of Gnosticism, of every worldview that sees the final goal as the separation of the world from God, of the physical from the spiritual, of earth from heaven.  It is the final answer to the Lord's Prayer, that God's kingdom will come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  It is what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 1:10, that God's design, and promise, was to sum up all things in Christ, things both in heaven and on earth. It is the final fulfillment, in richly symbolic imagery, of the promise of Genesis 1, that the creation of male and female would together reflect God's image in the world.  And it is the final accomplishment of God's great design, to defeat and abolish death forever - which can only mean the rescue of creation from its present plight of decay.

Heaven and earth, it seems, are not after all poles apart, needing to be separated forever when all the children of heaven have been rescued from this evil earth.  Nor are they simply different ways of looking at the same thing, as would be implied by some kinds of pantheism.  Nor are they are different, radically different, but they are made for each other in the same way (Revelation is suggesting) as male and female.  And when they finally come together, that wil be cause for rejoicing in the same way that a wedding is: a creational sign that God's project is going forward; that opposite poles within cretation are made for union, not competition; that love and not hate have the last word in the universe; that fruitfulness and not sterility is God's will for creation. 

What is promised in this passage then (Rev. 21-22), is what Isaiah foresaw (treated earlier in the book): a new heaven and a new earth replacing the old heaven and the old earth, which were bound to decay. This doesn't mean, as I have stressed throughout, that God will wipe the slate clean and start again. If that were so, there would be no celebration, no conquest of death, no long preparation now at last complete.  As the chapter develops, the bride, the wife of the Lamb, is described lovingly: she is the new Jerusalem promised by the (Old Testament) prophets of the Exile, especially Ezekial.  But unlike in Ezekiel's vision, where the rebuilt Temple takes eventual center stage, there is no Temple in this city (21:22).  The Temple in Jerusalem was always designed, it seems, as a pointer to, and an advance symbol for, the presence of God himself.  When the reality is there, the signpost is no longer necessary.  As in Romans and I Corinthians, the living God will dwell with and among his people, filling the city with his life and love and pouring out grace and healing in the river of life that flows from the city out to the nations.  There is a sign here of a future project that awaits the redeemed in God's eventual new world. So far from sitting on clouds playing harps, as people often imagine, the redeemed people of God in the new world will be the agents of his love going out in new ways, to accomplish new creative tasks, to celebrate and extend the glory of his love...

"For in Christ all the Fullness was gald to dwell and through him to reconcile all to himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, through him--yes, things on earth, and also the things in the heavens."  Colossians 1:19,20 (Wright translation)

As to the questions: "Will the old earth be destroyed? How familiar will the new earth be?  What will the Great City be like?  What will our resurrected bodies be like - will we eat and drink, know and learn?  What will relationships be like?  Will animals in habit the new earth?  Will heaven be boring - will there be arts, entertainment and sports, and will we design crafts, technology, and new modes of travel?" you will have to read Randy Alcorn's excellent book on what the Bible teaches about "Heaven."

Stay thirsty, my friends.  For the new heavens and new earth.

 

Heaven Sucks

No wonder even Christians don't find 'heaven' to be a concrete reason to deal with death hopefully, rather than living in denial, defeat, or despair because of death.  That's because most Christians hold this discouraging, unbliblical, pagan view of heaven:

 
Most people prefer the atheistic version of dying into nothingness, non-existence, to this ridiculously lame-but-ubiquitous idea of heaven and eternity (from The Far Side, Gary Larsen).  One English priest was asked what he expected after death, and he replied, "Well, if it comes to that, I suppose I shall enter into eternal bliss, but I really wish you wouldn't bring up such depressing subjects."

What?  Why is a Christian not only not comforted and hopeful in the presence of death by the bibilical picture of eternity, but he's actually depressed by it?

“Nearly every Christian I have spoken with has some idea that eternity is an unending church service…we have settled on an image of the never-ending sing-along in the sky, one great hymn after another, forever and ever, amen.  And our heart sinks.  Forever and ever? That’s it? That’s the good news?  And then we sigh and feel guilty that we are not more ‘spiritual.’  We lose heart, and we turn once more to the present to find what life we can.”  - John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire

This is in stark contrast to the joyful hope the old spirituals we've sung during our House of Blues series display in the face of death, anchored in robust and fully biblical expectation of what is coming in when Christ returns.

I think the greatest reason for this epidemic of anemic thoughts about eternity in Christ is that Christians (especially clergy like me) have allowed pagan ideas to inflitrate and take over when we think about forever.  The primary way this has happened?  The assumption that eternity is a disembodied existence.  That we leave our bodies behind on earth, live in a spiritual-only heaven, in some barely-imagined state of gazing and singing at God perpetually. 

And everything within us says 'that sucks' (except for the seeing God part).  "We do not desire to eat gravel.  Why?  Because God did not design us to eat gravel.  Trying to develop an appetite for a disembodied existence in a non-physical Heaven is like trying to develop an appetite for gravel.  No matter how sincere we are, and no matter how hard we try, it's not going to work.  Nor should it."  Randy Alcorn, Heaven p. 7.

Why and how did the evil one successfully steal Christian's joy and hope for seekers by tempting Christian leaders to mistakenly see and teach such drivel in place of the grand feast that is the true biblical doctrines of 'heaven now, the new heavens and new earth forever?'  I don't know exactly.  The idea comes from an ancient pagan philosophy called Gnosticism, that snuck into the church very early on and has never been fully excommunicated. 

The most neafarious principle of gnositicism that flowered among American evangelicals in practical ways in the 20th century, is an extreme division between the 'body' and 'spirit' aspects of human beings - that 'body' is always bad (thus a hyper focus on sins of the flesh, and a lack of focus on meeting physical needs of hurting and poor people), only our 'spirit' is good and from God (so we save 'souls' not persons, and spirituality is bastardized into 'me and Jesus communing in my heart/spirit' without need for embodiment in community and church).  One corollary - if 'body' is bad and evil, then we must be pure soul or spirit in heaven.  This in spite of Jesus being a resurrected unity of body and spirit, and pointed to as 'the first' among many who will be 'raised like him.' 

But as Alcorn points out, what God made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we admit it, is exactly what God promises to those who follow Jesus Christ: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth.  What the Bible calls 'the new heavens and new earth,' or as I often say it - the eternal marriage and embrace of heaven and earth, ruled in perfection by the One who made and re-made it.  Our desires correspond exactly to God's plans, which are clearly revealed to us in the Bible!

"Satan need not convince us that Heaven doesn't exist.  He need only convince us that Heaven is a place of boring, unearthly existence.  If we believe that lie, we'll be robbed of our joy and anticipation, we'll set our minds on this life and not include the next, and we won't be motivated to share our faith.  Why should we share the 'good news' that people can spend eternity in a boring, ghostly place that even we're not looking forward to?"  Alcorn p. 11.

The 'unending church service' picture we assumptively live with is because the Bible tells us that eternity will be full of the worship of God. So we slap our anemic, unbiblical view of worship now (singing in church for a few minutes weekly) onto eternity then (singing for infinity minutes before the throne of God).  But worship now consists of all of life lived well and purposefully in a God-ward direction - feasting, working, playing, making love, drinking good wine, scaling mountains, building organizations - to the glory of God.  Thus shall it be, in a transformed way in the New Heavens and New Earth. 

But that's my next posting: the transformed physicality of eternity.  Look at Jesus' resurrected person and extrapolate.  Be hopeful, my friends.