Responses

I had several interesting, thoughtful responses to “The First Question.”  In this post relating to homosexuality, I tried to explain how confusing and difficult it is to deal with this topic. I had such misgivings about writing about it that I wrote it once but deleted the whole thing. Since it was this month’s most popular post, I think a lot of you are confused about this too.  Some people talked to me in person or on FB chat about relationships that they have with members of their own family.  Here are some of the written responses I received. 

“I don't have the answers for all the questions, but I know that God's Word doesn't change with our changing mindset.  It is convenient for us to look at the Bible in a new way to make our lifestyle work.  I'm thinking right now about homosexuality.  God calls it sin.  I believe it still is.  He made man and woman to "fit" together.  His perfect plan has not changed.  I believe that that's what the truth of God's Word is.  I don't hate homosexuals.  I'm not going to picket against them.  I would love to win some to Christ, but I would have to encourage them to leave their lifestyle once they accepted Christ.”

“The question is not whether homosexuality is a sin but whether a homosexual is automatically "out." Does it disqualify them from a relationship with Christ? Do they have to agree to fix this before they can come to Christ? Can they be saved in spite of their sin? This happens when we view one sin as worse than another. There are many sins that we give people a pass on such as gluttony, laziness, greed, etc. Homosexuality is not one of those. We have held these people at arms length and will not embrace them and often keep them from coming to the grace of God. One of the main principles of the Kingdom is that we are not to judge. We make poor judges. Jesus illustrated it twice in Matt 13. We are poor judges of who is in and out so leave that to God. When we try to judge, we make a mess of things.

My position is to treat them as any other. I want them to become followers of Christ. Then I want Christ to change them. It doesn't always happen.”

“I could talk to you in great depths about all of this. Will there be any answers? I’m not sure if you will ever make any sense of it all. It’s taken me a lifetime. I don’t think we have to have all the answers. But you will have more compassion for me. I will have more compassion for you. Maybe I can help you understand the gays :) And you can help me understand the Christians. Either way, we’ll all become closer and have a better understanding of each other. And that is a place of love...a place where God is.

Send out your blog, ask questions, raise eyebrows, but most importantly, rise above. You come from a place of love. Thank you for listening and learning instead of judging. And thanks for reaching out to me.  I hope this is the beginning of many philosophical conversations we can have together.”

I appreciated each one of these responses.  They all came from people I care about, and who care about me.  I took something good from each one.  I hope they help you too.

Woven Basket

This week I came across the story of a violin player in the subway.  This story has been making its rounds on Facebook, and I shared it on my wall.  The point of the story was that there is beauty all around us, and we are too busy to stop and see it.  We talked about this at our Friday Friends meeting today, also.  And so I'm making a conscious effort to look and really notice the beauty around me.

This afternoon Phil and I walked the road.  The rays of the sun were dropping low in the sky; the light was perfect.  We stopped at the end of the road to look at the view of the mountains from the top of Sprouse Hill.  The ridge popped with a brilliant green; the mountains were in shadow.  As we came to back to the house the view across the pond was gorgeous too.

I went to Mom & Dad's for our nightly visit during Jeopardy.  The sky was clear, and the crescent moon was low in the sky.  A brilliant star was nearby.  It reminded me of a poem that Kathryn wrote:

Woven basket holds pink,
red, orange
basket of grey, brown
branches holding the sky
and my one-star dusk; one
star in blue, fading and sliding,
sneaking into darker blue
Woven basket of one-star sky
and moon
waning crescent rising in the
east as I run into the woven basket of
one-star sky moon
and you...

\\

The Sower

"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

- Isaiah 55:10-11

I got to teach the parable of the sower tonight in Kids’ Club.  I love being able to share Jesus’ stories with the kids.  I’m so privileged to get to put God’s word out there to do its work.

A couple of weeks ago one little sixth grade girl who rides the van was crying inconsolably.  I had her come and talk to me at the end of the night.  Some of the kids had been talking about dying and she was very scared.  I asked her about her salvation, prayed with her and sent her home.  Later that week one of the verses we were studying from Friday Friends hit me as the perfect verse to share with her.

2 Timothy 1:7...

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Another night I got to teach from the Beatitudes, “You are the light of the world.”  Tonight Andrea told me that Allie came home that night and called a family meeting.  She said, “It’s time for me to let my light shine…I want to be baptized.”  Allie had been saved about a year ago but had never been ready to be baptized until then.  I got to see her get baptized this past Sunday.  What a blessing!

God’s word is a double-edged sword.  My devotional today said one edge when it comes from God to my heart, the second edge when it goes out from me and into the hearts of others.  It’s such a wonderful thing to be a part of the work God is doing in the lives of kids. 

Science Olympiad

I love my job!

Saturday was the high point of the year for my students and me.  We attended the annual Science Olympiad at Chattanooga State.  We spend much of our time during the school year preparing for this event.  Much of my curriculum is based on the events of this competition.  It’s a big deal.

We have spent hours building rockets and launching them.  We tested cupcakes and measured viscosity of ingredients for food science.  We built mousetrap cars and ran the wheels off them.  We built a thermal insulator to keep water warm and tested it repeatedly.  We learned how to make graphs on Excel and search for information on the internet. We went to the river to collect water specimens and tested them for water quality.  We built a very light tower that held 15 kg (33 lbs) without breaking (and it wasn't even 3-sided!).

One student built a trebuchet and tested so that he could hit a target every time.  Another student built a Rube Goldberg machine that did a simple task in a most complex way.  Students met with teachers after school.  Parents participated in helping us prepare.

I wish you could have seen their joy in this learning.  I wish you could have heard their excitement leading up to the competition.

“I won’t even be able to sleep Friday night!”

“I get this.  I understand!”

“My machine is awesome. “ He sends me a text message with a picture of it.  (After he shot it at the competition he called his dad to tell him how well it did and he said his dad was screaming on the phone.)

They came back from events to tell me, “We got this.  We knew exactly what to do.”  “I don’t care if I get a medal in this or not… that was so amazing and so fun.” 

This is what a teacher lives for.  This is the ultimate high.  This is success.

I feel for the classroom teachers who don’t get this feeling often enough.  They have so much pressure.  There is so much time spent dragging work out of students who are so difficult to motivate.  I know.  I’ve been there too.

I’m so lucky to have experienced it.  I’m wishing my colleagues days like these, times like these, students like these.  

The Blue Parakeet Revisited

I wanted to further comment on the book I reviewed last week.  The Blue Parakeet is subtitled “Rethinking How You Read the Bible.”  Here’s what he’s talking about…we all choose what we do and don’t follow in the Bible.  What he’s encouraging us to do is to think about how we choose.  We’ve all heard, “God said it.  I believe it, and that settles it for me.”  We have to know that it’s not that simple.

McKnight first takes commandments from Leviticus 19.  Which ones do we obey today?  Why?,

“Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”

“You must observe my Sabbath.  I am the Lord your God.”

“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.  Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen.   Leave them for the poor and the foreigner.  I am the Lord your God.”

“Do not go around spreading slander among your people.”

“Do not plant your field with two kinds of seeds.  Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of materials.”

“Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it.”

“Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip the edges of your beard.”

“Do not…put tattoo marks on yourselves.  I am the Lord your God.”

“Stand up in the presence of the aged.”

“Keep all my decrees and all my laws.  I am the Lord your God.”

Most of us would agree that since these are from Leviticus they applied to Israel but not to us today.   McKnight says, “Essentially the church has always taught that the times have changed and we have learned from New Testament patterns of discernment what to do and what not to do.  Often it is easy; sometimes we have to have a discussion but can agree.   At other times it gets difficult.”

Even if you go to the New Testament, people have to decide how to apply God’s commands and Jesus’ words.  The first discussion of this in the early church centered around circumcision.  In the end, Gentiles were not required to be circumcised, but you have to know that this did not sit well with everyone at the time the decision was made.  Can’t you guess that there were those who said that God has made this to be a sign between God and His people FOREVER.  How could they put this aside? 

Take another passage for example.  Here’s what McKnight says…

“…1 Peter 3:1-6 contains three basic commands to women in first-century Asia Minor who had unbelieving husbands.  They should:

*submit to their non-Christian husbands in order to convert them

*avoid elaborate hairstyles and gold jewelry and fine clothing

*address their husbands with the word “Lord”

Even if some conservative Christians today want to emphasize wives submitting to their husbands no matter how countercultural it may seem, they don’t usually insist on Peter’s commands about elaborate hair and nice clothing and fine jewelry, and the don’t, so far as I know, insist on their calling their husbands ‘Lord’.”

Why do we not follow these explicit words of the apostle Peter?  The only answer I can give is that over time the church has worked out a pattern of discernment that comes to this: women (and men I might add) should dress modestly.”

So the “blue parakeets” are passages that we have to interpret and wrestle with and decide about how to live them out in our lives in our time.  Passages that have to do with sexuality, wealth, poverty, attitudes, sin… and the list goes on.

It takes a lot of study, prayer, and seeking of the face of God.  We don’t do this enough.  We are much happier to let others tell us what to think.  Walking in the light takes time and effort, but, like anything that requires hard work, the rewards are great.  A friend of ours told us this week, “In the end I know I’m not going to have all the answers.  My hope is that I will be less wrong than I was before.” 

 I’m with him on that one.

Hallelujah Story!

I had a “Hallelujah” moment last Saturday night.  In order to share it with you I’ll have to take you back a few years.

In 1995 my most unforgettable student entered my life.  Her name was Olga.  She and her mom had moved here from Ukraine soon after the death of her father.  Her mom got a job cleaning at Bi-Lo at night.  She walked to work after dark along Main St. behind Taco Bell.  She was killed by a hit-and-run driver one night on her way to work.  Olga was alone.

She came to live with us until the state could find her a foster home.  She was difficult and wonderful.  We cared about her very much.  She was smart; every day her English was improving.  We laughed about jokes and movies, fought about food (how was I supposed to know what to fix for her?!), and cried about her parents.

She left our home, only to bounce around for a while.  Eventually, a family in the Atlanta area adopted her.  She finished high school and went to Kennesaw State where she graduated with a degree in Sports Marketing.  She worked for the Atlanta Falcons, but recently moved to Raleigh to work for their NHL team.

Olga and I have kept in touch.  We are friends on Facebook.  Usually her status updates have something to do with sports, but early last week she posted this status:

My soul > My things

I was thrilled to see this post.  I had no way of knowing what was happening to her spiritually.  I told her how much I liked it, and she said it was from Mark 8:36.

On Saturday night I decided to watch Andy Stanley’s latest sermon.  Right smack in the middle of his sermon, there it was again…

My soul > My things

And then I knew…She listens to Andy Stanley!!!

I asked her about it, and she said that when she lived in Atlanta she would go to the Orthodox Church, and then she would go to Andy Stanley’s Buckhead Church.  I was so excited!  This meant to me that she was following God, that she knew about Christ and His love for her, and that she had an active faith.

I have often felt bad that we let her out of our lives.  My faith was so weak.  If I had known what I know now, I would have realized that taking her into our home would have been the greatest way to live our faith.  Isn’t that what James talks about when he says

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

I’m thankful God has been gracious to me about Olga.  He has let me be her friend, and now after all this time, He has let me know that He took care of her.  Glory to God!

The Blue Parakeet

I just finished reading The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight.  I can’t tell you how much Phil and I both loved this book.

The title comes from an illustration Scot uses about seeing a blue parakeet in his yard one day.  He said he realized it didn’t belong there.  He says there are many passages in the Bible that are like blue parakeets…they stand out; they make you say, “What is that doing here?”

He goes on to say that we have to decide how we are going to deal with the “blue parakeet” parts of the Bible.  We either have to ignore them (which can stir up the other “birds”), or we have to try to tame them so they don’t bother us.  Another way to deal with them is to learn to enjoy them and understand them.  He then goes on to give instructions on how to read the Bible to get the most understanding out of what we read, and to learn how to apply it to our lives right now.  In a later post I'll give some examples of "blue parakeets" and talk about how to read them.

He says that the entire Bible has to be read as a Story.  That story has the following parts:

1.  God and creation

2.  Adam and Eve, made in the image of God, but then broken by sin

3.  God’s covenant community (Israel), where humans are restored to God, self, others, and the world

4.  Jesus Christ, who is the Story and in whose story we are to live

5.  The church as Jesus’ covenant community

6.  The consummation, when all the designs of our Creator God will finally be realized forever and ever

McKnight taught me that the point of every story in the Bible is to fit into this big Story…and that for my story to have relevance, I need to view it as a subplot to the Story of the Bible.

Many times when I read a book I put significant quotes here for you to read, but I can’t do that this time.  I would just have to quote the whole book.

You need to read this book if you have a desire for a greater understanding of God and His word.  It will give you much to think about.  

The First Question

Last week, I wrote about our friend Rachel and how finding her and her blog led us to deal with some hard questions in our faith.

The first question I had to deal with for myself was about homosexuality.  It all began when I found out that a dear friend of mine is gay.  Not only is he gay, but he is the pastor of a large active church in Indianapolis.

Jeff went to church with me when we were in junior high and high school.  He was the only person from school who also attended my church.  We dated some and were good friends.  One of the most attractive things to me about Jeff was his passion for Christ.  Everyone saw it.  Even our pastor told Jeff’s mom, “I believe God has something very special in mind for Jeff.”  Jeff told me later, “Liitle did he know…”

When we were sophomores Jeff moved to Colorado.  We wrote faithfully for a couple of years.  Jeff wrote long letters to me about his desire to serve the Lord with all his heart, soul, mind and strength.  But distance took its toll, and eventually we went our separate ways.  In the past few years, I learned he was back in Indianapolis, and pastor of a large church that welcomed a diverse congregation, including gays and lesbians.

I had to think about this.  I had to learn more about this.  My first step was to attend a workshop on homosexuality sponsored by Focus on the Family.  There were several speakers who had left the gay lifestyle to become straight, becoming part of traditional families. One of the most striking things they said was that Christians had done great harm to gays during the AIDS epidemic in the 80’s and 90’s.  Instead of acting in love and coming to minister to the gay community in their time of great need, most Christian groups took the position that this was God’s just judgment for their great sin.  In essence, we said, “Good riddance!”  This viewpoint is very prevalent even today. 

 But I knew that the information I got there was not the whole story.  I had to hear the other side of the story, directly from Jeff.  I contacted him, and on one of my trips to Indianapolis I arranged to meet him at a social event at his church. (I can’t tell you how nervous I was about all this.  It was like covert operations!)   I sat down to dinner with him and listened to his story.

Jeff went to college at Bob Jones University, an extremely conservative Christian college in South Carolina.  It was there that he came to grips with the fact that he was gay.  And that was a crisis point for him.  His great desire was to be a pastor, but he knew that was impossible because of what he was dealing with.  Jeff went on to Harvard Law School and practiced law in Washington, DC.  It was there he found a church that welcomed gays, and this changed his life.  This opened the door to his being able to fulfill his lifelong dream of being a pastor.  That is he how he came to be back in Indianapolis.

Jeff has written a book about his views on the Bible and homosexuality.  His view is that God’s judgment rests upon the promiscuity that often accompanies the homosexual lifestyle.  He believes that gays in committed monogamous relationships are able to live a strong Christian life.  He practices what he preaches and has been married to his spouse for over fifteen years.

When I met Jeff and talked to him after all these years, I was struck by a couple of things.   Jeff was very much the same person I remembered, and yes, even loved, so many years ago.  He was smart, engaging and fun to talk to, and none of his zeal for serving the Lord has diminished.  He speaks often about his faith, and engages in debates about his views (those lawyer skills come in handy).  He lives out his Christianity better than most people I know.

So what do I do with this?  How to I understand this?  This goes against everything I have ever been taught. 

I don’t have the answers.  I still find all this totally confusing.  But one thing I do know.  Once you put a face on homosexuality instead of just using it as a label, your perspective changes.  You’re forced to grapple with it, and there are no easy answers.

The other thing I know is that each person’s story matters.  The road they’ve taken… the problems they’ve dealt with…it all matters.  It matters to Jesus, and it better matter to me, if I truly want to follow Him.  That’s why I’m listening, and trying to learn what God wants me to do to meet the needs of friends who are dealing with homosexuality in their own lives, and in the lives of family members.