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Worthy

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“The most dangerous stories we make up are the narratives that diminish our inherent worthiness. We must reclaim the truth about our lovability, divinity, and creativity.” Brené Brown

Meister Eckhart writes “It is a lie – any talk of God that does not comfort you.”
And “How long will grown men and women in this world keep drawing in their coloring books an image of God that makes them sad?”

So many of us have grown up with an image of God that is more abusive parent than loving Father, one who is more interested in discipline than delight.

For many of us, the mere suggestion of the thought that God loves us and wants us to be happy causes a knee-jerk reaction against it, believing that way leads towards sin. We must remember that Jesus came to give us life in abundance. This doesn’t mean having more things. This means living life fully, completely, with trust and hope and joy.

When did the Good News become the guilt trip? Who first taught you the image of God as angry, as upset, as never satisfied? Jesus paints for us a new picture. This is a picture of forgiveness, of unconditional love, of mercy and grace.

Read the Gospels for yourself. Talk to God yourself. Not only can you, God wants you to. Learn again, or for the first time, the truth that God loves you.

For many of us, developing a new healthy relationship with God is a lot like the work we have to do with reparenting ourselves, because we grew up in unhealthy homes. We were taught by abusive parents or siblings that we were not worthy of love. They most likely thought it was the best way to control us. Sometimes they used the image of God as the ultimate parent, always watching, always unhappy with what we are doing.

This isn’t who God is.

Remember this verse? This is one of the most-quoted verses by Christians. It is John 3:16

16 “For God loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

Right after it is this one.

17 For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

God does not condemn the world. God is love. God loves you – yes you. God made you, and God, being the source of love and goodness, made you good. Hold this tiny spark in your heart. Make it bigger through prayer and reading the Good News. Then share it with others.

Jesus does not punish.

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We must remember that the Good News is indeed good. Here are some verses from the Gospels that remind us of that.

Jesus came to save people’s lives – not destroy them.

Luke 9:51-56
51 When the days were coming to a close for Him to be taken up, He determined to journey to Jerusalem. 52 He sent messengers ahead of Him, and on the way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for Him. 53 But they did not welcome Him, because He determined to journey to Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” 55But He turned and rebuked them and said, “You don’t know what kind of spirit you belong to. 56 For the Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s lives but to save them,” 56 and they went to another village.

Jesus came to save – not condemn.

JN 3:17
“For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

Jesus tells us what to do if we have interpersonal problems. Note these words are not about if you think someone is sinning, but if you and another person have problems.

MT 18:15-20
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. 16 But if he won’t listen, take one or two more with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. 17 If he pays no attention to them, tell the church. But if he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you. 18 I assure you: Whatever you bind on earth is already bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed in heaven. 19 Again, I assure you: If two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them.”

Jesus came to be a servant, not a taskmaster.

MT 20:25-28
25 But Jesus called them over and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles dominate them, and the men of high position exercise power over them. 26 It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life—a ransom for many.”

Jesus came to find and rescue the lost.

LK 19:1-10
“Today salvation has come to this house,” Jesus told him, “because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”

MT 18:11
“For the Son of Man has come to save the lost.”

Jesus came to save the world and not to judge it.

JN 12:44-47
44 Then Jesus cried out, “The one who believes in Me believes not in Me, but in Him who sent Me. 45 And the one who sees Me sees Him who sent Me. 46 I have come as a light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me would not remain in darkness. 47 If anyone hears My words and doesn’t keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.

We, as Jesus’ followers, must follow his example of being full of mercy and kindness, seeking to help people and not to condemn them.

Eulogy for a young mother who died tragically. (Be open to grief)

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There are no words for our grief. We are here together, wordless, numb, and hurting. We cannot make sense of this senseless loss.

But we are here. We are here to pay our respects to Hannah. We are here together as a testament to our love for our friend, our coworker, our wife, our mother. We are here searching to make sense out of a senseless thing.

Let us comfort each other in our grief. Let us take this time now to cry with each other, to hold each other, to wail with each other. I invite you to do this now.

In some traditions there is something known as Passing the Peace. You do it by shaking the hand or hugging all the people next to you, one at a time. You say “Peace be with you” It is done as a sign of reconciliation. It is done right before communion, because it is important to approach the Lord’s table with an empty heart – one that is free of the burdens of grief and anger. Those feelings keep us away from our true nature, which is love.

When we are angry or grieving we are closed off and cold. The purpose of reconciliation is to make us open and warm. When we are open we grow. When we are closed we die.

Many of us are angry right now. We want answers and there aren’t any. Why did Hannah have to die? Why did someone we love get taken away from us, so soon in her life?

Many of us are angry at God, and that is alright. Be angry. God can handle it. We are the ones who can’t handle it if we hold it in.

I’m not here to explain any of this. I can’t tell you why she died the way she did. I’m not here to tell you that it will all make sense and it is part of God’s plan. Because it will never make sense. And I don’t believe that God plans for us to feel pain, certainly not this kind of pain.

I believe that God is crying with us, is wailing with us, and is holding us right now. I believe that each time we share our grief with each other, God shares our grief with us.

God is there, acting through us. God is in the arms of the person you hug in your grief. God is in our arms as we hug them.

I invite you to be open. I invite you to open yourself to these feelings and to let them out. Cry. Wail. Talk about Hannah. Talk about how you love her.

Notice I said love, and not loved. There is no past tense with love. Love doesn’t end with death, it just changes shape. Where before the shape was the size of Hannah, now it has to expand. It has to get big enough for us to include each other in it. Every person here has a tiny bit of Hannah in them. When we share our grief with each other, we are also sharing Hannah with each other.

Open up. Don’t close yourself off.

Our society teaches silence and stoicism. Our society teaches us to have a stiff upper lip and that big boys don’t cry. Our society is full of it.

Cry. Let it out. Let it out because that grief will hold you back from life. That grief will hold you back from love.

That grief, locked up, will hold you down under the waves for so long that you’ll stop being able to breathe. That grief, locked up, will kill you. Maybe not literally, but you’ll be dead just as certainly as you would be if you drowned. Grief, locked up, leads to a certain half-life, a certain zombie like existence. Grief, locked up, only delays the pain, it doesn’t get rid of it. Let it out, and live.

Let it out because you have to. Let it out because you must, because you love Hannah.

Talk about her. Celebrate her life. Celebrate the time she spent with you and everything you did together. Do something in honor of her, something that you both enjoyed doing together. Donate to a charity in her name. Plant a tree. Paint. Write. Dance.

Many people say that to show joy in grief is to show disrespect to the person you are grieving for. I say that to not show joy is to not show the love you have for her.

We grieve deeply because we love deeply.

Be open. Be open because you love Hannah.

Peace be with you.

(Written as a eulogy for a young mother who died tragically.)

What the Duck? Hate isn’t a Christian virtue.

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Last Thursday I was in my water aerobics class. There is a lady there who I regularly talk with. She is an evangelical Christian and is a minister in her church. I’ve had better talks about God in that pool than I ever have in church.

Today was different. She came up to me and asked me if I’d heard about the whole Duck Dynasty thing. Of course I have. Who hasn’t, by now? I don’t even watch TV and I know about it. The patriarch of this group of rednecks says some pretty harsh things about gay people and the network his show is on fires him.

She starts talking to me about this as if she assumes I’m going to agree with her. I’m reminded of the times when people start to tell me a racist joke, thinking I’m on their side. She smiles really big and says “But we know who is going to win in the end, right?” She means Jesus. She means to say that she thinks this intolerant, judging, backwater man is right, and that she thinks I agree with him.

I took a breath in. I smiled. I’m learning this is a good tactic to disarm people. Because this is disarming. I’m trying to remove a dangerous weapon from her. I’m trying to remove the most dangerous weapon there is – using Jesus as a weapon.

I can’t stand it when people use Jesus as an excuse to hate other people. Of course, they don’t think they are being hateful. They think they are being obedient. They think they are following the Word.

So, I decided to test this minister. She’s studied the Bible longer than I have, and been examined by her church. She is a lay minister, sure, but she had to be certified and tested by them to say she is a minister. So she should be able to answer a simple question.

She didn’t see this coming.

I asked her – “What did Jesus say about homosexuality?”

Full stop. She looked to the side, in deep thought. She was scanning her memory banks. They came up blank, because Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality. He talked a lot about love. Part of love is not judging other people. He talked a lot about not judging. It isn’t Christ-like to tell other people what they are doing is wrong.

She fumbled. She had to be right. She said “But Scriptures say that…” and I interrupted. “Not Scriptures. What did JESUS say?”

And then she realized that her whole plan was going wrong. She thought she had an ally. I’ve never challenged her on her homophobia before. I’ve let her talk it out. But I certainly haven’t agreed. I’ve hoped that she would come to the same conclusion that I have – that the only sin is to be hateful and judgmental and to not show love.

As Christians, we follow the commands of Jesus. His commands supersede the rules of the Old Testament. Take whatever rule there is in the Old Testament and measure it up against Jesus’ rules – Does it show love to God? Does it show love to our neighbor (i.e. everybody)? Then do it. If it doesn’t fulfill those parameters, it is optional. This is why Christians can eat bacon cheeseburgers, and don’t have to cover their heads, and don’t have to worry about wearing fabric that is woven from two different materials. These rules don’t push us further in love.

The same thing applies to the words of Paul in the New Testament. If his words measure up against Jesus’ commands to show love, then do them. Otherwise, skip them. Remember, Paul is the same person who said that women shouldn’t speak in church. If they have any questions in church they should be silent, and ask their husbands at home later. (1 Corinthians 14:34-35) If she is going to use Paul’s words against homosexuals, she needs to remember that Paul was totally against women ministers, of which she is one.

Now, she has to prove she’s right, so she goes into Scriptures, even though that isn’t what I asked. She tells about the men in Sodom and Gomorrah who wanted to sodomize the angels. (Genesis 19:4-5)

Fine. I’ve read Scriptures too. I may not be a certified minister, but I know this.

I countered with the fact that Lot volunteered to send out his two virgin daughters instead, to be raped by the crowd of men. (Genesis 19:6-8)

Then I added the fact that after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s daughters were convinced that they were the only people left on Earth and that they were responsible for continuing their father’s line. They got their father drunk and had sex with him, and got pregnant. (Genesis 19:30-38)

I pointed out that you can’t talk about homosexuality being wrong in Scriptures without noting that raping virgins and incest is perfectly fine.

This stumped her.

She countered with “Jesus says love the sinner, hate the sin”.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Jesus said nothing of the sort. Try to find the verse for that. Try to find anything like that in the Gospels. It just isn’t there. It isn’t there because it isn’t loving.

Jesus didn’t define people as sinners.

Jesus died for everybody’s sins. Jesus died to let us all know that we are free of that debt. Jesus died so that we could live.

Plenty of Christians say that they aren’t judging gay people. They say this in the same way that racists say they aren’t racist. They judge them when they say that being gay is a sin. They judge them when they say they aren’t entitled to the same legal rights that every other adult citizen has. They judge them when they exclude them or limit them, or deride them.

When Christians judge gay people, they aren’t being Christ-like. They just aren’t. The bad part is that they are giving a bad name to Christians. Because they are so vocal in their judgment, they give the impression to non-Christians that being hateful is a hallmark of being Christian. It isn’t.

Love is the answer, always.

Praying for.

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I have several people I pray for on a regular basis. They have chronic health conditions or very serious life events that are going on. These are people who do not pray. Either they were raised Christian and felt betrayed by their church, or they were never part of any faith tradition.

Either way, I pray. I pray for their healing, for their wholeness. I never pray that they get converted, because there are so many people in the Christian community who that is all they pray for. There’s something about this kind of prayer that creeps me out. There are way too many things that the Christian community does that creep me out, in fact, but I’ve already written about that.

While I don’t feel they should convert to Christianity, I do wish that they would get a hint of the power of praying to God. I wish that they would feel the comfort from knowing that God is real, that God loves them, and that they are important. I wish that they would know that the Creator made them for a reason. I wish that they would know the feeling that comes from knowing that they aren’t alone, that there is a plan, and that they are part of it.

There is something about prayer that transforms a situation from feeing hopeless to something hopeful. It is the ultimate “phone a friend.” You can stop right where you are and always pray.

It might feel like there is a busy signal. It might feel like the connection is scratchy. Be assured, God is on the other end, right there, as close as your heartbeat, as close as your breath. Be assured that God is overjoyed that you called. I’m reminded of the story of the Prodigal Son. The father saw his son returning to him from far away. The moment he saw him return, he went running to meet him. God is the same way. God doesn’t meet us half way. God makes up the difference in distance the moment we turn our hearts and minds back.

In fact, God never leaves. God is always with us. God never gives up on us.

I don’t want people to become Christian, necessarily. But I would like them to seek God, or Allah, or Jehovah, or YHWH, or whatever they call the Creator. I think there is a lot of power in this. I think there is a lot of comfort too. Why try to do it all yourself when there is something so much bigger that is calling you daily, moment by moment, to let you know that you are loved?