If Not Us, Then Who?

“I’m so glad YOU are called to do this and not me.”

Just some of the responses I have received from fellow Christians and colleagues when they learn about The Ravens Collective. But I have pondered on this for awhile and have wondered in my heart: “But this is your calling as well.” Are we not all called to love the broken, feed the hungry, rescue those who are deeply imprisoned?

We are the Church. We need to restore the hope of what this means again. We need to become deeply Christlike in what we do as Christians and as the Church. We are to love those who are on the outside, deeply burdened and deeply broken. The LGBTQ+ community is more excited and supportive of my ministry than the church. The LGBTQ+ community sees the need for this, but why doesn’t the church? Do we not have the same passion to love like Jesus?

And I’m not just talking about the LGBTQ+ community. I’m talking about all of the people that the church has pushed aside as unworthy and unqualified to sit in our community. As a church, we have put up this facade that there are certain people that can be in this church. We put up ridiculous guidelines and instructions that people must meet before even entering our sanctuary. Let me just say it is not our sanctuary. It is God’s and he says all are welcome. And we say, ‘well we know that and everyone is welcome.’ But that isn’t true. In theory, everyone is welcome but realistically they really are not. It might be our preferred value but we have a long way before it becomes our existing value. The truth is we have forgotten how to love people. Someone loved us in our mess so doesn’t every person outside of our Church Club deserve the same? No. Honestly, we only want people who look just like us.

“Most people come to church because they are spiritually and relationally hungry. They come looking to connect with God and others. And if they don’t feel welcome around the Communion table, how then will they eat? It’s one of the few healing places where the broken can come, sit and partake. The broken body of Christ is reflected not just on the Communion table but also around the table.”

- Debra Hirsch, Redeeming Sex. 

I genuinely hope this convicts you as much as it convicted me. I honestly believe there is an issue if this statement isn’t impacting us.

But…Let’s be reminded of truth.

Our God is a relational God who inspires diversity. Our God wants all of his children together in one place. This includes the broken, the marginalized, and the outsider. WE are a broken, diverse body of Christ, so why not fully embrace that? No one has ever had a perfect family and our church community should not feel any different.

As Scripture says, (Rom. 10) “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame. For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. For Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Is this what we believe? Are we calling people to Jesus or are we calling them to our agenda? For in Jesus, all have been set free.

On the cross, Jesus bore the shame and freed all who call on his name. The veil has been torn so that shame is also torn away. Paul shows how we renounce our old way of life. Because of the torn veil we are in this relationship with the Lord. We have been freed. We need a reminder of the truth of the gospel. We do not tamper with God’s Word. By not bending the truth, we are presenting a genuine relationship. We present a genuine message. N.T. Wright says, “We have to introduce people to him, not to keep them in the outer office as though we ourselves were the people they should get to know. Our job is to make Jesus known, and then to keep out of the way.” Paul knew what it meant to be blinded by the truth and so he propels us forward to not blind the truth from others who are seeking. John the Baptist was speaking about Jesus and introducing people to Jesus. It wasn’t about him. And as soon as Jesus showed up, he got out of the way because John knew Jesus would reveal the Kingdom. He knew Jesus was the Way, the Truth, and the Life and Jesus would reveal this to each person who invited him in.

There is one quote that I have made my own mission. “The church needs to stop talking about homosexuals as ‘those people.’ If they have not repented and believed, they are potentially our people. And if they have repented and believed, they actually are ‘our people (Peter Hubbard, Love into Light).” These people are our people who are just trying to figure out what it looks like. They are trying to navigate this messy thing called faith. And we are no different because of where we are in our journey of faith. If I’ve learned anything it is that faith is messy and no one gets it right. No one is better because they met Jesus sooner. Bonhoeffer writes, “The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ.” Dang. I don’t know about you but I am not willing to exclude God’s sons and daughters. Will this be messy? Absolutely. But what family reunion is not a little messy? Diversity is going to be messy, but not impossible. This is Our Father’s mission.

The message of Jesus should be filled with truth. We are not the convictors. We are not to judge, but we are the messengers. We are John the Baptist. It is difficult at times. We honor and obey God by allowing him to do the rest of the work. We are called to be faithful to God. The real question must be: “How do we live faithfully to God?” It may not look the same for you as it will for your next door neighbor. But, does it really matter? You follow God. You learn to live in a faithfully committed relationship to Him and only Him. He will let you know what to do and, quite frankly, he will let your neighbor know as well. Do we actually trust Jesus to do the work that only He is able to do? No, we keep getting in the way.

“The mission of those on the inside is seen as going out to those on the outside (defined as those who don’t believe or behave like us), telling them about Jesus, and hopefully bringing them in and getting them believing and behaving correctly — like us. They will get in based primarily on evidence of conformity to the accepted beliefs and behaviors of the host church.”

Debra Hirsch, Redeeming Sex

If this is the true church, I don’t know if I want any part of it. If this is the true church, I’m afraid it won’t truly be authentic. I’m afraid we are really missing out on authentic, transparency and deeply compassionate people. I want these people with me.

I sat at a table with Christians and never felt so uncomfortable. I sat there thinking “welcoming and mutually transforming.” That is the community and environment I want to develop and foster. I did not feel welcomed and the conversation did not seem transforming. Within my own community, I felt alone and unaffirmed in welcoming all to the table. If I spoke up, then I would be defending and taking a side. But really I just love Jesus and people and want to bring them together in one place. So, which side is that? Because it’s been kind of hard to find recently.

Are we to be welcoming of all people? Absolutely! Are we to affirm all belief systems and behaviors of all who break bread with us? Absolutely not. If God doesn’t affirm all human behavior, then neither can his ecclesia. Jesus and his way must take priority. Being welcoming and mutually transforming moves the issue from just being about LGBT people to being about all people. I have never been one for developing specific church policies on homosexuality. If we have a policy on homosexuality, why wouldn’t we also develop policies about every other ethical issue? What is our policy about greed? In making policies, you make that one issue more important than the others.

- Debra Hirsch, Redeeming Sex 

Debra Hirsch leads us into thinking about being Jesus centered.

“We are called to introduce people to God (point them to Jesus) and then at some point we need to get out of the way. This doesn’t mean that we don’t encourage, nurture and correct at times, but it does mean we have to let go of control and let people journey in a way that makes sense to them and where they are at with God (Hirsch).”

We all might be living faithfully with Jesus, but “our paths are different and we journey at a different pace. Our stories are so different, our personalities so particular, and our lives so complex that only God will know how to heal us and deal with us without destroying who we are uniquely (Hirsch).”

2 Corinthians 3:18—”And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

I sat in a LGBTQ+ training session that was all about implementing an environment that is safe and supported. We begun the discussion with our perceived beliefs and values. The trainer basically said that we can all agree on one value no matter our differences. We can agree that all LGBT people, especially youth, deserve the right to feel safe. No matter what, we can firmly agree that every person should feel safe at all times. I guess this begs the question of the church today. Do we believe the same thing? Am I the only one who feels that safety is important? We may not understand people’s choices or even their identity, but that’s okay. It doesn’t have to make sense to us, but it doesn’t mean we should not respect each individual as a person. We have forgotten how to love people for the simple sake that they are people.

There was a story that was spoken between a disapproving mother and a gay son. He was being discreet but certain circumstances made the secret come out to her. She grabbed the shotgun off the shelf. She gave it to her son to hold and they drove into the woods. She pointed the gun directly at his forehead. And told him she did not have a gay son. If he would choose to be gay, then he was choosing to die. If this came out, they would come back and she would pull the trigger. So, he learned to become a good liar. This gave me disgust. This brought so much emotion to me and I’m not even a mother. The thought that someone, a mother, would rather have a dead son than a son identifying as gay was mortifying.

But the next thought that came to mind saddened me much more. See, the Church is very similar to this mother. We would much rather have dead children than gay children in our sanctuary. We would rather push people who don’t look like us farther from God than lead them to Jesus and love them on their journey of faith. Maybe it’s a sin. Maybe it’s wrong. But is it really our call to make? I don’t believe we get into heaven based on our sexual orientation. I believe we get into heaven because we choose Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

The Church would rather push away an entire group of people who belong to God’s family than accept where they are and lead them closer to Jesus. Their identity might be different. Their lifestyle may not be like mine. But how can we introduce them to Jesus?

Jesus loves them and says “I see you. Come on in. Let’s eat together.”

Because Jesus says Come on in, so will I.

“Friends, come on in. You are welcome in my house. You are welcome here.”