So I read this article. It's long, but I recommend you take some time and do the same. It's pretty heavily slanted at times, and I have no idea why everything has to be tied in to a politician. I guess because it's in the political section? That seems dumb because I think the story itself can stand on its own as an Important News Topic without dragging in whatever politician it's currently en vogue to bash, but maybe that's just me. Maybe some people wouldn't read this story without being tossed a politician. Fine.
Recently, my pastor did a sermon on a particular story from John about when a bunch of people brought a woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus, trying to trip him up into making some sort of religious statement that would get him in trouble. Jesus didn't end up getting embarrassed, and he didn't get tricked into making some statement they could condemn him for. No, he just did some slightly inexplicable things and suggested that whoever was without sin should be the first one to throw a stone at her to start the traditional punishment. They all left because I guess there are some kinds of hypocritical it's hard to be in the face of that straight line. Then Jesus looked up and asked where everyone went, and she said they're gone. He said he wouldn't condemn her either, and she should go and sin no more. He saved her life.
When we start to look more like the crowd wanting to stone the person than we look like Jesus, I suspect that there is a very big problem with our behavior.
I'm not saying that how Christians ought to deal with homosexual sin isn't a tough issue. It is. If you take your Bible literally, you believe that homosexual behavior is a sin (just like adultery, fornication, lying, gossip, and stirring up dissent). If you take your Bible literally, a lifestyle of flagrant sin without repentance is not something that should pass without judgment (with the motive of eventual restoration) in a local church body. If you take your Bible literally, you know that those outside the church are not to be held to the lifestyle and behavioral standards of those in the church; they are to be loved, the way Jesus loved.
What does that look practically speaking when carried out in this present world by people who are not God incarnate? I don't really know. I do know it most likely doesn't look like this.
It really is a fraught issue. So. What do you think the role of believers should be in these communities? How should they love? Are they allowed to love without making a big deal about how they disagree with homosexual behavior? How do they save lives and still say, "Go and sin no more"? Are they allowed, as sinners, to say this in the first place? How could they create a space where people can be honest and ask questions or just be loved as people made in the image of God in a way that doesn't ignore right and wrong? How would your church handle it? How would you? What would you say to these kids (the dead and the living in pain)?
Seems to me that getting to say "Go and sin no more" is something you have to earn. I don't know if you have to be sinless like Jesus to say it, but I don't see how being willing to judge gives you the right to do so.
ReplyDeleteEarn by having a relationship with people and thus being able to speak truth into their lives because you are part of their lives?
ReplyDeleteWould you say to anyone who would condemn a Christian loving on these kids and tar them with the brush of "guilt by association" or "condoning the behavior because of not condemning it" that they are being silly people, and they are wrong? Is it that simple?