Saddened my our collective failure of compassion and justice
As excited as I was to hold my breath and watch with the world as America elected Barrack Obama as our next President, I was saddened to watch Prop 8 get supported along with simliar initiatives in Florida and Arizona.
It saddens me to realize that Christians with good intent, can still be wholly confused as to the message of Jesus. It breaks my heart to think that through religious misunderstanding, discrimination and injustice are being supported in the name of God. The God of Love. The God of Grace. The God of Compassion.
We're told in 1 Corinthians 13 that "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
So I ask myself, where is God in this, because, I know God is with us. I know that Jesus is walking with those protesting such oppression and injustice. And I'm led once again, to speak out and trust God.
It's been a rather low-key divisive issue in my church (we are after all Lutherans, we do the low-key thing well) and I appreciate how as Christians we are struggling to grasp our own deep sin of judgment and condemnation of others. Our own faith shivers in light of the truth that we, too, are sinners. Indeed, we are all sinners, and Jesus came for us. Not the saved, not the righteous.. but us, sinful and disobedient, in spite of our efforts to the contrary, Jesus came for us. I know we eventually get into that circular debate of whether homosexuality is a sin, are homosexuals made by God or do they chose such a life. Do we as Christians condone that sin, ignore that sin, or allow the unknown, allow the God of all knowledge and wisdom to rule rather than our human minds... have you been in such a conversation?
In supporting such state rights' issues and initiatives, we are casting our selves above God. God knows. God knows our hearts, our behaviors, our intentions. God knows that the commandment Jesus most wanted us to know and live by is perhaps more easy to intellectualize and far more difficult to apply to and in our lives..
"Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself."
We are not being asked to make a declaration on homosexuality, we are not being asked to figure it out, we are being asked to stand up for justice and love. We are being asked, whether the initiatives are in your state or not, to love.
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The heart of the matter
Your final two sentences, Laura, go right to the heart of the matter. It's about love -- and commitment to the beloved.
Interestingly enough, Keith Olbermann, in one of his long Special Comments, said the same thing Monday night, though with many more words. He was unusually calm but touchingly intense in his passionate advocacy for love.
The transcript and video are at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27650743/
Excerpts: What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough. It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.
And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?
....
You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
....
You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.
You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it....
Not all Christians were for Proposition 8
Hi Laura, I'm a Californian and I am sad that Proposition 8 passed as well. But not all Christians supported Proposition 8.
Steve Young, the former San Francisco 49er quarterback and prominent Mormon, is against Proposition 8 for its discrimination against gays and lesbians. Father Geoffrey Farrow, a Catholic priest, recently went out of the closet and took a stand against the measure. St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church and St. Francis Lutheran Church in San Francisco have lead efforts to oppose Proposition 8. Prominent Seventh Day Adventists like Julius Nam (Associate Professor of Religion Loma Linda University), Lawrence T. Geraty (President Emeritus, La Sierra University), and Gary Chartier (Associate Professor of Law and Business Ethics, La Sierra University) have gone against their Seventh-day Adventist Church State Council’s public support of California Proposition 8 (http://adventistsagainstprop8.org/). The Episcopal Bishops of California issued a statement in opposition of Proposition 8.
Angelo