Bryan Loritts 12/23/19 Bryan Loritts 12/23/19

God’s Gift of Love

Preached at Abundant Life Silicon Valley on Sunday, December 22nd, 2019

Isaiah 40:1-5

Hey Isaiah, come on back. I need to get some things off my chest with you for a moment. Okay, God. As you know, we’ve been having some issues with my bride Israel, and especially one of the tribes of Israel- Judah. Yeh, you know about that. Judah has gotten herself into one world of a mess. I mean Isaiah, when are my people going to stop being so hard headed and learn to trust me? Remember the Assyrians? Of course you do. Those big, bad, brutal Assyrians who had amassed this huge army, and pioneered savage techniques like crucifixion. Well, they start gaining momentum and making their way towards Judah and Jerusalem, and I could just see the fear on Judah’s faces, but I told them to calm down, don’t fear, I got this. Just trust me. But does she? No! When Assyria gets like eight miles outside of Jerusalem my people decide to make a treaty with them and to put their trust in the Assyrians, and not me. Man. Oh, and when Assyria breaks their treaty you would think Judah would come to her senses and turn to me, but she doesn’t. Instead she turns to the Egyptians for salvation and deliverance and enters into agreement with them. And when that eventually falls through do they decide to trust me? No, they turn to the Babylonians for salvation and deliverance, placing their trust in them. And what do the Babylonians do, Isaiah? They break their agreement, attack them and then carry them off in exile to Babylon. Man. Just look at them Isaiah. You can see the sadness on their faces. I don’t get it, Isaiah. The thing that frustrates me to no end is my people refuse to trust me.

Now before we get all self-righteous and start shaking our head at Judah we should take a look inside ourselves and realize Judah ain’t the only one in here today who has trust issues. We all know what it’s like when life backs us up against its proverbial rock and a hard place to look around instead of looking up with our trust. And I get it, there’s no literal Assyrian, Egyptian or Babylonian army threatening to wipe us out, but we’ve all made our silent deals with our own version of Assyrians, Egyptians and Babylonians.

For some of us that means when life disappoints me, or I’m triggered, that’s when we go and make a treaty with our “Assyrians,” those things we turn and put our trust in like alcohol, or pornography, hoping to find comfort. Or others of us we hate the sense of loneliness, so instead of using these alone seasons to look up to God, we look around and find Egyptians and Babylonians to put our trust in- like unhealthy relationships. For others of us our finances have become our Egyptians. We’ve made a treaty with our bank accounts where we will find our sense of security and comfort not from God, but from what’s in our banks. You know your money has become your security when the base for all of your decisions is money, where you refuse to take steps of courageous faith, or to give sacrificially when God is calling you to. Like Judah you’ve made a treaty where your trust has been re-routed from God to money. Others of us relationships have become our Babylonians, our source of trust. Some of you are married and your mom and dad still play too much of a prominent role in your life, and your kind of good with it and it’s just weird. You call them all the time telling them intimate things about your marriage they shouldn’t know. And when life gets hard you just pick up the phone and call and boom you got what you need. Others of you, you’re not married, but single and still living with mom and dad not really out of survival but out of fear and comfort. Instead of trusting God by getting out of the house and pursuing the dream, you’re cool with just staying home, trusting them for provision while you’re on social media all day pontificating on the problems of the world. Your parents have become your Babylonians and it’s kind of weird.

On and on we can go with the examples. But someone once said we often turn to God when our foundations are shaking, only to discover it’s God who is shaking them. God will sometimes send or allow tough times to come our way to reveal to us where our trust really lies. Trials are like turning on the lights in our hearts revealing any Assyrians, Egyptians or Babylonians we have made treaties with. And what Judah had to learn is a lesson we all must learn- there can be no lasting security in this world outside of an intimate relationship with God where he becomes our ultimate sense of trust.

GOD’S COVENANT- ISAIAH 40:1

Isaiah, it pains me that my people just don’t trust me. I mean I’ve been nothing but faithful to them. And I’ve been patient. Remember Isaiah I sent you to plead with them to turn from trusting other things and people and to trust me, but because they refused to listen to us we are in this mess. Now they’re in exile in Babylon, and you know how miserable and sad they are. One of them just wrote these words in Psalm 137, “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?”- Psalm 137:1-4. Hear the sadness, Isaiah? My people are hurting, and it’s all their fault. So here’s what I want you to do- look at verse 1- “Comfort, comfort my people”. The Hebrew word for comfort literally means to breathe. It’s a picture of a person who is so distressed, so beaten up and miserable that they are heaving and sobbing, and someone comes alongside of them and rubs their back telling them to breathe. In fact, God says it twice, it’s his way of saying, “Breathe, breathe”. The word is actually a command. God is commanding Isaiah to be an extension of his hand on the back of his distressed, sobbing, heaving people, rubbing them and telling them to breathe, that everything is going to be okay. There’s no semblance of I told you so here. He’s comforting them, even though this is all their fault!

When I was six years old my father told me to go upstairs and bring him his shaving kit. But he was very clear- he told me not to go in it because there was a razor and I could cut myself. Well of course you know what I did, right? Disobeying my father I went in it, found the razor and eventually cut myself, and boy was I bleeding. I got some tissue and tried to stop it and it wouldn’t stop. I must’ve taken a long time because dad called for me to come downstairs immediately. So reluctantly I did and I was a sight for sore eyes. Dad saw the blood and I braced myself to be yelled at or worse. But surprisingly he picked me up and set me on his lap and comforted me. There was no I told you so’s. Dad saw my distress and figured that was enough.

We’ve all been there haven’t we? We all know what it’s like to sit down by the “waters of Babylon,” and know that the horrible stuff we are going through is all our own fault. This morning God is saying, I saw you in the abortion clinic years ago, and I see you now. I know the distress you’re in when you see a child that’s the same age your child would have been, and you’re beating yourself up as you sit down by the waters of Babylon. I’m not here to judge or condemn you. I’m here to comfort you. Yeh, you over there, I see you. You’re divorced, and let’s just keep it 100, you were the one primarily at fault. You stepped out on your spouse, compromised your vows. You were abusive, and now you look through the rearview of all the carnage and heartache you’ve caused and you’re in distress as you sit by the waters of your Babylon. I’m not here to judge you, I’m here to comfort you. Breathe, breathe. Hey you with the addiction you can’t kick and all the lies you told, and now you’re in distress. I’m not here to judge you, I’m here to comfort you. Breathe, breathe.

My People

But as powerful as the word comfort is, it’s not the most powerful word in verse one. You want to know what the most powerful word is? It’s my. God doesn’t tell Isaiah to comfort “this people,” but instead he tells him to comfort, “my people.” Now if I’m Isaiah I’m going to be like, wait a minute God. You still claim them as your own? Don’t you realize how awful and for how long they’ve been? I mean I’ve been prophesying against their rebellion through five different kings. They’ve gone to the Assyrians, then the Egyptians and finally the Babylonians. In fact God, they’ve been sinning since before I got here, and you still call them, “my people”. God’s like yep. Judah’s my bride, and not my girlfriend. Girlfriends audition for the ring, brides don’t. No matter how bad she’s been, and no matter how long she’s been bad, she’s MY PEOPLE.

Early on in my pastoral ministry I sat down with a young husband we’ll call Jack. Over the course of several years of walking with Jack our counseling sessions would go like this: How’s it going Jack? Not good. Caught Ashley cheating again. Again, Jack? Yep. Walked in on her in my own home. Or watched her go into the hotel. What did you do Jack? There were times he’d throw the guys out of the house or the hotel. Over time he’d sit patiently in his car and wait until things were over. So what did you say to Ashley Jack? Well she was very apologetic and promised this was her last time, and really sorry for how she hurt me. Did you take her back? Yes pastor, I did. Why do you keep taking her back, Jack? I can’t explain it. I guess, I love her so much.

Now I know what some of you are thinking- Jack is a fool! This woman by her repeated affairs is making him look like a fool! But now let me ask you, if we are married to God, and our sins are likened to cheating on God, aren’t we Ashley, and God, Jack. How many of us made God look like a fool just this week? And God does to us what he did to Judah. In the midst of our cheating, he rubs our back, comforts us and takes us back saying you are my people. You are my bride. God, why do you keep taking us back? I can’t explain it. I love you!

CENTRAL IDEA: Don’t ever forget, when you find yourself seated by your waters of Babylon and the reality of your sin comes crashing in on you: WHEN DISTRESSED, REMEMBER GOD’S LOVE IS GREATER THAN YOUR MESS.

GOD’S CALL- ISAIAH 40:2-4

Now I know what I just said may sound scandalous, or that it looks like I or God am not taking sin seriously. We know this isn’t true. God takes sin seriously. I mean just look at verse two. God calls it what it is when he says that Judah’s iniquity is pardoned. You know what iniquity is? It’s sin. The word pardoned is very interesting: It means to receive with pleasure. It’s a technical temple term that was used of priests who were presented with an animal to sacrifice for a person’s sins. If the animal met the standard of being without spot or blemish, they would receive it with pleasure and the persons sin would be covered. God says that he can claim Judah and you and I as “mine” because he’s paid our debt. But what’s interesting is that nowhere in the text do we find Judah even asking for their sin or debt to be paid.

Some weeks back I was eating at PF Changs in Atlanta’s airport, terminal A of course. I didn’t’ eat a lot, maybe about twenty bucks worth of food. Anyways, it was time for me to catch my flight and so I asked the server for the bill and she said, “Sorry sir, can’t do that. Someone else has already paid.” I’m like, “What?” So I’m looking around and around and around, and didn’t see anyone I knew. So I grabbed my bag and finally left.

Oh if you’re in Christ your bill has already been paid when Jesus died on the cross! Yes we confess and ask for forgiveness, but nonetheless the bill has already been paid! So stop looking around and around and start looking up, because I’ll tell you where to find the person who paid your bill! It’s God in Christ on the cross. Because of this, God claims you no matter what. The bill has been paid! The war has been settled! The anger is satisfied! WHEN DISTRESSED, REMEMBER GOD’S LOVE IS GREATER THAN YOUR MESS!

Ah, but it’s here where things get even more interesting. God says, hey Isaiah, tell my people I need them to prepare the way of the LORD. This is a command. God is saying, Isaiah, I’ve got work for my people to do. I’m not through with them. I’ve got a call on their life. In fact, God says these words to them while they are in distress in Babylon for not trusting him, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope”- Jeremiah 29:11. WOW! God says to Judah in the midst of her misery and failure, I’m not finished with you, I’ve got plans for you, there’s a call on your life!

So imagine I come home from my trip in Atlanta and I get a call from the woman who mysteriously paid my bill at PF Changs asking me to fly to Pittsburgh where she lives and babysit her kids. I’m going to be like, slow your roll. It was only like twenty dollars missy! I’m not flying to Pittsburgh. I’ll get you a thank you note with like a gift card to 7/11! But now imagine this person paid off my mortgage and she asked me to babysit her kids. I’m on the next flight out and I’m like I’ll watch your kids and Pookie anem’s for a whole month! Why? Because the greater the redemption the greater the response.

Don’t you see; God has forgiven us all of our sins, and now he’s saying, I’ve got a call on your life. Your daddy may have abandoned you, but I have adopted you. Your mama may have treated you like dirt, but you’re my masterpiece. I’m not finished with you! WHEN DISTRESSED REMEMBER GOD’S LOVE IS GREATER THAN YOUR MESS.

GOD’S CHRIST- ISAIAH 40:5

Well, what’s the call on my life? Look again at verses 3-5. Whenever a king in antiquity would come to a part of his kingdom for the first time he would never travel on already built roads, but a new road specially made for him. What we have here is the building of a road for the king, but it’s a special road, a road where mountains are brought low, valleys lifted up and rough places being made plain. In other words, and here’s the point behind all the imagery- this road will not go into any troublesome spots, but will be built on level, straight and even ground, guaranteeing the arrival of the king. Don’t you see the beauty here? God is saying this king is coming for sure. His arrival is guaranteed. Who is this king? It’s king Jesus!!! You know this is written 750 years in advance of Jesus coming? You know why we are here today? We are celebrating the truth of these words. Jesus actually came. And just as he came once, he is guaranteed to come again. And this is your call and my call no matter how messed up we maybe. God is choosing to use we wayward sinners to prepare the way for king Jesus!

I’m in my seat. I have a friend who lives in Palm Beach, Florida where our presidents golf course Mara Lago is. And my friend says living there is a bit of a nuisance now, and I asked why. He says that when the president comes to town the city goes from peace to chaos. I said, what do you mean. He says when Air Force One is about to land, all air traffic in the area stops. Flights are often delayed. The airport is in chaos. Not only that, streets are in chaos. When he gets in his car, streets are barricaded, traffic is jammed and re-routed, and what was once normal has totally shifted because the president is there. In fact, he says he has a friend who is on the local police and one of his jobs is to set up the barricades. When people ask him what he’s doing he says he’s making things ready for the president.

Oh friend, soon and very soon someone greater than any president or earthly king is coming. And when he comes the script will be flipped. Advent is about reversing the order of things, and when king Jesus shows up on the scene our world will go from chaos to peace, from division to harmony, because King Jesus is here. But in the meantime he’s called you and I to set up the barricades and to prepare the way of the LORD. There’s a call on our lives, and that call is bigger than paychecks, likes on IG posts or social media followers. The call is about Jesus! Will you be ready?

Bryan Loritts 12/16/19 Bryan Loritts 12/16/19

The List (Prayer, Part 2)

From time to time Korie will send me a text message with a list of items she needs me to pick up from the grocery store. Now two things you should know about me: One is I’m incredibly impatient, and the other is I hate feeling incompetent. These two things make going to a grocery store extremely nerve wracking because I have no clue where things are (even with the signs), and I want to hurry up and get out of there with all the items on the list fulfilled. So as impatient as I am, I’ve learned to just give the store employee the whole list. And because they are so familiar with where things are, the list gets handled quickly. When it’s all done, I thank the person who helped me, check out and leave, never to see them again.

That’s kind of how prayer can be for a lot of us, isn’t it? We all know what it’s like to hand God our list, hoping he’ll check each item off, and quickly. And when the items on our agenda are handled, we tend to “take off,” not in a hurry to visit with God again, until we need help with new items on the list.

Someone once said prayer is not so much a matter about getting what we want, but encountering who we want. Jesus understood this, which is why in what has been called the, “Lord’s Prayer,” he not only postures prayer relationally as an encounter between us and our “Father,” but he shows us we need to begin our encounter with God not with our lists, but with adoring God’s character. This is what Jesus means when he says, “hallowed be your name.” To hallow is to declare as holy, or to adore; and the idea of name is character. In antiquity, a child’s name was a hopeful declaration of who they would become in their character. Names are character.

The point Jesus is making is there’s a direct relationship between what we know of God’s character (names), and the intensity of our worship.

Imagine you’re at a dinner party seated randomly next to an older gentleman. You’re polite with him and ask him his name and he tells you it’s Louis. You then ask what he does for fun, and he says not much since he’s in his nineties now, but back in the day he loved to run. You ask him what were some of the events he ran in and he tells you he ran in the 1936 Olympics where he got to know Jesse Owens, and even shook Hitler’s hand (before he knew how awful he was). Later you discover he served in WWII, crashed in the Pacific Ocean where after several weeks he was picked up by the Japanese, placed in a concentration camp and tortured. Miraculously he survived, came home and was addicted to alcohol, wandered into a tent in downtown Los Angeles where a guy named Billy Graham was preaching. He gives his life to Christ, goes back to Japan and forgives those who tortured him, and now they’ve just written a best selling book about him, along with a movie called, Unbroken. The guys name is Louis Zamperini and all of this is true. Now, at the end of this conversation I’m going to guess you’ve gone from exchanging polite pleasantries to being in awe. What changed? You got to know him and his character.

If we struggle to really adore God it could be because we don’t really know God. God is saying in so many words, “Google me. Get to know me. And it will impact your worship of me.” You may want to begin by meditating on his name Yahweh- the personal God who provides for us. Or think on his name God, or Elohim, the strong God who is transcendent. Or contemplate his name Adonai which speaks of his role as Master, one who is in control. When we really get to know God it will impact our worship and adoration of God.

Bryan Loritts 12/10/19 Bryan Loritts 12/10/19

The Umbilical Cord of Prayer

Children are dependent, and that dependency doesn’t begin when they exit the womb; it starts at the moment of conception. This is why God has created the umbilical cord. The purpose of the cord is to transfer essential, vital and life-giving nutrients from the mother to the child. The umbilical cord isn’t an amenity or something nice to have or an occasional luxury; it’s a matter of life and death.

One of my favorite writers on prayer is E.M. Bounds. He once defined prayer as the expression of the souls dependence on God. When we pray we are acknowledging our neediness and dependence. Like the infant in its mothers womb, prayer is the umbilical cord tethering us to God and transferring essential, life-giving gospel nutrients from our Father to us. And like the umbilical cord, prayer isn’t an amenity or an additional, optional extra. Prayer really is a matter of life and death. There is no way we can live into the fullness of all God has for us without prayer. Our souls wither into malnourishment without the umbilical cord of prayer.

Jesus understood this, which is why he gave his most popular teaching on the subject of prayer known as the “Lord’s Prayer”. Scholars point out that this prayer should actually be labeled the “Disciple’s Prayer,” because it is a model for how we, his followers, are to pray (John 17, they point out, is actually the “Lord’s Prayer”). And in this model prayer Jesus shows us three big picture things to keep in mind when we pray:

Pray Relationally. Jesus uses one name for deity in the prayer- Father. Just think of all the names he could have used- God, Jehovah, Most High, Lord- but instead he uses a relational term. And when we think about fathers, they do two primary things- provide and protect. Imagine one of my sons friends coming to my home with all of their worldly possessions saying they were going to move in. Or imagine they just opened my refrigerator without asking. Or just think of how strange it would be if they said to me they were experiencing some sort of injustice and needed me to intervene. Now, it maybe nice for me to let them move in, eat my food unsolicited or advocate on their behalf and protect them, but I am hardly under any obligation to do these things because we do not share DNA. But my children come home and open the doors to our refrigerator without asking (I wish they’d do it less!), climb into bed night after night under my roof, and when problems come their way, look to me for protection, and rightly so. These are not just things that are nice for me to do, this is actually a right, an expectation they should have, because I’m their father. When we really relate to God as our Father through prayer, we can approach him in courageous confidence, holding him to his promises. When we need provision for such things as a job, or money or shelter, we should boldly remind him of his role as Father. And when we are in need of protection from the enemy, we need to remind God that he is our Father, and father’s protect.
Pray Communally. You don’t need to spend a day in seminary to notice a glaring omission in this prayer: There’s no words like I, me or mine. Instead we see words like our and us. In other words, this model prayer is a communal prayer. Jesus is saying a completely un-American thing to us: When we pray don’t just think of ourselves, bring others with us. Let me ask you a question: If God were to answer all of your prayers over the last twelve months with a resounding, “YES,” would THE world change, or just your world? Do you pray communally?
Pray Sequentially. Finally, notice the sequence of this prayer. When teaching us to pray, Jesus doesn’t begin with our petitions, but with God’s praise. We should begin with God’s agenda before we get to our agenda. It’s sort of like the section of math called order of operations. Remember that? Order of operations are complex formulas and equations where there’s addition, multiplication, division and subtraction along with fractions; all stuff which is very intimidating to a preacher like myself. Now the interesting thing about order of operations is that while we can get the math right, if we get the sequence or order wrong, the whole thing is wrong. Sequence matters. Now, don’t hear Jesus as being legalistic. Like I don’t think your petition is going to get denied because you forgot to begin by praising God. But there is something beautiful about being lost in the beauty of God before I get down into the weeds of my needs.

Bryan Loritts 12/4/19 Bryan Loritts 12/4/19

The Truth About LGBTQ+ (And the Rest of Us)

I often think of my seminary days and shake my head. Never would I have imagined someone asking me to officiate a wedding for a same sex couple. Not in my wildest fantasies could I have dreamt of being asked to do a baby dedication where the parents were gay. It’s not that I had an opinion on these matters, I couldn’t even think of these as remote possibilities. But here we are, and I’m hopeful. I believe in the sovereignty of God he has allowed you and I to live at “such a time as this.” We get the chance not to soak in fear, but to re-write the narrative of generations of Christians in America (and around the world) who have just made some serious mistakes in the name of Christ when it comes to our friends in the gay community.

In previous posts I’ve talked plenty about the need for grace, but how do we steward truth? After all, it was said of Jesus that he was a man full of grace and truth (John 1:14). I’ve found the following three pillars to be helpful in winsomely engaging the LGBTQ+ community with the truth of the gospel:

Love and Disagreement Can Coexist. Tolerance implies I must extend an explicit endorsement to “your truth.” To not do so is seen as being bigoted. But this is not how tolerance was originally conceptualized. Generations ago, tolerance was defined as the ability to disagree civilly. Boy have things changed. Christians are not called to tolerate, or to even be inclusive by modern definitions. Instead, Christ followers are to love. Given this, it’s quite possible to love someone and disagree with them at the same time. And if you want a picture of this, look at just about every parent with their children. My kids have made colossal mistakes, and so far in every instance we’ve shared truth with them while embracing them at the same time. So can I disagree with someone’s lifestyle choice and invite them over for dinner with good food and drink and laughs at the same time? Of course.
The Goal is Jesus. As a Christian I’m far more interested with a person’s soul than their sexuality, and I think it’s safe to say Jesus agrees. When I befriend people who don’t know Christ, I pray and plead they would come to know Jesus. I actually think the enemy wants to distract us by having us consumed with lesser side bar issues than their souls. Satan is pleased if the interactions devolve into hours of debate over Romans 1 and other biblical passages, when instead the focus should be on Christ. Let Jesus move in, and once he authentically does, other matters will be addressed.
I’m No Better. I had a member of our church who found out one of our leaders in ministry struggles with homosexuality, so she decided to confront me. I smiled and told her I knew about this person, and had engaged in numerous conversations with them and was fine with them serving in ministry. She was appalled at how I could do such a thing. I shared with her how this person is leaning on the grace of God one day at a time in their journey, and while they are living victoriously there have been moments of defeat. “Now," I said to her, leaning forward in my seat, “Tell me, is that any different from you, or me? We may have different struggles, but if you’re perfect, please let me know and I’ll remove him.” She couldn’t say anything. I really don’t think we get this, and it’s a real shame. Our pride just keeps getting in the way.

Theresa Hull 11/25/19 Theresa Hull 11/25/19

Our Gay Neighbors (Part 3)

This is a multi-part series. Read the other parts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

(Note: This is Part 3 in our series. More posts to follow. You will feel some dissonance)

It was the most memorable lunch in all my years in the pastorate. Some months before, I felt unusually compelled to engage in a series of sermons on befriending people in the gay community. But as time seemed to have sprinted to the launch of the series I had an overwhelming sense something was missing. So two weeks before I was to give the first message, I invited all who would consider themselves same sex attracted to join me for lunch. About a dozen courageous people huddled in my office, where over sandwiches I listened to their stories. Most confessed an acute awareness of their same sex attraction from the earliest they could remember. They talked of seasons of secrecy and anger where they would barter with God to take their desires away, even if He had to give them different ones. All spoke of failure, guilt and loneliness in their journey with Jesus. I believe we ran out of tissues. And as our meal ended, I asked if they would be willing to read the manuscripts to my messages before I preached them, and offer their feedback. They enthusiastically agreed. Emboldened I asked if they would be willing to share their stories with our church on video. Most said yes. Each Sunday during the series, before I got up to preach, we heard their stories, saw their tears and felt their humanity. I believe we ran out of tissues.

Proximity breeds empathy. This was a truth I have learned over the years which has served me well not only in race relations with the ethnically other, but also in engaging the LGBTQ+ community. One can always tell when another person doesn’t have meaningful relationships with the other- they tend to shout across their tribal lines with an abrasiveness, and a cruelty while tossing out platitudes drenched in stereotypes and generalizations. It’s easy to wield truth as a sledgehammer when the intended target is inanimate. If I were to give one of my sons a hammer and tell him to pound a nail, he would do so with joy. But if I were to tell him to pound my head, he would pause altogether. When what’s on the other end is real and living to us, we become circumspect with our proverbial hammers.

When God wanted Peter to take the gospel to the home of Cornelius the Gentile, he first places him in the home of Simon the Tanner. God knew Jewish Pete would not preach the gospel with any sort of Messianic compassion and care unless he first put him in close proximity with what Peter considered to be the sinful other. Peter’s rooftop protestations around ceremonial purity were quickly dismissed by God, who in a seminal moment demanded that Peter not call anything he made unclean. And God was not just talking about what was on the menu, he was talking about people as well. Before Peter traveled to Cornelius, he had to first hang out with Simon.

We will be best served to reach the LGBTQ+ Cornelius’ of the world, when we first stop to nurture relationships with the Simon’s of their tribe. Until we sit with them over meals, hear their stories, laugh with them over coffee and enjoy their company at work and play, they will be nothing more than nails- inanimate objects for us to wield the hammer of truth.

Theresa Hull 11/13/19 Theresa Hull 11/13/19

James MacDonald and the Malady of White Evangelicalism

(Note: I have not had a conversation with James MacDonald since the well publicized incidents at his church)

Why is it that the black church takes a much more empathetic posture towards its fallen leaders than our friends in the white evangelical community? I know I’m painting in broad strokes, but this is a pretty consistent narrative. As one of my white friends who was quickly removed from his church and publicly humiliated in the process said to me, “When I was at my lowest it was only black pastors who came to my rescue.” By and large, it is the black church which is far more redemptive with its fallen leaders than the white church. And what concerns me is not whether we should deal with sin among our leaders. We should. We must. But lost among all the statements, and blog posts circulating among elder boards, and church websites are tears. There seems to be no semblance of trying to salvage things. Removal seems to be the first resort. Humiliation is ruling the day. Both the sin of our leaders and the way we are responding to their sin is soiling our white garments before the world. And while there has to be a better way in how we approach and treat our leaders who have been overcome by sin, I’m interested in this post as to why such a disparate posture between the white and black communities.

I think it has everything to do with the narrative of communal suffering along ethnic lines. The black church exists because the white church failed to be the church. So she forced us to sit in the balcony, and eventually pointed us to the exits, where we stuck our index finger in the air while being forced out. The black church was birthed out of suffering. And if you’ve ever really suffered, I mean really suffered, you understand one of its lingering lifelong side effects is empathy. This is not the narrative of white evangelicalism in America. Sure, everyone suffers, but collectively as a group white evangelicals have never suffered in our country. They weren’t forced out of churches because of the color of their skin, or had to hideout in tunnels for months or years at a time because of their faith. To be a part of a white evangelical organization or a group is to be a part of a suffer-less narrative. And show me anyone who hasn’t suffered yet, and I will show you a person or entity who is deficient in the area of empathy. The worst thing one could possibly do in life is to fail around people who have never suffered.

When I left a black church to take a job at a white church my father whispered two words over the phone which haunted me for years, “Be careful.” And while he never explained why, he didn’t have to. At twenty-five I understood what he was saying: There’s no margin for error on that side of the street, because there’s really no empathy. And there’s no empathy because there’s been no communal suffering.

The malady of white evangelicalism in America is the absence of empathy towards their hurting and leaders. This malady strips them of empathy and causes them to hurriedly label people as being disqualified from ministry. Thank goodness Peter didn’t deny Jesus in the era of white evangelical America. Can’t you see it now- his denials uploaded onto Youtube, invitations rescinded while a huge battle over his intellectual property ensues?

But it’s here where I’m thankful Jesus is not steeped in white evangelicalism. Had he been Peter would have no hope. And yet Jesus restores because Jesus, that suffering servant, had suffered. The wounds in his hands and side were still fresh. I can see the empathy in his eyes where over breakfast he asked Peter for the third time if he loved him? I can feel his heart when Jesus commanded him to feed his sheep, in spite of his sin. We need more suffering servants leading our churches, who walks, as Dan Allender says, “with a limp”.

Theresa Hull 11/8/19 Theresa Hull 11/8/19

Our Gay Neighbors (Part 2)

This is a multi-part series. Read the other parts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

(Note: This is the second post in a series on engaging our friends in the gay community. You will feel some dissonance. More to come)

I vividly remember a wave of anxiety washing over me the first time our friends came over to our home. Having grown up in the Bible belt, where years later I migrated north to embark on a very conservative theological education where few remarks were made concerning our friends in the gay community, and if they were I could expect a reference to Sodom and Gomorrah, left me ill equipped in how to engage them winsomely. I began to suffocate under a pervasive sense, “What am I supposed to do?”.

When my theology texts failed me, there was always the Bible. John notes that when he saw Jesus he saw a man full of grace and truth (John 1:14). This would be the paradigm for engagement I would need to lean into if I sought to love my friends in a way which honored Jesus.

I have a friend of mine named Caleb, who when he was young his parents had an epiphany in which they came to accept they were both gay. So they promptly divorce, entered into same sex relationships and took Caleb to pride day celebrations where one of his earliest memories were Christians shouting Bible verses and hurling jars of urine on the marchers. Truth without love ain’t love, it’s assault.

Years later, Caleb too would turn to John 1:14 and would use these cohabitating virtues of Jesus to plot a path forward into winsome engagement with our friends in the gay community. Truth, as we all know, without grace is condemnation; while grace without truth is compromise. Taking a rubber band, Caleb shows how we followers of Jesus must hold these two in tension. If, for example, we were to only hold the rubber band by one end its power is lost…it’s limp and lifeless. But the real power of the rubber band is when we hold it by either end in tension at the same time. So it is with grace and truth. Grace by itself is limp. In fact, there can be no such thing as grace without truth. If grace means to give someone something they don’t deserve, then the assumption is they’ve violated a truth-filled standard. But if we dangle truth by itself without grace we get an army of Christians who hurl Romans 1 grenades at our friends in the gay community, and let’s just say that’s not a recipe for revival. We need both. At the same time. In tension.

But there’s more. When John remarks of Jesus that he saw a man full of grace and truth, the order is telling. I don’t think people will really hear truth from us until they first feel grace. Our friends in the gay community are not theological projects, or position papers to be written. They are people with a lived humanity, often filled with extensive chapters of loneliness and hurt in the narrative that is their lives, like most of us. I’ve yet to hear a conversion story from a person in the gay community where someone shouted a Leviticus passage, and they stopped and came to Jesus. As Rosaria Butterfield remarks of her own conversion to Jesus, the way to the hearts of our gay friends is through the portal of hospitality. And it is in the sharing of laughs and bread and drink where the possibilities of Jesus and grace and truth are opened.

Theresa Hull 11/4/19 Theresa Hull 11/4/19

Our Gay Neighbors (Part 1)

This is a multi-part series. Read the other parts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

(Note: This is the first of a several part series on loving our friends in the gay community, so you should feel some dissonance until the end of the last post.)

Standing in line at the movie theaters the other night Korie and I heard our names called. We looked around and our eyes landed on some great friends who happened to be there to see the same movie as us (The film Harriet, which by the way I think you should see). We hugged each other, and recommended the jalapeno bacon cheddar popcorn. Moments later we were off together to take in both the movie and a ton of calories.

Did I mention our friends are a sweet lesbian couple who have been married around five years?

Since moving to the bay area I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to love people. I mean if Jesus says that we will be known not by our position papers, theological defenses or arguments on social media, but by our love (John 13:35); and if Paul says love is the MVP of all virtues (I Corinthians 13:13), even making it the leadoff batter to the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), then I better get a handle on what it means to love.

Christ followers are never exhorted to change people. Shoot, I can’t even change myself. If I had the capacity to change then why do I need a Savior and the Holy Spirit? Change is God’s business, not mine. In fact, I think the primary tool God uses to work transformation in the lives of people is love. But what does it look like to love others?

Not long after settling into the bay, I read the story of Hosea. In what has to be the most poignant picture God uses to illustrate his love for his wayward children, God calls the prophet to marry the prostitute; the man of God to wed the woman of the night. Talk about a strange sight. Can’t you see the look of surprise on people’s faces when this odd couple walked down the street or into the synagogue? But I think that’s the point: God is wanting to communicate a fundamental tenet to love- it’s strange. In fact, the stranger the contrast, the brighter the brilliance of love radiates. After all, if we think it strange a preacher would be with an adulteress, God holds the trump card. The fact that he a holy God would stoop so low as to be with us is even stranger.

Our lesbian friends have been to the church where I serve as pastor. They hold hands and sit together next to Korie and I on the front row. Strange. We’ve also gone to parties at their home where it appears our family is the only heterosexual people in the place. And God bless one of my sons who cannot whisper to save his life, because at one of these parties he says to us in his outdoor voice, “Are you uncomfortable?” I quickly shush him, and hours later realize that he too is feeling the strange.

Love is a journey into the strange, a journey lead by Jesus. He sat with a woman who no one wanted to talk to at a well one day. Jesus ate with tax collectors while religious leaders shook their heads and sucked their teeth over the strangeness. And to the shock and awe of many, Jesus allowed his feet to be wept over and anointed by a prostitute. Strange.

How strange are your relationships? How strange is your dinner table? If it’s never strange it may not be love.

Theresa Hull 10/30/19 Theresa Hull 10/30/19

Let's Stay Together

“Let’s Stay Together”

Matthew 5:31-32; 19:1-12

You’ve heard me talk over the years of my courtship with Korie. In January of 1998 we first met, and after a horrible first date, she got her act together, and relatively quickly I knew that this was the woman God wanted me to marry. A few months later we started talking marriage, and in December of 1998 I remember buying her engagement ring from a store in Los Angeles’ downtown diamond district. With the diamond burning a hole in my pocket I picked up the phone and called my father all excited to tell him that I had just made this purchase and was going to ask Korie to marry me. I’ll never forget his response: “Now son, you do know this is for life.” Are you kidding me? Like, no excitement. Like, no rejoicing with me right away. You’re not going to ask me what size or color it is, or how I’m going to propose? Seriously? Talk about a record scratching, party pooper moment.

It was right then and there that I felt all of the weight of what we were about to venture into come down on me. I wasn’t writing a letter to Korie asking her to be my girlfriend with those three boxes- yes, no or maybe. I wasn’t presenting the key to my apartment to Korie and asking her to move in with me. I was asking her to step into a covenant, a life long covenant, to be made in the presence of God and witnesses til death do we part.

Creating the Need

There’s a weight, a seriousness to marriage. Chances are you felt this as we read these passages. Yes marriage is fun, and no it shouldn’t be this obligatory thing. There should be joy and friendship to marriage. But marriage is also serious business with its moments of challenge and testing. And what is going to see us through those stormy seasons are not feelings but commitment.

But why is this? Why did God design marriage to be a covenant and not a contract? Marriage is gifted to us by God to model to the world God’s profound covenantal commitment to we his people. In other words your marriage is not about your marriage, but it is about showing the world the love of God. If you want an example of this read the book of Hosea. In Hosea God is going crazy because his bride Israel keeps cheating on them by worshipping other gods. And even though they are giving God reason for divorce, God in his holiness, grace and mercy refuses to divorce them. So to communicate his profound love for them he tells his prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute. And when after they marry she cheats on him, God tells Hosea to go again and get her, because that’s exactly what God does to us when we sin.

Marriage is God’s megaphone to the world announcing his unfailing love to his people. This is why Jesus has some really hard and heavy things to say about the subject of marriage and divorce. Some of you are particularly uncomfortable with Jesus’ teaching on divorce. You’ve gone down the road of divorce, and you feel particularly ashamed. Maybe it was your fault- you were the one who cheated and betrayed. Or maybe it wasn’t your fault. I want you to hear me this morning, God’s grace is sufficient for you. God’s grace is available to you. The Bible says if anyone is in Christ there is no condemnation. Still others of you are on the brink of divorce. Maybe you are the spouse who’s been cheated on or wronged. I want to give you something to consider. The gospel says we cheated on and wronged God, and yet God in his grace forgave us. If your spouse is repentant and is open to working on the marriage, would you be open to the possibility of forgiveness which could announce to the world the beauty of the gospel to heal? A restored marriage is a stunning picture of the gospel.

So here’s my hope this morning: I want to draw you into what Jesus says about marriage and divorce. If you’re single this is a perfect time for you to hear this teaching because I hope you leave with a sobering yet hopeful view of marriage. If you are married my hope for us is that we would leave with an entrenched resolve to honor our covenant, and to be people who display the beauties of the gospel.

Historical Context

As we come to our passage this morning Jesus is approached by the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day, and he’s asked what appears to be a simple question, and that is, is it okay to divorce one’s wife for any cause. Now what we need to understand this morning is that the Pharisees ask this question because they wanted to pull Jesus into a debate about marriage that was raging in their day between two respected Jewish schools of thought- Shammai and Hillel.

The Shammai position on divorce and remarriage was very narrow. They taught that there was only one reason to divorce and that was for unfaithfulness, and specifically sexual unfaithfulness. The school of Hillel on the other hand, had a lot more of a liberal view of what constituted divorce. They said that a man could divorce his wife for any cause. For example, and I’m so not making this up, if a man’s wife burned his bread he could divorce her. If she talked disrespectfully to him, or about his parents he could divorce her. If his neighbors in the house next door could hear her talking he could divorce her. If she was seen out with her hair down, or talking to another man he could divorce her. And most devastating of all, if the husband found another woman that he liked better he was free to divorce his wife.

Sadly, in Jesus’ day, it was the school of Hillel that was driving the culture, creating an environment where men were divorcing their wives for any and all reasons, and the results were devastating. See, when a woman was divorced, typically no man would marry her, and now she has no financial security. Her only option of supporting herself was to become a prostitute. Divorce, was devastating.

Post It Note/Envelope Illustration

Likewise, you and I live in a culture of divorce, where people divorce their spouses for any and all reasons. But what people do not realize is the absolutely, and many times comprehensively, devastating effects that divorce has. It’s sort of like this post it note and envelope…see it as a post it note where I can just take it off and move on…but the bible speaks of marriage not as a post it note but as an envelope that is sealed…for me to get out of this is to tear it up, IT IS TO DEVASTATE THE ENVELOPE.

This is divorce- it is devastating. It’s devastating financially- number one cause of personal bankruptcies. It’s devastating on the children. I was talking some years ago to a child of divorce who was now in his forties, and he said that divorce is like going to a funeral that never ends. Divorce is devastating.

ONE FLESH

Now I love how Jesus answers their question of whether or not it is okay to divorce one’s wife for any cause. Notice, that he does not spend the bulk of his time giving well reasoned arguments for what constitutes divorce, and what does not, instead he pulls them away from the law, and back to Genesis chapter two when God creates marriage. In other words, Jesus in his answer is saying to them, you guys are asking the wrong question. You’re asking what’s allowable, or what’s permissible, when instead you should focus on what’s ideal. And what is God’s ideal for marriage? Look at verses 5-6. Here he states the ideal and repeats it: GOD’S IDEAL FOR MARRIAGE IS ONE FLESH. THAT TWO SHALL NOW BECOME ONE!

But what is this notion of one flesh? What does this mean? The idea of one flesh is not just the idea of a sharing of bodies in the physical act of sex, oh no! One flesh is not just a harmony of bodies, but it is an all encompassing intimacy that is shared between two people on every dimension. One flesh is not just a sharing of bills, or of space, but it is the intertwining of lives to the point where two distinct people now become one!

Friendship

Tim Keller in his book, The Meaning of Marriage, spends significant time talking about the issue of one flesh, which is God’s purpose for marriage, and what Tim Keller says is in view by the term “one flesh” is that of friendship, friendship. That my wife at the end of the day is not ultimately my business partner, maid, nanny or driver, but that she is my friend.

In David McCullough’s award winning book, John Adams, he explores the relationship between our second president and his wife Abigail, and one of the things that immediately jumps out at you is the fact that these two were one, that in the deepest most all encompassing way, these two were friends. I mean over the span of their marriage they wrote over one thousand letters to each other. In one letter Abigail wrote to her husband John, “My dearest friend, How much is comprised in that short sentence? How fondly can I call you mine, bound by every tie which consecrates the most inviolable friendship? Is it not natural to suppose that as our dependence is greater, our attachment is stronger? I find in my own breast a sympathetic power always operating upon the near approach of letters from my dearest friend.”

Can you say this about your spouse? Is your spouse your dearest friend? Well, how do I know this? Let me give you two practical ways that both reflect whether or not you’re friends, and how to strengthen your friendship: 1. Do you speak your spouses love language often and well? The Five Love Languages: Physical Touch. Acts of Service. Gifts. Words of Affirmation. Quality Time. 2. Do you hang out at levels 4-5 of the communication pyramid? (GET THE COMMUNICATION PYRAMID FROM DANIELLE).

VALUE/WORTH

What happens when my spouse becomes my deepest friend and we are experiencing oneness? Well quite naturally I am saying to my spouse that I value you, you mean something to me. Walking in one flesh bestows value and oneness on your spouse. This is important because when we come to our text you need to understand that in Jewish culture it was only the men who could divorce their wives. A woman could never divorce her husband without the husband giving permission. So what the Jews were essentially saying was that women had no value, that they had no status.

Now I bring up the issue of status, because for those of us who were here back when we began Matthew 18 we said that this whole section has to do with the issue of status, because the disciples ask the question who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Jesus answers by saying worldly status has no place in the kingdom, that we are all equal. Paul would continue this theme in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. Here Paul is reiterating what Jesus has been arguing in Matthew 18, that in the kingdom of heaven no one is intrinsically better or worse, we are all one in Christ. This is an astounding statement for Jesus and Paul to make in a sexist culture where women were seen as mere possessions. Both Jesus and Paul throw a flag and say not so in the kingdom of heaven- men and women are both equally esteemed by our God!

Because men and women are honored and esteemed equally by God, this is to be mirrored in the covenant of marriage. That when I walk in one flesh with my spouse, in true friendship at the deepest levels, what I am communicating is that you mean something to me. I value you! You’re honored!

Cups/Glass Visual

You know in I Peter 3 we as husbands are told to honor our wives because they are the weaker vessel. Sadly, this passage has been preached by idiots to promote sexism- it’s their way of going, see, see, women are inferior, but this is not what the text means. I have two vessels in my house- cups and glasses…explain. Men, do you honor your wives, treating her as equal?

WITNESS TO THE WORLD

What does one flesh mean? It means an intertwining of lives at the deepest levels, it is the idea of friendship. What happens when we walk in friendship, one flesh, with our spouses? Two things- one we bestow worth on our spouse, but secondly and finally, it is a strong witness to the world!

The Hebrew word for marriage is kiddushin which simply means consecration. To consecrate something means to set it aside, or to set it a part. When things were consecrated to God, for example, it was God’s way of saying this is different, this is unique, this is special, this is mine. Likewise, when the Jews spoke the very word marriage, it was a reminder that their relationship was both set a part to God and was to therefore be special, unique and different, but in the very act of it being set a part to God it was a witness to the world. That the world was to look at their marriage and say, Wow, I’ve never seen that before, it’s different!

Author Henri Nouwen tells of the time in which he was struggling with his faith and went to the Hermitage museum to view some works by Rembrandt. When he came to Rembrandts classic painting, The Return of the Prodigal Son, Nouwen’s breath was taken away, so much so that he sat and stared at the painting for the next several hours, he had quite frankly never seen anything like this- it was special and unique. Finally, the museum closed and Nouwen had to leave, but he left a changed man and inspired. He would soon after write a book based on Rembrandt’s painting baring the same title, The Return of the Prodigal Son. This book would go onto sell millions, changing lives in the process. All because he sat and caught a glimpse of a painting in a museum.

Likewise God has chosen to hang our marriages in the museum of this world! The name of our marriage portrait is One Flesh. In a world where people view marriage as a business merger, or sexual encounter, God wants to put your marriage on display in such a way where people sit down and go I’ve never seen anything like that before. He wants little boys and girls to see your marriage and get inspired. He wants singles who’ve come from a legacy of fatherlessness and divorced to see your marriage and get inspired. He wants those who’ve been wounded by the opposite sex to see your marriage and get inspired.

PRAYER FOR MARRIAGES