I spent Saturday night in the midst of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, at a church that opened its gates and doors to the people going along, providing refreshments and space, in the name of Jesus and for the love of Him.
I was so glad to be out there as part of the body of Christ, offering assistance and space. And yeah, there were conversations had about faith and belief, but mostly just smiles and inquiries, offers of water, chai, pancakes, and sausage sangers.
There are people who will disdain this as "affirmation" and others who will sneer that it's "propaganda".
Is it affirmation to succour the humanity - hunger, thirst, exhaustion, sensory overload - of those we disagree with?
Is it propaganda to put our best foot forward when we have the resources and desire to?
I've wanted conservative churches in Sydney to put their actions where their teachings are for a while, particularly in a space that challenges us more than it comforts us. Not typical "evangelism" stuff but hospitality and kindness, "living lives of such generosity and love that even the pagans will see you are different and rejoice" as Paul once said.
I don't want the word of God to be used as a bludgeon. I want it to be living water, satisfying a thirst most people don't even realise they have. But you can't force it down their throats and expect them to be grateful. That's not how this works.
"How do you show Christian love if you aren't also judging them according to God's standards?"
It's a question that most Christians wrestle with in one form or another. Most of the people in my circles tend to fall on the side of "if you do anything with them without emphasising their sinfulness and their need for God, then you are failing them and failing God, and failing your Christian calling". In the extreme version, it means you don't have gay friends or trans friends. You don't eat with sinners. You don't break bread with the fallen and not-getting-up.
I mean, it's okay if they're socially "civilised": you know, they would fit into the church so long as they never opened their mouth or had to make a statement of faith.
On Saturday night at the 'open grounds' in the midst of the Mardi Gras, a young earnest Evangelical said she didn't want to ask people how they were enjoying the night because if they said 'yes' then she was enabling their sin and making it seem like it was okay for them to be sinning.
Which mostly leads me to the reminder that our version of 'sin' is entirely too small.
Fucking someone outside of wedlock? Sin!
Kissing someone of the same sex because of attraction? Sin!
Enjoying a celebration that's set up around a sinful lifestyle? Sin!
But...
Bitching at a family member before you left the house this morning? Not!Sin!
Ignoring the homeless person with their hand out when you walked past them on the way to work? Not!Sin!
Making snide comments about someone who doesn't have the ability to hit back? Not!Sin!
Our version of 'sin' is limited to the things we do, rather than the way we interact with people, rather than the way we interact with our fellow image-bearers, rather than our attitude to existence. It's a very small version of sin, which makes it easy to decry those things that other people do while ignoring the things that we do. And even those of us who know that sin is an attitude and not merely actions often forget and try to ensmallen sin so it excludes our own sinful acts and thoughts and omissions.
I've talked about this a lot on here before: the very distinct insistence that we have to tell people the gospel... And yes, we do. But picking the time and the moment, backing it up with a relationship, being about more than just the words? I think we have too many words and not enough of the other stuff. We live in a time of words and wordiness, of speeches and comments, of shortform videos and long bursts of information. People don't want our words anymore.
They want our love - our actions, our kindness.
Can we tell the truth kindly? Yes. But also, it requires first a relationship. God does all His best work through relationships.
No comments:
Post a Comment