When I was in college I visited several churches in the area to find the church I would attend when in Auburn. By default, since I was going to a Baptist church in Birmingham, I visited a Baptist church in Auburn. I had been for a handful of Sundays when, one week, the end of the service came early and some semblance of a meeting occurred. The pastor announced that there was a member of the church who had been confronted about something “they” as church leadership (all men) did not agree with. I cannot recall if this member was a man or woman. There was to be a vote, that moment, on whether or not to essentially kick this person out of their church. I sat there dumbfounded, mouth agape, heart pounding, hands tingling and tears forming in my eyes. The vote passed. This person had been excommunicated from this church. Of note, that person was not in attendance to my knowledge, and given no opportunity to speak to his or her brothers and sisters in Christ about this. None.
I left that church and but for a few events the church held for the college ministries (ie, locations not hold things, nothing to do with the actual people in the church) and the university choir concerts which were held there along with other locations, I never set foot in those doors again.
This was over 20 years ago. I was really only about 2 years into being a Christian, but had been in the church my entire life. There was one thing I was absolutely, without a doubt certain about: that was wrong and it in no way showed the love of Christ. Even now, as I write about this, my hands are sweating and my heart is pounding at the absolute hypocrisy it took to tell someone who didn’t meet that group of male leadership’s expectations of what a member of the church should look like.
At that point in time, my life experience level was relatively low. I had been born and raised in Alabama, and thus my experiences were pretty much all southern. Climate change was “global warming” and either completely ignored or called falsity by the church. There were very few openly gay people around. There was a very minimal Latino community. The internet was pretty new. I had not been taught more than about a paragraph in my history books about the Great Migration. For me, the civil rights era had been over long before I was born. Little did I know the fight for civil rights would still be an active conversation today- and necessarily so. My world was small, as any 18 year-old’s is. But then, even then, in my very limited existence I knew that this action did not smell like love. It did not reflect the Jesus I knew. It looked like judgment and it smelled like hate.
Even now, this same thing plays out repeatedly in our daily lives. Don’t agree with someone’s opinion: defriend them, kick them out of your circle, “ghost” them. Honestly, I have experienced some of that recently and part of me is livid over the immaturity of the actions, yet part of me has to laugh at the same thing. At 42, still dealing with people who act like they are 14. Sheesh. If someone loves someone of the same gender, some churches refuse to dedicate their baby because of this. Is this intended to slap the adults in the face? Isn’t the church about love? What about that baby? Get your head out of your self-righteous behind and look up, because I am 100% certain, the authentic Jesus, the one in the Bible, the one who came as a propitiation for our sins- us- even us as distasteful as we have become- Jesus came because of LOVE. You can’t get past them loving someone of the same gender, but it’s completely okay with you for God to send Jesus to be crucified by those he came to show love to. Get. Your. Head. Out. Of. Your. Ass.
Recently I got a lesson a strange place. My husband I had been watching something on Netflix. I will take a pause here and say this: I have been divorced and am remarried to a wonderful man, and yes I am talking about Jesus because guess what, God can use anything or anyone he feels like. I love God and he loves me and he can inspire me left and right. I am NOT disqualified because of sin anymore than anyone else is. For anyone to say that is full of crap, because we are ALL sinners. Every last one of us.
My husband and I were watching a “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode the other night. (Yes- we love it.) It was the second part in a story about Worf. He had been advised that his father was still alive in a Romulan prison camp on a remote planet. He of course must go. When he arrives, he finds Klingons and Romulans living together in peace. If you know anything about Star Trek, this in and of itself should be a lesson. What ends up happening is that over the years, the group living there had somewhat warped the traditions of the Klingon culture- watering it down and not telling the children about their heritage. They did it for their own good, or what the leadership thought was their own good. What Worf brought was the authentic Klingon culture to this group of people and it shook things up. Eventually some stayed behind but the majority of the young people left to search out their authenticity.
It got me thinking, is it time to leave the over-traditionalization of some churches to seek out what authentic faith and authentic Jesus looks like? I am not saying we “leave” the church- meaning we stop being a part of a fellowship. What I am asking is if it is time to start to question the traditions made up by church leadership “for our own good” when it means excluding people and thus throwing love out the door?
For me, my prayer is that authentic Jesus makes a comeback. Well, authentic Jesus never left. Maybe the desire for authentic Jesus needs to make a comeback. My prayer is for discernment over the world’s version of what Jesus was- and to instead be able to see who authentic Jesus is. I don’t think an authentic faith in Jesus or authentic Jesus could disappoint anyone. I do think the world’s version of faith can.
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