The Story of Two Families

            We know what brothers and sisters are in our own families but what do we know about God’s family.  I asked my Mother just a few months before her death: why do you think God has looked after you all these years?  She simply said – “I’m his child.”    In other words she was saying I’m a member of God’s family; a member of the household of faith, which is the church, what else would he do.  Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 3:15: “if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.”  We can trace the roots of this household of faith all the way back to the beginning of human history.  When God gave the first gospel sermon in Genesis 3:15 he said in part: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”  Two families are marked-out in this passage: the Lord’s family and the devil’s family.  Both families will produce offspring; both families will be at odds with each other; both families will receive a just reward at the end of time – one will receive death, the wages of sin; the other will receive the gift of eternal life. 

            From the time of the fall of man onward we see the distinction between the two families.  In Genesis 6:5: “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”  God chose to destroy what he had created with a flood.  Noah, on the other hand is presented as blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.  The Enmity between the seed of the woman and Satin continued, even after the flood.  When will this enmity cease?  When will the promised seed of the woman come into the world to unite his family and make their faith real?  Consider Abraham!  It is the presentation of this man as the patriarchal head of the family of believers that we begin to learn what it means to be a member of the household of faith and how God will bring all believers into this household.  The key promise given to Abraham is summed up in Galatians 3:6-9: “Consider Abraham: “He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.  Understand then that those who believe are children of Abraham [and thus are members of the household of faith].  The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.  So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith.” 

            Paul quotes David in Romans 4:8 when speaking of those whom God credits righteousness apart from works of law – that is apart from perfect obedience to law, which all law covenants require – when he says: “Blessed are they [like Abraham ] whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins the Lord will never count against him.”  In verse 11 of that same chapter Paul states: “So then, he [Abraham] is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.”  Who is Paul talking about here?  He is talking about those who have a faith like Abrahams, those who seek to know the will of God and then do it.  See Hebrews 6:13-20: “…we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.”  What hope have we fled to take hold of?  The hope that Christ really did buy us off from the curse of the law and that God really will count our faith as righteousness.  After all, he promised didn’t he? 

           Back in 1968 when Andy Warhol made his comment to photographer Nat Finkelstein about everyone enjoying 15 minutes of fame, he seemed prescient, and the notion entered the cultural water-supply. I would argue that Warhol's prediction is only partially fulfilled. Some people do enjoy their 15 minutes of fame. I offer Clara Peller, William Hung, and Michael Edwards as exhibits A, B, and C. The greater cultural phenomenon is that some folks take 15 minute's-worth of interesting content and parlay that into long careers and massive fortunes. I offer the names Hilton, Kardashian, and Lohan as exhibits C, D, and E.

            Those who take a teaspoon full of talent and manufacture a fortune and a career usually do so by combining physical attractiveness and shamelessness. Our culture is obsessed with "reality" — with famous people baring their lives and their bodies for public inspection. Of course, nothing could be less real than "reality" entertainment. The camera changes everything it captures, and everyone in front of a camera strikes a pose.

            A century ago our culture had the same appetite for celebrity, but most of those celebrities were guarded about their personal lives. No celebrity couple has been as popular and well-known than the Lindbergh's were in the 192o'3 and 30's. Charles was the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Anne was a Senator's daughter who was a pioneering aviatrix herself, helping her husband set records and explore air-routes. If these accomplishments were not enough to ensure their celebrity, their firstborn son was notoriously kidnapped and murdered in 1932. Through it all, both Lindberghs were fiercely private.

            In a 1931 flight, Charles and Anne proved that the quickest air-route to Asia was across the Arctic Circle. In 1932 their son was kidnapped and murdered. In 1934 Anne wrote about their 1931 flight in a book titled North to the Orient.* In North to the Orient she does not mention any of the details of that hellish year, 1932 — but she does mention her son. After taking off from New York they flew over Long Island, and she could see "the harbor where my family waved, the white farmhouse on the point where my baby was. What a joy to hold them all in my eyes at once, as one tries to possess all of them in one look." Later, in Japan, she hears a melancholy song at a tea ceremony, and asks for a translation. It is the song of a mother who has lost her infant son, and Anne writes: "I long to see my boy." She wrote that line after she had already lost him. I think that despite the fierceness of her privacy, Anne has given us a moment of reality, and bared for us her heart.

            This is an exceptional gift. One is reminded of the famous comment Stephen Vincent Benet made in his epic poem John Brown's Body about General Robert E. Lee keeping his heart safe from the "pick-locks of Biographers." It is rare that we get a clear glimpse of the true heart of another.

            To truly observe a heard laid bare, one must open the word of God. David surely gives us his heart time after time in the Psalms. David is called the man after God's own heart (Acts 13.22). This was the reason he was chosen to be King (I Samuel 3.14); for no one lays His heart bare like God does.

How can I give you up, 0 Ephraim? How can I surrender you, 0 Israel? My heart is turned over within Me.  Hosea 11.8

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you in with lovingkindness.  Jeremiah 31.3

This is love — not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  1 John 4.10

            In every verse of the Bible, as well as every sunrise, every rainfall, every fresh-baked loaf, every new-born child, God bares His heart. We need no pick-locks to help us discover it — the love inside is visible and real.

*North to the Orient, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh; Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1935.

When It Happens…

            We have a sister congregation somewhere west of the Mississippi that is, in many ways like us. They are slightly smaller than we are, about as diverse. They have been around about as long as we have. They take the Bible just as seriously as we do. They have a similar “feel” – they feel like a family. At this congregation, men and women who are gay feel secure to come and ask for the prayers and support of the congregation to help them lead obedient lives.

            This has never happened here.

            In my 25 years at Manassas folks have come forward to confess just about everything, and ask for prayers. We have always loved and supported each other through challenges and temptations. But no gay man or lesbian woman has ever come asking for our prayers and support. Why? Is it because none of our members have ever been gay? We know this isn’t true. Is it because gay members assume they will not receive the support and prayers 0f the congregation in their struggle – at least not from everyone? Yes, I believe that is exactly the reason.

            Is this assumption correct? I hope not. Christians speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4.15), with gentleness and reverence (I Peter 3.15), and willingly bear each other’s burdens (Galatians 6.2).

            Let me be clear, because the Bible is clear. It is wrong for one person to have sex with a person of the same gender (Leviticus 18.22, 20.13; Romans 1.27, I Corinthians 6.9, I Timothy 1.10).  But scripture does not teach that we should be hateful about this.  As a teen, in Sunday school, I was taught that “homosexuals are an abomination,” that “all gay men have the potential to act like the men of Sodom”, and that “being gay is as bad as committing bestiality or murdering your parents.” I have heard similar things spoken here over the years – sometimes in Bible class. These statements are wrong. They contradict what we know from life. They contradict what we know from the Bible. They certainly discourage any gay man or lesbian woman from asking for our prayers.

The verses mentioned above are often used as evidence that derision for homosexuals is God-sanctioned. Yet when one reads those passages, one finds that the same lists include the covetous (I Corinthians 6.10), liars (I Timothy 1.10), heterosexual adulterers (Leviticus 18.22, 20.10), and sinners in general (I Timothy 1.9). No one ever taught us that coveting was equivalent to bestiality or murdering one’s parents. The men of Sodom were rapists. Many certainly had wives and families. Almost all men who rape other men or molest boys identify as straight. It is Biblically, and factually wrong to associate the men of Sodom with all gay men.

            The list in I Corinthians 6.9-11 is important because it says gay men have become Christians. And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God (verse 11). Paul reached gay men at Corinth with the Gospel of Jesus. Was this evangelistic success accomplished by derision and hatefulness or with friendship and respect? We know the answer to that question.

            Whenever it happens that a brother or sister comes and says, “I am gay, and I want to lead an obedient life. I need the prayers and support of my church family to face this challenge,” we will surround this person with love, prayers, and encouragement.  If we don’t, we will be the sinners.

     My daughter Julia, who always finds the coolest stuff online, sent me a link to a story from the History Channel website which Becka Little posted May 3 about a new book by Zora Neale Hurston being published this month. Hurston died in 1960, and had been forgotten for decades when she died.  But in the 1920’s and 30’s she was the most important woman writer of the Harlem renaissance. In the 1980’s she was rediscovered, largely due to the efforts of Alice Walker. Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God became a best seller (I prefer Jonah’s Gourd Vine, myself). Hurston was a writer by talent and inclination, but an anthropologist by training. Her book Mules and Men is a landmark study of African-American folklore and history. The new book, Baracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo, is also a work of anthropology.

            In Baracoon Hurston interviews the last living survivor of the Middle Passage. Although slavery was not ended in this country until the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1864 (England, the country we said all those nasty things about in the Declaration of Independence, abolished slavery in 1807) the international slave trade was abolished here in 1807. Slave ships still smuggled newly acquired slaves from Africa to this country as late as 1860.  Hurston found a man, Cudjo Lewis, living near Mobile, who was delivered to the Gulf Coast of Alabama from his home in Benin on the slave ship Clotilda – the last slave ship to bring human cargo to the United States from Africa. 

            Her book, based upon interviews with Cudjo Lewis was never published. Black publishers would not publish it because Hurston, the scientist, recorded Cudjo’s voice in his own patois. Black intellectuals at the time felt that this dialect fed racist stereotypes. White publishers were simply not interested. And so this important work has not been published till now.

            I am anxious to read it for several reasons. Zoral Neal Hurston is a story teller of rare talent. The experience of the Middle Passage and navigating a wholly new world has not been given such a thorough, first-person voice before. The book will further illuminate the sin of slavery – and we only benefit from such knowledge. Most of all, I want to read the book because it is the personal account of a man who was free, then enslaved, then emancipated – which is the story of every Christian.

            Jesus himself makes this clear. When he tells the Jews that the truth will set them free, they angrily reply, We are Abraham’s offspring and have never been enslaved to anyone! (John8.32-33). My impulse would be to say to them, “Uh…guys, I have three words for you: Egypt, Babylon, Rome.” Jesus’ reply is far-reaching, gathering in all of humanity:

            Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.  The slave does not remain in the house forever, the Son does remain forever. If, therefore, the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. John 8.34-36.

            Paul describes the same, universal state of humanity in Romans 6.16-18. In this passage he reminds us we were all “slaves to sin,” but some have responded to a gospel which makes us “free from sin, and slaves to righteousness.”

            This is the state of humanity. But our sense of self mirrors that of those Jews opposing Jesus – “We have never been slaves to anyone.” The freedoms we enjoy through the blessings God provides, and the sacrifice so many have made would certainly cultivate such a reply.

            Which is why understanding what it is to be a slave is so important. It is a tool by which we may better understand ourselves as Christians. How will we know the Truth has set us free – how can we appreciate our emancipation - if we have no comprehension of our own slavery?