Hey, Church! Here’s Our Chance to Not Be Assholes

Hey church — heads up.

Here’s our chance to show the love of Jesus to the world. A chance to demonstrate radical grace, to care for the broken, like our beautiful Savior has done for us.

I don’t want to seem opportunistic. I think what I’m saying here is: let’s not be assholes this time. 

God’s beautiful children were massacred this weekend in Orlando. His beautiful, beautiful babies, that He tenderly crafted in His own image, male and female, He created them. Oh, and how he loves them. Each one. Each unique, with different gifts, and different brokenness, He loves them.

Their families loved them, too.

And here we are, the Church — the ones who say we love Jesus — faced with a choice.

Some of us will remain silent. We might quietly mourn for this tragic, senseless violence. We might privately rage. But we will not speak out our fury, our own deep sadness at just how dark and deep humanity has fallen from our purpose.

And to be clear: the dark and deep fall humanity has taken is in the repetitive, senseless murder of innocent people. Not homosexuality.

So some of us — I know, because I used to be one of this kind — will quietly mourn and privately rage but will say nothing on our Facebook feeds or our blogs or to our “conservative” friends. Some of us with think this is all such bullshit, but because we have been conditioned to believe certain things, we will not rage and mourn out loud, in sight, in public.

We will not be Jesus to the hurting world, to the people hurting in Orlando, who right now I can only imagine feel victimized, dazed, angry, scared, alone, hated.

Actually, I can’t imagine. Who the hell am I to even try to imagine?

Others of us — we will sit in the cushy seat of judgement. We’ll smack our self-satisfied lips and quote scriptures of wrath and portent, we’ll say horrible things like “It was, essentially, what they deserved,” while we shrug our shoulders, somehow conveniently forgetting that, we deserved it. We deserved it, but Jesus took it for us. So smack your lips elsewhere, my friends, for you are in dangerous territory.

And do me this favor: if you’re going to sit in the judge’s seat — don’t do it in the name of my beautiful savior. Do it in your own name, because that’s where it’s really coming from. Your own pride, your own hubris, your own insecurity and your own fear. Jesus had none of those things, and he freely loved.

He loved, freely. Seriously. Have you met him? Because those people in that night club that you say deserved it? Those are the people He will bring to his banquet, because he wants his table full.

And as an aside, because this is totally a whole different blog post, but perhaps you’ll want to be careful who you align yourselves with, because this horrific act was carried out by an ISIS sympathizer. So in essence, you’ll be saying that a Muslim who legally purchased a gun carried out the Christian God’s will.

Tread lightly, there, friends. Tread lightly lest you discover just how twisted your logic is getting.

Still others of us, and I hope that this will be the collective voice that is heard, will speak love and healing and grace into this heartbreaking situation. We’ll stand there when our friends — or even strangers — rage and scream, “Where is your God now?”

We’ll stand in that rage, and take it like Jesus took it, though surely not as well as he did, and maybe we’ll say, “I know it’s a poor substitute, but today he sent me.”

Or maybe for the first time we’ll put a rainbow filter over our Facebook picture as our first foray into showing love for our gay friends, a way to say, “I stand with you.” A way to say “This is NOT what God wanted. This was NOT God’s will.”

Maybe we’ll speak peace over this horror; maybe we will pray without ceasing but also act without vitriol. Maybe some of us will call for an end to gun violence and hate crimes against all people. Maybe we’ll speak this out in our elections, in our daily relationships, in our jokes, in our social media feeds.

Maybe we will let Jesus do his crazy Jesus thing in our hearts, where he turns them all upside down, schools us with the people we once thought were below us. After all, Jesus said, Collect all who look like they need a square meal, all the misfits and homeless and wretched you can lay your hands on, and bring them here. 

Who are you in that story in Luke 14:21? Are you the servant? Or are you the wretched?

Jesus let me in the banquet hall. He let me into the party when I was wretched. When I was poor in spirit. When my soul was homeless. He gave me warm cushions to rest on. He lets me roam in the open spaces of grace, where there is room for everyone.

Especially a club full of hurting, scared, angry, raging, shattered gay people.

They get to go to the front of the line for Jesus’ embrace today.

They get a seat at the head of the table.

You should get up, now.