ARMSTRONG-REINER: Follow the God of grace and love

It seems so simple.

Jesus came to show us the all-embracing love of God, that sets us free from our past, from our ignorance, from our divisions. Why do we, as a church, then fall back into attitudes and behaviors that deny the God-given worthiness of all people?

We, as a church, have fallen on the wrong side of history for too long.

When our nation struggled with the sin of slavery, often it was the churches that sought to justify the institution. When we were infected by Jim Crow, often it was the “good church folk” who could be seen leading us into the morass. Churches often were those who opposed civil rights and women’s rights.

And we are doing the same today.

Instead of opposing Pride Month, the church should be embracing it.

For Pride Month is not about some self-exaltation. Rather, it is about affirming the dignity and worth of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, who have been ridiculed, abused, and persecuted for being the people God created them to be.

Instead of opposing Black Lives Matter, the church should be embracing it.

Saying Black Lives Matter is not about saying that other lives do not matter. Rather, it affirms the dignity and worth of our black brothers and sisters, whom we continue to treat as a problem or as an issue and not as equal and full partners.

Then again, instead of doing the work of grace, the work of inclusion, the work of love, we as a church get caught up in legalistic matters that God is not concerned with.

We are the ones condemned when Jesus says to the Pharisees: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” (Matthew 22:23)

So churches get caught trying to make Genesis speak to some literal account of creation – which the writers never intended.

Instead, we should be asking about how we are taking care of this creation, which God declared as very good! Instead, we should be asking how we should be healing the brokenness of our relationship to creation and to one another, which the story of the Garden was meant to show.

So, some churches get caught in the heresy of Christian nationalism, acting as if our country is God’s chosen people, instead of realizing that all nations, all peoples, are chosen children of God.

So, we get caught, bemoaning how many people are working on Sunday, instead of working for fair and just working conditions for all people on all days.

So, we get caught, seeking to condemn the morality of others instead of seeking to live faithful lives ourselves.

So, we get caught, fixating on and misinterpreting a handful of supposed passages on homosexuality, instead of hearing the countless passages on economic justice, caring for the widow and orphans and migrants, and giving what we have to the poor – whether that be the call to give all as Jesus said to the rich young man (Luke 18:22), giving half to the poor like Zacchaeus (Luke 19:8), or sharing all in common like the early church (Acts 2:44-45, 4:34).

In the name of God, in the name of Jesus whom we say we follow, let us hear the voice of the prophet: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

To paraphrase a statement from William Sloane Coffin, “Jesus came to take away our sins, not our minds or our hearts.”

Let us reclaim both our minds and our hearts, and follow the God of grace and love.