If you were paying attention, this was a hard week for people who love everyone. If you watched CNN, went on Facebook, or Twitter, or read a forwarded e mail from an activist friend, you heard something about this. That is if you are on any kind of mailing list for social justice advocates, gay rights, advocates for children or youth, teachers, special needs students, or even the University of Michigan student or alumni association.
Is there anybody out there that missed seeing an article or an interview about a bullying incident: a blog on political disagreement that instead turned into a state official stalking a gay college student because he is gay; a story about a thirteen year old kid committing suicide because of harassment from other kids for not wanting high end electronics or clothes; another twenty something because an intimate moment was recorded and posted to the net - stuff we used to call peer pressure and hazing that has now become life and death.
Our friend Karyn wrote to Cheri this week: "We have to change the dynamic." These stories of children committing suicide cannot become common place to us. So she wrote this personal manifesto on her Facebook profile, and Cheri copied it, and within hours, scores of others joined us:
“I am standing up to BULLYING!! I am standing up for children and youth who are picked on, bullied, and excluded for being different. I am standing up to the system that allows this to happen. I am STANDING UP to hate, homophobia, racism, classism, sexism, and other "isms" of our world. STAND UP WITH ME!!”
Now, Cheri could have preached an activist sermon today, and ask you all to stand with us, and you probably would do it. She’s done that before and she will do it again. We need to change this sick world. We need to change the dynamic, and God is calling us to do that. God is calling this church to BE the change, and to lead a movement of change starting right here at the corner of Monroe and Central.
But there is something else we have to do FIRST. Before we go out there and change the world. We need to be sure that we HEAR, really HEAR, deep down to the core of our being, to every tiny cell and sub-particle of our being, this message for ourselves: "We are not perfect, but God loves us anyway." That is where we start. We need to go out there and share that message with lots of hurting people.
But hear us clearly, none of us can share that message until we own it for ourselves. There are no perfect people. No perfect people in here in the Village or anywhere among the followers of Jesus. And no perfect people out there, anywhere.
We've all got our crap. We've all got our baggage. Stuff we have done that we are not proud of. Stuff that has happened that has left us broken and wounded. Some of it was choices we’ve made. Some of it was done to us - we were innocent victims. Some was a mix of both. It's complicated, isn’t it.
We are imperfect. Like the messy burlap hanging on the wall behind our worship stage. The threads of our lives are ragged and uneven. Like the beat up suit cases at the edge of the stage - we have been on some trips in our lives, and we've been tossed and turned, there have been some ups and downs. These ups and downs have formed us into who we are today. It is what it is. We wouldn’t be who we are were it not for all of the hurts and joys, the loses and gifts.
God sent Jesus to walk on this earth - just like us - to be beaten up and tossed and turned a bit like us - so God would know first-hand what life is like on this Earth that God created.
But this is the promise, found in the letter by Paul to the new, little church in Rome, like the Village - no matter what - God will love us. NO MATTER WHAT - WE STILL BELONG TO GOD - AND NOTHING CHANGES THAT. No matter what we’ve done, no matter what we failed to do, no matter what others have done to us. There are plenty of people trying to drive wedges between us and God.
Listen to Romans Chapter 8 again, verses 31-39 for those of you playing along at home:
Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing-nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable-absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
You see, the early Christians were being persecuted. They were being killed for being followers of Jesus. And of course, that was awful. And yet, they knew that if their life of this Earth was cut short, they would still have eternal life in heaven with God. And so somehow, they were able to have a sense of peace. They understood that life on this Earth does not last forever for any of us. Physical life is temporary. But what never ends, is the promise that we belong to God, and that God loves us, and has a home for us. And nothing can separate us from God's love. NOTHING.
Now, there are some people in this room who have been, or who are discouraged, to the point of wanting to give up on life. I know some of you have been, or are so depressed that they want to give. But you are with us today, in person or on this blog. You chose to get up out of bed today. You said YES to life, today. You said YES to this community, and YES to God's love today. And here is the thing: God says YES to us EVERY DAY without fail.
Friends, hold onto that promise. There are people out there who need to hear that message, that promise. We know that people out there are dying to hear that message. But before we can go out into the world and boldly proclaim that message with confidence, we have to be sure that we know it - that we feel it with every fiber of our being. We are not perfect. We have some crap of our own. We have made some mistakes. We have been hurt, some of us more than others. But it's ok. Because God loves us anyway. Do you believe us? Do you believe the promises of Jesus?
Nothing separates us from God's healing love for us.
Nothing. No THING
We belong to God. Jesus came to show us that. And nothing and no one can take God's love away from us. Amen! So say we all!
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