Peace, Peace, When there is no Peace

I’ve noticed a lot of people on Facebook sporting the red logo with the equal sign in it. It seems to refer to marriage as an equal right for all.

I’ve written on this topic before, confessing my view that marriage is the recognition of a pre-existent, committed relationship and a privilege recognized by a community rather than a right. But that’s another discussion.

The debates I’ve listened to regarding same-sex marriage assume something similar on both sides of the issue: That on the preferred side, everything is okay. Everything is good.

On one side, the argument claims that heterosexual marriage is okay, good, and a proper standard. On the other side, the claim is made that homosexuality is also okay and good, and should be afforded the same rights granted to heterosexuals.

Both sides claim that, in their respective camps, everything is good. Everything is okay.

But what if they’re both wrong?

I argued yesterday that we heteros (what an awful label!) need some rethinking about how really okay we are when it comes to marriage.

This challenge needs to reach across all the arguments. We’re not okay. We’re all a mess. And to say that gay marriage is a good thing strictly on the basis that everything is great and we just need to get a long and let each other have whatever it is that we want is insufficient. The broader culture is prone to that form of resolution, but we who follow Jesus need to dive a little deeper in that pond than everyone else.

If we say that our side is good and the other side is bad, or if we say that everything is good, we may be crying out with the screwball prophets of Jeremiah’s time whom God critiqued by saying, “They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:14)

We are a wounded people, gay and straight alike, and we dare not claim peace, peace, when there is no peace. We dare not insist that all is good when all is wounded. We need to treat our wounds with care. To do otherwise is to risk spiritual malpractice.

I have worshipped with gay friends who sought after sacred space that, rather than focusing on being gay, focused on Jesus. I found that I could stand side by side with those friends in my own brokenness and seek the One who heals our wounds, numerous as they are. Maybe all wasn’t good, but we could affirm together that God is good, and together we threw ourselves on his love and forgiveness, and sought for a way that we might live in his grace.

I don’t know how churches and denominations are going to resolve the gay marriage issue (and how gay people might connect in the life of the Christian community), at least in this generation. It may not be seen as such an overwhelming issue a generation later. We’ll have to see.

But in the meantime, if I can’t stand next to my gay brother or sister as a broken child of God, then I probably can’t stand next to anyone, nor can anyone stand next to me. We need a new starting place in this conversation. If we start with rights then the contest will be won by those who wield the greatest power. If we start with everything being okay, then nothing will be okay.

But if we begin as co-humans, broken and wounded, yet made in the image of God, then perhaps the conversation will change.

A Lenten Reflection for March 8, 2013

Therefore, thus says the Lord, assuredly I am going to bring disaster upon them that they cannot escape; though they cry out to me, I will not listen to them. (Jeremiah 8:11)

Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)

“You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires.” (John 8:44)


Often I find myself wanting what I want, no matter what. I know that eating a certain thing is not good for me, but I want it anyway. Get out of the way and let me eat it. It’s my body. The consequences are mine. It’s my right to want what I want.

Jeremiah spoke to a people that wanted to worship idols and play international politics by the rules of the world. Like their ancestors, they wanted what they wanted. In the end, God let them have what they wanted. They didn’t want to listen to him, so he cooperated by not listening. When they received the consequences of a life without God, the horror of it made them cry out, but God wasn’t listening. At least, not for a while. Jesus wasn’t seeing much improvement in his day.

I think that’s probably what Hell is: Eternally getting what you want. Imagine the weakest, most stumbling desire for God exploding into glorious flame when God is encountered face to face. Then imagine the most stubborn, angry desire for something other than God, and getting it. Forever.

What would it be like to live in a city where there is no goodness, where each person lives only for personal gain and pleasure, where power is the only currency? That would be Hell. That would be getting everything you demand, if what you demand is anything other than God.

I tend to lean on the words of Richard John Neuhaus: “In this life, and in the age to come, followers of Jesus can have everything they want, if everything they want is Jesus.”

A Lenten Reflection for March 4, 2013

For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever. (Jeremiah 7:5-7)


People sometimes have a difficult time distinguishing between their religion and their nation. Nations, by design, operate out of self-interest. Religion typically has a different agenda.

I’ve heard people demand of the US what is demanded of Jesus’ followers. As much Christian influence as there continues to be here, the nation of America is not the people of God. That’s true of all nations.

But we who follow Jesus have, I think, a two-fold role in our respective countries. First, to serve as elders at the gate, so to speak, asking national leaders to act justly, wisely, and compassionately. It won’t do for us to simply embrace a preferred political agenda, baptize it as the Christian way, and then denounce all opponents. We must bring more to table than that.

Second, our role is to be the kind of people that God calls us to be. Regardless of the nation’s response to the alien, the orphan, the widow, and the innocent, we must care for them and not oppress them. Whether we are citizens of the US, the UK, China, or Venezuela, we are called first of all to be God’s people for the sake of the world. Our civic responsibility has to rise from that identity. If it happens the other way around, then we just might try to clothe Jesus in the garb of our political party.

I once heard Pastor Bill Hybels (of Willow Creek Church) say that he knows when he is in vital relationship with Christ, because that is when he has a heart for the poor. When he quits caring, then he realizes that something is amiss in his journey of faith. I’ve always appreciated that honesty, and have had to check my own heart along the way. When I quit caring for the people around me then something has gone wrong. When the poor and needy become abstract concepts or only shadowy presences at freeway offramps, then I need to look around and see where Jesus has gone. More to the point, I need to see where I have gone.

“Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.” (Psalm 80:7)