Thursday, May 26, 2016

Going Against the Grain

It is 4 AM and my mind is unsettled. Unsettled not because I don't have a clarity of thought or purpose, but unsettled because of the difficulty of what I am trying to do. The difficulty, nay impossibility, of being a person who is wholly devoted to God and rather orthodox in personal theology and worship, but struggling to reconcile with the community around him. The difficulty of one who gravely understands the seriousness of our time spent on earth and how it reflects and honors the God I serve.

It is this same gravity and seriousness that has set me at odds with certain members of the church body. The ones who feel that, although I am straight, I am a sinner for supporting my LGBT brother and sister through their daily struggles against a society that does not, will not even attempt to understand. The ones who feel that I am evil because I demand that workers receive a living wage in a time when our culture believes that wealth should be piled among the few, and that the financial burdens of funding our government should fall upon the lowest paid. The ones who believe that I am hellbound because I would hold the hand of the woman who has made the painful and personal decision to have an abortion rather than cut it off and cast her into outer darkness.

But in the quiet of the night, as there is nothing but the sound of the window rattling from the central air running through the house, I must answer a question almost as old as humanity. It is the same question asked by the world's first murder as the blood of his brother was fresh on his hands: Am I my brother's keeper?
The Lord never answered this question, because Cain knew. We ARE our brother's (and sister's) keeper.

For that reason, I worry about the 41% of transgendered individuals who will attempt suicide at some point in their lives. There is much I don't know, much I do not understand about gender dysphoria, but if I accept the idea that I am indeed my brother's (and sister's) keeper, it is something I MUST learn. And I must learn it free from prejudice, free from fear, free from judgment. For I am not called to be a judge, but a standard bearer for Christ.

For that reason, I worry about the worker who will go home at the end of the day with less than he needs to survive. I worry about his children, struggling with undiagnosed and untreated conditions because we have placed the well being above the wealthy above the right of their parent to earn enough in 8 hours' labor to pay for the things they need to become bright and productive workers. I worry about the fading eyes as that worker struggles against the diabetes wracking his body because there is no money, no time to leave the workplace and make his way to the doctor's office. I worry about the bullets that echo through the night outside the home that was supposed to be their haven because that one place was the only one they could afford.

For that reason, I worry about the mother, who cannot support her child, but who knows her baby will not be adoptable because the skin color is wrong, or there is a genetic condition that will make it unlikely her baby will have a forever home. I worry that she will return home to the man who beats her, perhaps for one very last time before she ends up a nameless body in the county morgue. I worry that she will not receive the education she needs to provide a home for her children, and that the sanctimonious congregations I am rejecting will brand her a whore because the grace that Jesus offers is given in their world only to those who have never sinned greatly.

Yes. In the quiet of this night, my mind is unsettled. It is unsettled because I AM my brother's (and sister's) keeper, and because all of these burdens are as much mine as they are the individuals who suffer around me. And because I was called to heal those wounds, and not to hurt them.

My biggest failing is fear of how I will be received. My biggest failing is the fear that standing for those who cannot means that I will be judged by those who by the people in the church walls who believe their work ends where those walls do. That fear is my biggest sin.

The morning will come, and I will be just as unsettled. But there will be noise to silence these thoughts. There will be action. There will be the birthday of my five year old son, who will one day inherit the legacy that I have created. And I have a choice: to protect him from it, or to teach him that he, too, has a responsibility greater than himself.

I know what path I will choose. But I am finding it is a very lonely one.