Reminding myself of whose and who I am

Last week I participated in a movement of MA faith leaders. We gathered and walked together to Beacon Hill to call on our government to protect immigrant communities in Massachusetts. We were called together to be a faithful presence and prayerful witness – demonstrating what we believe our faiths demand of us – moral courage and solidarity with those on the margins. It was a profoundly moving experience for me. I was so encouraged and inspired by those who participated, spoke, led and challenged us all to continue to speak up and act up. It wasn’t just a group of people from particular faith traditions moving together it was a group of people compelled by our faith traditions to stand in the gap for our neighbors. It was an important reminder of what my faith requires of me.

For the past ten years or so I have had periods of deep discouragement. I have often despaired at the ways in which some of my siblings in Christ interpreted the call of Jesus on not just our lives but our public witness. I confess, there have been moments where this made me doubt my own faith. The question would repeatedly present itself – if Jesus is who they say he is, do you want to follow him? And when presented with a Jesus who hated certain people, who was apathetic to those in need, who insisted on hoarding resources, who demanded right belief without much thought to right practice, who was far more concerned with who to judge than who to love I was confused at best. And at worst, too often, I doubted. Doubted that the loving, just God I had come to know and love from childhood was a figment of my own imagination. If these people who seemed more pious, more certain and more numerous than me and those who believed as I did then maybe, maybe I had gotten it wrong.

Many things gave me hope and kept me grounded in my faith over these years, but two things were the most powerful. First, other Christians who not only stood up and spoke up for the vulnerable and marginalized but who explicitly connected their Christian faith to those words and actions. Like the group of faith leaders who prayed and walked together last week. I have had the privilege of learning from and with, walking beside and being in community with so many amazing and passionate followers of Jesus. Their faithful witness was definitely one of the ways the Lord helped me walk through my doubts and instead of losing my faith it was strengthened.

I didn't have to scroll back too far in my phots to find a great example of time spent with amazing Christian sisters who encourage and inspire me! Here we are at a Christmas acapella concert the inimitable Sara (second from left) organized and we got to enjoy and help out at.

Another way in which my faith was strengthened during this time was returning to my faith roots. I was raised in a fairly conservative Evangelical church and we were taught not only to obey and revere scripture, but to read it, memorize it, meditate on it and share it. As a result of VBS sword drills, Sunday school flannel boards, weekly high school Bible studies and hundreds of scripture saturated sermons I know the Bible pretty well.

So I went back to it when I started to worry and doubt that I had gotten this whole how to follow Jesus and live biblically thing wrong. I had questions – questions based on almost everything I had been taught, the verses I had memorized and the sermons I had heard. Weren’t we called to love our neighbor? To do for the least of these? To loose the chains of injustice? Even a cursory survey of scripture confirms for me that, yes, yes we are. I think it takes a whole lot of biblical gymnastics to create the Jesus I often hear about from some of the louder and most influential US Christian leaders, a Jesus that cosigns cruelty over kindness, endorses materialism over sacrifice, applauds individualism over community or commands national loyalty over Kingdom loyalty. I return again and again to the Word of God I was raised to love and live by when I begin to doubt my path.

Below is an incredibly small sample of the scripture that remind me of who God is, who he created me to be and what he calls me, and all his children, to.

 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. Deuteronomy 10:18

This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. Deuteronomy 27:19

Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Psalm 82:3

Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God. Proverbs 14:31

Side note – I preached a sermon and wrote a blog years ago about all of the justice I found in the Proverbs which, I think, is not a book we often associate with the call to do justice. Turns out – it’s everywhere!

Learn to do right; seek justice.Defend the oppressed.Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. Isaiah 1:17

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Isaiah 58:6 & 7

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. Jeremiah 22:3

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,to set the oppressed free,to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Luke 4: 18 & 19

 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Matthew 25: 35 & 36

This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. James 1:27