Jesus and Voting for Donald Trump

Everyday my newsfeed seems full of Donald Trump. Now because he is officially the Republican nominee for president of the United States. This alone is unbelievable and horrifying, but far more harrowing is the resurgence of Facebook posts and blogs from people asserting that God told them to support Donald Trump.

Now I'm pretty sure if Jesus was here on earth he wouldn't be engaging too much in politics. I am quite confident if Jesus was here today he would be spending time with those in poverty, seeing the people often unseen by society, acknowledging and validating people's humanity, and engaging in the lives and stories of those marginalized for their skin color, sexuality, or religion.

I'm not sure if Jesus would vote or not, so I'm not going to be one to say who he would vote for. But I'm very sure that if Jesus were to vote, he would not vote for Donald Trump. 

You can tell me that I don't know that, because I'm not God. And this would be true. I cannot speak for God. But I can talk about the Jesus I know, and I can assure you the things that Donald Trump says and does are vastly out-of-line with the way of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus spent his time with those hated most by society. He spent time with the hungry and sick. He spoke to women, which was already radical because he actually stopped to acknowledge their equal humanity, but he went even farther and spoke to the women no one associated with. He touched people who were sick and dying, often making himself "unclean" according to the religious tradition of the day just to with with someone cast out by society. He entered the homes of the "sinner," and spent so much time with those on the margins that the people in power whispered about him behind closed doors. 

Jesus spoke with such radical love and inclusivity that it threatened hierarchical power structures and got him killed. Donald Trump sits at the top of a pyramid of power, using his power to further marginalize, using fear to control people, and spreading hatred and lies. 

Jesus went to those cast out and built relationships with them, the very ones Donald Trump promises to keep and kick out of this "great country." 

In fact, in line with Donald Trump's racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism, lack of compassion for the poor, and so much more, Jesus probably wouldn't even be allowed to enter the United States. 

But if he made it in, I think Jesus would spend time with Donald Trump. Not out of support, because nothing about the way of Jesus in line with what Donald Trump stands for, but because Jesus acknowledged the humanity of everyone. Jesus ate dinner with the oppressed and the oppressor. He ate dinner with the tax collectors too, the ones taking advantage of the system and using it to further themselves while stealing from those already too poor to pay taxes to the government, much less the additional "fees" added on by the tax collectors that went into their own pockets. Jesus spent time with them too. And his love for them, willingness to engage with their humanity also, changed the hearts of the tax collectors (like Matthew) who followed him. I do not believe Jesus would ever vote for Donald Trump, but I think he'd at least try to have dinner with him. 

Whether Trump would ever accept the invitation to dinner with a Middle Eastern poor man is another question entirely. 

Overdosing

We’d asked him to leave a few times, given a 15-minute warning, a 5-minute warning, and finally a we-are-actually-closed-now-please-leave warning. He wasn’t going. I left the room for a moment and when I came back, he was in the cleaning closet, facing the wall.                                                                                     

“Come on, Charlie,” Margo said as she gently grabbed his arm and steered him out of the closet. She guided him, stumbling, out the door. I followed, carrying his jacket and scarf, which had fallen to the floor. Ryan was on the phone, “No, no, we don’t need you anymore. Looks like he is leaving.”

We try not to call the cops on our Network folks, but if a client is clearly and possibly dangerously under the influence of alcohol or drugs, is violent or using violent language, or refuses to leave after being asked and warned, sometimes we have no other choice. This is never to get one of our folks in trouble. It is a last-resort when we have no other options.

We walked Charlie outside and kept checking to see if he was okay. I wasn’t sure what, but he was clearly on something and long-gone. I tried to give him back his stuff. I wasn’t sure he could keep ahold if it, his arms didn’t seem capable of grasping the bundle. His eyes wide open were only half visible from under the black beanie pulled down low, and they didn’t seem to really be registering what was in front of him.

He stumbled off, veering and tripping down the sidewalk. He didn’t seem okay. I felt worried. I watched for a moment, and was about to turn back inside when I saw him stumble while crossing the street. He pitched forward, falling headlong across the white lines marking the crosswalk. He didn’t move.

I froze for a second, then sprinted over to him with a sense of panic. He was lying on his back, feet on the ground and knees bent to face upward, eyes open wide and unmoving. I tried to grab his hand, but it was limp, he wouldn’t grab on so I could help him up.

It was like he wasn’t there, just a wide-eyed body with no mind operating it.

I’ve quite possibly never felt so helpless in my life. Laying in the middle of the road, he was clearly in danger, and I could not lift him out of the way. I thought maybe he'd had a seizure, with the wide, unseeing, unmoving eyes. I hollered for someone to get Ryan and then Brad came over to help Charlie to his feet. I again gathered all his fallen things and we walked him over to a building where we could prop him against the wall. We tried to help him sit down, but I don’t think he could. So Brad just stood here, holding him so he wouldn’t fall back down. He couldn’t even stand on his own.

We waited while Ryan called 9-1-1.

Charlie was a shell. He never looked at us, his eyes still wide and just staring off. He looked paralyzed or petrified, like I imagine a character from Harry Potter would look under a spell or enchantment. It was as though the human inside his body had disappeared.

When the fire truck finally came and the medical responders piled out, I felt oddly reluctant to leave him. I asked multiple times if he’d get to keep his things, which I was still clutching like a safety blanket. Hesitant, I finally handed them over.

My mind went to Michael Lee Marshall. My memory selected the buried image of frail Michael Lee restrained by a number of large police officers in the sheriff’s department where he later died from asphyxiation induced by the brutality of his restraint. I recalled a comment by a Network staff guy about how hard it is to call the police when sometimes our guys don’t make it out of the jail alive.

I know paramedics and fire department aren’t police, but they all have sirens and authority and I get worried and scared sometimes.

How to navigate this broken world?

Where Charlie was getting high on an aerosol can of Old Spice and there’s nothing we can do but call 9-1-1 because we aren’t trained to help someone who is overdosing. But sometimes the very ones tasked to “serve and protect” don’t because the system is so deeply riddled with racism and injustice, and you never know what could happen to in those places, especially to someone black and homeless.

How awful, to be the one who called the cops on someone who just needed help and detox and ends up dying in custody. I couldn’t live with myself.

All those thoughts raced through my mind as I tore myself away from the red and blue flashing lights and the men in navy blue shirts checking Charlie’s vitals.

What are we to do? When we aren’t equipped to help someone overdosing, mentally ill, or violently reacting to their fear or mental illness, we should be able to trust the people we call. I’ve met some really amazing people serving on the police force, like the homeless outreach officer who drove two of our folks to Network a few weeks ago because she didn't want them to have to walk such a long way when they've been sick. But in a world where policing is run by a system so deeply entrenched in systemic racism and oppression, people get churned out reflecting those systems. So what sort of cop will show up when we call, and will this homeless black man live?

It’s overwhelming.

I’m left unsure of where to go and what to after days like this. I want to curl up and cry in my hopelessness, I wanted to while I stood beside Charlie. Standing there with this far-gone man, this precious human being in front of me who I so wanted to help, yet all I could do was stand by and obsessively ask the paramedic if Charlie would get his things back before I surrendered them.

How to be the living room of Christ in this hurting world wrecked by racism and injustice? How to be the living room of Christ in a world that doesn’t often see our homeless folks as humans? How can I trust my friends to actually be cared for if they are viewed as dispensable nuisances?

Sometimes all I can do is cry. Submerged in an overdose of my own helplessness and weakness in moments of incredible brokenness, all I can do is speak out the one thing that’s left…

Jesus.

Untitled :: Poetry

Lips press 
'Gainst forehead 
Of a broken child
Shame rolls in tears
Streaks down a face
Marred with hurt
And hidden pain
Grace's tears
Fall faster
To wash pain
Away
Love kisses forehead
Of a beloved child
Human with human
God with us
And the Spirit dances
While the
Son of Man kisses
A child of God

Heaven, Hell and a Disoriented Faith

     Let us imagine we have died and are waiting to stand before the judgement seat of God... Try to imagine how it feels to look over your life - what you are happy about and what you regret... Now imagine being brought into a magnificent room within which there is a great white throne. Upon this throne is a breath-taking being who shines as if full of light...
     After a moment the one who sits on the throne begins to speak: 'My name is Lucifer and I am the angel of light. I have cast your God from his throne and banished Christ to the real of eternal death. It is I who hold the keys to this kingdom. I am the gatekeeper of paradise and it is for me to decide who shall enter and who shall be forsaken.' 
     Now imagine that this angel stretches out his vast arms and says, 'In my right hand I hold eternal life and in my left I hold death. For those who would bow down and acknowledge me as Lord, I shall grant them safe passage into paradise, but for those who refuse I will vanquish to death with their Christ.'
     After this the devil moves his arms so that each of his hands is placed before you and asks, 'What do you choose?'
     It is only as we experience Holy Saturday [the day between Christ's death on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday] that we can ask whether we would follow Christ regardless of heaven or hell, regardless of pain or pleasure, whether we would follow int he midst of the uncertainty that Holy Saturday brings to our lives. It is only here that we can ask if we have truly offered ourselves to God for no reason other than the desire to offer ourselves as a gift. Faith does not die here, rather it is forged here. 
                                                                            -Peter Rollins, How (Not) To Speak Of God


I picked up one of Peter Rollins' books, The Orthodox Heretic, about six months ago, and read the above story for the first time. Like many of the other tales in the book, it challenged and pushed my faith in an entirely new capacity. I have found myself frequently contemplating what faith truly means, what we are honestly desiring as Christians, what this Christian faith is actually about.

Because too often, it seems to be about what we can get, not what we give. Often the Christian faith gets boiled down to where you will go when you die.

I remember going to a Christian summer camp when I was sixteen. At the time I genuinely enjoyed my time and my faith grew, though I'm sure if I attended it now I would have strong disagreements with the theology preached. It's a beautiful thing that God can use almost anything for our growth. But anyways, the last day of the camp was "evangelism day." I clearly remember awkwardly walking around the college campus with other young teens, pamphlets in hand, the question "Do you know where you're going when you die?" emblazoned in white on the black cover. Approaching random strangers, we asked them this question. Depending upon their response, we would open a different tab of the pamphlet which led them to more questions, further answers, and eventually a place where, if their "faith" was not already "placed in God" they could pray a prayer and do so, thus assuring they would not burn in the fiery pits of hell upon death. I remember not being very fond of that part of the camp, though at the time my reasons for disliking this form of "evangelism" were not yet formed.

That's merely one example of the many, many pamphlets, "evangelism" trainings, and various other plans I have seen and learned about. All are designed to get people to one place: praying the Sinner's Prayer* to earn their get-out-of-hell-free card and can hangout in eternal bliss forever.

But to me, it all misses the true point of faith, which is not to simply avoid the suffering of fiery hell by any means possible. This mentality reduces faith in Christ to something deeply selfish, something that actually has very little to do with God at all.

What if being saved from hell or going to heaven were removed from the equation and faith was simply about knowing Jesus? What if being a Christian was just about Christ? What if serving others had to do with just seeking to look like Christ, rather than good works done in the hopes of earning more jewels in one's crown?


When Christians worry so much about where they'll go after death, the focus of faith is shifted. Like the long, long ago days when people thought the world revolved around the earth, rather than the sun. They thought the earth was the biggest, most important thing in the universe, because it was the most important thing to their understanding of the world. If heaven, eternal paradise, is the most important thing, they miss the point that the sun [Son] is actually the center, and without the glory of that brilliant light, nothing else can exist.

*Note that the "Sinner's Prayer" is not actually in scripture as a means of salvation.

Charleston Hearbreak

The words in my brain
won't stop pounding out the names
The killers and the killed

And the news stream
seems
to be blurring all the lines
So that a black boy killed
is labeled a thug
but somehow a white boy killer
can't be a terrorist,
poor boy's actions just
product of a deranged mind

What about our deranged society
because they still took him in alive
But for some
possibly stolen Cigarillos
that officer knew nothing about
they killed him

He couldn't breathe
and they killed him

He was playing in a park
and they killed him

She was driving a stolen car
and they killed her

She was sleeping in her bed
AND THEY KILLED HER

But they, were just doing their duty

And the numbers keep on rising
will we notice when
our streets literally run red
with blood like
the French Revolution images in my high school history books?

My heart's so broken
tears can't even come
I'm split wide open
When will it all be done?

Cuz we've been crying for ages,
"Lord, come soon"

Oh dear revolutionary Jesus
I know you're here with us
But please change things soon
Because Your people
aren't doing much
too much of the time

And today
I'm out of grace
for people who just won't see
Who call the dead kids "thugs,"
and the live killers just "crazy"
Would they say the same if it was their kid
lying four hours dead, in the streets

Dear revolutionary Jesus,
may the blind see
and your deaf children hear
And may my heart remain broken
Until in justice is no more
Come soon.

Caitlyn Jenner, Homelessness, Racism and Christians

This isn't really a blog about Caitlyn Jenner, it's about how we respond to Caitlyn Jenner.

This isn't a blog about whether it is right or wrong to change one's identity, because I believe I should spend more time getting the log out of my own eye than picking the speck from the eyes of those around me. With my remaining time, I want to spend it like Jesus did, seeing and loving the human being in front of me - regardless of their gender identity, race, sexuality, socio-economic status, education, or religion.

In the past week since Vanity Fair released their magazine cover with Caitlyn Jenner on the cover, I have watched the internet blow up, and a lot of the responses have honestly broken my heart.

I posted this on my Facebook page, "You know what makes me sad? All the "Christians" who are blowing up about Caitlyn Jenner and starting Facebook arguments about how wrong being trans is, but have spent the past year turning a blind eye to the sins of racism, oppression, and injustice in our country and world. Let's spend our energy fighting for peace, love, and justice, not tearing down people we don't know without stopping to ask and listen. The question, "what would Jesus do?" should preface your Facebook posts and your real-life interactions. Remember who Jesus hungout with, remember the Samaritan woman He befriended."

There are a lot of people who align themselves with the religious institution of Christianity who have voiced some very strong opinions about Caitlyn Jenner, and as a result about all transgender individuals. Many of these comments have varied from disrespectful to downright cruel, from calling Caitlyn Jenner disgusting and a disgrace, to simply refusing to call Caitlyn "her" and refer to her as "Bruce."

Here's the thing. I think if Jesus were standing here today, He'd call her Caitlyn. I don't care to argue God's opinion on changing one's gender. I don't know God's mind, and so I won't pretend to speak authoritatively on something that has not been revealed to me. But whether He agreed with her gender change or not, I believe Jesus would respect her desire to be called Caitlyn.

Because here's what I do know about God. I know God is love. And I know God met and meets people where they're at. God is this beautiful person who comes to where we are, He doesn't expect us to ascend the mountain top to find Him after becoming perfect on our own strength. He comes wherever we are, and stays there with us until His unending love has moved us.

I know this because of the people Jesus spent time with when He as on earth.

He ate dinner with tax collectors, people who took money form the poor to put extra food on their own tables, people truly hated by nearly everyone. He spent time with prostitutes, He even let one touch His feet and wash them with perfume. He got near enough to lepers to heal them, people who were so unclean with a highly contagious disease they couldn't be near the cities and had to live outside the city far away from friends and family, He got close enough to heal them.

Once Jesus met a woman at a well around noon. In those times, women went to the well each day to draw water, they typically went in the mornings because it was cooler and they could avoid the heat. Noon was the hottest part of the day, when no one would usually be at the well, and this was the time this woman, the Samaritan Woman, went to the well. She went at this time to avoid all the other women, because of her lifestyle and the choice she had made, she was looked down on and considered a disgraceful woman. And Jesus met her there, risking His own reputation by talking to "that kind of woman." And He saw her, a woman in need of love. He met her right where she was at, loved her in that moment, loved her as "that kind of woman."

This is the Jesus I wish Christians looked a little bit more like.

We spend so much time drawing lines in the sand instead of getting to know a fellow human being. So much time is spent preserving the wall between "us" and "them," focusing on what keeps us separate instead of what makes us all human, what makes us all divine beings created in the image of the Almighty God of the universe? Flawed creation, by our own doing, yes...but His divine creation nonetheless.

I think if we spent a little more time seeing humanity as God's precious creation, we'd have less time to spend pointing fingers and posting angry, hurtful, and damaging things on our Facebook pages.

What I've found is that the more I interact with people who are different than I (gender, sexuality, religion, race, education, housing situation, mental state), the less I see a "them" and "they" and the more I delight in being an "us." See, it's really easy to judge "them," because they are separate from me. I'm not grouped in with whatever they aren't doing right, whatever is wrong about them. It keeps me clean while allowing me to still cast the judgements. But when it becomes about us, I suddenly am confronted with my own issues, with whatever isn't right about myself. And that's harder to deal with, but that also breeds a space of compassion and empathy, because suddenly we are all humans together, all broken together, and all beautiful together.

It's easy to tell people you don't know how they should live, what they should do, what they're doing wrong, and how they should change. And we like to do that. Keep people impersonal, walk up to a stranger on a street corner and tell them to clean up their act and get right with God, stop living this "life of sin." But what I've discovered is when I get to know people, I no longer want to tell them how they should live, what they're doing wrong, and what they need to do to be a better person.

I think it is in this space of relationship, of seeing what we have in common rather than our differences, that we see God.

See, when we draw all these lines between "us" and "them," we lose humanity. When young black women, men, and trans individuals are shot by the police and media call them "thugs" and say they deserved it, or ignore peaceful protestors in Baltimore and call all the protests in Ferguson riots. When poverty is criminalized and homelessness is made illegal. When someone on the street corner with a cardboard sign is labeled a lazy drunk undeserving of money who should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps. When someone comes out and is suddenly labeled a "sinner" going to hell...

Jesus didn't put up these walls. He drew designs in the sand and asked the man who was sinless to throw the first stone. And when none could stand blameless and all had walked away, He was still there to kneel down by a naked, shaking, shamed woman and held out His hand to bring her to safety.

When we put up these walls, we miss Jesus.

One of my favorite places in all of Denver is The Network Coffee House. It's a place for my homeless friends to hangout, a safe space to have coffee and relax without fear of the weather or harassment. It's a place to be human. It's where I've learned the most, and where I meet Jesus every week in the face of my broken friends who simply know they are loved. They know they don't deserve it, and they know they are His children.

What I see more and more clearly, the more I interact with the poor and those who, on the outside, look different than me, is that we are truly all the same. We should be united in the fact that we are created in the image of God, the divine in us. And we should be united in the fact that we are all broken, sinful and flawed, the dirt. Dirt and divine, that is who we are. Created out of dust into the image of the Divine. What a beautiful God to create us and love us so spectacularly.

And so as I see it, my job is not to inform people to stop living in sin, God can handle that if He desires. My job is to follow the greatest commandment, to love God, myself, and my neighbor. Because if I love God, I will love myself, as His image-bearer. And I will love my neighbor as myself, for I will see they too are created in the image of God. Beautiful and lovely just as they are.

What Does God Look Like?

What does God look like?

God looks like Jesus.

Often the religion of Christianity says God looks like a judge, says God looks like an old, long-bearded white man far away from humanity who demands perfection and demands glory and homage. Sometimes God is painted as harsh, as a law-maker and rule-enforcer. Rarely is He loving, but rather He is judge and executioner, casting punishment and spitting fire to burn the disobedient. Sometimes people "become Christians" because they're just so afraid of hell. Sometimes Christians forget it's not about fear and escaping hell - it's not even about going to Heaven - it's about being in love with Jesus and longing to be with Him. On this side of eternity and the other.

So what, who, does God look like?

God looks like Jesus.

And in Jesus we see love and forgiveness before repentance. We see a man scorned by the law-keepers because He spent time with the law-breakers. We see a man who said "come to Me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." A man who helped those who felt worthless to know they were loved because He wasn't afraid of what people would think if He was with "people like them." A man who saw those who so often went unseen. Who gave them the precious gift of time and touch. We see a man killed by the religious because He made a way for the lowly. A man whose life was ruled by mercy and grace. A man who is Love.

What does God look like?

God looks like Love.

Who does God look like?

God looks like Jesus.

I'm Still a Christian

“You still call yourself a Christian?”

I’d spent the past hour discussing theology, faith, the poor, racism, Ferguson, injustice, the church, and who knows what else, with a fellow follower-of-Jesus-Christ. 

This question wasn’t formed as an accusatory response to something, but an almost confused, slightly surprised, inquiry.

I wasn’t being asked if I was still a Christian because something I had done, said, or believed seemed to contradict the teachings of Jesus. Rather I was being asked if I still chose to identify myself with Christianity, to label myself as a Christian.

This question surprised me. Until that moment I hadn’t really strongly considered not calling myself a Christian, and so until that moment had not really formed a reason for why I still do.

“Christian” today is a loaded term. People more often think of churches with crosses and steeples, rules and street preachers, judgement and passive people, pamphlets and tracts handed out on street corners, and a prayer that supposedly solves all the world’s problems.

Christianity as a religious institution has, like so many other religions, done great harm as well as great good. It has, again like so many other religions, taken teachings and used them to justify incredible evil (the Crusades, slavery, oppression of women, just to name a few).

The term “Christian,” when it was originally used, literally meant follower-of-Christ. It meant living a life that mirrored that of Christ, in such a radical way that the government continually sought to take the Christians out because their radical love and kindness was seen as a threat.

Now that's the kind of Christian I can identify as!

But Christianity, Christians, and the church today are characterized by apathy and passivity. Collecting dust on church pews while the world outside is in desperate need of the unconditional love they claim to possess. If you have received beautiful, priceless, unconditional love and grace...shouldn’t you share it?

Yet somehow, Christianity has become more about “saving souls from fire and damnation,” a religion colored with brimstone and a red horned devil, instead of caring for the oppressed and marginalized, caring for the poor, whether their poverty be physical or spiritual. Somehow Christianity, once marked with compassion and radical love, has become stained with hypocrisy and judgement.

At the end of the book of Matthew, Jesus gives His followers a command, now termed the “Great Commission,” telling them to go into the world and make disciples of all nations, teaching them all Jesus had taught them.

This command was not about getting people to pray some certain prayer* so their lives would magically become wonderful and they could have 100% assurance they’d go to heaven when they died regardless of how the rest of their life looked simply because they had prayed a prayer.

The Great Commission is about living out the teachings of Jesus, which in turn makes disciples, changes our world, and brings about the Kingdom.

It is not about following enough rules to be perfect, not doing x, y, or z your whole life to be the “best Christian” out there. Jesus didn’t talk about following moral codes, but He did talk about loving God first, loving ones neighbor as one loves oneself, and caring for the poor and oppressed.

In Matthew 23, Jesus calls out the pharisees and teachers of the law.

“You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’”

How sad that when I read those verses I immediately think of the church today? Their hearts were far from God because they were so obsessed with rules that were no longer about honoring God but had instead become about making themselves look good. Whitewashed tombs, as Jesus calls the pharisees a few chapters later. Christianity today is a whitewashed tomb, “beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean, appearing to people as righteous but on the inside are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

Jesus continues, “You have neglected the more important matters of the law - justice, mercy, and faithfulness.”

Let’s break this down even more, to see what true Christianity is all about.

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

James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans in their distress.”

Psalm 82:3-4, “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless, maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

Christianity is about following Christ. Following Christ is about living as He did. It is about loving Him, and loving others, and defending the poor and oppressed, the marginalized, the widow, the orphan.

Living a life like Christ means living in a way that invites others to participate. It is more about actions than words. It isn’t about beating people with Bibles until they fall on their knees to regurgitate a prayer, it is about hanging out with the homeless over a cup of coffee.

It’s about sitting down to hear someone’s story even if you have different beliefs and really just listening, not trying to hijack the conversation, twist it to your agenda, so you can get to the part where you get to talk about what you believe and why they should too.

How sad is it, that Christian’s actually acting like Christ (remember Ghandi’s quote?), would be so confusing and surprising?

Let’s remember the pharisees had a beef with Jesus for hanging out with “sinners,” tax collectors, and prostitutes.

Now if that’s who Jesus hung with, without judgement and forcing them to change who they were before they knew Him, then that’s who I spend time with. It’s not my job to change someone, to save them from hell, to convince them to live one way or another. As a follower-of-Christ my job is to love and serve, as Christ did. That’s a faith that walks. My faith** walks, my faith doesn’t sit in a church-building trying to be perfect.

And so when you ask me if I still call myself a Christian, I have decided my answer is yes. Not because I align myself with the religion of Christianity, but because I align myself and define myself as a follower of Jesus Christ. And I will continue to call myself a Christian because I know my faith walks, and maybe meeting more Christians who are followers-of-Christ instead of worshipers-of-rules will change what “Christian” means. Maybe calling myself a Christian and then actually acting like a real, Christ-following one can change a few people’s minds about that Jesus guy. Maybe they’ll even follow Him too.




*Note that the infamous “Sinner’s Prayer” is not actually in the Bible.

**My faith is not about a God who loves people based on their skin color, sexuality, or gender. My faith is about a God who died for all people, so all people could be be free.

Christmas Heartbreak

Tonight, my heart breaks.

It's Christmas Eve. We celebrate a birth, a child come from Heaven to Earth. But too often in the midst of our celebration and beautiful lights, we forget the true circumstances of that birth.

We forget He was born in a stable. We forget He was born into a poor, poor family to an unwed, teenage mother. We forget He was born to an unknown people, in an unknown place. We forget Nazareth was the ghetto. We forget He was despised and rejected, we forget He did not have an appearance that attracted people, that infact He was despised and held in low esteem.

My heart breaks because Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy, peace, love. A time to remember, a time to celebrate, a time with family. And tonight countless families must go through this season without loved ones, because for many families this is the first Christmas without their babies. My heart breaks for the mothers, families and friends of ‪#‎MikeBrown‬,‪#‎EricGarner‬, ‪#‎TamirRice‬, ‪#‎AntonioMartin‬, ‪#‎AiyanaStanleyJones‬,‪ #‎TrayvonMartin‬ and so many others.

And my heart breaks because so many hearts are NOT breaking for these families. Because so many people are diverging the conversation from LIFE to excuses and reasons. He did this, she did that, the police were justified, it's because they didn't have a father-figure, if only they didn't grow up there, if this, if that. My heart breaks because people try to change‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ to all lives matter, unable to understand that of course all lives matter and no one is denying that, yet our world says black lives don't matter, and we are saying yes, yes they do.

My heart breaks because the what happened, the "facts," the who, why, and how, are not, and cannot be, the prevailing conversation. My heart breaks because the Jesus whose birth we celebrate tomorrow came to earth and died to have victory over sin and death and fight for justice and mercy because love wins. And when we change the conversation to facts and justifications, we forget the true conversation must start at the reality that we are all human beings, we are equal in our humanity, we deserve love, justice, and equality, we deserve freedom. We should get to a point where we don't need #BlackLivesMatter because our world is finally acknowledging that all lives, colors and cultures are beautiful, equal, and loved.

My heart breaks because this season is about love, and yet tonight so many can do nothing but weep for the brothers, sisters, daughters, friends, fathers, uncles, mothers lost. And my heart breaks because instead of having compassion, feeling love, we try to say we're in a post-racism age, white privilege doesn't exist, and the cops were justified in shooting yet another black kid.

So maybe we can take a step back. Before fighting, debating, and shouting in hopes our opinion come out loudest, let's think before we speak. And before we speak let's try love. Let's try compassion. Let's try mercy. And let's try justice. And let's remember that the Jesus whose birth we celebrate came to break down an unjust system and fight for justice and mercy. Whether you believe He was the Son of God or not, you cannot deny His teachings are centered on love and justice. So let us love one another, because of the deep abiding love we ourselves rest in.

 

Prophecy of Protests

But Love 
hung on a tree

Bruised body, blood flowed

Love died so 
we could be free

Love didn't look at skin or color

Love didn't look at nationality,

legality

Love look at souls

and said we're brothers

Blood flowed

for every nation, 

tribe and 

tongue

But we've forgotten. 

And now 

the prophets of the streets

crying like Pentecostal priests

Beating chests and

stomping feet

Begging

those choosing blindness

to see

See our pain

Feel our fury

Our righteous anger

rages

against injustices you pretend 
can remain unseen

You were born with this freedom

to close your eyes

We were born into a world 

stabbing us from behind

So don't bring your Bibles,

shove your tracts 

drag us down aisles

You weren't here from the beginning

Fighting to break chain,

set captives free

"We have nothing to lose but our chains"

Our battle cry is freedom

justice,

equality for all

Jew and Gentile

Slave and free

Now the verses can read

Black and white

Upper class and lower

College educated, GED

You know, He's crying with us 

shouting, marching

Beating chest and

stomping feet

Don't think you're bringing Jesus to us

He's already here,

on the streets

Prophecy of protests

Righteous rage against

iniquity 

Jesus, the revolutionary

God with us

On the ground with us

Love doesn't look at

skin or color

And Love hung from

a tree

It is our duty to fight for our freedom

Love has already won the day

And we have nothing to lose but our chains

We will fight to lose our chains

- - - - -

                Ferguson has changed me. Broken me. Built me. My heart breaks again everyday, and the pieces are held together by the community around me. I do not yet know fully what Ferguson has done in my life, and we have yet to see the full extent of what it will do in our world. But I sense the world changing around me, paradigms are shifting, in my own life and all around me. I am beyond grateful to be part of this movement, and to those who have given themselves to fight for justice.

Justice and Jesus

Someone asked me what "got me into social justice work."

I didn't really know how to respond.

I told him nothing really "got me into social justice work," that I honestly couldn't pinpoint a time when suddenly justice work began to matter to me.  I can't imagine not caring.

I told him that I've always seen brokenness and longed for restoration. From a young age I found myself wanting to help people, the earliest I remember is being eight and wanting to adopt kids when I grew up. It was never a question, for me, of if I would help people, but rather who I would help. Because the reality is my heart is constantly in a state of brokenness.

My heart was breaking.
My heart is break
ing.

For me, Jesus and justice have never been separate. Loving Jesus and living out that love in acts of justice, compassion, kindness and mercy are utterly inseparable concepts.

I got lucky. I was raised in the church and had the unique joy of being raised by a family and in a community that practiced what it preached, looked around and reaching out to those in need.

For example. I remember when I was little, maybe 7 or 8, I had a friend named Dimesha. I honestly don't know how we knew her, or where she lived, but I know she was at our house a lot. She was like a sister to me. I think she lived with her grandma, and somehow we kinda adopted her. My mom homeschooled her along with the rest of us kids for a bit. She was always over to play, for holidays, birthdays. She belonged. As a kid, that was completely normal. I never questioned why she was there, why my parents would add yet another child to the many they already had, why they would care for a kid not their own, why she would become one of their own. Looking back, I can see how unique that was. Parents so willing to lay down comfort and normalcy to care for someone who just needed someone.

Justice and Jesus were never separate concepts. I was raised hearing about Jesus' love and seeing it lived out in the way my parents and my community cared for those around them.

So when my friend explained to me that most people involved in activism or social justice work have experienced some great injustice or oppression to propel them into justice-work, I had to respond that I didn't have a trigger point or a defining moment. I've simply always cared.

I honestly hesitate to say that because I feel like it's just me tooting my horn. But here's the thing. It's not. Because the reality is that Jesus and justice absolutely cannot be separated, and I've just been incredibly lucky that those never got separated for me.

The tragedy is that so many people do separate Jesus from justice-work, as if social movements and "sharing the Gospel" are separate actions.

See I think we've done a terribly thing in the world of Christianity by acting as if there is a difference between a "social Gospel" and one that you share with people on street corners and on airplanes that tells people they're a sinner in need of a savior.

The Gospel was never about praying a prayer that would save your soul from hell.

The Gospel is the good news of a God who cares so deeply for the oppressed that He died, conquered death, and rose victorious. The Gospel is about the Kingdom of God and restoring a broken world. And at some point we forgot that the Kingdom of God is here and now and that restoration isn't to be saved for some time far away with golden streets and angels floating on clouds. Restoration is for today.

And restoration is justice, mercy, compassion and grace.

The reality is, I shouldn't have to tell someone I'm a follower of Christ. My life should look so much like Jesus people don't even have to ask. Our lives should look so much like Jesus that people want to know Him.

And what does it look like to live like Jesus?

Justice, mercy, love, compassion and grace.

We are missing so much when Jesus gets boiled down to a few points and a pretty painted picture hung on a wall. We forget that actions speak louder than words, and that Jesus modeled that by caring for the poor. He came to heal the brokenhearted, set the oppressed free.

We, as people who say we follow Christ, cannot continue separating justice from Jesus. Justice is not something some are called to. If you believe in Christ, then you believe in a God who is heartbroken over injustice, who cares deeply for the poor and oppressed, who tells His people that true religion is caring for the poor and needy, for the widow and orphan in their need. If you believe in Jesus, you believe in a God who is restoring this broken world and that means binding up the brokenhearted, setting the oppressed free, releasing the captive.

We must stop asking if we will engage in a life of justice, but rather where God is leading us to live and give and who He is leading us to serve.

Justice and Jesus are inseparable, and that is why I have no moment of choosing to care about justice, other than the moment I chose to surrender my life to Christ.

- - - - - - - - 

I spent the past few weeks in Ferguson, MO, participating in non-violent protests about Mike Brown's death, the non-indictment of Darren Wilson, the mass incarceration of black and brown men in the US, and other systemic injustices. This experience has truly changed my life. As I just said, I've always cared about justice, my passion runs even deeper now. I'm processing the many things I have seen, the ways I've been challenged, the places I've grown. My faith and relationship with the Lord have grown and my eyes have been opened to seeing God as so much bigger than ever before. Over the next few weeks and months, I will be writing about this experience. Some of these writings will be more about what I've seen and more in regards to the issues regarding Mike Brown and this movement that has sprung from his tragic death, my experience in Ferguson, giving more information than the mainstream media gives, and such. I will also be writing about how this has challenged me and grown me as a person and in my faith. I'll share photographs, potentially some poetry, and the random ramblings of my 2:00AM brain (aka this post). Please engage with me, with questions, comments, concerns. I have been changed, I hope you will be too.

Eyes on False Prizes and Learning to See

 "Keep your eyes on Me, Katy. 

Not the goal, or what you perceive it to be. 

Keep your eyes on Me, I am the goal."

God spoke those words to me in January. Running along a deserted sidewalk in the wee hours of the morning in Daytona, it was nearing the end of my time at New Staff Training for Cru and I was contemplating (read: becoming increasingly anxious about) raising my finances to work for the organization. The giant, impossible, daunting task ahead of me. So wrapped up in what I'd do to get through the process and reach the goal of being fully-funded and on-campus, I was rapidly losing sight of the Rock higher than I (Psalm 61:2).

This still rings one of my strongest temptations. Failing to remember He is the goal. Knowing Him, communing with Him. The relationship, being "fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12), completely accepted, deeply cherished.

Knowing Him. Finding my identity completely at the foot of the cross. Being free because Grace hung on a tree and Love died for me. That's the goal. To be free in His love. 

I'm grateful for God teaching me lessons more than once, because I'm apparently a very slow learner. And this is something He has spoken to me again and again, "I want you to be free, Katy." And that freedom comes from His love. His love alone breaks the chains of darkness in our lives and conquers death in this world. 

Whenever I ask God, "What do you want from me?" His consistent response has been, "Your heart." 

Not my actions or dreams. Not what I do or what I say. Me. He just wants me! Not what I do, how much I serve, not how many people I tell about Him or how often my knees hit the floor and I kneel down to pray. 

Me. He just wants me. My heart is enough. 

And that just doesn't make sense to my black-and-white, give-and-take manner of thinking. 

If you were standing

at the foot of the tree

looking up at Me

You'd still be saying, 

"Come down,

I'm not worth it"

Because, my Katy

You're still trying to earn this

But it's grace

Grace beautiful and free

Grace hanging from a cross

Love bleeding on a tree

For thee

And so, too often, I keep my eyes fixed on the wrong goal, a false prize. But His grace is enough, and I'm learning to see with new eyes. Me. Enough. Not because of who I am, but because of what He's done. He is the goal, and my eyes must stay fixed on Him as I run His race. 

Knowing Him, and being fully known. That is the goal, and in that goal I find the freedom I so desperately seek.