October 3, 2010

• Working for God is hard and the rewards are great

  This has been a very challenging week for me.  So much of what I have read and heard has made me heartsick.  I have read the accounts of four young men between the ages of eleven and eighteen who chose to end their young lives because of the way the people around them treated them because they were gay or were perceived to be gay.  I also read about an assistant attorney general in the State of Michigan who has created a blog to bully and intimidate the president of the student body at the University of Michigan because the young man is gay.  The office of the Attorney General is responsible to enforce the laws of the state and one of those laws protects against cyber bullying but there are no consequences for this man.  I have also followed the stories of a spiritual leader who is accused of using his influence with young men in a mentoring program to have sexual contact with them.  I do not know the truth of the allegations, I do not even know the extent of the bullying and harassment that drove the young men to suicide.  What I do know is that it is our underlying fear of that which is different that created a culture where these things could happen.  The assistant attorney general claims he is not attacking the president of the student body personally but is raising awareness of his radical homosexual agenda.  I believe what he believes to be a radical agenda is the desire to be treated like everyone else.  I think that is what we all want, to be treated like everyone else.  We don’t want to be like everyone else, what a boring world that would be.  We need to stop being afraid of people who think, act, or believe differently than we do.

   

  There are approximately sixty places in the Hebrew and Christian Testaments where we are told to “fear not.”  Not being afraid is part of what it means to be a people of faith.  God has told us that fear and worry will not change our circumstances.  We are liberated from them by our faith that God has the future planned for us.  Some may want to claim that God’s command to “fear not” means God is going to protect us from challenges and disappointments.  I do not find any support for this claim.  God told Abraham to fear not and look at all of the difficulties Abraham and Sarah faced as they lived out their faith.  God told Moses to fear not and he wandered the dessert for forty years leading a contentious people.  God told Mary to fear not and she was forced to flee with her child and she watched him being crucified.  God’s commandment to fear not is not because there is nothing that lies ahead of us to fear but rather the command is to not waste time worrying and get on about living your life and following God’s lead because God has promised to be with us through whatever we face.  The author of Lamentations, whether Jeremiah or someone else, forecasts for the people of Israel a bleak future.  They will have to live though the defeat and degradation of their nation but God will be with them and will bring them home.  They will have to work and provide for themselves and for each other so a remnant will survive to come home.  We all have to do the hard work of living out our faith if we hope to make a difference in this world.  We cannot afford to sit by and hope God will do something about teen suicide, or violence against transgender persons, or hate speech toward people who seek to find God through traditions different from our own.  We are called as people of faith to live a life of hope as an example that they can endure whatever life throws at them.  It is hard work but the rewards are great.

   

  In living out our faith, and our hope we grow stronger in adversity.  We learn for ourselves we can endure what life throws at us.  I firmly believe untested faith is no faith at all.  The reward of living out our faith in the tough times is that our faith becomes stronger and deeper.  We learn to trust our faith more and the more we trust our faith the less we have to fear and worry about.  We know the tough times and the challenges will come and we know God will be with us in those times and we will find our way through.  I believe the foundation for teen suicides is not all the bullying or the hate speech.  I believe they turn to suicide because no one has taught them and shown them that there are going to be bullies and they are going to hear hateful words thrown and them and they cannot allow themselves to be defined by what others think about them, do or say to them.  I believe there is too much emphasis in our culture on being popular and being accepted.  Young people think it is more important to be accepted than to be yourself.  They work so hard at having people like and accept them that they cannot handle when they are rejected and tormented by their peers.  They believe there will be no joy in their lives.  There a some great projects available, The Trevor Project, and the It Gets Better project, that have videos of people sharing their stories and their encouragement for the teens to hang in there and trust life will get better.  I think this is great, but I fear not enough to the at risk young people are going to see the videos and the ones who do may not believe the message.  What our young people need is people in their community to live out the truth that we can endure taunts and bullying and live happy lives.  In fact the best response to the bullying and hate speech is to prove you are not what they want you to believe you are and that you can be happy and productive despite what they want you to believe.  The truth is almost everyone has been bullied and called vile names at some time in their life.  For me, it was my unshakeable faith that there is a God and that God loves me that allowed me to get past the hatred.  It helped that there were people in my life that shared with me their love for me and their encouragement that I was not what others called me but I was what God created me to be.

   

  Each one of us has a job to do, to live out our faith, share our faith, and never let anyone believe they are defined by others or by their circumstances.  We must work hard at living out God’s unconditional love and acceptance for ourselves and sharing with others God’s unconditional love and acceptance for them.  It is hard work, but the rewards are great.  Amen.

  • 8:51 am
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