Persecution Complex

"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

-2 Corinthians 12: 9

The above Bible verse is an answer to prayer.  In context it is an answer to the Apostle Paul, when he complains about the "thorn" that was given to him in his flesh, and about the fact that other people seemed to have much cooler visions of heaven than he did.  In other words, when Paul starts throwing himself a pity party, God says, "knock it off!"

So... so... so...

I guess same gender marriage is now a thing across our great nation.

I suspect you probably know what I think about this.  I'm not gloating.  I don't want to rub it in the faces of those who disagree with actions of either SCOTUS or with the Presbyterian Church (USA), which sort of fought this dragon a few months ahead of time.  I would like to say that some of the reactions to last week are causing me pastoral concern. 

Let me be as frank as I possibly can: losing cultural hegemony and privilege is not tantamount to persecution.  I know, it feels uncomfortable, to be shown that the "world" no longer agrees with your belief system and values, but let's be honest, if you follow Jesus, the world never agreed with you, or even really liked you.

Right now the artist formerly known as the Religious Right in the "glory days" of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush is sort of like a clique of once popular folks who bullied and intimidated their way around the whole school.  But a little queer kid stood up and punched them in the nose and now they're not the big man on campus any more.  The faculty (at least 5 out of 9) are supporting the little guy and saying that the big clique can't tell them what to do any more.  Yes, they still have a lot of people on their side, yes they once truly did set the trends and the tone of the entire body, but they don't have that right any more.

However, that does not make them persecuted.

Furthermore, I don't think it means that our culture has suddenly become a godless moral morass waiting suck us into an apocalypse. If God didn't strike us down for 400 years of slavery, for genocide of the Native population, for sitting on our hands while the Nazis stormed through Europe, for dropping not one, but two atomic bombs on Japan, for keeping the world locked in fear of a nuclear holocaust for over 50 years, for still failing to deal with the systemic oppression of people of color, not to mention the rather lackluster way we have shown our Christian "love" to LGBTQ people.  I don't think this decision is going to tip the scales.

I don't want to see persecution, I've talked to people from parts of the world where it actually happens.  I know that Christians around the world are facing the rather grim reality of dying for their faith, and because I find these stories so harrowing, it makes me a little skittish when I hear people who are angry about this decision talk like, now we're at the same place as Christians under Nero, or in Iraq under ISIS, and how God is going to bring down this nation because we have forsaken God's Holy Law.  So obviously I would like us to anathematize that sort of fundamentalist prattle.

There are, of course, many shades of gray in the reaction to the SCOTUS decision, not everyone who laments the decision is doing so with grand melodrama. Some are being quite reasonable and asking legitimate questions about what this says about our culture as a whole.  What does this mean for a nation that is founded on and for freedom of religion?  What is this going to do to our family structure?  How is the church going to deal with this?  Like it or not, we are rather wound up in the whole business of making people married.

The answers to these questions lies in the future, and so the answer to Paul's prayer is also an answer to our anxiety.  In our legal system, in order for one person to claim injury by another they must prove that they were somehow damaged or have had their rights violated.  A lot of people are "feeling" like they have had their rights violated.  In fact, feeling like you are victim of injustice in some way shape or form has become something of a national pass time.  The problem is that very few people can actually prove any damage.

This decision does not forebode persecution of hetero-normative Christian people any more than removing the Confederate Flag from South Carolina's state house implies the persecution of white people is right around the corner.  You can "feel" that it's true, but that does not make it true.

Time will tell if there are going to be negative consequences to this decision, but for right now there are mostly just a lot of feelings: some are happy, some are angry, some are just a little anxious.  As always if the anger and the anxiety win, there probably will be some bad days ahead.

But as so many have said recently, and as I thoroughly believe: love wins.

Love does not win through control.

Love wins through patience, kindness, gentleness, joy, peace, hope, and faith, in other words all the things that most of the angry, fearful and anxious people see as impossible and weak.

Wiser people than me have pointed out that the true measure of a society is not how well it's high born and powerful folks live, but how well it provides for the most vulnerable among them.  Giving equality and dignity to those who are not in the in crowd is not a bad idea, it is actually what God does for all of us.  Our prayers for strength often lead us to accept our weakness rather than conquer it, to endure trouble rather than eradicate our enemies.  "Power is made perfect in weakness."

Why are we afraid to be weak?  Haven't we been paying attention?