Sermon by Pastor Jay Bakker. For Sunday, March 21st, 2010. From Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn, New York.
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Thank you. Thank you for your courage, your truth and nurturing delivery. The gender divide is a problem in churches and increases in intensity when dealing with disabilities. For example, Asperger’s is often called the “extreme male brain” which upsets me because it assumes that all things logical are male. As a female with Asperger’s it is assumed that biblical knowledge and faith are ideas I cannot grasp. I have been “uninvited” from many churches, especially in the south. So thank you for being a light in the darkness.
Just finished listening to today on the morning commute. Great stuff. Completely refreshing after being in more formal settings for so many years. Would be thrilled to see more folks speaking up about rational religious discourse after so many years of bitter, immature infighting.
Ya know sometimes its the only excitement I have in my life to do battle with someone online after I have made any kind of concurring remarks on one or more of your videos on youtube. Sometime I used to do it intentionally just so I could draw some fire and sharpen my ability to scripturally give a defense for what it is that I believe. Granted I did get to a point that I yearned for a friendly voice and my patience began to wear thin with people who kept bringing up the same ol stuff it produced in me an apathy for people who very well may be seeking answers to their own conficts with scripture but just don’t know any other way to ask the tough questions. So now I respond by asking some questions to preface of conversations.
1. Are you upset about something I said? Have I offeneded you?
2. What is the goal of you initiating this conversation with me?
3. Do you want to have dialog or do you want to argue?
4. Would you like to pray together that the Holy Spirit might lead us into the Truth?
Asking questions like these can help difuse some of the hostility. I find that alot of christians arent really upset with me because I’m gay but moreso that I am a follower of Christ.
So I tell them ok if you can’t take me as a believer consider me a sinner then and treat me like Christ treated sinners. Or maybe treat me like the stranger that I am to you, someone you really know nothing about. You might be entertaining an angel unaware. in either case a believers response should be love. If it is not there then I don’t care who you are, This is the deal breaker on whether one is a child of God or not.
This is the big fear that I believe most christians face when they encounter the grace message. That OMG all these years I have had it wrong. It is why so much time is spent on justifying our behaviors and redefining what we call love. It’s so that I can justify the hateful things I do and say and still call it God. Still say that I am identified with the believers (..you will know them by their love for one another) when if fact I really am not.
The message of repent and turn that they preach so hard to others now is being rquired of them. Repent! (Change your minds from thinking you are made holy by works) Turn! (Accept the grace of God and share it with others.)It is the essence of the Gospel and the message we should be defending.
You are the one amoung us who will speak publically about the sins we all commit. It has been such a blessing for me to find a place and a people who love me unconditionally and except me and love me. It frustrates the hell out of me when people attack those I love and know have been on the same journey of faith that I am on and sometimes I think I am very quick to jump into these debates/arguments because it is easier for me to defend loved ones then myself (another thing we share Jay) point is, by defending them I am doing for them what I couldn’t do for myself. It is hard to experience the pain of being talked about and to know how it feels and to know those we love are experiencing that makes us mad. We are human and it will probably continue to happen even if it does frustrate us about ourselves when we do it.
SO the only thing I can say towards an answer for us is to continue to affirm one another, PRIVATELY message one another words of accountablity and encouragement when one of us begins to engage one of these fruitflies in fruitless conversation, and focus on the positives in our lives.
My husband says that I am far better at focusing on the criticisms that come my way then excepting the compliments…I am not alone in that, many of us are that way…SO please receive this and remember it the next time your teachings and abilities are challenged:
Jamie Charles Bakker, you are a beloved child of God. You are not perfect but God has taken care of that. God has given you a message to deliver that only you can deliver. Many will not like what you have to say but for others, like me, your words will lead straight to the heart of God. Don’t ever let your critics stop you from saying what God has given you to say and remember that honest constructive critisism and accountability will come from those who love you and want what is best for you NOT from those with an agenda. SO the next time your arms begin to burn and your fingers head for the keys DM one of your friends instead…we will be glad to fuss about it with you and then pray with you. You may even be the one to stop US from responding to them!!
And, by the way, even when you think you are not prepared and rambling…you STILL spoke the words I needed to hear!
@ Pastor Byron-
Wow. Very well put. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I want to say thank you all again. It was really great to be there this past Sunday for this message. Everyone made me feel welcome even though I was struggling a bit with feeling tired, shy and out of my element in NYC.
Interestingly, the topics of this discussion have not only remained on my heart, but I sort of had the chance to put them into practice when I saw this today:
Ouch.
But I’m trying to keep my conversation about that slice of “journalism” loving… loving… loving in the midst of outrage because I don’t want to become that which I have been hurt by, to stand on my own Pharisaical soap box.
And yet I struggle. I get confused about this issue when looking to Christ as a teacher by example as well as by word. When is something worthy of his outrage at the money-changers in the temple? (John 2:13-17).
Is that sort of outrage ever appropriate for us? Who are the money-changers in today’s temple/body of believers? If that outrage is ever appropriate, how is it best voiced? Where is the line between appropriate outrage and using that piece of scripture (and others) as justification for an unloving, judgmental and unforgiving spirit?
Without answers to those questions, I am left going back to my response to Jay’s poignant questions. How do we handle professing believers who rebuke the convictions of brothers and sisters because those convictions differ from their own? How do we handle those rebukes when made under the cloak of scripture, love, and “accountability”?
Prayer.
“But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”
Matthew 5:44
Although I’m sensitive to the idea that, in its historical context, this could be about another sort of “enemies,” I still think it can apply in the context of intra-faith persecution. It sure feels like persecution.
Furthermore, what else is there to do?
And what do I pray for most often when struggling with what I perceive to be a lack of love shown by other professing followers of Christ?
I pray that we all stop fearing the unknown so much that we end up in contrived understandings of God’s will and God’s word. I pray that we stop imagining that God is so small and instead meditate on how big God is — big enough to meet, love, provide for, forgive, and teach people of such great diversity exactly where we are. I pray that we stop thinking we understand “righteousness” as though it were one formula with only one “right” answer. I pray that those who speak English get over the linguistic stumbling block of the word “right” being inside of the word “righteousness” and learn to see more in the concept than being “correct.”
Strong’s Number: 6664
qdc // Tsedeq
JUST, JUSTICE, right, righteous, righteous cause, righteously, righteousness, unrighteousness
Strong’s Number: 1341
dikaios
from diké — EQUITABLE; by implication, innocent, holy, JUST, meet, right(-eous)
I also pray that we start to see the depth of Paul’s body metaphor. So what if you are a finger and I am toe? It’s a freaking blessing that we are not all the same.
By the way, I keep saying “we” because I’m reticent to leave myself out of any criticism… you know… log in my own eye and all of that. I would probably do well to re-read everything I just wrote while seriously putting myself on the other end of what I’ve truly been saying in the direction of people who frustrate me.
Finally, I wanted to say that I really feel what the person above said about the fear believers encounter when they realize they may have been going in the wrong direction with their faith and understanding. Hopefully it will be fortunate that Shane Claiborne and others have good testimony about turning in the other direction. I wasn’t raised in the organized “church,” so I don’t have that story. But I am truly thankful some do.
In the vine. Keri Anne.
(See why I’m not on Twitter? ^_^)
You said exactly how I’ve been feeling for weeks..Thank You
We were just discussing last Wed night that those of us raised in a traditional Christian church were taught early how to argue our beliefs, because we were the ONLY ones who were right and it was on our shoulders to convert the world…and I was well trained. I only learned pretty recently how to recognize when ‘restraint of pen and tongue’ would be a good idea.
Defensiveness is typically a fear mechanism, people are frightened by the possibility that their belief system is flawed is, so they fight…It’s not what we say that sets them off (unless we’re being an ass) it’s the fear that accompanies a striking realization that your life has been based on partial truths and traditions. People who are secure in their beliefs don’t need to argue-people who aren’t judging themselves don’t find need to judge others. Love conquerers fear- love is the only solution.
Gandhi put it best, I think with his idea of “Satyagraha”,he believed that love was the most formidable weapon we have available, even against violence. He also said he liked our Jesus but didn’t care for our Christians…smart man.
@LeAnn great comments. Thanks for taking the time to share what’s on your mind.
I listen every week, and even thrown in a little money. You asked for comments, so here goes. I love your church and your message, and without it, I would not consider myself Christian. I consider y’all to be very brave and smart and principled and, above all, loving. So, I am very much a fan.
I can’t figure out who exactly you are preaching to when you go off on these Twitter tangents. I don’t know who these Twitter people are or what they are saying. I don’t read those theology books, and based on this sermon I don’t want to think about the negative energy in your Twitter conversations. It feels like with all the name-dropping and distraction, you miss the point of the human beings who are actually following and supporting YOU.
Perhaps you underestimate, or just don’t see anymore, how rare and radical your core doctrine is. Your message is so powerful and so radically different that it gives people (like me!) hope and love. Maybe to you it’s routine, but once a week is the only time in this rough world that I get to hear it, and lately all I’ve been hearing about is some idiot on Twitter.
I love the feedback. I think you have a point. I’m going to forward this on to Jay.
Jay you are a light on a hill……even to other judgmental Christians. Everytime you piss someone off, you are seeding them with truth. Have patience, & let God use you to tweak them. Realize, you are being used to not only show love to the unloved, but to the American pharisee. You are a modern prophet, own it.
1 Tim 4
” 11Prescribe and teach these things. 12Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those WHO BELIEVE. 13Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching. 14Do NOT neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. 15Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. 16Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.”
Many people are watching you….God will deal with the Haters( & they might be the very ones who become you ally in 5 years after they have been hurt by the church system!)
You rock dude! -the ref
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by jaybakker: How do we love our critics? http://shar.es/mfYjn...