NCC: It isn't about Church vs State?

It is good that the National Church Council make public their view of this matter after having kept quiet for so long. It is bad that they held such a view because it shows they don't have common sense and needed a high court judge to eventually explain to them the absurdity of this review. The public by and large saw this as a Church vs State matter.

It is good that the other religions have not entered the fray to protect or carve up their space. When every religion stake its space the common space shrinks. When the Church is not able to exist in secular space with love, she loses her power and continues to pretend she has power. We are fortunate today to have Pope Francis leading the way towards the inclusive Church.

I do not agree with LGBT but I welcome their kind. I hate adultery and divorce and strongly feel that those who do them almost always do not really understand what they have done. It is especially callous when children are involved even if they are already adults. It doesn't hurt them less except that as adults they often could manage better. However I will not judge the adulterer and the divorcee. What do I do then? If I qualify and I don't always, I ask for permission to stand with the Father at the door and wait for them to return. And I remember not to be like the other brother who did not leave home and is angry with the Father over the over the top treatment of the return of the prodigal one. I began my learning journey independent of my Bible teachers very long ago as a fifteen year old waiting for my friend who almost always stood me up to help her with maths. It took me decades to really understand its deeper meaning. That's God's patience with me.

If the Church has been a light in the darkness, she doesn't need to respond like Lawrence Khong had. She is light just being herself. Instead she struggles to imitate Jesus but fails because in essence she isn't like him by a very long shot. She continues to mistake the exceptional grace she has been granted passing it off as God's favor and her righteousness. In short she is a hypocrite and the public, those outside her knows. Fortunately among her members there continue to be exceptions, and this has often been her story throughout history.

With Christ's sacrifice, God has a more powerful way to demand obedience. He loves you into submission and will take all the time in the world if needed because love is patient. That is where Lawrence Khong and many church leaders like him have failed. They had exceeded their faith. They have become professional and rich when their master was personal and poor.

Faith, hope and love enlarge the common space. Everything else shrinks it.

The Church regularly missed the plot but God is patient beyond imagination. Now here is a good story of humble love which is inclusive and enlarge the space by breaking down barriers.

His name is Bill. He has wild hair, wears a T-shirt with holes in it, jeans and no shoes. This was literally his wardrobe for his entire four years of college. He is brilliant. Kinda esoteric and very, very bright. He became a Christian while attending college.

Across the street from the campus is a well-dressed, very conservative church. They want to develop a ministry to the students, but are not sure how to go about it. One day Bill decides to go there. He walks in with no shoes, jeans, his T-shirt, and wild hair. The service has already started and so Bill starts down the aisle looking for a seat.

The church is completely packed and he can't find a seat. By now people are looking a bit uncomfortable, but no one says anything. Bill gets closer and closer and closer to the pulpit and when he realizes there are no seats, he just squats down right on the carpet. (Although perfectly acceptable behavior at a college fellowship, trust me, this had never happened in this church before!) By now the people are really uptight, and the tension in the air is thick.

About this time, the minister realizes that from way at the back of the church, a deacon is slowly making his way toward Bill. Now the deacon is in his eighties, has silver-gray hair, a three-piece suit, and a pocket watch. A godly man, very elegant, very dignified, very courtly. He walks with a cane and as he starts walking toward this boy, everyone is saying to themselves, You can't blame him for what he's going to do. How can you expect a man of his age and of his background to understand some college kid on the floor?

It takes a long time for the man to reach the boy. The church is utterly silent except for the clicking of the man's cane. All eyes are focused on him. You can't even hear anyone breathing. The people are thinking, The minister can't even preach the sermon until the deacon does what he has to do. And now they see this elderly man drops his cane on the floor.

With great difficulty he lowers himself and sits down next to Bill and worships alongside him so he won't be alone. Everyone chokes up with emotion. There seems to not be a dry eye in the entire congregation.

When the minister finally gains control he says, "What I'm about to preach, you will never remember. What you have just seen, you will never forget."

Rebecca Manley Pippert, retold by Alice Gray 
More Stories for the Heart compiled by Alice Gray (Portland: Multnomah Press, 1997), pp. 32-33.