It was only supposed to be a casual lunch reunion, but the conversation lingers with me to this day. A young man I’d known in the college group at our church was now a medical student, interning at the same children’s hospital where I was working. The holidays were at hand, and I asked his plans for connecting with family.
Actually, he said, he probably wouldn’t be doing that, this year.
Knowing his to be a tight-knit clan, I expressed surprise. Was he scheduled to be on call at the hospital? No, he said. The problem involved his sister.
A few years earlier, after a time of drifting away from God, she had made a profound rededication of her life to Christ. She’d shared that decision in a public testimony at our church, and her humility and candor had moved the hearts of many – not the least, her own brother.
But, recently, she had fallen in love with a young man who did not share her beliefs. The two of them ended up moving in together, without benefit of marriage. While the rest of her family was dismayed by that decision, all were doing their best to put the young couple at ease and make the best of the awkward situation.
All, that is, but my young friend. For him, the issue was clear cut. His sister had publicly declared herself a disciple of Christ, and still held to that affiliation … even while turning her back just as publicly on His teachings. Her brother, gently but firmly, had spoken with her about this; she brushed aside his concerns. She had no intention of turning from her behavior.
So, my friend – taking to heart the New Testament directive that Christians should “withdraw” from fellow believers who deliberately embrace an ungodly way – explained his concerns to their family, along with his unwillingness to attend (pending her repentance) gatherings in which his sister would be taking part. He had hoped that they – all professing Christians themselves – might understand and respect his decision.
They did neither. Instead, they had asked my friend to absent himself from future family activities. His presence, after all, would only be awkward and embarrassing, and unkind to the young woman expressing such contempt for their faith.
In deference to their views, the young doctor would be spending his holidays alone.
I have shared that story, in the many years since, with a number of fellow Christians. I have yet to find more than one or two who believe my friend did the right thing. And yet … I haven’t found any at all who can point out a biblical alternative to his choice.
Inevitably, Jesus warns us, our commitment to living out the way of salvation will bring us into conflict with those who reject that way:
“Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth?” He asks. “I tell you, not at all, but rather division. For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” Maybe even brother against sister.
We neglect the fine print. We avoid it in our sermons and Bible studies. We dismiss it in our personal devotions. We tell ourselves these things don’t mean what they seem to mean. We trust our own sensibilities and indulge our own judgment – even at the expense of Christ’s clear, hard truth.
“The commandments of Scripture have not been tried and found wanting,” a wise fellow once said. “They’ve been found difficult – and not tried.”
Two things brought my doctor friend’s experience to mind in recent days. One was the announcement by Gospel singer Amy Grant that she would be hosting her niece’s same-sex wedding on her farm outside Nashville.
She cheerfully waved aside fellow Christians who expressed dismay at that decision, offering a glimpse of her personal theology that appeased not only the LGBTQ+ community, but other believers tired of squirming in the crossfires of the Culture Wars.
“Who loves us more than the One who made us?” Grant explained. “None of us are a surprise to God. Nothing about who we are or what we’ve done … Gay. Straight. It does not matter.
“It doesn’t matter how we behave,” she added. “It doesn’t matter how we’re wired. We’re all our best selves when we believe to our core, ‘I’m loved.’ When we’re loved, we’re brave enough to say, ‘yes’ to every good impulse that comes to us.”
Perhaps even to impulses considerably less good.
Ms. Grant, of course, is free to make her own decisions. But it’s curious that it was important to her to make this particular choice as public as possible. She and her niece might have opted to keep it a family occasion, but a private one … mindful of how many in and outside of the faith look on the Sweetheart of Gospel Radio as an icon of Christian virtues and behavior.
In fact, it seems to be in recognition of that high profile that she determined to express her highly selective theology to the mass and social media. Was she afraid of looking the hypocrite? Did she feel duty-bound to educate her fellow Christians in God’s true attitude toward same-sex marriage … a truth the All-Knowing somehow forgot to mention when inspiring His holy Word?
Or did she just dread leaving her beloved niece with the cold impression that devotion to Christ somehow superseded familial affections?
Hard to reconcile that with Ms. Grant’s professed commitment to the Christian faith – a faith grounded in the understanding that our Heavenly Father did not consider the blood of His only Son more precious than the salvation of His enemies.
And yet, perhaps less precious, Ms. Grant suggests, than the marital bliss of her niece.
The other thing reminding me of the young doctor’s experience was an excerpt from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s memoir, My Grandfather’s Son. In the book, Justice Thomas relates how his character, and that of his younger brother, was forged by the way their grandfather raised them, in deep poverty, in the rural Georgia of the late 1950s and early 60s.
Thomas’s grandfather raised him “never to let the sun catch you in bed.” He and his brother worked hard year-round, sunrise to sunset; no luxuries, no amenities, and very few treats. So serious was his grandfather about disciplining them that he removed the heater from their truck during wintertime, so the boys wouldn’t grow “soft.”
Thomas was astonished then, years later, when he brought his own young son, Jamal, to visit his grandfather. Suddenly, this stern and unrelenting man was hopping out of bed to watch cartoons with his grandson, stealing away with him to grab ice cream cones, buying five kinds of sugary cereal so the boy could dig out the toys inside, staying up late to play with those toys.
Thomas protested: his grandfather had never treated him or his brother like this. What had changed?
“Jamal,” his grandfather said, “is not my responsibility.”
“[He] had to raise us,” Thomas realized, “but he only had to enjoy Jamal, so he kissed and hugged him, slept next to him, bathed him gently, read to him as best he could, and showed him boundless love.
“It made me envious,” Thomas admits. “I couldn’t help but feel that he’d cheated me out of something important – but I also wondered how hard it had been for him to hide his affection from us. How often had he longed to hold us, hug us, grant our every wish, but held himself back for fear of letting us see his vulnerability …
“… believing as he did that real love demanded not affection but discipline?”
We want so much for love to be what we imagine it to be. And only what we imagine it to be. What the culture has trained us to demand and expect. We want people to be perfect and cheerfully teachable and for devotion to never require anything more of us than warm, fuzzy moments and the whisper of “sweet nothings” … than hugs and hearts and tender intimacies and shared laughter.
It’s the kind of love we feel duty-bound to promise our friends, our spouses, our children. It’s the kind of love we demand of God.
But, as a friend of mine once said, “The Bible doesn’t say, ‘Love is God.’ It says, ‘God is love.’ My ideas of love are not the measure of who God is. God is the measure of what love is … whether I like what He measures, or not.”
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