There is a certain freedom to posting here. I write another blog for the faith community of which I am the pastor. This one is different. It is still of the same perspective (I don’t know how to be another way), just maybe not as overtly so. This is where I discuss Smiths albums and Marvel movies – which are, of course, important and wildly spiritual. The freedom is in the audience. Very few read both, so that leaves me open to write about real life situations without you wondering who it is that I’m referring to. That ‘wondering,’ no matter how fleeting, is usually enough to miss the point I’m trying to to make. Hopefully, you don’t care who, specifically, I’m talking about, you know it doesn’t matter.

Now.

Much of what I talk about on Sundays is the hope of new days, new paths, new situations and possibilities. Yesterday was Resurrection Sunday, so it’s fairly easy to relate an empty tomb and a new creation with new me’s and you’s. One of my favorite things to say (much like the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing “Under The Bridge” in concert) is “Nothing is just what it is,” playing on the underlying despair of the modern refrain, “It is what it is.” I think nothing has to be what it is, or what it has been. No one has to continue to be what they have been. We can change futures through our todays. Nothing is inevitable. That’s what Easter is all about.

There is a tension in that. What if you know someone who you would consider a bad person? What if monsters do exist? What happens when you are teaching on releasing people to change, to transform and become something new and different? Are we all created in His image? Is the love of God truly for everyone?

I would tell you the answer to those last 2 questions are, without hesitation, YES!! I totally believe the theology I relay. And sometimes, the theological crashes into the practical, in spectacular fashion. We can say we are all about forgiveness, until we have something to forgive, right? We can repeat verses about loving our enemies until we have enemies.

So, yesterday, that person (that tension in flesh and blood) walked back into the church, as a mirror to my own hypocrisy. And now what?

As I moved through my Resurrection message, I thought about this person. Do I really believe what I say I do? Even for that person? Really?

Can I teach about love and peace, while my heart is…um…not loving or peaceful? Probably. The news is littered with pastors caught in all kinds of sketchy behavior (money and sex are particularly effective traps), while teaching very solid sermons in front of thousands of congregants. How do they do that? I felt like a pretender, at first. I didn’t want this person there, wanted them outside behind locked doors.

BUT WE DON”T LOCK DOORS IN A CHURCH!!! Now what?!!? As it turns out, I do believe what I teach. I also think this person is not a nice person. But, with all I am, I don’t think this person has to stay not a nice person. I do think this person belongs in a church, and I’m grateful I got to give this hopeful message of transformation to them.

Of course, I’m a hypocrite. Maybe someday I won’t be. Probably I won’t be, if the Scriptures are all true. But if I can be loved like this, hypocrisy and all, this person can, too. And they deserve to have someone care enough to give them this good news. They deserve to have someone believe in them, trust them, and allow them to change.

I’m not ready for personal relationship with them, maybe I won’t ever be, maybe I’m not the person for that kind of intimacy, maybe too much has happened here, maybe I don’t like them. And maybe that’s ok. I do have to love them, but maybe what love looks like, here, is simply unlocking the box I’ve put them in.