Christian Mythbusters

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

Like many of you, I’m sure, I was distraught to hear the news of the shooting at Oxford High School in southeastern Michigan. That school is actually not far from Rochester University, where I did my undergraduate studies, and I have several friends who are alumna. My heart goes out to all those who have been impacted, as well as to families in our own area trying to keep their heads above water with our schools now shut down out of an abundance of caution while local threats are being investigated.

As seems to happen every time there is a shooting, we’ve seen the same arguments for and against gun control pop on up social media, everyone rehearsing the same old lines. We send up thoughts and prayers to help our kids, when what they really need are policies and action. 

So, this week I thought I’d try to break some of the myths that persist in American Christianity about God, Guns, and what it really means to protect others. 

Our country does have a strange love affair—some might say an addiction—to guns. Americans own half of all guns in the world, even though we are only 5% of the world’s population. 

And at this point, it’s pretty clear that both race and religion are factors that influence gun ownership. In 2020, an article was published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion called “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Gun Ownership.” They found that for many white evangelicals, owning a gun stems from their felt need to protect their families from a sense of threat. White evangelicals are not only more likely to own a gun, they are also less likely to support gun control. 

Some people have been trying to change that though. Activist Shane Claiborne published a book in 2019 called Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence. Since that time, he has gone around the country, organizing events where people turn in their guns which are then melted down and turned into farming implements. He does this drawing from the words of the prophet Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible, who imagines that in the end, when God heals all things, “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks.” 

And it’s not only a question of violence against others. Of the nearly 40,000 gun related deaths in America each year, more than half are the result of suicide. Claiborne also points out that the idea of safety is really a myth. For every one gun used in self-defense, six more are used to commit a crime. Keeping a gun in your own home means that you or someone in your family is 12 times more likely to be injured by that gun than you are to use that gun to protect them. 

Claiborne sees the question as a simple one: guns are violent and we are followers of a prince of peace who urged us to turn the other cheek and engage instead in non-violent resistance against evil and injustice. So, Christians shouldn’t have guns. 

No I should be clear—I’m not anti-gun. I don’t go quite as far as Claiborne does. I happen to own two guns myself, both used for hunting. My dad was a member of the National Rifle Association back before that organization got as crazy and aggressive as it has in recent years. 

But, our love affair with guns needs to end so that we can start coming up with plans and policies to make our country safer. Gun manufacturers have been expert at weaving the myth of the essentiality of the freedom to own any and all guns out there, and they have co-opted the Christian desire to protect others in order to increase their own bottom line.

There are steps, clear steps, we can take to make our world safer, to make our kids safer. And many of these steps have strong support in our country. A Fox News poll two years ago found that 90% of respondents favor universal background checks, 81% support taking guns from individuals who are at risk, and 67% favor banning assault weapons.

And for the kids who died in Oxford? A law that requires gun owners to store guns in a locked container or disable them with a trigger lock when not in use or being worn on their person… that would have stopped that senseless violence. And since statistics indicate that 46% of gun owners in the US who have children don’t secure their weapons, it’s only so long before we return to this cycle of violence and grief.

Jesus told us that the peacemakers would be blessed by God. We need some peacemakers in the world today, that’s for sure, some people that will work together to make our country a safer place for all people, who will reach across the lines and find solutions that can save lives.

Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today. 

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

According to stores, Christmas has been almost here since before Halloween. But for many families, the first weekend after Thanksgiving marks the true beginning of the holiday season. I know I talked my wife into beginning our own decorating, though I couldn’t convince her to go with me to the Christmas Tree Farm… not yet.

Part of the reason for that is that our family leaves our tree up for the entire Christmas season—which actually only begins on December 25 and lasts until the Twelfth Day of Christmas, January 5. However, aware that that may confuse some of you, I thought this would be a good week to break the myth of the idea that it’s already Christmas by talking a little bit about the gift of the Season of Advent. 

Advent always begins four Sundays before the Christmas holiday. In some churches, Advent is kind of an extended experience of the Christmas season. There are candles on a wreath named for such gentle and heartwarming concepts as hope, peace, joy, and love. 

But traditionally, that’s not what the Advent season is like. Instead, Advent is a darker season, a season that is meant to prepare us for the celebrations of Christmas, one in which we are invited to cast off our sins and prepare for the coming of Christ. In fact, traditionally the themes for the four Sunday of Advent are known as the Four Last Things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. 

In Advent, however, the darkness of our world is met with the light and power of the Gospel, and that means the Four Last Things are profoundly important opportunities to see how the good news of God interacts with the Last Things of Christian theology.

Let’s give it a shot.

We believe in death. Which is to say, we believe we will all die someday. True, for the Christian we believe life is changed, not ended, but in a world where we seem to deny the reality of our mortality, a reminder that we are all indeed mortal is important. That doesn’t mean we chase death (get that vaccine, folks!), but it also means we do not look at death as the end. It also means that we take very seriously our responsibility not to hasten someone else’s death through our own choices (once more, get the vaccine, Christians killing people by not being vaccinated during a pandemic is the antithesis of the Christian faith!). 

As Christians we also believe in judgment. Don’t get me wrong, we believe God’s judgment is always tempered by God’s mercy. I know I believe that in the end, all those who chose God will find God, that God’s love will heal all things. But when we acknowledge the brokenness of this world, we must also acknowledge the importance of believing in God’s judgment, believing that God’s justice will make right those things in this world that have been broken by sin, selfishness, violence, hate, and systems of oppression. Salvation means nothing—particularly to those who are marginalized and powerless—if it doesn’t also involve God’s justice being made manifest in people’s real lives.

Heaven, the third of the Last Things, is a bit easier for people to believe in. But heaven is not about pearly gates and mansions. It’s not the place where good people get to go when they die. Heaven is about the final healing of all things, of finally being in new and perfect relationship with God and all creation. Heaven is about all things being made new, all things being brought to their perfection through God’s love. And in the end, you don’t go to heaven because you earned it, you go because you’ve been willing to be embraced by God’s love and forgiveness.

And just like belief in Judgment and the justice of God is essential, the fourth Last Thing, Hell, is also an important part of Christian theology. I often say that Hell has to exist to preserve free choice. People must have the freedom to choose an eternity with God (also known as heaven) or an eternity without God (best understood as hell). However, the early Church, along with my own Anglican tradition, has taught that even in hell we do not lose the ability to change that choice and so even those who reject God in this life can still choose God in the life to come. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce, for people like that hell was actually purgatory, the difficult place where they finally learned to choose God.

Which is why I know I believe that, at the end of eternity, given the power of God’s love, hell will find itself empty as all things are brought together in Christ.

This is what the season of Advent is about: God’s light entering the real and difficult places of our world, of our mortal existence, in small and yet powerful ways. 

So, don’t just celebrate Christmas early these next few weeks. Instead, look into the darkness of this world but find yourself held by God’s love. That’s an Advent that will truly prepare you for the real joy of Christmas. 

Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today. 

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

It’s Thanksgiving week, a time set aside each year to gather with family and friends and give thanks for the blessings of life. With the lockdown of last year, many chose to stay home for Thanksgiving, celebrating in smaller and safer gatherings. COVID-19 numbers in Michigan are now higher than they were back then, though, making it difficult to decide what is the best way to celebrate safely. However your family chose to celebrate, I do hope that you stay safe. 

At the same time, with familiar images of Puritans and Native Americans blissfully sharing food together, this week is always a good week to bust some of the myths surrounding the origins of the Thanksgiving holiday. 

Last year I suggested an excellent book for those who want to learn more about this history. It’s by David Silverman and is called This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving. In it, Silverman lays out much that we have learned about that original Thanksgiving, much that had been covered up by myth and historical inaccuracy. He's also clear about how the continued retelling of the Thanksgiving myth wounds not only the still existing Wampanoag Indians (and yes there are still some), but all Native people who see their history erased by quaint and invented stories.

So, let's start by clearing up a few things. First off, for at least 12,000 years, if not longer, the Native American people lived in this country, long before anyone from Europe got here. By the time the Mayflower arrived, this was not the first contact, either. There had been a century of contact between Native people and the Europeans. And it wasn’t the kind and gentle engagement of brave explorers and Native people. Instead, it was more often bloody slave raiding by the Europeans. When the pilgrims arrived, some of the Native people already spoke English and had even been to Europe and back. 

I know I was taught that the pilgrims came to our country for religious freedom. These 17th century Christians were religious non-conformists who rejected the English state church of Anglican Christianity. As an Episcopalian, and a member of the Anglican Communion, that means it’s kind of my church that ran them out of England. What they wanted was a more Calvinist understanding of the Christian faith than was found in Anglicanism. So, first, they left England for Holland (where they did indeed encounter religious freedom), but then they came to America for the hope—not of religious freedom—but the hope instead of establishing a puritan colony.

You see, they were not interested in religious freedom for anyone other than themselves. They certainly rejected the religious freedom of the Native people, who they viewed as heathens. The Puritans of Massachusetts believed they were building a “city on a hill” in the words of Puritan leader John Winthrop. But there could be no dissent from their puritan views in this city on a hill. They wanted a theocracy where their own perspectives on Christianity would govern all things and all people. Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, members of the original Puritan community, were banished following disagreements over theology and policy. Roman Catholics were banned. Quakers were actually hung in Boston for standing up for their religious beliefs. 

So, it wasn’t so much religious freedom as it was religious control.

When it comes to the Native people, the story is also very different. The specific tribe that those early pilgrims got to know was the Wampanoag people. And, true, there is evidence of a harvest feast of some sort in 1621, the year after the arrival of the Mayflower with the Wampanoag and the Puritans. But both Native people and European societies had been celebrating harvest festivals for sometime. It wasn’t until the 19th century, really, that a Thanksgiving holiday as we know it was officially established. 

And that first relationship between the Wampanoag and the Puritans was actually a military relationship. The Wampanoag had reached out to the English at Plymouth in the hope of an alliance to help them in their ongoing battles against the Narragansett. You see, they had already been decimated by a pandemic (one likely brought to them by the Europeans) and this kind of relationship was one of their last hopes. And unfortunately, even if there was a shared harvest celebration at the beginning, during the next fifty years the Europeans responded by stealing Wampanoag land, spreading European disease, and exploiting their natural resources. 

That Thanksgiving Myth became one of the pillars of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, the belief that God had given American settlers the land of North America to take for their own, a doctrine that was the used to justify over a hundred years of genocide against Native people. So, our bounty came at a price. 

Maybe take a moment during this holiday to reflect. Remember our history honestly. Ask how you can make right the wrongs done by those who came before you. And look for ways to break down the systems today, systems which oppress people, producing bounty only for the privileged few. I think that’s the sort of Thanksgiving that Jesus would appreciate. 

Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today. 

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

As I write this week’s episode, deliberations have just begun in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse for homicide in the deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, along with the gunshot injury to Gaige Grosskreutz. Alongside of Rittenhouse’s trial, we have been watching the prosecution make its case against Greg McMichael, his son Travis, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, who chased down Ahmaud Arbery before Travis McMichael allegedly shot him (supposedly) in self-defense. 

Both of these trials are tremendously polarizing and have resulted in significant pressure on all sides of the political aisle. They involve questions of gun rights, self-defense, freedom of speech, freedom to protest, among a host other questions… not the least of which are the persistent realities of racism in our country. This is all seen in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement,  the continued controversies surrounding that movement’s condemnation of the continued deaths of people of color in our country. 

All that political heat can make it hard to see, sometimes. So, I’d like to take a moment, now, before I even know what the results of Rittehouse trial are or what the results of the trial of the men whose actions led to the death of Ahmed Arbery, I’d like to take a moment and talk about the church and the question of “Black Lives Matter.”

Because we need to be honest, brutally honest, that one of the reasons our society does not seem to value black lives as much as the lives of white people is because of the ways in which Christianity supported and is complicit in narratives of white supremacy. 

The transatlantic slave trade was founded on Christianity. A series of popes in the fifteenth century argued for the enslavement of non-Christians as “an instrument for Christian conversion.” Thomas Aquinas drew from Aristotelian understandings of slavery to insist that the slave was the rightful and natural instrument and property of the owner. Christians merged Aquinas’s understanding of the “natural slave” with the idea of Ham’s curse in the Hebrew Bible, insisting (without any true proof in the text, I might add) that Africans had inherited that curse and that slavery was their natural state.

And so it was that Christians insisted slaves should obey their master, that masters were at total freedom to punish—even kill—any slave that resisted. When the Civil War concluded, Christianity was a driving force behind segregation, insisting that this was a biblical principal and that the government must not infringe upon our freedoms… And so one of the founding principles of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups after the Civil War was their belief that they were protecting their Christian nation. 

And it’s not just a question of Christian support of racism and slavery, it is also about the hesitance of the broader church to speak out and denounce those views when they occurred.

In the book The Color of Compromise, author Jemar Tisby tells the story of what happened after four young girls were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, during the Civil Rights Movement. A white lawyer got up in front of an all-white business club and asked them who was responsible for throwing the bomb. He then answered his own question, saying, “We all did it.” Tisby goes on, noting, “Every time that the white community—especially Christians—failed to confront racism in its everyday, mundane forms, they created a context of compromise that allowed for an extreme act of racial terror like planting dynamite at a church. That’s the idea of complicity.”

All of this Christian complicity with racism lies uncomfortably under the deaths of black people in our country right now. The church must own that history. The church must repent of that history. The church must do something to make right the history we have helped write.

And in the trials currently happening in our country, Christians must demand justice. They must demand justice for a system that lets a cop go free when he shoots a twelve-year old black child who has a toy gun. A system that also seems to suggest that a seventeen-year old white boy with an assault weapon posed no threat.

The reason it doesn’t feel to many people like Black Lives Matter right now is because Christians have spent centuries saying they don’t matter the same. Christians today must stand up and say, enough. Christians today must make good upon the calling of God to resist injustice, to affirm the dignity of every human being. If Christians cannot say Black Lives Matter and repent of our complicity in the sins of racism… then Christians should not be surprised if the rest of the modern world has no interest anymore in our religion. 

Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today. 

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

Late last week, I read with interest the concerns of Detroit News columnist, Ingrid Jacques, who warned that “‘Fair and Equal’ could unfairly harm faith-based work.” As a priest who has worked and served on the board of a variety of non-profits, both those that are and are not faith-based, I wanted to know what her concerns were.

Her concerns, it seems, are about a petition circulated by a group called “Fair and Equal Michigan.” Their goal is to amend the state’s current civil rights law—the Elliott Larsen Civil Rights Act—to add sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression as protected categories. It would also clarify that protections for religion are for “the religious beliefs of the individual.” 

A pretty significant 77% of Michigan citizens support this ballot proposal, which also has the support of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and former chairs of both the state Democratic and Republican party.  

So, at this point, you might be asking, so what is Jacques so worried about with this bill? Her largest concern is the change to specifying the religious beliefs of an individual, limiting the protections of religious expression to say they wouldn’t apply to a corporation, for example. She cites the suit Attorney General Dana Nessel filed against St. Vincent Catholic Charities and Bethany services, insisting that unless they would agree to place children with same-sex parent they could not contract with the state for state-provided adoption services. 

So, let’s say it again, so everyone can hear. Freedom of religion is about your freedom to practice your religion—it is not about your freedom to insist other people follow the tenets of your religion. And it’s not about your freedom as an organization to make people follow your tenets of religion. Let’s see if we cannot do some work this week to try to break this persistent myth.

The so-called cause of religious liberty in our country has gotten this principal backwards for too long. Instead, it is now legal for a Catholic hospital to infringe upon the right of a female employee to use birth control. Jacques believes it should be legal for a Christian adoption agency to infringe upon the rights of a same-sex couple, one who might, for example, be married in the Episcopal Church, to adopt children. How the rights of a gay couple in my church shouldn’t be protected in her eyes doesn’t make any sense to me.

At any given time, there are 3,000 children in Michigan foster care who are available for adoption. Gay couples are four times more likely to be raising an adopted child and six-times more likely to be raising foster children than opposite-sex couples. Research has consistently indicated that children raised by LGBTQIA+ parents grow up just as successfully as children raised by opposite-sex couples. (And research has also shown that there is no correlation in the gender identity and sexual orientation of children raised by LGBTQIA+ parents—because, of course, being gay is not something you catch from your parents… I mean, you all know that, right?). 

Real freedom of religion would be the freedom of a gay couple to adopt a child, using the same resources a straight couple might use. For a religious adoption agency to refuse to place a child with a gay couple is the religious organization imposing their views upon the gay couple and removing that couple’s freedom. It’s discrimination. It has nothing to do with helping the thousands of kids looking for a home. And it has no place in the Christian church. 

I’m tired. I am tired of religious people attacking the religious rights of women and LGBTQIA+ individuals, insisting that their religion means that they can tell those people how to live, they can advocate for laws and policies that restrict their freedom, they can control the bodies of women and LGBTQIA+ persons. It is past time for other religious people to stand up and say no more discrimination in the name of religion. Practice your faith freely, do what you believe God is calling you to do as an individual—but don’t think you have the freedom to tell someone else they must do what you believe as well. 

And, for the sake of Jesus and his plea that we allow the children to come to him, if you are an adoption agency, get those kids in a home. That gay couple who wants to love and care for an adopted child is not a threat to your religion, they are a way you can practice your religion more faithfully by helping kids find homes.

Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today. 

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

Halloween is coming! At least, that is what my five-year old daughter has told me almost every day for the past two weeks. But now, this weekend, the wait will be over, and all spooky ghosts and ghouls will be on the prowl either Saturday or Sunday, looking for some tricks or treats.

When I was growing up as a Christian, though, Halloween was a bit… uneven. On one side of my family, Halloween was seen as the devil’s holiday and there was great danger in observing it. On the other side, it was just fun to dress up, no matter the costume. One year, I dressed as the devil for Halloween, but then had to change costumes before going to the church Halloween party.

So, I thought this might be a good week to break the myths surrounding Christianity and Halloween. 

When the month of October turns into November, the Western church celebrates a sacred time often called Allhallowtide. The term “Allhallowtide” is derived from two words in Old English, the word halig (which means holy and is a synonym for saint) and the word tide (which means time). The celebration of Allhallowtide begins on October 31stwith All Hallows Eve (the Eve of All Saints’, often shortened to Hallowe’en). It then continues with All Saints’ Day on November 1 and the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed (commonly known as All Souls’ Day) on November 2. The way in which this sacred time is observed varies around the world, but most Christians see it as an opportunity to celebrate Christ’s triumph over death and our continued bonds to our loved ones who have died. 

When we look at Christianity in the British Isles in the Middle Ages, we see how these celebrations began interacting with the pagan Celtic holiday of Samhain, which fell each year in early November. Samhain marked the time at which the harvest had ended, and the days began growing darker. The Celtic people believed that during this time the boundaries between our world and the world of the dead thinned. The souls of the dead would even revisit their homes, seeking hospitality. And so, people would set an extra place at the dinner table to welcome them. 

Throughout the Middle Ages, the importance of these festivals spread throughout Europe. It was common to burn candles in your home in Austria and England to help guide souls back to their homes. In other countries, groups of poor people would travel door-to-door collecting soul cakes in exchange for praying for the dead. These traditions developed in Spain as well. In Spain, the tradition of bringing pan de ánimas (spirit bread) to the graves of loved ones was an important part of All Souls’ Day. Christians would also cover the graves of loved ones with flowers and light candles to guide the departed home. 

As the Catholic Church arrived in Mexico with the sixteenth-century Conquistadors, they brought with them Spanish and Catholic celebrations surrounding All Saints’ and All Souls’. The Mesoamerican Indigenous celebrations of the dead in the fall began to blend with Spanish and Catholic traditions surrounding the saints and all faithful departed and before too long the modern Día de los Muertos was born. 

On Día de los Muertos, just like Samhain and All Souls’ Day in Ireland and England, those who celebrate this sacred time believe the border between the spirit world and our world dissolves and the souls of the dead can return to the living world to once again commune with family members for a brief period.

Today the sacred time of All Hallows Eve, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day is celebrated in many different ways in congregations across the church and in many denominations. You can find out more about this history, and especially about the observance of Día de los Muertos in a small booklet I wrote with our church’s Office of Latino/Hispanic Ministries. It’s online at http://sjegh.com/muertos.

But, no matter your cultural background, there’s no need to be scared or anxious about Christians observing Halloween. A good scary movie or a fright in a haunted house on Halloween tends to make you feel more alive, which can be a fun and good thing, giving you appreciation for the life you have which is, of course, a gift from God. 

Maybe also take some time during this sacred season to remember the great heroes of faith, to remember those you love who have died. Because the truth is that nothing—not death, not even ghosts and ghouls—can separate us from the love of God which binds us together in Christ. 

Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today. 

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

One of the best things about being a priest is that people invite you into these fascinating questions about God, the Bible, spirituality, and their lives. I had a conversation like that earlier this week. Someone had reached out who is searching and exploring, and she wanted to talk through things. We chatted for around a half hour, and it was delightful.

As we were discussing questions of God and life, she brought up the story of the woman caught in adultery. The story is found in the seventh chapter of John, when a group of scribes and pharisees interrupt Jesus’ teaching, bringing him a woman who they claim has been caught in the very act of adultery. The religious leaders tell Jesus that the punishment for this act is stoning and ask Jesus what to do. 

Jesus doesn’t answer them. He bends down and writes with his finger on the ground. They persist, asking him and asking him what they should do. He responds, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then Jesus bends down again and writes on the ground some more. 

The religious leaders then went away, one by one, beginning with those who were the oldest, shamed by Jesus’ question until no one was left but the woman and Jesus. And he straightens up and asks her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She responds, “No one, sir.” Jesus then tells her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”

We were both struck by that last line, often translated as, “Go and sin more.” And so, this week, I’d like to break the myth of what it really means, sometimes, to turn from sin. 

Because I think that when we can find ourselves in places of stillness and quiet, places where we can practice the presence of Christ, we hear two messages over and over again. The first message is, “I love you, beloved child of God.” And the second message is, “Now go and sin no more.” 

It’s unfortunate that so often we do not hear the first message, the message of God’s love for us, a love that is entire and complete. As Brennan Manning used to say, there’s nothing you can do to make God love you less… but there is also nothing you can do to make God love you more.

But I think it’s that second message, “Go and sin no more,” can be even more difficult to interpret and practice. If there is one thing I’ve learned as a priest hearing confession is that sometimes people don’t really know what sin really is. I’ve had people come to me in confession and my response, at times, has been to tell them that the burden they are carrying isn’t a sin. It’s not even a burden they need to be carrying. 

In the end, when Jesus tells you, “Go and sin no more,” the concrete meaning of that call will be different depending on your own place in life.

• For someone like me, with no shortage of opinions about things, Jesus’ invitation to “Go and sin no more,” might be a call to me to hold my own opinions a bit more lightly, to listen to those with whom I disagree with more curiosity and empathy, to ask if I’m interested in proving I am write or if I am interested in learning more about God’s call in this world. 

• If you’re in the midst of a failing marriage, “go and sin no more” might mean to turn from a focus yourself, instead to give yourself to counseling, to the work needed to heal the marriage… or “go and sin no more” might mean it is time for you to go of that relationship, to exit a marriage that has become damaging and destructive, not to let the damage of the marriage continue. To sin no more might mean to let the marriage go so that God can bring new life to both you and your spouse.

• If you’re struggling with questions of gender or sexual identity, the call to “Go and sin no more,” might be a call from Jesus for you to exit the closet of self-hatred and shame, to go out of that closet and be who God created you to be as an LGBTQIA person. The call to sin no more might mean to let go of messages of self-hatred and to know that God loves you just as you are, and God wants you to have the same opportunities for holy relationships that straight people have. 

All of this reminds me of a new poem I came across a few weeks ago, by the poet Jay Hulme, it’s called “Jesus at the Gay Bar" –

He’s here in the midst of it-

right at the centre of the dance floor,

robes hitched up to His knees

to make it easy to spin.

At some point in the evening

a boy will touch the hem of His robe

and beg to be healed, beg to be

anything other than this;

and He will reach his arm out,

sweat-damp, and weary from dance.

He’ll cup this boy’s face in His hand

and say,

my beautiful child

there is nothing in this heart of yours

that ever needs to be healed.

Yeah, go and sin no more. Go and sin no more, beloved child of God. I don’t know what that means for you today. But I know this, if you listen with your heart to God’s love for you, you will know that the call to “go and sin no more” is always an invitation to freedom.

Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today.