Currently, I'm teaching a class on "The Good and Beautiful Life" at Campus View. One, of the things Smith hammers home is the idea of narratives. Now, I've written about this before on this blog. And, so now I'm looking back on the different narratives for my life.

One of the most painful times in my life was during elementary, middle, and early high school. I didn't live in the right place, my family didn't go to the right church, I wasn't interested in the right things. In essence, I was an outsider. So, I acted like an outsider. I began seeking those things that the mainstream disliked. I still do this today. It's hard for me to like anything that the majority of my surrounding culture likes. So, I've descended into tribalism. My tribe is the indie-cyclist-Christians. (There's not that many of us, but I did marry one.)

What is amazing is how my narrative of being an outsider influenced my thoughts on my faith with profound impacts. I read this article this morning on Scott McKnight's blog, which reminded me of my past. You see, when I was younger, Rubel Shelley was kind of a traitor. Terrible things were said about him and some didn't call him a Christian anymore. This is a sad thing. I grew up in a right of middle church of Christ. I was taught that we were the only faithful Christians. I don't think anyone came outright and said the Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians were going to hell, but the outlook did bode well for them. Here's the thing, I felt really comfortable with this. Why? It fit in great with my narrative of being an outsider. It felt like the whole world was against me and it felt like all of Christendom was against my church.

Here's where it gets mucky. My personal narrative fortified a false narrative. My feelings of church exclusiveness began to decline through the last part of high school and throughout college. I don't think we can solely credit my increase in Biblical knowledge, although it helped. I changed. My narrative altered. I was becoming accepted by my peers. The outsiders found each other and became friends. We were all different, and it seemed no one shared the same interest. But, we all shared a narrative, outsider. In college, where there are more people, I became popular for the first time since kindergarten because there were more outsiders.

I think there are many lessons we can draw from this.

1. Don't turn people into outsiders (it can affect there faith)

2. Our personal narratives can override Jesus' Narratives (they're that strong)

3. Narratives can change, not because we change them, but because we live and grow through them.

4. Our environments of learning are crucial.

Are there any personal narratives that have shaped your faith?

DIOS le bendiga

Today's Lepers

(Backstory)

So, those of you who are long time followers of this blog (and let's face it if you still read this that most likely means you), probably read my post on homosexuality two-years ago and it's ensuing barn-fire. I would like to say I'm a different person that I was then. Of course I am! It's been two years. Two years filled with eight season, trials, victories, and defeat. I didn't delete that post, even though it is a bit embarrassing, because it was truthful. It was written in the wake of a the first wound I'd received from a friend in ministry. It dealt with a subject that I hadn't fully explored and therefore didn't understand completely. I still stand by the original point of the post that belief in God will not take a back seat to preserve a friendship, however, I can couch my beliefs about God to preserve community. And, for those of you who wonder, our friendship, though damaged, is preserved. And, I think stronger than before because now when we meet we talk about serious matters that shape our views.

(Main Body)

Despite where I, or you, or they stand on the morality of homosexuality, the fact of the matter is the LGBT community is made up of individual people. Each bearing unique personalities and the imago Dei. To which I say, those of us who call ourselves Christian have shown an ample amount of disgust, prejudice, and sheer hatred toward. As much as the Jews showed the Samaritans. And, a segment of this community has been afflicted with a mysterious disease that has no known cure and whose sufferers are ostracized to watch their friends die around them with little support from those outside the community. I want to compare leprosy and HIV-AIDS, and the church's un-Christian response to it. This is article that fired me up. It tells of a lonely old man who watched his partner die and is now waiting to die himself. Say what you will, he loved his partner. He has no children nor grandchildren to comfort him, and it is that loneliness, that lack of community that breaks my heart.

In the ancient world, disease was seen as judgement of sin from God. Leprosy was one of the most feared diseases, it was mysteriously and dangerously contagious. It caused deformity. Lepers where put out of the camp to keep the community from being infected. This quarantine was from the Law of God. It's purpose was not to shame the sufferer. Indeed, it was done to protect the whole, but the intention was not to make a mockery of suffering as it became. Lepers were cut off from worship and community so it makes sense that they would form colonies resentful of the larger community, yet so yearning to be apart of it again. In Luke 5:12-14 (see also Luke 17: 11-19) we see Jesus encountering a leper. His response is startling. He touches him. Jesus, Son of the Most High God, makes himself unclean to restore community to one broken, lonely man. In the case of HIV-AIDS, which disproportionately is found among gay men, the disease is viewed as a judgement of sin from God. Some Christians view it as Jews would leprosy on a Samaritan. A deserving punishment for an unclean life.

Do you see the problem?!

Do you see where we put ourselves in this postion!?

"Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean."

Oh church, let us stretch out our hands and touch the lives of those afflicted with HIV-AIDS. When the blind man was brought to Jesus, He was asked, "Who sinned, he or his parents?" Jesus responds, "Neither, this was done that the works of He who sent Me might be displayed in him." (paraphrase John 9) Likewise, we must view HIV-AIDS not as means to further reject people, but as a way to display the works of the One who sent us among the rejected. This is Christ's clarion call to start His ministry. I once heard it said that the reason a cure for HIV-AIDS has not been found is that the world is waiting for the church to join.

The world is full of broken, lonely people. The kind of people Jesus walked among and calls us to do the same. We, as the church, are not here to create a social club, but to declare "freedom to the captives."

We must do something

namaste

DIOS le bendiga