Thank you PC(USA)! How Will Others Respond? Hearts & Lives Are At Stake.

Last updated on: March 19, 2015 at 10:29 am by Susan Cottrell

Thank you PC(USA)! How Will Others Respond? Hearts & Lives Are At Stake. 2015-03-19T10:29:47-05:00 Susan Cottrell

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“I regret that I can only celebrate with you from a distance and this is a celebration that I may never experience in my lifetime in my church.” The Presbyterian Church has responded in truth and love, but what will others do? Hearts and lives are at stake.

I am overwhelmingly grateful for the Presbyterian Church’s stand in solidarity and affirmation with our brothers and sisters who are gay, and the entire LGBTQ community. They chose to take a loving stand. Was it easy? No. Was it the right thing to do? Of course it was!

The Bible calls those who follow Jesus “the Body of Christ”—an amazing, intimate term of love and support. Christians have been that body in powerful ways, but they’ve also pushed aside that identity, and done hateful things, in an attempt to be God.

Instead of loving as Jesus taught and modeled, they are deciding what’s right and wrong for other people.

Throughout history, Christians have at times been the loving and supportive body of Christ, drawing people into love and life and freedom. But today, non-affirming Christians have appointed themselves God’s Sin Police, correcting (and punishing) those they think have transgressed God, which has pushed people far away from the truth, and away from a God who loves them unconditionally.

The PC(USA) Presbyterian Church has taken a powerful, proactive step of love and support, standing on the fullness of God’s love. It is indeed a time of reformation and I wonder how many more churches and denominations will join them and be on the right side of history and the right side of truth. And I wonder how many churches will wait, continuing to shame and shun and reject their gay brothers and sisters and react only when it is in their own best interest.

So to those churches I say, “What now? What will you do? How will you love?”

And to the PC(USA) I say “Thank you! You have chosen this moment to be the loving, diverse, beautiful Body of Christ. You are a breath of fresh air!”

Dear PC(USA),

Thank you for becoming affirming. Thank you for being the hands of feet of Jesus by holding hands and walking beside the LGBTQ community.

Thank you for giving voice to those who are just now becoming able to speak up, having been silenced for generations.

Thank you for having ears to hear the silenced voice as it grows stronger.

Thank you for having a heart for those who’ve been treated heartlessly for as long as anyone can remember.

Thank you for using your arms to embrace, to pull people into God’s love instead of pushing them away.

Thank you for realizing your job is to love God’s children, in all their rainbow of colors, as surely as Jesus loved all variety of people.

Thank you for being the arms and legs and heart and soul of Jesus – the way he asked – instead of trying to be God by doing God’s job; thank you for loving fully and not deciding who is or is not okay with God. Thank you for choosing to love and leaving the rest to God.

That is love in all its many colors.

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