I Want to Hug the Westboro Baptist Church

I hope Westboro Baptist Church pickets my funeral.

No, really, I do.

I hope Jesus lets someone call me back, like Lazarus. I'd run over to hug the Westboro people first. They'd either get saved or run away and never picket another funeral.

But if not, I'm sure the revivalists, the community of people around me who are madly in love with the God of Love (and I don't mean Cupid), will show so much love that the Westboro folk will either get saved or flee in panic and confusion. I can hear the cops talking to them now. "No, sir, they were trying to hug you, not assault you. I know, because they hugged us all when we showed up."

Not long before going to the cross Jesus said, "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples-when they see the love you have for each other." (Jn 13/33-35, The Message)

Or how about this? When asked earlier on which of the commandments was the greatest, Jesus said, Jesus said, "`Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: `Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." (Mt 22/37-40, The Message) Many versions say "your neighbor" instead of "others". Jesus made it clear in his parable of the good Samaritan that everyone is our neighbor, including those we might tend to look down on, left to ourselves.

I'm sure that twisted logic would tell the WBCites that they are acting in love, but it's pretty obvious to the rest of the world that they aren't. I hope and pray that the people at Westboro Baptist Church come to know real Love, and are set free from their fears and hatred, as I pray that for all-- from world leaders to terrorists to people in third world hell hole slums to those caught up in sex trafficking. I want to hug you all. because God does.

There's an excellent booklet I recommend on the base topic here, The Mark of the Christian by Francis Schaefer. It's a quick read, less than 10,000 words. I wish every Christian would read this. It's available online (with permission from the publisher!) at http://www.ccel.us/schaeffer.html .

 

Passages from The Message copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson.

People Are People

People are people
So why should it be
You and I should get
Along so awfully
People are people
So why should it be
You and I should get
Along so awfully

So we're different colours
And we're different creeds
And different people
have different needs
It's obvious you hate me
Though I've done nothing wrong
I've never ever met you
so what could I have done

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand

"People are people..."
I got that back in my hippie days.
I got that as a baby Christian, devoid of religion and politics.
I got that when I got sucked into liberal theology.
I got that when I got sucked into right wing, fundamentalist Christianity.
I get it now as someone who just basks in God's grace and thinks both sides have their good and bad points.

Not much boggles my mind, but I have a hard time seeing how anyone would not see this. (My track record isn't perfect, either, but hate isn't an option, so even when it sneaks in, it doesn't stay past having a little light on it.)

In Mt 25/31-46, we find Jesus talking about visiting people in prison, feeding the hungry, and generally helping the hurting as a pretty big deal. (Note: I don't see this as a passage about "What you must do to get to heaven (works), but about our actions showing who we really are. This implies that if we truly love Jesus, these things come naturally.)

In Lk 10/29-37 he applies this to someone his listeners saw as extremely different (a Samaritan).

In dealing with tax collectors, whores, adulteresses, drunks, lepers, Romans, and pretty much every sort of "different" there was in his day, he took a stand for this. "People are people. I created them. I love them. I'm going to die and come back for them as well as you."

Today he'd do the same for all of them again, as well as the homeless, black people, gays and lesbians, illegal immigrants, Muslims, and everyone else. Would he point out anything wrong in their lives and offer to heal them? Sure... just as he does with you and me.

People are people...
Help me understand

Now you're punching
And you're kicking
And you're shouting at me
I'm relying on your common decency
So far it hasn't surfaced
But I'm sure it exists
It just takes a while to travel
From your head to your fists

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man

Help me understand

Depeche Mode lyrics (C) 1984 Sire Records Company