Earlier this week I walked into the church office and saw our office administrator, Cara, printing out beautiful stickers and backpack tags for our Blessing of the Backpacks moment that read “You Are Loved.” Behind the words were a full array of colors to represent LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) persons, with particular representation to LGBTQ+ persons of color, and the transgender community. This filled me with joy, not simply because I will make sure to receive one of those stickers, but also, as a gay man, I appreciated the inclusive statement being made in such a small, but meaningful way.
Sitting in my office chair, I thought about how those stickers and backpack tags would have been meaningful for me in my youth. I particularly thought about the 15-year-old me who was wrestling with his sexuality as a theologically and socially conservative Christian, who contemplated whether or not his salvation was compromised by his sexuality. I wondered how hearing from a classmate, “I got this sticker from church” could have been life-giving words that healed my wounds.
The same morning, I went to my email and opened up my daily devotional, and my favorite passage from my favorite book in the Bible, Job, was the reading for that day,
“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
“Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb?—
when I made the clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?
Job 38:1-11, 16-18
From the lesson, the Creator Almighty visited Job with a herculean appearance and challenged the strong theological convictions of Job and his friends by asking questions, such as, “Where were you when I laid down the foundations of the Earth?” Those questions served to put them in their place for having confidence in knowing exactly how God operated in our world. For me, this passage has always been meaningful as I have found rest in the knowledge of God as being the all-present, all-powerful, all-knowing deity.
However, when I read this passage with “You Are Loved” stickers and backpack tags in the back of my mind, I read the passage with new eyes. There is so much grace in God being the person who laid out the foundations of the Earth. God, being the person who laid out the foundations, set the cosmos into motion, separated land from sea, and more. Thus, God has the responsibilities that I do not have to carry, and cannot possibly carry. Like Job and his friends, when I am next to God, I am small.
I am not enough to eradicate this world of poverty. I cannot snap my fingers and make racism disappear. I cannot ensure that justice is always served. And when I feel as if I am not enough, I can take comfort in the knowledge that I am not God. But, I can display a “You Are Loved” sticker on my computer, wrap a “You Are Loved” tag onto my backpack, and know that this simple act will provide life-giving words and heal wounds to someone like the 15-year-old me.
Your sibling in Christ,
Pastor Alec
(he, him, his)