We Your people have sinned and we have done evil in Your sight. We have preferred our comfort to dealing with evil among us. We have been cowards rather than standing up to bullies. We have put up with people slapping us in the face and called it love. We have rebuked those who have walked away from this and assumed they don't love Jesus. We have accused anyone who talks or grieves the evil among us of sin. We have enabled evil by our cheap grace and niceness therefore we are complicit. God, we have failed You and blasphemed your holy Name. You are righteousness and we are not. You never fail although we do. Have mercy on us, Lord, and bring us to repentance. Let us be humble before you instead of bringing you the fruit of our pride. Let us return to You alone and seek Your forgiveness for fearing men instead of loving you. God forgive us! God restore us, whatever it costs and however long it takes. You alone are God. Rise up and be glorified among us! You reign. Show Your power and let abusers truly repent and be saved. Let those victimized in your name see healing in our time. You will build Your church and we worship You. Let your name be praised. Amen.
If my perspective isn't welcome, why should I stay?
If it's your way or the highway, why bother to say-
That you don't care that you tore out my heart
You couldn't care less that you broke me apart.
Your systems are worthless
Your religion mundane
I can't love your jesus
I've searched for a sign
To show me he's good-
But your gods are vile
You spit and you spew out
the nastiest of bile
Towards people I've known as personal friends
Towards Muslims and gays and the misfits - to what ends?
You hate and reject,
You pushed me outside
You mock and you discard,
And I'm the one unkind?
You are nothing like Jesus
You hate ones our God so loved
You add to the pain
Of weak and the weary, the homeless, the cold.
Still I've found your pews are the hardest of all.
They just are not worth it,
So I'll sleep in a stall
The floor is my cushion, my ceiling the sky
My greeters some outcasts- they'll be mocked for their zeal
Yet all that I wanted was to come down and heal.
Your hearts are so damn hard-
You listen to lies-
You're more outraged I said "damn" than that you call evil right.
Yeah-the metaphor's not refined
(no more is the rhyme)-
I may not be Jesus; I am exiled like He was-
A missionary kid, a foreigner, an outcast for love.
My God never changed, but you shut me out-
You cared more for winning; you wallowed in doubt
That our God is holy and you reap what you sow
You shut out the lowly,
And just so you know:
The very ministry you said you support
You've undermined and ridiculed
With your unrepentant vote.
You've told your children, your grandchildren too
That all that matters is fearing and abusing those unlike you.
I held out my hands to you- I know the ones you fear-
They are my friends-they're ordinary- some had less chances here-
To hear of a Savior-to trust in a Friend
Than you had on a Sunday, in a day in a month, in a life...
Yet somehow they are lovely, rejecting of strife...
But
You shut down your heart to me-and absolutely towards them
You wouldn't shed a single tear.
You've squandered abundant blessings- you've mocked what you don't understand.
So now like Wisdom I mock - I revile and despise:
See- your faith is worthless; these divisions deserved-
You watched while they told me,
To go back to my home - my parents' "mission field"
You jeered in silence as I endured abuse
There's no place for me here
Because I refuse to give in to your fear
I warned you, you countered, "But Hillary," "just politics," and despised,
And so I reject you,
Fools in your lies.
This year, I hope for better, with deep friendships forged
From seeing some real love,
and what can be abhorred.
It's sad that this evangelicalism can never be home
But you see-
I see now- you never really wanted me
You prefer your comfort
I rock the boat too much
Prophets unwelcome
You slander and smear
As gossips, narcissists, and the angry
And so
In all that winning- because of fear-
You've lost generations
To your fake smiles and lies.
You have no idea what is greatness
You are foul-smelling and corrupt
And to be honest
It's no longer with sadness, but with joy set before
That I'm forgetting what's behind me
In pursuit of the Prize.
Melody Kay Young (December 2017)
A little poem I wrote out around Christmas this year: Hope for a New Year. Is there hope for the outcast this Christmas? For the one of strong convictions? Grieved by the depth of corruption? Is there hope for the outcasts at Christmas? For the ones who are shunned and despised? For the ones who can’t tolerate lies? Is there hope in this world for the outcast? For the one who just doesn’t fit in? They may label them bitter or divisive. They may claim that they are at fault. They all say they refuse to fit in. Is there hope for the outcast at Christmas? For the person maligned for their Lord? Their character called into question- Their devotion discounted and ignored- Their heart broken and discarded In the “Church”, not the world, they are scorned. Is there hope for all outcasts this Christmas? In a world that’s about to explode With a church that is rapidly dying Where to love and follow Christ seems to mean: Don’t rock the boat. Don’t be different. Be dysfunctional. Be silent. Follow the crowd… (?!) Is there hope for the outcasts this Christmas? For the families who can’t find the joy? For the ones who are thrust into darkness Into grief that they cannot deny. Is there hope? Can we stop? Can we be honest? Can we feel? Can we think for ourselves? Can we grieve? Can we put aside fake and just be? Hope’s Light flows from the Outcast in the manger The kingdom of heaven is of such as these. I see Hope in the form of the Christ Child. Jesus Christ, come in human weakness, sets me free. Yes, there is hope. Pray God we see. (Melody Kay Young, December 21, 2014)
Love your neighbor - love your enemy.
For God so loved the world that God gave.
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