My companion, a college buddy, sits in the living room just a few feet away, working on a paper for his final semester at Columbia Law School.
The others--3 engineers and a wife--went out to see the Golden Gate Bridge, a sight I would have loved to see again. This is the city that I love, and that I left 4 years ago, in April, without a proper goodbye. I've since visited three times, and each time has given me more closure. Still, the city remains close to my heart, and I love it.
Being with college friends reminds me of my decision to leave "ministry" 10 years ago and enter into a different "calling"--a secular iteration of what it means to love people. Being with these friends reminds me of the college fellowship we were all a part of and found community in. I remember how difficult it was to be in fellowship with friends from this community, even while negotiating tension and disagreement with its leaders.
In 2006, I met with the campus minister of my college fellowship and effectively "resigned." I stepped down because I had some fundamental disagreements with some of their policies. My involvement with Christian "ministry" tapered out as I began exploring the helping profession and eventually landed in the field of music therapy.
The biggest issue that arose in college was this: our campus minister had views about mental illness and sexual assault that seemed unloving and unsympathetic. His views seemed to be unChristian, even though he maintained that they were biblical.
I struggled, because this was a community that loved Scripture and made it a spiritual practice to memorize it. This was a community that took the Great Commission seriously, making disciples of college students and spending hours to that end. This was a community where I had made some of the best friendships of my life. The fact that, 10 years later, I'm in San Francisco for a wedding during my final semester of Divinity School is proof of the strength of those friendships.
I have spent the last decade wrestling with what it means to be a born-again, Bible-believing Christian (#Evangelical) while being completely engaged with the world around me. Several of my closest friendships from this decade are with people who do not know Jesus personally. Most of my time has been spent outside the church in the secular helping profession. And yet, I still call myself a Christian and have not given up hope on contributing my gifting and passion to a local church someday. I still show up for Sunday worship and attend home group regularly.
Divinity School has been instrumental for helping me iron out many theological kinks. The community at Yale has opened my eyes to deeper and wider ways of conceiving of God's kingdom. I am okay with having more questions than answers, and I am more convinced than ever that a posture of humility is the key to having more confidence in Christ and Christ's work on earth.
Even more importantly, the love of Christ (which has been shed abroad in our hearts) is the ultimate source and resource for incredibly confusing times. Were we not put on earth to love God and others with all of our hearts? What I do with my Yale degree is secondary to how well I love others. What I know about Scripture and its proper interpretation/implications is ultimately trumped by the reality that Love is a life-force that can truly conquer all. I was born out of the love of two human beings--my parents--and I was born to love all human beings, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, intelligence, looks, and personality.
This morning, I was able to process things that have been on my heart for years. Layers of questions that began in adolescence, were highlighted in college, reactivated again when I lived in San Francisco, and are still being enlightened today. There are times when the Spirit of God speaks to your spirit in ways that transcend intellectual understanding, and this morning felt that way. I'm not ready to articulate it all just yet, but I can return to Scripture and remind myself that:
1If I speak in the tonguesa of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,b but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Amen.
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