Christian Balance

The context of these verses is Sabbath regulations. Exodus 35: 1-3 (CEV) Moses called together the people of Israel and told them that the LORD had said: ²You have six days in which to do your work. But the seventh day must be dedicated to me, your LORD, as a day of rest. Whoever works on the Sabbath will be put to death. ³Don't even build a cooking fire at home on the Sabbath.

1 Kings 7:13-26. This part of the 1 Kings is about how the Temple's furnishings. Verse 15 (CEV) describes the awesome pillars. Hiram made two bronze columns twenty-seven feet tall and about six feet across.

The Temple was where the children of Israel worshiped. Inside the Temple, the children of Israel were awed by the beauty of God's home. The New Testament concept is that we, the church of Jesus Christ, are the Temple of God. And people can be awed by the beauty of the church of Jesus Christ when we have a combination of diversity and balance.

Think of an office building for a moment. The ceiling inside an office building is usually flat. They are not like this beautiful sanctuary, with its high vaulted ceiling. What makes this ceiling and the roof beautiful are the two sets of beams. One set of beams comes from your left and arches up and rests against the opposing set of beams that arches up from your right. Those beams are secured at the bottom.

This illustration can represent the straight and the queer Christians as one in Christ. We need the queer mind and the straight mind interacting to give us the wonderful richness of the Christian church. Were we to take away one of the two minds in the Christianity, we would end up with a flat roof, a flat, plain religion. But the two combined, give us a rich heritage. We have the spiritual beauty that was found in the bronze pillars in the Temple of ancient Israel.

The shape of this roof has a lot of strength. But the strength depends on both pillars being balanced. Were one side of the roof pillars here to weigh more the other side weighs, this roof would not be as stable and would have less strength. Were one side to weigh several times more than the other, the roof might not have the strength to remain up.

Another illustration might help. There are times when I don't get around very well. Some days, I need a little help to walk.

My right knee is pretty weak. If I were to talk with a person who had a weak left knee, we could walk together and by leaning on each other. We could lean on each other, weak side against weak side, for support. That works if there is balance. But to suddenly remove one of the two of us and you would see the other person fall down. Within an affirming congregation, we have a balance of straight and queer Christian spiritualities. When there is balance, we can lean on each other, support each other and walk together, into the Kingdom. Removing one rich spirituality, means we cannot walk together, as straight, gay, bisexual and trans united in the Messiah.

I am a wee bit weight challenged. In less politically correct terms, that means skinny. Were I to try talking with a person who was weight blessed, there could be problems. Can you feature me trying to walk like this, depending on another person who was also had problems walking and that person weighed 600 pounds? It would not work. The person would probably push me over and end up landing on me. In Christianity, we depend on each other for balance and we can only do that when we determine to live together as equals. Should one side or the other insist on only one perspective, we've lost our balance.

Within the true unity found in Christ is a balancing act. God is calling us to be church of balance, of queers and straights united by Christ. We add the beauty of queer Christian spirituality to the wonderful tradition of straight Christian spirituality and all marvel at the richness. And the true unity that comes through our diversity will help the world to see Jesus is the Messiah. As queer Believers and straight Believers we lean on each other, and thus we are able to talk to the Kingdom together. Because God is putting queer and straight people together, people can see the power of God's love. And God is drawing people to Him, as they see us walking together, leaning on each other for support.