I stood there with a little basket filled with self-serve communion cups, really nice ones, consecrated by clergy from West End UMC. I wore Belmont’s Pride shirt and a colorful clergy stole. I stood on the sidewalk in front of the Communion Table, asking people if they wanted to receive holy communion. For the past several years, a group of about 7 Nashville United Methodist Churches and clergy from all over the Conference have served communion to thousands of people at Pride.   

She paused for a minute looking at the basket. I asked if she would like to receive communion. Her answer was almost imperceptibly softly spoken “that might be nice”. Her friend declined.  I took the cup from the basket, smiled, looked her in the eyes, and offered my Pride liturgy: “we believe that God so loved the World, that God came into our world to show us how to love, tell us that we are loved, and empower us to love, so take this cup and know that you are beloved by God.” Offering a kind of benediction I continued “May the love of God fill you, uphold you and wash all over you.”  As she pulled back the little foil lids, she began to weep. For three or four minutes she just stood shaking, embodying tears.  We stood with her, sharing her silence. She was around 40 with short cropped hair, strong and stout.  When she gathered herself she looked at me and asked “Can I have a hug?”  I said yes, and as I turned for the clergy shoulder-led safety hug, she grabbed me like a professional wrestler and pulled me into a bear hug. We hugged like players celebrating a state championship. As we hugged I told her she was made in the image of God, beloved, beautiful and accepted.  When the hug ended she found words, “I haven’t had communion since I came out and they kicked me out of my church.” She shared her story of 24 years without communion or a church,  living in a small Tennessee town where no church would welcome her. She promised to drop in one Sunday here and maybe she’s worshiping with us online today. 

I wish I could tell you that hearing her story of  “I came out and they kicked me out” was unique, but I heard some version of that same story four times during my one hour shift serving communion at Pride. 

But hear the Good News: “So now there isn’t any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…. We are God’s children! … Who will separate us from Christ’s love? Can trouble, distress, harassment, hunger, nakedness, danger, or violence separate us from God’s love, No- in fact we win a sweeping victory through the Christ who loves us! Nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord! Nothing, not death or life, not angels nor rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created. Nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ.”  

Shouldn’t that be the end of any debate about who belongs? Shouldn’t our verses end the shunning, judging and shame?

I sometimes get a bit annoyed that my progressive friends read the Apostle Paul with the same hermeneutic as the literalists. (Everyone should Read Marcus Borg’sThe First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon.)  No matter how you slice Paul’s message in Romans 8 it is a radically inclusive message..

There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus

Nothing can separate us from God’s love

I think the Apostle Paul believed ”There is no condemnation in Christ”  to his core.  You remember Paul’s story.  Paul was a religious zealot, a religious terrorist really, the theological muscle behind the stoning to death of the first Christian martyr. (Acts 7) Paul was so hell-bent on rounding up those who did not adhere to his religious vision, that he got legal papers to arrest people hoping to stomp out this new theological movement we call Christianity!   On the heels of watching the stones fly even as Stephen forgave his murderers, Luke notes that Paul was “still breathing threats and murder”.  (Acts 9) Consumed by religious intolerance, fed by hate, fixated on judging others Paul is ready to kill- when he gets knocked to the ground by a lightning bolt of Jesus’ love! First Timothy names Paul as “the biggest sinner of all”.  Blown away by God’s grace and Jesus’ radically inclusive Love, Paul preached that nothing can separate us from God- there is no condemnation even of the worst sinner- even a religious terrorist like himself.  How can that be? Well grace is about God, not us.  

In Ephesians 3 Paul prays that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. That we would be rooted and grounded in love, and comprehend, with all the saints, the breadth and length and height and depth and know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we might be filled with all the fullness of God. 

Friends, our faith is either about God’s Grace or our human struggle to do the right things and earn some kind of holiness.  At the end of the day, we either believe, “there is some acceptable level of condemnation” or we believe the Good News that “There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus”. We either believe that “some things can separate us from God’s love” or accept that: “Nothing can separate us from God’s love”! 

Now, some people think we need to condemn things fearing that we may fall into “anything goes”. Why do we judge when Jesus commands us to not judge? (Matthew 7) Maybe it is because we still struggle to understand how deep and wide and powerful God’s Love really is! 

Charles Wesley put it like this

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me!

‘Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies!

Who can explore God’s strange design?

In vain the firstborn angel tries

To sound the depths of love divine!

‘Tis mercy all! let earth adore,

Let angel minds inquire no more.

Christ left His Father’s throne above,

So free, so infinite His grace;

Emptied Himself of all but love,

And bled for Adam’s helpless race;

‘Tis mercy all, immense and free;

For, O my God, it found out me. 

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in Christ is mine!

Alive in Him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach th’eternal throne,

And claim the crown, through Christ my own. 

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me!

When has someone’s judging or condemning you ever empowered you to love? Love changes us. Love frees us to be who God made us to be. If we could just try to understand how deep, wide, tall and infinite God’s Love is- we would stop condemning others. We would know that Love alone pulls us deeper into Love and frees us to live lives of love. Love moves us past shame, fear, judgment, and hatred. Paul tells us that Love pulls us away from death-dealing traps like adultery, porn, hedonism, idolatry, drug addiction, magic, hate, fighting, obsession, angry outbursts, competitive opposition, conflict, selfishness, group rivalry, jealousy, hard partying, and stuff  like that.  The Spirit of Chrit’s Love grows love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  (Galatians 5)

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in Christ is mine!

Alive in Christ, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach th’eternal throne,

And claim the crown, through Christ my own. 

Oh that we might know that kind of life-altering Love and be so bold- so empowered, so emboldened with the wideness of God’s Love, that we boldly grab the beloved crown and place not only on our heads, but on everyone’s head- telling the Good News of the Wideness of God’s love: There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus: Nothing can separate us from God’s love! Amen. .