Throwing Rocks

(Side note before I start...if you don't know who Glennon Doyle Melton is, have never read "Carry On Warrior, and/or you don't "like" the Momastery Facebook page...get busy! In my humble opinion...of course)

The other day, the Momastery Facebook status said:

"Whenever I hear Christian folks discussing how certain they are that God prefers a "traditional" (nuclear, husband and wife) family - I always wonder. If God holds the "traditional" family above all others- why'd God give God's only son to an unmarried, young girl? God only had one shot- and he chose for Jesus a single mama and then a blended family. It seems likely to me that God has wide ideas about what makes a family legit and worthy."

I "liked" it...like immediately. It should come as no surprise that I'm all about celebrating diverse families. I'm a single Mom. I was raised in turns by my Mom and her husband, my Grandma, my Aunt and Uncle, my Dad and his wife, his wife, and then my Mom again. I have friends raising kids in blended family, friends raising their grandchildren. I have friends who foster, friends who adopt...and yes, I have a friends in same sex relationships raising children or trying to. I'm into diverse. I'm okay with it. I celebrate it.

Anyone want to take a guess how quickly the comment section became a quagmire of contention as everyone immediately started arguing for and against same sex marriage? There was no celebration of Jesus and his mother, no celebration of single parents persevering.

There was a lot of rock throwing though. Because there is nothing new under the sun and we are as ready to throw rocks as the Pharisees. Only we don't stop to think about our sin or whether we are without it. We don't stop to think of the pain we'll cause. The irreparable damage that is being done. We call ourselves "defending the gospel" and we let those stones fly.

I'm reading Sarah Bessey's book "Jesus Feminist" and it absolutely wrecking my world. It literally took me a week just to digest the introduction (Yes, I said digest...it was less like reading and more like a process). She is hoping for a day where we can come together as Christians in peace and relate together. She says

"We'll stand before the piles of stones that used to be weapons and we'll build an altar. God met us here"

At the time, reading that, I was still camped out in John 8 with the adulterous woman and the stone carrying crowd because there is just so freaking much you can glean from it!

But, reading Sarah Bessey's description, I suddenly had a mental image of all the stones that were dropped as the crowd realized that none of them were without sin. One minute they are ready to throw rocks...and the next they are building an altar. Perhaps not intentionally but that is what that pile of rocks represents. An altar. An altar of grace. And God met them there.

Guys...I'm not sure who we like throwing rocks at better...the LGBT community, the politicians (the ones on the "wrong side" Also known as, not your side) or each other. In the meantime, we aren't building altars. And we aren't righting the wrongs of this world. Children are hungry, women are hurting and men are trying to find their way. And we can't stop throwing rocks long enough to help them. To show them the way to the altar of grace.

Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone. The rest of us should get busy reconciling ourselves and a lost and broken world to the only one who had the right to cast the stone...and didn't.