Civil Disobedience For Pastors in Light of New Legislation

I saw the national news about the Georgia governor vetoing the religious rights protection bill or whatever it was called. Depending on what news source you read, it was either a triumph of goodwill towards persecuted minorities and the gay/lesbian community or the beginning of open season on churches and pastors.

I'm not freaking out, even though the bill apparently would have provided legal protection for pastors if someone attempted to force them to perform gay weddings or force a church to host one. This is why:

When I worked at Little Caesar's pizza when I was in college, there were some rather interesting guys that made the pizzas. We, like most businesses, had repeat customers, some of whom were very rude and condescending. Well, those folks received "special" treatment.

If a customer was abusive or angry or anything like that, it was no stretch to say that certain things happened to their pizza before it was delivered. I would leave that to your imagination as to the details, but one thing I learned- when you are wanting the services of someone, you'd better be kind to them.

That's why I shook my head when I heard about gay couples suing a wedding cake company. There is no way on EARTH I would have ever eaten a piece of that cake. I saw what the pizza guys did to rude customers' orders. There is no telling what kind of cake you would be getting if you sued the person making it. All I know is that if you were at that wedding and ate a piece of the cake, you need to see your doctor immediately.

In WWII, the German high command forced concentration camp victims to make ammunition for the Wehrmacht (German army). When guards weren't looking, the slave laborers would fill the bullets with sand instead of gunpowder. American GI's can all tell you that the number of duds- unexploded artillery shells, potato mashers (grenades), etc was MUCH higher than normal. The "workers" resisted by sabotaging what they were being forced to do. They didn't just lay down. They resisted. They found a way to fight even under the threat of punishment and death.

The gay/lesbian community would be incredibly foolish to sue a pastor or a church and force them to perform a wedding.  Why? Same reason the German army shouldn't have forced slave laborers to make ammunition for them- you don't threaten people you need. They'll find a way to fight back.

The pastor would show up an hour late, dressed in shorts and a wife-beater t-shirt with Billy Bob teeth instead of a suit.

The pastor would do the service in Spanish, or German, or Pig-Latin.

The flowers would mistakenly be watered with bleach instead of water the night before.

The pastor would lose the marriage license.

The pastor would preach a two-hour sermon, reading from the book of Leviticus about everyone who begat someone else, eventually getting around to something having to do with weddings.

The A/C units would mysteriously stop working, especially if it were a summer wedding. Same with the heating unit for a winter wedding.

The toilets would mysteriously stop up.

The reception tables would all of a sudden be missing screws and brackets.

I could go on.

See, pastors, you don't need to freak out. You're holding all the cards. If they need your services, or intend to force you against your beliefs and against your will to participate, you are still in control. A few "weddings" like I described above would be all it would take to stop the lawsuits and agenda. Get creative. I'm sure you can think of better things than I was able to come up with. Just sabotage it. Make it miserable for the couple. Let them encounter resistance at every turn. Be late. Be sloppy. Be unprofessional. Forget details. Turn off the water to the building. Make significant mistakes on the wedding license, so it will have to be returned and done over again. Postpone the wedding several times. Get the flu the day of the wedding. If, like me, you require marriage counseling sessions before marriage, miss those appointments. Have someone hold a lighter to the smoke detector during the ceremony so the service will have to be interrupted by fire fighters. Send the marriage license to the wrong county in the wrong state so it gets lost.

In other words, make it NOT WORTH THEIR EFFORT TO FORCE YOU TO VIOLATE YOUR CONSCIENCE. Make their experience so miserable, so taxing, so time-consuming, so terrible, that they decide it isn't worth the effort. Make their wedding so awful, so miserable, so cluster-you-know-what that all of their courtroom time, all their plans, all their forcing of agenda will simply not be worth it.

This is the way all people who try to force pastors to violate their conscience and convictions should be treated. There is nothing in the Bible that commands pastors or Christians to roll over and play dead in the face of tyranny, in the face of violating your conscience, in the face of being forced to do something you believe runs contrary to your beliefs.

Some people will say that's not very loving, that pastors should just be loving and kind and treat all people with respect and dignity. That's true. We should be loving and kind and treat all people with respect and dignity. However, that doesn't mean you participate willingly in something you believe to be wrong. There is a time for peace and a time for war, the Bible says. There is a time to compromise and a time to hold fast to your beliefs. If someone declares war on you- on your name, your reputation, on your livelihood, your freedom, your church- it's time to go to war. It's time to fight. It's time to stand up and not be a doormat. The weapons I've described above- nonviolent weapons of sabotage and civil disobedience- are the ones to fight with. War has been declared. So go to war.

When I hear of bills like this being vetoed, I do little more than yawn. Pastors, you are still holding all the cards.

When you feel like complaining . . . .

My wife and I were downstairs early this morning, which is pretty rare. Most of the time one of us is gone to work or meetings in the early mornings, so this was kind of rare.

She was fixing scrambled eggs for our son who has to go to school first. She asked me, while she was fixing breakfast, to make our son a sandwich for his lunch. I went over to the fridge and opened it up. That's when my bad day started.

As soon as I opened the door, stuff started falling. A container of cherry tomatoes, not properly put away, fell out and scattered all over the floor. I happened to step on a few of them. Then more items started spilling out, and it was all I could do to catch them before they hit the ground- jars of jelly, apples, you name it. All spilling out. It would have been pretty funny if I was watching someone else, but I was definitely not amused.

When I finally stopped the avalanche of refrigerator items from falling, I was pretty mad. Someone had just thrown all the stuff in there and I happened to be the one reaping the consequences. It was quite a mess. To make things worse, when I reached in to get the bread and turkey, as I was pulling them out of the fridge, I started another avalanche of stuff.

I lost my cool. I started complaining.

And then it hit me.

I'm complaining about having so much food that it's spilling out of the fridge. Really?

See, what I learned today was that most of what we complain about, if not all, are things that God blesses us with. I began to think about the things I complain about on a daily basis- and there was something in every one of them that was a blessing from God:

1. The over-abundance of food in my house that I complained about this morning- I'm literally complaining about having too much food. Lord, help me change that complaint into thankfulness and amazement that I have more food in my house than many people see in a month.

2. The mess in the family room that drives me nuts- that's the sign of a house full of children. Lord, help me change that complaint into thankfulness and amazement, because there are many in this world who cannot have children or have lost children and would die to have that mess if it meant they actually had children. Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of my children.

3. The traffic on the roads that I complain about- that's the sign that I am wealthy enough to afford a car, insurance, gas, and so is everyone else on the road. Amazing. I also am healthy enough to drive. Lord, help me change that complaint into thankfulness and amazement that I have a standard of living that includes not just one car, but three, and the ability to drive on safe roads.

4. The idiots in government that are running this country- the fact that I can write that without fear of being arrested means I live in a free country. Lord, help me change that complaint into thankfulness and amazement. People in North Korea would die to be able to say the things I am saying/have said about those in power.

5. The never-ending chores of being a homeowner: yard work, mowing, lawn care; fixing/replacing broken appliances, painting, cleaning, etc. Lord, help me turn that complaint into thankfulness that I own my own home (and I love it) and it's more than I could ever deserve.

6. The never-decreasing piles of laundry- that's the sign that my wife, children, and I are healthy and active and all play sports. Lord, help me turn that complaint into thankfulness, because You have given us a healthy home. It's also a sign that we have plenty to wear, and we have more clothes than many people in this world. We have an over-abundance of one of life's essentials. We are so blessed.

I could go on. I think one of the ways you know that you are growing closer to the Lord is that you are able to turn your complaints into praise. Just about everything you complain about is actually a blessing that God has given you.

Do you complain about work? You have the blessing of a job, of income. Turn it into thankfulness.
Do you complain about your spouse? You have the blessing of marriage. Turn it into thankfulness.
Do you complain about the weather? You have the blessing of changing seasons. Be thankful.
Do you complain about anything? I guarantee there is one of God's many blessings right there beside it.

Find the blessing in the complaint, and turn your complaints into thankfulness to God. Honestly, we should have no reason to complain about anything. God is good. We are blessed.

"Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Philippians 2:14-15

"Well, I guess I'll have to give up my girlfriend . . . "

Last Sunday, I was finishing up my Inside/Out Dad prison ministry. One of the guys asked if he could talk with me after class. He approached me and said, "Just wanted you to know- I had divorce papers that I was going to send to my wife, but because of last week's class I decided not to."

I nodded.

He continued, "You said that you'd sit down and do counseling for anyone in this class. Will you really sit down with me and my wife and help us work things out?"

I said, "Sure. I'm a pastor. I do that all the time. I'd love to sit down with you and your wife and see if there are things I can help with. I really believe in marriage and want to see everyone succeed in it."

Then, in one of those moments where the Holy Spirit guides you, I said, "This past Tuesday night I was watching the UK-Alabama game when I got a message that a friend of mine had died. I had baptized him back in July a few months ago. He went to work, came home, sat down on the couch, massive heart attack, and died."

I continued, "I went to the hospital to visit the family. When I got there, it was mass chaos. The family was grieving, the coroner was trying to get information from his wife who was understandably beside herself with grief, family was there, etc. I sat and listened and counseled with the family for about an hour."

"Then it was time to go home. I walked back to the room, room #6, where my friend's body lay. I went there with his wife and stepdaughter- the women of the family. This was going to be their goodbye. The last words they would say to him. I'll never forget what they said."

I looked at the inmate. I said, "The wife leaned down and said, "Joe, you were so good to me. No one has ever loved me the way you did. Thank you." His stepdaughter said the same thing, "Joe Daddy, you were so good to me. You treated me so well."

The guy looking at me was silent.

I said, "That's what being a man is about. For the women in the family- the ones we are supposed to love and cherish and take care of and provide for- for them to say at the end of our lives, "You were so good to me, no one has ever loved me like you did," is about as good as it gets for a man. Now, let's say it was you laying on the table dead. Would your wife and daughter say that to you?"

He looked at me and said, "Probably not."

I said, "Well, what can you do right now, and continue doing for the rest of your life, so that they actually WOULD say that?"

He looked me in the eye and said with a straight face, "Well, I'd probably have to give up my girlfriend."

It's not easy to render me speechless, but he sure managed to do it. I thought he was joking at first, but he was as serious as he could be. I raised my eyebrows, gave him the two thumbs up signal and said, "Good plan."

After talking a little bit more, I found out that the reason he wanted to sit down with me and his wife wasn't to work on their marriage. He wanted me to tell his wife that she needed to get over his having a girlfriend on the side. That's what he thought I would do for him.

I said, "You're absolutely nuts. I'm not going to tell your wife that you having a girlfriend is okay."

The entire situation is laughable, right?

Who in their right mind would want a minister to say that outright sin is okay? It would never happen, right?

Sadly, that is what Christians do every day. Although we are much more sneaky about it.

How many of us want to be committed to God? If you are a Christian, probably most of us. Now consider this: how many of us want the preacher to preach on tithing? If you are a Christian, probably no one. The Christian is too many times like this inmate- he's got his "marriage" to God but also his sin of selfishness on the side, and he wants the preacher to tell God that his disobedience to the Word of God is okay.

How many of us have our "marriage" to God but also have our porn on the side? Or our adulterous affair on the side? Or our lack of prayer,  lack of study of the Word, lack of passion for the Great Commission, and idolatry on the side? How many of us want to wear the label "Christian" and yet lead lives that look no different than the rest of the non-Christian world?

We are like that guy. We are the inmate who wants both his wife and his girlfriend. Far too often, that describes the Body of Christ.

Well, like marriage, it won't work.

I can't imagine that any bride, on her wedding day, would like to hear the words from her soon-to-be-husband, "In sickness and in health, for better for worse, till death do us part . . . .  wait. How committed do I have to be to you? What if I am 98% committed to you and only commit adultery once a year? Will that be okay? How about 95%? How committed do I have to be to you before you'll get mad?"

The bride would likely look away in disgust and say, "It's either 100% or 0%. If I'm not your one and only, I'm gone."

God is the same way.

People, today we need to stop committing spiritual adultery, which is exactly what we are doing. Like that inmate, let's get rid of our "girlfriend on the side" and commit our way solely to the Lord our God. You know exactly what needs to leave your life. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Get rid of it today. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.