Faith is About Hope

3 days left in my 40's. I'm not one to wear my faith on my sleeves and I do my best to be about it and not talk about it. The choices I make and how I show up in the world are all covered by grace and mercy.

Professionally, I spend most of my time working with churches on their real estate needs so I'm constantly in relationship with Pastors and preachers and leaders of all denominations and faiths. It is a sacred duty I take seriously and one that gives me a unique view of religion and man's attempt to commune with God.

Although I've already completed grad school many years ago having earned an MBA, last year I quietly enrolled in seminary to pursue a second Master's Degree. This one not for my mind, but for my heart. As I work on my Master's of Divinity from Claremont School of Theology, I can honestly say how disappointed I've been in man's need to control the narrative on faith.

Monday I wrote about matters of my heart, yesterday I wrote about my children (my soul), today I write about faith.

During this pandemic, I've grown frustrated watching some religious leaders attack those providing public health policy for not allowing churches to gather inside their buildings. As one the very few people in the country who specializes in these types of buildings (the physical church) I can attest that they are merely sticks and bricks.

I've worked with hundreds of church buildings and congregations, selling them, developing them, reimagining them and over the past 15 years doing this work, I've never once seen a building save a soul. If anything, I've seen buildings lose souls as they've become tombs of the lost for those remnants of faith bodies denying service to their neighbor.

The God I serve uses the least among us for his purposes. The lost, broken, dirty and stubborn, like me. It isn't about religion or meeting at a building once a week, it's about relationship. It's not about condemning those who don't look like me, talk like me, act like me or Lord forbid do stuff they're not supposed to do, even though we all do, it's about love.

I don't need to prove to anyone how my relationship with Jesus has transformed my life so that I can have a better seat in heaven. I lived through my pain and valleys only to experience miraculous transformation I didn't earn or deserve.

I don't get brownie points for following Jesus, I get calluses. There are many that walk this earth that don't believe what I believe. Whatever their arguments, rationale or reasons, I don't need to invalidate their opinions to justify my faith. My faith justifies my love for them nonetheless and because of it, I work without ceasing, to serve the least among us quietly, without fanfare, recognition or judgment.

I have sinned with the best of them and until my dying day I'll be flawed. My faith doesn't make me perfect, it just makes me a saved sinner. How dare I judge a soul. I don't have a heaven to put them in or a hell to send them to. But I have practiced giving my enemy a drink of cold water and praying for those who seek to persecute me.

I'm free to talk about my faith because I live in a country that legally permits the free expression of religion or denial thereof. I've just made a conscious choice to use my pen to remind folks that the church is the most imperfect place on earth because it is the only place where people meet who know they're sinners but often forget to talk about the sin.

The church is not where we go to be perfect, act perfect, talk perfect and then turn around and admonish one another for being imperfect. It's truly designed to be a place a refuge. A place where pilgrims can gather and say I'm sorry to one another and collectively ask God for strength, wisdom and grace to go out and find more pilgrims.

Faith is about hope. Hope is birthed by grace and grace is a gift that can't be earned. From the Bishop to the pauper, all are equal in the eyes of God and no man has a monopoly on the gospel of Jesus the Christ.

Let no man or woman deny his brother or sister love, a helping hand, bread to eat, a shirt to wear, a drink of water, a roof to shelter and a shoulder to cry on. This is church, and we are all entitled to be of service to it and not require service of it. We are all broken and only together can we help one another live and thrive through the brokenness we call life.

This photo was taken several years ago in the members only congressional dining room at the US Capitol. The men seated are my Pastor for life Bishop Jerry Wayne Macklin. He taught me what being a servant leader was all about. My dear friend Congressman Eric Swalwell who demonstrated with his first run for Congress that faith, hope and belief in one's self is an unstoppable combination. Bishop's eldest son Jerwayne is standing next to me and he along with I witnessed from the gallery Bishop giving the invocation as he prayed on the House floor and opened a session of Congress that day. That is faith.