On Limiting God, And Salvation

Slate Project
Jul 10, 2017 · 3 min read

The Rev. Kwame Pitts, Trybal Pastor, is a Holy Troublemaker Claiming the Both/And. She is working to #decolonize16 and #transformChristianity, while dancing in the presence of the Ancestors.

Is it too RADICAL,
To believe as people of Faith,
That we come from the Creator God
And in those moments
Of Darkness
Despair
Unbearable suffering
REGARDLESS
Of how perhaps,
Our roots have been frayed,
And not fully embedded in the soil,
Of our Faith

Or

We question
Where is God,
When life’s chaos seemingly suffocates our sacred breath

Or even,

When we run away from the Light of God,
Not because the Creator abandons us,
But that we, as humanity
Fail one another
Unwilling to stop the flow of hatred
From our lips,
All the while,
We profess,
Scripture.

In writing this,
I confess
I am deeply embedded in grief,
At the loss
Of someone so dear,
A part of my communal Tribe.
She is now Ancestor,
Free.

But
These questions surrounding
The Scripture
“Jesus says,
I am the Way
And the Truth
And the Life
No one comes to the Father
Except through me.”
Cause my spirit to choke.
Are we that callous as people of faith,
To assume that,
A person
Who articulates
They either do not believe,
Or question
At this moment of death,
That the Creator denies them peace
Based on HUMAN judgment?

We forget the story,
Of Jesus
Raising a widow’s son
Back to life,
Because without his presence,
She would have had no life.
She,
Is not a follower of Jesus.
We do not even know,
If her son was a follower of Jesus.
But,
Jesus
HEALS
ANYWAY.
Simply out of love,
A Love that we as humans
Will never grasp
Until we,
Are beyond the veil.
Who are we,
To pass judgment?

Are y’all trying to tell me,
That all of my Ancestors
Are in hell,
Because they hadn’t encountered Jesus yet?
Then again,
They escaped hell,
Because those who confessed to being “Christian”
Ignored the WORD of the Gospel,
About Loving one another,
As the Creator Loves Us.
We keep spouting about God’s Grace,
That God’s Love surpasses everything-
Didn’t anyone stop to think,
That a person
A victim of violence,
Who succumbs to the torture that gnaws at their soul,
That at that moment,
When their burden has broken them,
That Jesus
In that moment,
IF WE BELIEVE
That Jesus Christ died for ALL

Regardless,
That Jesus calls out to them,
And says,
“COME unto me,
YOU who are weary,
And I
Will give you rest.”
Didn’t anyone stop to think
That in those moments,
The Creator weeps,
The Creator hurts,
And then,
The Creator calls them
Home?
If God’s Grace is radical,
Then in our despair
When we just have nothing left,
Isn’t that when salvation,
And mercy
And Peace
Is given,
Unto us?

Why are we surprised then,
When people don’t come into our churches,
And faith communities,
Because they think,
Based on what we proclaim
That God’s Grace,
Isn’t for them
Unless they are perfect.

And if we are going to follow Jesus’s commandment
Of Loving One Another,
When one is hurting,
It is our job,
To love
To pray for
To be in community with
To be the grace and mercy that we teach,
And are supposed to live.


Do me a favor,
If someone dies,
And they weren’t a believer
Don’t condemn them
Lift them up
Honor them,
Because
The Creator surely

Already
Has.

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