The best way for me to honor my former NYC pastor Tim Keller may be for me to come out of the closet about some particulars of my Christian faith. I honestly think that’s what he would want. It will be hard for me to resist “making this about me,” subtly bragging about behind the scenes banter before my delivery of a song around one of his sermons, or whatever. That’s been my MO (or, as he would put it, my idol) – to draw attention to myself, to find ways to make me feel better about a self I really don’t like all that much, maybe to help me feel a little less alone.
But Tim’s whole thing was directing our gaze beyond ourselves. The phrase many of us are quoting, which he said often, “You are more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe, but at the same time more loved and accepted than you ever dared to hope” was his radical, vivid, dead-on accurate depiction of the gospel message. So simple and yet so complex in its implications. And really hard to hang onto, especially when you’re not in a community of like-minded believers, or when you’re avoiding your own questions.
Attending Redeemer Presbyterian took care of these problems for me during the years I spent there. I was encouraged to stay active in a small group. My friends Kari Jo and Cory Cates hosted the one I was involved with the longest, and later Pastor Charlie Drew and his wife Jeannie, who became dear to me. These groups felt like family, but welcomed newcomers. We met regularly for Bible studies, prayer, meals together. There was always joy and a sense of belonging.
Tim was the ideal pastor for a skeptic like me. I would hang around after services with a few others who’d pepper him with questions. He always hosted this little Q&A, which I found incredibly brave because the people who showed up could ask anything at all – and they threw him some humdingers. Specifics are hard to recall, but there was that one time I brought him my issue with praying to a trinitarian God. His answer was simple, empathetic, and supportive. What struck me then and still does about how he dealt with doubters, agnostics, and atheists, even those attacking him, was his lack of defensiveness, and his compassion. I had this sense that when he looked at seekers he saw himself, as a young man before deciding to follow Christ. And also that he followed Jesus’ example of looking on the crowds with compassion, “because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). He never seemed to be about sticking it to anyone but rather showing you this incredible treasure he had found.
Skeptics Welcome
That is what I want for whatever is left of my life. For I’ve found this treasure too. It has been mine from a very young age, but I kept a film over it – a veil of familiarity that made it really hard for me to see it clearly. Many Bible passages and verses resonated with me, but I often neglected their context. I didn’t see the full scope of the Bible – that it tells this miraculous cosmic story and we’re all a part of it. Only just now am I beginning – in my mid-fifties – to look beyond the veil.
What I’m seeing is that the more I gaze at the beauty of Christ, the more I can become like him (2 Cor. 3:18). That I can love without fear (1 John 4:18), that I can truly forgive because I have been forgiven (Eph. 4:32). That I can live in real freedom (Gal. 5:1), and that I find him present in the most unlikely, unattractive, marginalized, poor, cast out people (Matt 5 and a bunch of other places, especially my own experience). I’m learning that the story is way bigger and more wonderful than I ever imagined, and that my own part in it is simultaneously minuscule and incredibly significant.
That’s really about it. The stuff we fight over, those traps people set for folks like Tim Keller? Well, they kind of remind me of the denarius question the Pharisees and Herodians hurled at Jesus. Tim preached a great sermon on that (and I can’t be sure, but the voice reading the scripture sounds an awful lot like my old friend Michelle Jennings). I recommend it: https://youtu.be/U79Eef6U9nw .