My life can be divided into a before and an after. The day between the two occurred on a Monday. I was a United Methodist pastor and spent that day confessing to extra-marital affairs with two women in my church, one of which was ongoing at the time. First, I confessed to my wife, then my son, then to my Superintendent through a phone call, followed by my two associate pastors, the church’s Pastoral Relations Committee, and, finally, an offended husband standing in my office door.
By then, it was early evening, and I’d gone there to wait for the committee’s decision about my fate. Slouched in my chair, in mental collapse after hours of repeated mea culpas, I didn’t notice the husband until he spoke. “Why’d you do it?”
It was a legitimate question from a decent man; we even played golf together once. But I couldn’t begin to explain; I wasn’t sure myself. Understanding my motivations was still years down the road. Instead, I muttered, “I don’t know. It was wrong. I’m sorry.” When he continued to simply stand and stare, I told him, “Do what you’re gonna do. I don’t care.” I was simply numb.
Thankfully, the husband left without doing anything, and was replaced by the Superintendent, bearing news from the committee. I was banished from all church property, effective immediately, including my house, since the church owned the house. Was there someplace I could go?
I sat in the chair, mulling his question. Kicking me out of the house didn’t matter; my wife had already done the same thing. My friends in the area were other clergy, who would not find it easy to offer refuge to a disgraced fellow cleric. My best friend was three hours away and family even more. Not able to think of anything, I didn’t say anything. My brain was idling in neutral, exasperating the Superintendent, who, looking at his watch, said I could spend the night at his house.
Getting into his car, since my wife held the keys to mine, we rode through the night in silence. My disaster lingered like some distant explosion, while I tracked the moon, as it peeked between trees and buildings. The dispassionate moon offered cold consolation, but the cold felt good, and I let it wash over me until we arrived. Escorted to a tidy guestroom, the superintendent finally spoke. “There will be a box of cereal on the kitchen table in the morning. Then you’ll find me in my office.” With that, I was left to ponder my day.
It was a simple process of subtraction: estranged family, no job, ruined career, hypocritical pastor, abuser of trust. Quiet as the room was, the morning promised re-entry into a chaos for which I was completely unprepared. I had lost control of my life. No thoughts were forming about where to go or what to do, which, in my depleted state, almost seemed comforting.
The only item I brought with me was my Bible, which I let fall open on the bed. It was a silly practice I used occasionally; I’d let God choose a passage. Looking down at the pages, I found myself reading the story about Jesus and an adulterous woman. Caught having sex with someone other than her husband, the woman was dragged before Jesus for judgment, with an angry crowd gathered round.
And there I was. I couldn’t help but see myself. She was me. The woman may as well have been named Bucky.
As the story goes, the outraged city folk wanted to know what Jesus would do about it. The scriptural punishment was death by stoning. But, not saying anything at first, Jesus stooped down and doodled with his finger in the sand. When he stood up, he invited anyone who had never committed a sin to throw the first stone. With that said, he stooped back down to doodle some more. There must have been a few moments when everyone stood there in silence. Then the crowd began to gradually disperse, with the oldest leaving first, no stones being thrown, until Jesus and the woman were alone. Looking at her, he said, “I don’t condemn you either. Go, and don’t do it anymore.”
Opening to that story on that particular night can be explained as pure coincidence, or as structural memory in the book, resulting from having read that episode numerous times before. But none of those possibilities entered my mind. I knew it was God. The message was too pointed and direct. At that moment, the words were being spoken to me.
I have no idea if any others that day actually heard my confession, heard the honest grief, through their outrage and shock. But God did, and astonishingly offered me forgiveness on the night of my admissions, as I sat alone in a strange room. While my relations with the church and many people were beyond repair, I knew that would not be true for God.
That belief requires some explanation. God wasn’t promising to rescue me from myself or my situation. The next morning, I was suicidal and hospitalized. After leaving treatment, I faced what it meant to start over from scratch. A decade was spent rebuilding my life. But, for God, at least, my sins would not break our relationship. God would accompany me on the difficult ride.
As a preacher, I frequently spoke about God’s love, but that night, in that room, at the lowest point of my life, I experienced in the most intensely personal way the reality of those words. And it has been the foundation of my faith ever since. Hard as it can be to believe, in our embattled, dangerous world, the Source of our existence is love.
The mystery of this love is depthless, and, to the world, doesn’t make sense. Like all actual love, it needs nothing from us. Misunderstandings about the nature of God are misunderstandings about the nature of love.
Such is my faith, and the gravity for my thoughts. I share them in the same spirit.