Chapter 37

'Berto

He looked at Toni, and she looked back at him. "I want to do this, 'Berto," she said.

He took a breath. "You know, a couple of weeks ago I'd have told you to come with me to find another church. But..." He took her hand and looked into her eyes for a second more, then turned back to the elder. "We'll work with you."

Tyrone seemed relieved; he couldn't see any visible reaction from any of the rest. It was Tyrone who took up the discussion again. "First let me be sure I have the facts straight – that we all do," he said with a nod at the others. "You are living together out of wedlock – pardon the old expression, but it's how I think of it. You want to get married, not simply to formalize your relationship, but because you love each other. You, Antonia, are a Christian but have been separated from God for several years; you, Roberto, are, if I understand things correctly, an atheist."

"That's about right," 'Berto said. "I'm not sure I'd call myself an atheist, since I'm not very dogmatic about not believing in God – I don't believe He exists, but I don't try to convert anyone. And..." He looked at Toni, feeling a bit of embarrassment, though he couldn't pinpoint why. "And over these past couple of weeks, Toni's been explaining some things to me, and while I still don't believe there's a God, I'm not as certain as I used to be." He shrugged. "As for the rest, you're right. I think Toni might have been willing to live with me forever as we are now, but when I proposed she accepted."

"Could you tell me something about that, Miss Antonia?" Tyrone's voice was surprisingly gentle for such a big man.

"'Berto's right. I would have been happy to be his ... mistress is the old word ... forever. When he proposed it surprised me, and I thought about it for some time. I considered turning down the proposal of marriage, and continuing to live with him. But we love each other – I knew I loved him by our third day together, and he loves me, or he wouldn't have proposed."

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" This was Jim Garrison.

Roberto answered first. "I don't – but I experienced it, though I didn't know it at the time."

"I do," said Toni. "This is the first time I've ever experienced it, or even witnessed it, but I've always believed it can happen."

"We generally prefer things to move more slowly," Garrison said. "But Tyrone has told us all – he has told the church," Garrison said with a smile, "about how he met his wife. It was love at first sight for them, and they have as happy a marriage as I've ever seen. So we don't, as elders, reject such things out of hand. For now, I see no reason to doubt your claim that you love each other, even though you've known each other such a short time."

The other elders nodded, and Earl Carrington cleared his throat. "I'm sometimes the one who asks the ... the 'mean' questions. It's not that I want to be mean, or that the elders give me that job. I just happen to think of them, I guess." He looked down at the table, and then back up at Toni and Roberto. "Antonia, you know, I think, that you're living in sin right now. What do you have to say about that?"

Roberto felt an urge to snap at Carrington, but he stifled it. He did squeeze Toni's hand, and felt her response. "I know that as we are now living, it's sinful." Her voice was soft, softer even than usual, but clear, and she faced the elders rather than hanging her head. At that moment, seeing her courage and strength, he thought, Every time I decide I couldn't love her more, I find out I'm wrong. "I grew up in church. I believe the Bible. I have no excuse for what I'm doing. All I can offer are reasons."

"What are those reasons, Miss Antonia?" That was Tyrone.

She took a breath – and Roberto could hear that it was on the edge of being a ragged one. He knew that her control was close to the breaking point. "There is the fact that having sinned seven years ago, I have no hope or peace or joy in God, and I am – and yes, I know this is sin as well – I am therefore living as a sinner without hope. There is the fact that my body betrayed me once, and this time I didn't resist, knowing how little I can resist. But above all there is the fact that I love 'Berto, and he loves me, and ... and given everything else, I have decided that since God's wrath is upon me, I might as well face that wrath for much as for little."

José Mendoza spoke up, his voice carrying a strong Hispanic accent. "Your doctrine is hash, Antonia."

"How so?"

Tyrone waved Mendoza to silence. "Please forgive our brother. His zeal is great, and his beliefs we agree with, but his diplomatic talent is slender."

Mendoza dipped his head. "Sí. I am sorry, Antonia. I do not mean to be harsh. Please forgive me."

"I forgive you, Brother Mendoza."

Tyrone looked straight at her. "However unfortunate José's wording may have been, Miss Antonia, his point is valid. The doctrine that you are working from is not what we believe here at MJT."

"What do you believe, sir?" Toni's voice was softer yet, so soft that even Roberto, sitting next to her, had to listen carefully.

"We believe that yes, God hates sin and punishes sin. But we do not believe, we can't believe, that God hates His children, even when they sin. We don't believe that a genuine Christian can ever sin so greatly that God will forsake him, that a true Christian can ever so offend God that He will turn upon her in wrath. God is our Father, not our enemy. 'God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?' He deals with us as sons, Miss Antonia. If you are His child, then He deals with you not as a lost sinner who has forever rejected Him, but as a kind and loving father deals with his daughter."

She looked at Roberto. And then she said, as though no one else were in the room, "I said it, didn't I?"

"You did, Toni Leti." He brushed her cheek with his free hand. "Perhaps there is hope for you here."

Toni

Is there hope for me? She desperately wanted it to be so. Oh God, let it be true that there is hope – however faint – for me in this place. She turned back to face the elders. "If I have been wrong about this, if I have been viewing God too harshly ... Let me start over. Surely you're not saying that God doesn't care about my sin."

Tyrone had done most of the talking so far, and now he seemed to become the only elder there; the others apparently respected his wisdom so much that they allowed him all the conversation. "No, we're not saying that, not at all. We don't believe that at all. God does care about your sin – He cares so much that His own Son died to wash it away. Only that blood could do the job, Miss Antonia. Do you remember what Hebrews says about blood?"

"I'm not sure." Her memory, which had been bringing up verses right and left, was silent this time.

"'Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.' The only way you ever became a Christian in the first place was by the shedding of the blood of Jesus. Acts 20:28 makes it clear that God purchased you with His own blood. Christ was not merely a rabbi, not merely a prophet, not merely a good man. He was God incarnate, dying for you, Antonia, to save you from sin. That is how much He cares – He cares enough to die in your place, to suffer in your place, to bear sin in your place."

"Then ... but I can't sin and get away with it..."

"No, Miss Antonia, you can't. Nor will we ever tell you that you can. We agree with Spurgeon, who said that Christians can never sin cheaply. 'For the wages of sin is death, ' and even for a Christian, who is free through the death of Christ, something of that price comes through. We don't pay the price, understand, but we do face consequences. Tell me, Miss Antonia – have you experienced consequences from your sin?"