“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver
We could debate the issue all day… and I have done so on occasion. But honestly, when people believe, deep down in their hearts that homosexuality is a sin, I’ve learned that the debate goes nowhere. When we already have our minds made up, that’s that. End of story.
When the conversation hits that wall, when conversation breaks down, that’s when I most want to invite people to the church I pastor so they could meet some of our members face to face. Let’s not talk about issues; let’s meet real people. Let’s invite God’s children to look each other in the eye, to behold someone made in God’s own image. Let’s invite everyone to the Table, or any table for that matter, to break bread with one another and pray, just as the early church did. See, I pastor a Christian church which prayerfully discerned in the 1990s that they were called to a profound outreach ministry: to declare themselves a church open to and affirming of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. For nearly two decades, the folks of this little church have extended an extravagant welcome to people who have been rejected at other churches, told they were going to hell, sent away to rehabilitation camps, rejected by their families and communities of faith… or at best, told they were welcome, but must come to terms with their sinful ways and change.
That “best” option isn’t better at all, by the way. There’s a confusing, internalized, self-hatred that grows when you’re told, repeatedly, that you are damaged goods, while simultaneously being told you are created in God’s image. I’ve sat in our sanctuary with sobbing men and women who wandered in off the street because the rainbow pride flags hanging from our building beckoned them in. For so many, they sit there and sob, awash in mercy, amazed by God’s grace, astounded that there is a church where the promise of their baptism is affirmed — you, yes, YOU are God’s child and God is well pleased with you — for that matter, we’re all well pleased with you. They’re shocked to find a church that will not closet nor condemn them all the more.
When I think of inviting some of these folks I’ve debated with (or stopped debating with) to church, I can’t help but think of the Gospel text about Jesus and the disciples walking through a field on the Sabbath. Both Mark’s and Matthew’s version come to mind, for differing reasons.
In Mark, Jesus responds to the letter-of-the-law keepers by helping them understand how laws ought, and ought not, to be used: the Sabbath was made for people, not the other way around. The people were hungry and we are not supposed to work on the Sabbath — these two things are true. For Jesus, it comes down to people’s need. Hunger trumps rule following. Human necessity trumps the letter of the law. I can’t help but think, if folks who are so wedded to their interpretation of the letter of law regarding homosexuality would come spend a Sunday at my church, for them, then, it could be like walking through the field with Jesus. Meeting the lesbian couple that’s been together for 43 years, talking with the gay man who’s rediscovered his faith again because he’s affirmed instead of shunned, listening to the young female couple make plans for their wedding at the church, standing side by side with straight allies who make up over half the congregation — I can’t help but think this could be a revelation: human need trumps the letter of the law here, too.
And for folks for whom this particular walk with Jesus through the fields falls flat, maybe Matthew’s version of the story would come alive. Here, Jesus surmises that mercy should rule. Don’t sacrifice the guiltless, the guiltless who are judged by some to be guilty. Let mercy rule.
But, who knows, really. Who knows what would happen? This blog post is, after all, more talk. And as I said in the beginning, talk doesn’t go very far when we’ve shut the doors. The God who couldn’t stay away from us, the God who couldn’t be aloof, but had to come to earth, walk around in our skin, know what it was like to hold a hand, wipe a tear, laugh, and feel his heart break, that God, the God we know in Jesus the Christ, comes knocking on the shuttered doors of our hearts, and beckons us to be in relationship with each other — real, human, relationship. After all, when we love somebody, we see the face of God. Maybe if we got to know each other, we might find a way to love each other and God’s face would be revealed. So, know that you are welcome any time. If you are one of those folks who just can’t fathom how gay people could be created good as gay, come to church. Any time.
Respectfully,
LRM
I’ve read the Bible through several times, and I can’t find anywhere that is says that homosexuality is a sin. It does say that homosexual acts are sins. It does not say that these sins are worse than adultery or any other sexual sin.
There’s a lot I like in your post. Here’s the problem I have with it: the Bible needs to be interpreted in its entirety. You cannot ignore verses that prohibit homosexual acts because you consider them “trumped” by other verses. Doing so places God’s Word in submission to you rather than you in submission to God’s Word.
By all means, love sinners. But then call them to a life that continually conforms more closely to God’s will. Christ welcomes all with open arms. But then he calls us to “go and sin no more.”
Thanks for being so loving to your congregation. We are called to speak the truth in love. There are a lot of people who speak truth in very unloving ways. We need both.
Thanks for sharing. I agree that debate isn’t often the thing to change hearts. I also appreciate your heart to make clear the way to the Lord, so that the journey with Him can begin, receiving us in love just as we are, acknowledging our need of Him, our inability to save ourselves from whatever else has our heart. I too love Jesus’ clarity in setting us straight on the points that differing varieties of religious leaders got wrong. God didn’t require fasting on the sabbath as a rule, nor define work as not rubbing one’s hands together to free some grain to chew. Those were additional man-made rules. He also didn’t go against God’s law, nor condone others doing the same. For those issues, He said “Your sins are forgiven” & “Go & sin no more.” I love Him for His lavish love & mercy. I fall more & more in love with Him daily as I continue to need His forgiveness & He mercifully gives it. Such goodness makes me trust Him to “mess” with any & every area of my life, experiencing more as the years progress in Him that the thing I truly hunger for is the Bread of Life & the Living Water. While free to me & anyone who calls on Him, He begins to bubble up & displace every other love in me, calling me to turn every page of my life over to Him & continuing to transform my heart beyond what I ever imagined possible.
I so agree with you that churches have so often failed in the message: pointing fingers of certain people being more “damaged goods” than others. All have sinned, all of us were created good, but fallen, damaged, if you will. All of us need to come into relationship with God through His love gift. And then we are told that we are not worthy of the Gospel unless we are willing to give up all else we love: in comparison to our love for God, to count others we we love most “hated” in comparison! Wow. How is this possible? It blows my mind. So glad He loves me enough to die for my inability to save myself. Otherwise I would have no chance in hell & no interest or ability to ever display that kind of sacrificial love in my life to anyone else. But in His long-suffering, He’s still working on me! Still loving me daily enough to stick with me & also loving me enough to keep transforming me into the purposed potential that I can only be by His redemptive & restorative work that continues throughout this lifetime. In this, I am thrilled to walk with you.
When people say the church is full of hypocrites, it is true. If we treated all acts of sin the same as acts of homosexuality our churches would be empty. Somehow we have tricked ourselves into thinking that prides, gossip, lying, gluttony etc. isn’t as bad. We have also bought the lie that Jesus loves some people less and would treat them differently because of their area of brokenness. Shame on us.