I’m speaking in generalities here. I know that not ALL Christians separate themselves from homosexuals, but it’s so much more common than it ought to be. I know many gay believers who love God and desire to honor Him.
The picture I used a couple of days ago is the same one I’m using today. A copy of this painting hung in my grandparents’ home when I was a little girl, and over the years I’ve seen the picture on walls in many a Sunday school classroom. In the picture we see Jesus knocking on a door and waiting to be let in.
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20 (NIV)
So, before Jesus goes door to door, do you think He pulls out His address book of hearts? Maybe He says something like, “Oh, I see this place belongs to a gay man named Steve. I won’t be knockin’ on that door!”
Can you picture Jesus calling on a hurting woman who asks if she could bring her girlfriend along? “What?” Jesus seems surprised. “The Father didn’t tell me you were gay!”
I’m not here to debate the rightness or wrongness of gay relationships. But if you believe homosexuality is a sin, why is it treated differently than any other sin? Do you not have friends who lie, steal, cheat, commit adultery, drink too much, use drugs, or gossip to excess?
Sin is sin is sin is sin!
Jesus hung out with prostitutes, murderers, liars, thieves, cheaters, and dead guys! We have the awesome opportunity—and I believe, responsibility—to be Jesus with skin on. Jesus never failed to show unconditional love and perfect grace. God gives us the power to do the same.
Don’t get me wrong…Jesus doesn’t want anyone to remain in sin. During His life, Jesus showed people God’s love and they wanted to have what He had. He went to where the hurting hearts lived, and He loved them.
Christians have been given a bad name because of the ugly behavior of a few. Reverend Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church picket funerals of dead soldiers because they believe the fighting men and women died supporting a country that defends homosexuality. They believe that “God’s hatred is one of His holy attributes”.
People like Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church ought to be ashamed of themselves, and we should be rising up against their homophobic and anti-Semitic hate and rhetoric.
The antics of that group of extremists is just one of the many ugly happenings we should stand against. Why would anyone want anything to do with the God we profess to emulate when we can be so judgmental and condemning?
Get off the pew of passivity and denial. Stop making excuses for ugly Christians and love—really love all God’s kids! We need to be Jesus with skin on! Get off the pew!
"Why would anyone want anything to do with the God we profess to emulate when we can be so judgmental and condemning?"
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Your post puts me in mind of the reported dialogue when Tony Campolo was speaking to a college class at the University of Pennsylvania. Campolo was saying that the Church must be compassionate to all people, because Jesus was. To reinforce the point, he asked the class to look at the way Jesus treated outcasts & sinners such as prostitutes and this apparently led to the following exchange:
Campolo: “Jesus never met a Prostitute.”
Student: “Yes he did. It’s right there in the gospels.”
Campolo: “No. Because when Jesus met a woman involved in prostitution, he didn’t see a prostitute. He saw before him a child of God in need of a new start.”
This observation struck me when I first read it and has stayed with me ever since - for I hope am a child of God (for some days I doubt it) and I know I'm in need of that new start. I try everyday to ask forgiveness when I wake and pray that I might be His hands and feet that day and ask that, in return, I might just catch a glimpse of Jesus during the day to come.
God bless
One of the problems is that there are few members of the LGBT community who see homosexuality as a sin in the first place. The logic of Christianity embracing Homosexuality would be the logic of Christianity embracing murderers who say that there is nothing wrong with murdering people, rapists who say that rape is nothing to be ashamed of, and thieves who say we're all born thieves so why bother stopping? Per your story of Jesus picking and choosing doors to knock at, the point is that his "knock" is that of getting one to turn from sin and accepting him (Jesus) into his or her life. Yes, Jesus knocks at every door: murderer, robber, rapist. And homosexual. Whether the murderer repents or not is another matter entirely. As long as homosexuality is not seen to be wrong in the first place, there's nothing to repent FOR, is there? Slippery slope arguments are a nuisance, but honesty, in a world where homosexuality is seen as no longer a sin and not even a crime (as it was at one time), where it's gone from an occasional abnormality to The New Normal, where does it end? Necrophilia is a victimless crime, technically speaking. As is bestiality. As is incest (consensual incest between adults, that is.) Will they too, one day, be seen as The New Normal? And all that makes pedophilia "wrong" is a law. If the age of consent were lowered to 12 or 13, pedophilia would be legal. It's only been in the last few hundred years that marriage as early as 12 grew less common. My point? Reproduction, a continuation of the species at any viable age makes evolutionary sense: theoretically, for the purpose sex serves and reason it exists in the first place, consensual sex at the time of menarche or puberty (11? 12? 13?) makes a lot more sense than does gay sex at any age. Still, one (homosexuality) has mainstreamed itself. I just wonder what will become mainstream in the next 30 or 40 years...
ReplyDeleteWell I was hoping to see my comment (from a couple of days ago) approved and a response from you regarding it. I don't even remember all of what I said, but it would be nice to see it along with your commentary. Thoughts?
ReplyDelete