It’s not a coincidence that Friday, May 25, 2012, I had the strong urge to not miss a pastor’s testimony that I knew he was going to give because I’m on the pastor’s prayer team. I had been praying for this guy for two weeks and wondered why I could feel the anxiety from this man about giving his “journey” to the congregation. Even though I had had a long, difficult day of public transport and less than ideal weather I could sense a strong prompting by God to not miss the service that night. So, as the pastor started his story and he got to the part where he reveals that his son is gay, the light clicked on and I understood why God didn’t want me to miss this “My Journey”.
The pastor has written a book about the unconditional love God is calling him to have for his son despite his theological training regarding homosexuality. What makes this all so significant to me is a great number of things. First of all, I grew up with a brother who is gay. It was evident to me as a small child that my brother was a little different from other boys and that he liked boys as much as I did. So, when my brother came out to me when we were both in our thirties it was no big surprise.
Recently, my brother visited me for my birthday and his partner had come to visit as well. I have always been close to my brother and we enjoyed our time together as usual. His partner was a storehouse of information from plants to early Christianity. I learned about same-sex marriages in early Christianity times and discussed the fact that I believed in the inerrant accuracy of the Bible. So, the following days I contemplated our discussions and resolved to spend the summer researching the subject of same-sex marriage, homosexuality and Christianity. Then, two weeks after my birthday celebration, I heard the pastor’s story.
I’m currently a student at San Diego State University studying psychology and have been struggling with defining my future career path. In addition, for the past two and a half years I have been struggling with my role in God’s kingdom and crying out to Him to show me the way He wants me to go. I had tried sticking my toe in the proverbial water a number of times in different ministries but had not felt a good “click” or fit. I’ve been taught by more than one Christian leader to step out in faith concerning where to serve in the kingdom of God. So, I began contemplating that maybe loving homosexuals and leading them to Christ could be the path God was calling me to walk.
So, I purchased the book written by the pastor and found that the day he found out his son was gay was the day before I had been laid off from my job. I worked steadily for over thirty years with never a lay-off or firing from any job so this was a huge blow to my ego and finances. I do not believe the timing of my lay-off and the timing of this man’s son revealing his sexuality are a coincidence either. In addition, this same pastor was the man who delivered a wad of cash to me as a result of my call for help to the church two years earlier in response to my unemployment. I believe it is also not a coincidence that ABC aired a repeat of its show “What Would You Do?” that Friday night. This particular episode was based on situations where people are shown responding to various types of stereotypes such as homosexuality.
It all seemed to clear to me. God is calling me to show the love of Jesus to my brother and others like him. As I finished the pastor’s book it became more evident that God was calling me to step out into this very controversial subject as I read the similarities in the pastor’s walk with God and my own journey. I am a fighter and sojourner and the prospect of being involved with a ministry that would ruffle a lot of feathers in the Christian community is not only challenging to me but VERY appealing. I’ve walked with God for many years and I have always felt that there were a lot of people within the Christian community that just had it wrong. From the Baptists and Catholics to the Pentecostals and Mormons, I believe that we all only have a slight glimpse of what Jesus is really about. There should be no arguments over whether dancing or drums should be banned from church services and no one should be shunned from a church where Jesus is preached as Lord and Savior. He said that the greatest commandment of all is to love God and then to love your neighbor. Well, guess what, our neighbors include homosexuals.
Jesus said that there is no marriage in Heaven. Matthew 22:30 says that the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus by asking him about whose wife a woman would be when she died and went to heaven. If she had been married multiple times and had been widowed the same number of times and all her husbands were in heaven with her they asked Jesus whose wife would she be. Jesus says very clearly that “in the resurrection, they are neither married nor given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.” So really, what does same-sex marriage matter? None of us will be married to each other in heaven because we will all be angels of God in heaven. That is if you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. Right-wing Christians like to argue about the “sanctity of marriage” yet Christians have an even higher divorce rate that secular people. Is that sanctifying marriage by getting a divorce? Abuse and infidelity happens in Christian marriages just as much as non-Christian marriages so why are Christians so vocal about the “sanctity of marriage”? Is it sanctifying to abuse and/or be unfaithful to your spouse? I think not.
So, if the church keeps kicking out and shunning all the people who are homosexuals how can they get to know Jesus as Lord and Savior? And those who actually do profess a faith in Christ, where can they go to worship and fellowship with other believers? Most Christians are too busy thumping their Bibles, pointing to the books of the Bible, Romans, and Leviticus, and wagging their fingers at certain people to the exclusion of them from the body of Christ. Jesus says we are to love one another. We are to do to others as we would want others to do to us. Jesus ate with “sinners”, the tax collectors and prostitutes and other groups of people who society had shunned. He loved them all. He didn’t say you have to change who you are to follow me. He just said love me and love others.
Contemporary preachers interpret that to mean that what follows is a change in people, therefore, once you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior that you will stop sinning. Really?! How many “Christians” have sex outside of marriage, get divorced, hurt other people, cuss or steal property from others or worse? Are we supposed to shun them as well? Some “Christians” will say yes, we are to shun them. But they are wrong - Jesus did not shun anyone so neither should we. It’s about L-O-V-E. Love Others Very Equally. (Yeah, I know the acronym is kind of silly.) But the message is not - love others equally. That includes homosexuals and Christians.
I remain,
godstrongpatty
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