What’s Your Orientation? The Church and gay marriage

As Christ-followers we owe the gay community an apology. Christians and Christian organizations have treated them poorly.  The Christian community has  made it an “us vs. them” mentality as if war has been declared.  Some actions of Christ-followers have taken are unbiblical and repulsive.  A lot of religious leaders have come out and publicly said after major events like 911 and Hurricane Katrina that these events were God’s judgement on homosexuals or on those who support homosexuality. There are other organizations who have tried to get gays fired from public office or have tried to keep them away from fair housing or employment opportunities. There have been a couple of churches that represent Christianity who hold up signs at funerals that say, “God hates faggots.” We need to understand that this kind of behavior is just as sinful.

As a pastor, It is really sad that many churches and Christ-followers have made this an “us –vs- them” issue. We did it with the issue of slavery in the 19 and 20th century. We did it with alcohol in the 20’s. We did it with divorce in the 1950-60’s. We did it when the HIV virus became known in the 1980’s.  Some of you might remember Ryan White and  how poorly he was treated when his school and teachers found out he was HIV positive. Most of the religious community treated him just as poorly.

The Christian community does not have a great track record when it comes to loving others who have a different value system. We seem to make every issue about who is right and who is wrong. We forget that Jesus hung around with sinners and the outcast of his day more than he did with religious people. He hung around tax collectors, prostitutes, the demon-possessed, the lame, the lepers, and many others whom the Jewish leaders and people had shunned.

In the early beginnings of Christianity, the early church went to the people in need. They didn’t wait for them to come to their place of worship. Their mission was to make  Christ known to a people who did not know that God loved them for who they were and not because of how well they kept the rules. The Jewish leaders kept heaping law after law on them, making their burden to please God even greater. The early church, after Jesus death and resurrection, went to them to let them know that Jesus loved them so much he was willing to die for them.

The scriptures call us to become like Christ and make Him known. Everybody mattered to Him whether they followed Him or not. At the feeding of the 5000 I am sure he didn’t separate the good people and the bad people. The saved from the unsaved. The homosexuals from the heterosexuals.
He simply met a need.

We seem to forget as Christ-followers that all people matter to God – not just the ones you like. Not all people choose to obey God but all people matter to God.

I read a story this past week of a young gay man who died because of Aids in Southern Indiana. He was not connected with a church. As a service to the family, the funeral home called all the churches in the area on their behalf. Each pastor they called refused to even meet with the family, much less serve them at a funeral service. What a missed opportunity to show unconditional love and for the church to show compassion to a hurting family. Even in the 21st century, Christ-followers and pastors still aren’t doing too well at loving our neighbor. We like to bash them with spiritual truth and tell them how wrong they are. I believe Christ is calling us to do something much harder. Bashing someone because they are wrong is easy. Loving someone when they are wrong is much harder. We are good at pointing out their sin and we like to tell the gay community how wrong they are on Facebook, and blogs. If the church is not careful we are going to make the same mistake as we made with the slavery issue in the 19th and 20th century.

All people matter to God. Not all choose to love Him back. All people deserve to know they are loved by God despite their sexual orientation.

One of our missionaries in the Church of God that lived in Japan for a couple of decades tells the story of when she and her husband took in a gay man because he had nowhere to live. They knew he was gay and hey gave him the following rules: 1. You must have supper with us every night. 2.You must be in by 10pm. 3. You cannot bring any of your partners to our house. Do you know that the missionary couple did for this young man? They loved him unconditionally. They told him how much Jesus loved him. They didn’t tell him you gotta change or you are going to hell. They simply loved him. They met a need in his life. They kept telling him how much Jesus loved him around the supper table. Do you know what happened to this young man?  He is now married and lives out west with his wife and two kids.

The church, which is you and me, are not called to change them. We are not called to change their sexual orientation. That’s not our job. Only God can change the heart of a person. Only God can change their sexual orientation. Our job is too simply to love like God loves. He loved to the point of sacrificing His own son. We are to speak truth with compassion because the truth is what sets us free. We are to be a person of influence in their life.  If the Church doesn’t except this assignment, then we are saying boldly to a community of people different from you and I that they don’t matter to God.

If God can love me …. He can love anybody. If God can love you … He can love anybody. Just because you might be  straight doesn’t mean He loves you more than those who are not. God never looks at a person’s sexual orientation. God never looked at the prostitutes and tax collectors during the time the scriptures were written and say you are not worthy to be loved by me. He simply told them go and sin no more. God never looked at their outward appearance. God never looked at their past. God is always looking at …. THE CONDITION of their heart. 

Let’s look at this issue of homosexuality and gay marriage from the biblical perspective.

God had an original design established back in the book of Genesis.

Look at Genesis 2:18.22,24-25

The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him’…the Lord God made a woman…and brought her to the man…For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:18, 22, 24-25, NIV).

We learned a few things from a few blog entries ago:

• God created our sexual identity
• God created diversity. He made humans into two identities which call male and female.
• God created intimacy.
• God intended the expression of sexual intimacy to take place between a man and a woman.

All of this means that femininity and masculinity are the at the heart of God’s design. God created men. God created women. God created marriage so that their differences would complete one another in every conceivable way  ….. emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Which means marriage is more than merely personal. It is more than a contract. And it is much more than tax return credits and health insurance. This is why the Bible says that for this reason a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

This brings us to homosexuality.

Homosexuality departs from God’s design.

Instead of embracing the man-woman design, homosexual behavior embraces a same-sex (man-man, woman-woman) preference as the design for sexual intimacy.

Look at what the Bible says about same-sex sexual intimacy:

• “Do not practice homosexuality; it is a detestable sin” (Leviticus 18:22, NLT).
• “If a man has sex with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is abhorrent” (Leviticus 20:13, Msg)

This theme continues in the NT.

“Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies…Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men…” (Romans 1:2527, NLT).

Suffice it to say that every single reference to homosexual behavior in the Bible – Old and New Testament – condemns it. It doesn’t condemn the people – it condemns the behavior. It seems clear enough on the surface, but those who wish to advocate for the legitimacy of a homosexual lifestyle have gone to great pains to discredit each and every biblical reference.

As you read through the Old and New testament there are some rituals that are time bound like the eating of certain foods, tattoos, animal sacrifice for sins, marrying multiple wives, and having concubines, and temple rituals to name a few.Then there are also  some timeless things like The Ten Commandments, incest (I think we all can agree that this sick and still wrong) and homosexuality.

Then there are those who take the New Testament verses to task by saying that while it seems to condemn homosexuality, it was really talking about male prostitutes, but not same-sex consensual relationships. The problem with that is that the Greek words used for homosexuality in the New Testament were very clear.  They referred to homosexuality of any and every kind.

God’s design will never change. Man is trying to change it. Man is trying to justify same-sex marriage. Just because a Federal law was created to make same sex marriages legal – it does not change God’s original design. It makes it a civil union not a marriage.

There are some things the Christ-followers need to understand:

1. Many people who pursue a lifestyle of homosexual behavior didn’t set out to be this way; they really do have a very strong tendency toward that behavior. They are genuinely attracted to the same-sex.
2. A homosexual orientation is no different from any other orientation someone can have toward a particular lifestyle that may be outside of God’s will.

Someone might have an orientation toward pride, another for chemical addiction,another gossip, another for gambling or slander, someone else for stealing or lying, another for materialism., and another for eating lots of food. All of us have a certain make-up that shapes us and makes us more prone to a particular temptation than others.

To put it simply, alcohol does not tempt me at all but for some it is a real issue. Materialism does not tempt me at all but for some buying stuff makes you feel better.

I have an orientation of having to be right …. But for some of you don’t have to be right. I love to prove you wrong. I have an orientation to be emotionally expressive to the point of sometimes embarrassing my family.

I could just say, “this is just who I am …. Deal with it!”. But, I have a personal responsibility to mature in my walk with Christ. No matter what you are oriented toward, it’s really dangerous to say, “God made me this way so it’s ok for me to pursue this.” I have had people tell me, “this is the way I am …. This is the way God intended me to be.” No …. God never intended for any of us to be broken. This was not part of his original plan. His original plan was for us to be in an intimate relationship with Him and worship Him forever. 

But we are broken …..  we are more inclined to pursue our natural orientations. Some people have an orientation toward same-sex relationships. They can’t explain it … they just do. I can’t really explain to you why I am so oriented to having to be right all the time. I just am. But just because I have that kind of orientation doesn’t mean it’s right. I have hurt a lot of people I have loved over the years.

I think we all could agree:

Just because someone has the desire to murder – doesn’t make murder right
Just because someone has the desire to molest a child – doesn’t make child molestation right
Just because someone has the desire to watch pornography – doesn’t make pornography right.
Just because someone has the desire to eat a lot of food – doesn’t make gluttony right.
Just because someone has the desire to buy a lot of stuff – doesn’t make materialism right.

God knows we are broken. He knows we are bent towards our natural orientation. This is why he provides a way of escape.

“But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it” (I Corinthians 10:13, NLT).

No temptation, no natural orientation in your life is different from what others experience. We are all broken and we are all tempted. No temptation is greater than another. Just because some people have an orientation toward a person of the same-sex doesn’t mean it’s okay to practice homosexuality or to marry them.

According to the scriptures, marriage isn’t something we make up, or we define. God did it. And it is what it is. It is one of those timeless  institutions that even our present culture can’t change. I mean they can change a law …. but …. no one can change the way God designed it. Our culture has the freedom to lower the meaning of marriage  or try to redefine it …. and they are trying. But it doesn’t make it right.

Understanding that the practice of homosexuality and gay-marriage is not part of God’s will for any body, do we, as Christ-followers, oppose it? – Most definitely! On biblical grounds not political.

Does it mean we oppose the people who have an orientation towards the same-sex? Absolutely not! We are all broken vessels. Despite our orientation – we all matter to God. Everyone can be forgiven. Everyone can be restored.

If you are Christ-follower, God has chosen you and I to go into the world and love others (not just love the people we are already like)  like he loves us.

It really saddened my heart that a whole community of pastors refused to serve this family in Southern Indiana because their son was gay and died of Aids. They wouldn’t meet with the family nor would they do the funeral. I gotta be honest … that tells you a lot about churches they pastor. I personally would not be able to attend those churches.

It is my hope that the church, that’s you and me, will not continue to repeat its history when it comes to these tense-filled social  issues. We should never back down from loving our neighbor. This should be our first response.

I hope we (the church) can learn from the mistakes we made with the slavery issue in the 20th century,  the 20’s with prohibition, the 50’s-60’s with divorce, the 80’s with Aids, and presently the homosexuality and gay marriage. We, historically, haven’t  done well.

We’ve got to do better because we will be held accountable for how well we love others.

I John 4:8 reminds us,

But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

How do you think  you are doing?