Gaming

May you meet the inclusive Church of Christ

In this article I am responding to an article that speaks eloquently about a struggle that Christians are resonating with in increasing numbers. However, it has been and is (emphasize, present tense) a very real struggle for many of us.

Still, none of us are beyond learning. And God is granting us a new grace in this age to fight with others who are fighting themselves.

Not many of us are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, or other sexual expression affiliation. Not many of us that I know, but statistics tell me that my reality is not a true representation.

Therefore, there are many who are living an experience in the closet and, in the current context, I am not talking about those with secret addictions, functional addicts in all strata of society. There are so many within the myriad forms of addiction that steal peace, kill joy, and destroy hope.

And I have to say this … it’s not just the addict who struggles. Almost everyone has difficulties. And when I speak of “struggle” I mean a meaningful daily struggle, with nothing easy.

But an article by a gay man desperate for the church to rise up to help people like him, who, like all of us, need to find their way to God and their inclusion within God’s people.

Would any of us get in God’s way?

This young man could refer to these words of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 5:

30The Pharisees and their scribes complained to their disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with publicans and sinners?” 31Jesus replied, “The healthy do not need a doctor, but the sick; 32 I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Verse 32, that’s all of us, anyone clothed in fur. Let’s not call the LGBTI + crowd particularly sinful and therefore call ourselves Pharisees. That’s what the Pharisees did: They highlighted everyone else’s sin, ignoring their own. Our task as Christians is to live real before God: our personal struggle (and each of us has one) is a cosmic challenge that only God can overcome. How helpless are we? Jesus calls the sinner to repentance, a personal activity, for each of us, facilitated by an almighty and merciful God.

Verse 31, Jesus grants the Pharisees and writes their truth (because it is not God’s truth) – ‘believe as you like’ Jesus could say – because the sick are those who know they are sick – Jesus cannot help the person ‘ heals’ in his blind stubbornness; self-righteousness that threatens to reign in all of us. And this is not a comment on the vagaries of the disease, only that everyone is sick. Everybody! That is why everything should be included.

Blessed is he who knows that he is sick, who knows that he needs the Physician, who seeks the hospital.

And our job, mine in my case, is simply to be a guide for a person who has not known God and who is looking to find him. They don’t need my unreserved opinions along the way. We can give them resources as we listen, but just as we stand before God, we will all be held accountable. Our responsibility is not to inhibit anyone’s passage to Christ.

Therefore, we listen. We feel their anguish, a reality, until now and for the foreseeable future, of being away from the compassion felt for God from the vast grove of humanity.

Bear is challenged to stand up, as the young man says. It will cause us conflict, of that there is no doubt. But our lives are no longer about us; they are about the Lord’s business.

And the Lord would never condemn them as would our fears and preconceptions.

I mean, as the quoted article suggests, “If you are LGBTQI + and need someone to talk to, I just want to give you an ear to listen to you.”

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