Jerseygirl, JESUS
In the end, this is the one that got me: Do unto others.
As I quietly (okay, not always so quietly) tried to navigate through the choppy waters of how Christianity approaches the topic of homosexuality, it was these words from Jesus that finally pushed me over the proverbial rainbow to the side of affirmation.
I thought of all our human longings, the things for which we strive. If we were to take all our humanly striving, toss it into a big pot to boil it down to the bone broth of human need and desire, it all comes down to love. Just love.
We might, in this broken, fuck-all world of ours, find poor replacements for that love. We might try to toss fancy shoes or our busy schedules or the wine we drink a little too much of into that pot and call it nutritious, but it’s not. And deep down, we know it. Deep down we all know it’s love we’re after.
And then there is this: I have been attracted to people to whom I should not have been attracted. I have walked into a room, seen someone, and been bombarded by inopportune thoughts. This is fact. It just so happens that I am a woman and they were men. But there is this annoying fact of my body, and its own mind, which responds whether I will it to or not.
Don’t tell me that hasn’t happened to you.
And if it hasn’t, well, sweetie, you need to go out and live a little.
But this experience told me that I did not choose what my body responds to, and so this removed the silly idea that gay people might choose to be gay.
Now, I know that there’s the whole school of thought about the difference between having those attractions and acting on those attractions. But essentially, when we throw that little caveat around like cheap chocolate coins at a parade, we’re asking another human being to deny their most basic human need: the need for love.
Do unto others.
So as I thought about that basic human longing, about my own inconvenient attractions, and the do unto others thing, I got to a very uncomfortable conclusion: I am not willing to ask a single person to live a life of celibacy if they long for something else. If God wants to ask them to do that, fine. Nothing I’m going to do will stop him, and he’ll work out that miracle in their hearts as he sees fit.
But it’s not my place to try to work heart miracles. That’s God’s job, and maybe he’ll choose to, and maybe he won’t, and it’s never my business anyways.
I think the reason the love of Jesus is so radical, so consuming and life changing, is because all of us long to be known, exactly as we are, in our brokenness. We all long to be loved right here, today, in this moment, as we are, with no change-requirement to meet before the love comes pouring in. That’s what Jesus gives us, and God’s best earthly rendition of this kind of love is marriage.
Who are we to deny anyone the right to be known? To experience the love of God in the earthly realms this way?
I could have easily just slid on by this topic, never lending my voice to the more eloquent, more powerful, and possibly accidental advocates, like Rachel Held Evans, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Brian McLaren. But it seemed important, somehow, that I give voice to the discord I was feeling in my heart at the way the Church could at best marginalize and at worst demonstrate outright hatred for a certain group of people that was simply attempting to live out their lives with authenticity. To live out their seeking for love.
Because I have always been a sort of underdog-sticker-upper-for, I came out of the closet, so to speak, with my affirming stance. I choose to love my gay friends exactly as they are, with no change-requirement, and certainly no limitations on how they can live their life. Because that’s the way Jesus loves the hot mess that is me.
God, when I read that last paragraph, it sounds so pompous. Like I am so generous to choose to love a marginalized people. If I was a gay person reading that, I’d be like, “Screw you and your choice to love me. I don’t need your chosen love.”
Oh, God forgive me for being a privileged ass and a bad communicator to boot, because this is not my meaning at all. My choice to love comes from a brokenness I can’t describe; it comes from a need for such immense grace and forgiveness that I can’t even begin to judge someone else. I don’t know if the English language even has a word for what I am trying to say, or a group of words that I could string together into a poorly constructed sentence.
Perhaps what I mean when I say “I choose to love” is that I choose to stand beside you when you come out to your family and your church. I choose to be at your wedding when you marry your partner. I choose to act out the love Jesus gave me by standing beside you, speaking out with you and for you when needed. This is how I choose to love, and I will do it poorly and will probably make a mess of it.
Anyway. That do unto others scripture? Jesus did not mince words. My favorite version, in The Message, goes like this:
Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.
Matthew 7:1-5
When I see the contempt — whether veiled or outright — so many Christians have for the gay community, it breaks my heart. The conditional love, too, drives me crazy: You can come to church, but you can’t lead in church. You can be gay, but don’t act gay. You can love someone, but don’t even think about marrying them.
Do unto others.
I think: who am I to tell someone they can’t worship God through service in a leadership position? Is that really what God wants? Does God reduce the entirety of our human souls, our relationship with him, down to our sex lives? And if so, by what criteria? Is sex really this important to God, that we should be going to the Supreme Court to try to stop people from having it?
Am I really judged by my sex life?
Who am I to tell someone: Don’t be who you are. Do I want someone to tell me, you are a woman, so you must not speak out or run your business or lead men or curse or stick up for the people who need sticking up for even though it seems like this is programmed in my DNA?
Who am I to say to a person: I’m sorry, fellow human. I got the body that makes me think my husband is hot, so I get at least a chance at having my most basic human need met. But you? Oh, you’re screwed.
And I DON’T mean literally.
No. I am always reminded of the banquet Jesus is planning. How he wants his table full. And how all of us elite can get so haughty if we’re not careful. Me, most of all. I believe that Jesus throws open the doors to his banquet wide, arms stretched out, welcoming hearts home, finally, to what we’ve all been longing for: perfect love.
Because, after all, that banquet — isn’t it a wedding?
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I celebrate the Supreme Court’s decision, Obergefell VS Hodges, that protects the fundamental right to marry to same sex couples.
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