Our Gay Neighbors (Part 1)
This is a multi-part series. Read the other parts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
(Note: This is the first of a several part series on loving our friends in the gay community, so you should feel some dissonance until the end of the last post.)
Standing in line at the movie theaters the other night Korie and I heard our names called. We looked around and our eyes landed on some great friends who happened to be there to see the same movie as us (The film Harriet, which by the way I think you should see). We hugged each other, and recommended the jalapeno bacon cheddar popcorn. Moments later we were off together to take in both the movie and a ton of calories.
Did I mention our friends are a sweet lesbian couple who have been married around five years?
Since moving to the bay area I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to love people. I mean if Jesus says that we will be known not by our position papers, theological defenses or arguments on social media, but by our love (John 13:35); and if Paul says love is the MVP of all virtues (I Corinthians 13:13), even making it the leadoff batter to the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), then I better get a handle on what it means to love.
Christ followers are never exhorted to change people. Shoot, I can’t even change myself. If I had the capacity to change then why do I need a Savior and the Holy Spirit? Change is God’s business, not mine. In fact, I think the primary tool God uses to work transformation in the lives of people is love. But what does it look like to love others?
Not long after settling into the bay, I read the story of Hosea. In what has to be the most poignant picture God uses to illustrate his love for his wayward children, God calls the prophet to marry the prostitute; the man of God to wed the woman of the night. Talk about a strange sight. Can’t you see the look of surprise on people’s faces when this odd couple walked down the street or into the synagogue? But I think that’s the point: God is wanting to communicate a fundamental tenet to love- it’s strange. In fact, the stranger the contrast, the brighter the brilliance of love radiates. After all, if we think it strange a preacher would be with an adulteress, God holds the trump card. The fact that he a holy God would stoop so low as to be with us is even stranger.
Our lesbian friends have been to the church where I serve as pastor. They hold hands and sit together next to Korie and I on the front row. Strange. We’ve also gone to parties at their home where it appears our family is the only heterosexual people in the place. And God bless one of my sons who cannot whisper to save his life, because at one of these parties he says to us in his outdoor voice, “Are you uncomfortable?” I quickly shush him, and hours later realize that he too is feeling the strange.
Love is a journey into the strange, a journey lead by Jesus. He sat with a woman who no one wanted to talk to at a well one day. Jesus ate with tax collectors while religious leaders shook their heads and sucked their teeth over the strangeness. And to the shock and awe of many, Jesus allowed his feet to be wept over and anointed by a prostitute. Strange.
How strange are your relationships? How strange is your dinner table? If it’s never strange it may not be love.
