This is a multi-part series. Read the other parts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

(Note: This is Part 3 in our series. More posts to follow. You will feel some dissonance)

It was the most memorable lunch in all my years in the pastorate.  Some months before, I felt unusually compelled to engage in a series of sermons on befriending people in the gay community.  But as time seemed to have sprinted to the launch of the series I had an overwhelming sense something was missing.  So two weeks before I was to give the first message, I invited all who would consider themselves same sex attracted to join me for lunch.  About a dozen courageous people huddled in my office, where over sandwiches I listened to their stories.  Most confessed an acute awareness of their same sex attraction from the earliest they could remember.  They talked of seasons of secrecy and anger where they would barter with God to take their desires away, even if He had to give them different ones.    All spoke of failure, guilt and loneliness in their journey with Jesus.  I believe we ran out of tissues.  And as our meal ended, I asked if they would be willing to read the manuscripts to my messages before I preached them, and offer their feedback.  They enthusiastically agreed.  Emboldened I asked if they would be willing to share their stories with our church on video.  Most said yes.  Each Sunday during the series, before I got up to preach, we heard their stories, saw their tears and felt their humanity.  I believe we ran out of tissues.

Proximity breeds empathy.  This was a truth I have learned over the years which has served me well not only in race relations with the ethnically other, but also in engaging the LGBTQ+ community.  One can always tell when another person doesn’t have meaningful relationships with the other- they tend to shout across their tribal lines with an abrasiveness, and a cruelty while tossing out platitudes drenched in stereotypes and generalizations.  It’s easy to wield truth as a sledgehammer when the intended target is inanimate.  If I were to give one of my sons a hammer and tell him to pound a nail, he would do so with joy.  But if I were to tell him to pound my head, he would pause altogether.  When what’s on the other end is real and living to us, we become circumspect with our proverbial hammers. 

When God wanted Peter to take the gospel to the home of Cornelius the Gentile, he first places him in the home of Simon the Tanner.  God knew Jewish Pete would not preach the gospel with any sort of Messianic compassion and care unless he first put him in close proximity with what Peter considered to be the sinful other.  Peter’s rooftop protestations around ceremonial purity were quickly dismissed by God, who in a seminal moment demanded that Peter not call anything he made unclean.  And God was not just talking about what was on the menu, he was talking about people as well.  Before Peter traveled to Cornelius, he had to first hang out with Simon.

We will be best served to reach the LGBTQ+ Cornelius’ of the world, when we first stop to nurture relationships with the Simon’s of their tribe.  Until we sit with them over meals, hear their stories, laugh with them over coffee and enjoy their company at work and play, they will be nothing more than nails- inanimate objects for us to wield the hammer of truth.