Huw Raphael had two very interesting posts in regard to —Gay Pride Day— which took place this past Sunday (see What to do for Gay Pride Day and Question: Political Rights).
Huw Raphael asks some serious and probing questions about our Christian response to those who engage in the ‘gay’ lifestyle. I fully agree with the questions he posts and the spirit in which they are intended. Having read his questions, I hope to form a serious response.
In his first post What to do for Gay Pride Day he asks how we as Christians reach out to those who classify themselves as ‘gay’ and who engage in the homosexual lifestyle. Given one chance, what is our witness?
Here is mine:
Look to the love of Christ.
The body of Christ is one. Indeed, the body needs all its parts as St. Paul tells us:
Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
Needing every part makes it incumbent on each of us to reach out regardless of where a person is on their path to God. Further, simple Christian humility, and Jesus’ condemnation of ‘accusers’, tells us that we must not act as judges but should rather be focused on our own journey away from where we are and to heaven.
Jesus looked at the person. He saw them for who they were and where they were. He saw their humanity in proportion to the faith and love within them. He looked for the kind of faith and love that overcomes deficiency and sinfulness. Of course He required them to give up sin in order to reach perfection, but not only. He expected rather that their faith and love shine forth, a clear indication of intent and willingness to come to God’s kingdom.
Jesus fully understood that sin is a component part of every person life in the world, and he severely chastised those who thought themselves to be without sin —“ the Pharisees, the other elites and the hypocrites. He knew that the path to perfection, to wholeness and completeness, requires that those who come to Him focus on love and faith. With that willingness to live in love and faith, to live in full cooperation with God’s grace, to follow the path of prayer and right living shown by Jesus, He promises that we will be brought to perfection.
Are there those who intentionally cut themselves off from the Body of Christ due to serious sinfulness, who reject perfection? Most certainly! Their serious sinfulness is based on intent coupled with chosen separation all the while knowing better.
Being here puts us in a different ballpark. Being here in Church tells the world that we are not choosing separation. Being here shows that we believe in a unity, a love, a joining together that goes beyond what occurs out on the street. We have made the choice to be part of the Body of Christ.
The Church offers the only thing that matters. The Church offers wholeness, completeness, and a road to getting there. The Orthodox call it Theosis, unity with God. Others may call it perfection. Regardless, it is heaven —“ the totality of being all you were meant to be in unity with God.
The Church has more than something to offer. Having something to offer makes us a store and we Christians just salesmen. Rather the Church offers the only thing that matters. The thing being offered is the love of God in life everlasting.
That’s a pretty powerful thing —“ and that is really, when all is said and done, the only thing that matters. You’re not taking your lover, your stuff, or your lifestyle with you when you die. You are only taking one thing —“ the thing —“ your relationship with God.
The Church offers a path from wherever we are to perfection, to heaven, to being complete.
Churchy people tend to have a bent for self righteousness, and a false perfection. Many of us tend to be short on humility. How many people walk out of church on Sunday beating their breast and thanking the Lord even though unworthy, like the publican?
Certainly some more than others —“ but that depends on where they are on the path to wholeness and completeness. Each of us, after being renewed on Sunday morning, goes home and falls into sin. Some can’t even get out of the parking lot before expressing anger.
In humility we need to acknowledge that we are all deficient in some way. We all lack and none of us is whole. While acknowledging my deficiency and sin I tell you very clearly, that regardless of deficiency the Church has the thing needed to cure it. That thing is a person, and that person is Jesus.
When we sin we take a path away from completeness, a sort of degradation of ourselves. When we get on the road to heaven, and decide to work with God and follow Jesus, we make the only choice that has everlasting implications. We choose to put our faith in God and to become who He always intended us to be, we allow our faith and love to shine.
People search for the thing that is all-in-all. They are looking for the holistic —“ the totality of being. They search for a means to treat every problem in as many ways and as naturally as possible. Look at holistic medicine or any other endeavor that has latched on to the word holistic.
The fact is Jesus is the only person that offers genuine totality. He offers natural and perfect freedom from what makes us sick, and He tells us that He is the way to perfection.
He tells us not to worry about the entrapments and ways of the world, not even our own bodies, for none of those things compares to everlasting life. He also shows us by His own example that suffering and death is redemptive. We can be changed, and the world can be changed, by our acts that are in unity with Christ’s redemptive sacrifice.
Each of us wants, desires, and needs. Each of us falls to our urges. The question is what happens afterward. Can we get back on the holistic path —“ the path of Christ, or will wants, desires, needs, and urges control us.
No one can find fulfillment in themselves. No one can fill emptiness with dust. Emptiness can only be filled by what is total and complete —“ God.
Look to the love of Christ. Look to taking your life and putting it on the road to fulfillment. Look to becoming what is perfect. Look to making sense of your life and to filling your life with meaning.
Each of us here is part of the Body of Christ. Your life and the sacrifice and effort you make on the road to God have real meaning —“ they have meaning because they cooperate in the redemption of all.
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