Sermon from April 26, 2009
You shall love your neighbor as yourself - Mark 12:31. Doing that becomes urgent in one of your direct and very personal questions, "What if I'm gay?" I want you to know how many ways I might address that question.

I could do a Bible study. Much of what I say today is based on such a study, but I have chosen not to do that study. I could approach the issue from the research being done on the genetic basis of homosexuality and the possibilities of treating homosexuality with gene therapy. I have chosen not to do that. I could approach the issue from a medical point of view. The specter of AIDS makes that relevant. I have chosen not to do that.

I have chosen to offer an answer to the question from two points of view. First, being gay is not just a physical reality. It also has a social dimension. It is a social movement with a political agenda. If you are gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, or transgendered, I want you to be aware of the spiritual substance of that movement and its agenda before you identify with it.

Second, I want to answer the question from a pastoral perspective. My calling is the cure of souls. That means that I teach, set standards, and seek the sanctification of people within my care. You need to know how I answer the question as your pastor.

Religious Liberty
Let's begin with the social reality. Being gay has become a social movement with a political agenda. What should trouble all of us are the implications of that agenda for religious liberty. Here are some specifics.

California became the most notable of 33 states where voters have rejected same-sex marriage. California voters did it in 2000, but the California Supreme Court overturned the will of the people as a violation of the California Constitution. Court action like that makes Americans wonder if their votes mean anything.

Proposition Eight amended the California Constitution last November and made same-sex marriage illegal in CA. We saw the protests of the gay community that followed that democratic act. What the media did not report so well were the intimidation of individuals by gays and their vandalism of churches and Mormon temples. (See: Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, "California's Temper Tantrum," Christianity Today, February, 2009)

Let me show you why those protests raise concerns not only about the democratic process but also about religious liberty. "Chai Feldblum, a Georgetown University law professor and gay activist who drafts federal legislation related to sexual orientation" has been quoted as saying this: "when religious liberty conflicts with gay rights, 'I'm having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.'" (ibid, 52) (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-broyles-jean27-2008oct27,0,7357456.story, accessed April 17, 2009)

You might dismiss him as saying something extreme to get attention, if it weren't for political realities like those in Massachusetts. There it is a crime to run an adoption agency without a license from the state, but to get a license you have to agree to place children with same-sex couples. In 2006 the Catholic bishops of Massachusetts appealed to Gov. Mitt Romney for an exemption. The governor, a Mormon, was sympathetic but could not act without further legislation. The Massachusetts legislature wasn't interested.

The Church's request for an exemption was not about the legal right of same-sex couples to adopt. It was "about our fundamental commitment to religious liberty in this country." (www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=2364, accessed March 3, 2009) The bishops closed down Catholic adoption agencies on grounds of conscience.

I hope you hear what I'm saying and think to yourself: "What happened to freedom? I thought freedom meant you could do anything you wanted, as long as you didn't prevent others from doing anything they wanted." What is troubling is the hypocrisy of some people, who profess to live by the liberal doctrine of freedom. They protest loudly, if they think I am depriving them of their freedom, but they seem willing to deprive me of mine, when it comes to their special interests.

If you are sympathetic with the gay movement and its political agenda, you may find yourself on the side of an intolerant minority that is undermining religious liberty in this country. That would make you complicit in threatening and compromising the integrity of the Church and of the American Republic as we have known it.

The Beast
That brings the Church into conflict with the gay movement and its political agenda. Political and economic power can become a terrible evil. Revelation expresses that possibility in two powerful symbols: the great prostitute and the beast. John called Rome the great prostitute. We've talked about that.

John also called Rome the beast. The crucial passage is Revelation 13. Verse two says: The dragon (the devil) gave the beast (Rome) his power and his throne and great authority. It is a grave accusation against the political order to say that it has become demonic. John made it because the Roman political order had turned coercive and even violent toward the Church. Look at verse seven: He (the beast) was given (by the devil) power to make war against the saints and to conquer them.

Revelation gives the Church a warrant to use this image any time a political order becomes coercive and violent toward the Church, but we need great restraint in using it. Sightings of the beast in the Potomac swamps around Washington and in Boston's Back Bay may be premature. I am not confirming or denying those sightings in this sermon. I want this image of evil to help you discern the spiritual substance of our culture. It also alerts you again to disturbing events that point the American political order in a direction it must not go. If you are gay, it cautions you about identifying with the gay movement and its political agenda.

What If I'm Gay?
So, "What if I'm gay?" you ask. I'm glad you're here. Galatians 6:2 says: Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you fulfill the law of Christ. I want to tell you how I do that in answering your question. Let me first ask a question that will set the tone of my answer.

If you or your child were gay or lesbian, how would you want me to treat you? I think you'd want me to be a safe person to talk to, as you come to terms with your same-sex attraction. I think you would want me to be kind. I think you'd want to know if I could suggest resources to help you to cope. I hope you'd want me to speak God's truth to you with gentle affection. I know you'd want me never to reject or shun your family.

I am not on a crusade with what I am about to say. I want you to know what informs my pastoral advice, when I talk to people in the safety and confidentiality of my office. What follows is not a speech I give. It's how my mind works, when I talk to you about your hopes and fears.

Let's get started. First, I hope you will avoid silence. Don't be silent, if you think you are gay or lesbian. It is dangerous to have same-sex attraction and never talk about it with a responsible adult. You may think it's risky to tell anyone, but it's much more risky to be living a secret parallel life that threatens to become devastatingly public. If you're gay or lesbian, it helps to come out of the closet with people you can trust to be your friends and to keep your personal information confidential.

Another action to avoid is to come out of the closet and build your whole social life among gays and lesbians. One risk of doing that is that homosexuality may take over your identity as a human being. You need to live in a bigger world than that. You are more than your sexual orientation. The test is: can you have friendships with men and women that have nothing to do with your sexual orientation?

Where can you find friendships like that? I hope that you can find them at BVBC. I don't recommend that you stand before hte congregation and tell us you're gay. Most congregations, including this one, are not prepared to handle that. It may be different a decade from now, but not now. But within congregations, including this one, you can find friends with whom you can talk safely about the fact that you are gay and with whom you can have deep friendships that don't center on your sexual orientation.

Second, if you're gay, I hope you will be careful before you label everything Christians say about being gay as homophobic. Yes, some people use hate speech and even physical violence against gays. That's wrong. But religious convictions and prudent actions do not always deserve to be labeled homophobic.

For example: I am a frequent blood donor. Every time I donate, I have to answer many, very personal questions about my sex life. For example: "Have you even once since 1977 had sex with another man?" Is that homophobic? Of course not! It is a way of protecting the blood supply from AIDS.

So, if I know you're gay and want to serve in the church nursery, I'm going to say, "You can't do that." I'm not being homophobic. How do I know you're not carrying the HIV virus? And we can't test for AIDS like the Blood Bank. I hope you will see my refusal the same way the Red Cross's refusal to accept your blood.

When Christians go further and say, "Homosexual orientation is a disordered state of the soul, and homosexual behavior is disordered behavior," I know that can be hard to hear. It is not always homophobic. I would say the same about addiction to pornography and going from one marriage to another and being a workaholic, and complusive spending and hoardng and setting fires in Coatesville, PA.

Third, disordered human behavior calls for repentance. It is possible to repent of being gay in two ways. If you are sexually active, it is possible to confess that to God, who will forgive you, and then stop being sexually active. Many gays and lesbians have done that. It's also possible to repent of your sexual orientation itself. You may say, "Well, that doesn't make sense. I didn't choose my orientation, I have resisted my orientation for a long time, and I can't make it go away."

If that's what you think, then I need to tell you I agree with you. Repentance and being a Christian and walking in the Spirit will change your behavior, but it is not likely to change your sexual orientation in this lifetime. It's wrong to say that the validity of your faith in Christ will be measured by the disappearance of your sexual orientation. That places an impossible burden on you.

having said that, it is still possible to repent of your sexual orientation. Luke 5:8 reports Simon Peter saying to Jesus: "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man." He wasn't talking about something he had done; he was talking about something he was. He was acknowledging the disorder in his huamnity. He didn't choose to be disordered, and he couldn't make it go away. He was just that way.

If you, gay or straight, ever realize about yourself, "I am a sinful person," you will have made the first, decisive step to personal freedom. Disordered nature is where disordered behavior comes from. It's where being gay, injustice, war, slavery, divorce, lust, greed and envy come from. That's why Peter and all the rest of us need a Savior.

That's why I plead with you to believe that on the cross Christ paid the price of your disordered nature and its consequences in order to reconcile you to God. Trust Christ to save you from the disorders in your life.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
George Peters taught missions at Dallas Seminary, when I was a student there. I had him for several classes, and I heard him preach in chapel. One prophetic statement he made has stayed with me through the intervening decades and sill illuminates my understanding of the world. He said, "The 20th century will be remembered as the century, when we finally took people seriously."

That helps me to interpret the social meaning of the past 50 years in America. We now take seriously: black Americans; soldier, pacifist, and war protester; immigrant; women; Jew; Muslim; environmentalist; people with disabilities; and gays and lesbians. Of course, we don't always get it right. We sometimes go from one bad habit to an opposite bad habit. It takes human society a long time to learn good habits.

It takes the Church a long time to learn good habits. The Apostle called the Church to good habits with a vision for healing painful social divisions: Christ himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility ... His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility - Ephesians 2:14-16.

The Church has seen homosexuality as nothing but a sin to be condemned and shunned. We have seldom tried to grasp the fear and loneliness of being gay. That falls short of the apostolic vision, because it takes friendship, repentance and reconciliation with God off the table. We've got to do better in the next 30 years!

The senior pastor, who preceded me in Portland, OR, Don Baker, wrote a powerful little book called Beyond Forgiveness. It told the story of a gay guy named Jerry. Jerry was deeply involved in the gay life. Don's book tells the story of how our church, Hinson Baptist Church, took Jerry in and walked with him through his struggles.

He did stand before the congregation and tell his story. Carole and I met him and his wife, when we got to Portland in 1986. I don't think he ever for one day in his life forgot his gay desires. But he left the gay scene, and all the time I knew him he worked at his new life in Christ. The most hopeful thing to me was the way the congregation made him part of us. It didn't matter that he still had same-sex attractions. He was one of us, and we made sure he knew that. It was one of the beautiful things about that edgy church I pastored in Portland. It made me know churches can do that. We can do that here.