No Room in the Inn this Christmas

This Advent Season at Skyline, I reflect on the ways that the debate over the morality of sexual/affectional orientation and gender identity are playing out in our country and in the church - and especially here at home at Skyline Church. While most people seem to agree that homosexual persons should be tolerated (I am among those who call the church to go beyond toleration to respect) and not condemned or judged - many Christians believe the Bible (and God) condemns homosexuality as a sin, and that people who disagree with them have traded scriptural morality and the faith in favor of popular, politically correct liberalism.

Newsweek magazine published a Dec. 6, 2008 cover story by Lisa Miller about homosexuality, the Bible, and gay marriage. The article provoked a predictable storm of responses representing a full spectrum of outrage and agreement - including many who recognized the need for thoughtful exploration and conversation. You'll find a great follow-up article with comments from a United Methodist and Baptist pastor representing both "sides" here.

Yet even in that debate, the underlying assumption is that we must choose between fidelity to the "clear" judgment of scripture (which - this logic assumes without question - condemns homosexuality) and soft-hearted, "anything goes" compassion toward and acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons and their "lifestyle" (which - it goes without question in this logic - is sinful and depraved). As a pastor and theologian who believes that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality, I find this presumption on the part of those who disagree with me a ploy to end the conversation before it even begins.

In his excellent book, What Christians Think About Homosexuality: Six Representative Viewpoints (Bibal Press, 1999), L.R. Holben surveys six (not just two) Christian points of view on Homosexuality, each of which draws on biblical and theological perceptions. While I certainly acknowledge that not all scriptural interpretations are equally faithful, to argue de facto that an interpretation contrary to the one you hold is invalid or immoral seems to me to be more self-serving than an honest pursuit of faithful understanding.

In our community conversation about how God calls us to live at Skyline, we seem to agree that homophobia is bad, and that we should treat homosexual persons "just like everyone else", regardless of what we believe scripture teaches about homosexuality. For some (including most who hold to a conservative understanding that the Bible condemns homosexuality), that agreement should render the rest of the debate moot. In fact, they express great fear about having the conversation at all. Shouldn't it be good enough that we are nice to one another?

Of course, some of these people disagree about what being nice means. Some argue that while they agree we should not bar the doors to LGBT folk, we should prohibit them from joining (until they repent and change or become celibate), or if we allow them to join, we should prohibit them from doing some things that heterosexual members can do (like lead, teach, or preach) because they are a particularly stubborn form of sinner. Here, of course, lies the problem (if you happen to be a homosexual follower of Christ, or a pastor who loves and respects them).

The common theme for everyone in this camp is not only an exclusive claim to faithful (moral) scriptural interpretation, but a refusal to acknowledge that LGBT persons are marginalized in the church at all. These persons of faith question the need for labeling anyone in our welcome statement because they perceive that singling out LGBT persons accords them a kind of unfair, privileged status in our church (or that it promotes "pro-gay theology" or the "homosexual agenda"). Some even argue that if we specifically welcome LGBT persons, then they (who are heterosexual) will not be welcome in our church.

As a pastor here, I believe that God is calling me to invite our church to consider another way to live together before a watching world. I'm not deluded enough to think that my understanding and interpretation of scripture would convince everyone at Skyline to agree with me that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality - but I do hold onto the hope that we could all acknowledge that the sparse scriptural foundation of a traditional Christian condemnation of homosexuality is not as clear as we have been taught to believe. If so, I pray that we could live out scripture as a community of Christ followers where there is no more Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, black or white, gay or straight - where we could simply all be Christians - one in Christ Jesus.

When Paul wrote the verse I've paraphrased in Galatians 3:28, he used specific labels to paint a picture of a more whole community of faith - Gentile, slave, female. He followed a scriptural tradition of naming the nameless and marginalized in order to ensure their place in God's Kingdom, just as Jesus did in the beatitudes on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:3-12, following in the tradition of the prophets (see, for instance, Zephaniah 3:12) and the lawgiver, Moses (see Exodus 23:9-11).

Jesus recognized the need to call attention to the fact that the community that called itself by God's name had become unfaithful in closing the doors to the kingdom to lepers, tax collectors, the poor, children, women, and of course, Samaritans. In one of his most pointed parables about God's judgment, Jesus used a series of labels to name the people with whom he particularly identifies in our world: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned (Matthew 25:31-46).

And in our own time? What could be more relevant to our faith practice that the way we will live together as an Advent community - a community that acknowledges differences in our gender identity and sexual orientation, not as deviations from some perceived norm (like heterosexuality), but as yet another example of the extraordinary diversity of God's good creation. What could be more appropriate during the season when we remember the Holy family could find no welcome in the inn - than that we experience in our own embrace of a "stranger" a "welcome home" from our awesome and living God?

Pastor Bo Gordy-Stith
Third Week of Advent, 2008