#5-May 28, 2016

God loves you just as you are, but ...

by Dave Jackson

“God loves you just as you are, but he loves you too much to leave you that way.”

Gay people have often heard some form of this adage applied to them in a way that comes across as a warning: “If you’re not ready to change, don’t bother with God.” The Pharisees were also interested in changing people. And they, too, coerced conformity with threats of shame and rejection. Those tactics angered Jesus. “You hypocrites!” he said, “You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to” (Matthew 23:13).

How can we avoid shutting the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces?

The other evening, I invited one of my neighbors to go with me to my men’s Bible study. I invited him specifically because his wife had died unexpectedly a short time before, and I thought the fellowship might be supportive. But we’re a rather unpolished crew, and that evening we were studying 2 Timothy 3, which begins by Paul saying, “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive,” etc. That kicked off a conversation about whether we are now living in the last days.

One of the brothers, trying to show how bad things are, claimed that in Europe 90 percent of the population is non-Christian. I later discovered his claim was way off. While the percentage of Christians has dropped somewhat, the Pew Research Center claims 74.5 percent of Europeans (not 10 percent) still identified as Christian as of 2010. But such facts weren’t this brother’s objective. “The thing is,” he said, “these secular people invest all their energy defending homosexuals. That’s all they care about. It’s just like Obama wanting to support the transgender people here in this country. I don’t know. It’s unbelievable.”

Now he knows I have a gay daughter and a gay daughter-in-law. In fact, the week before I’d given all the guys—including him—copies of RISKING GRACE. So I figured this was an attempt to bait me into an argument without really dealing with the content of my book. Or maybe he just wanted to let me know how much he disagreed with me, especially since he kept glancing at me as he spoke.

What he didn’t know was that my neighbor’s eldest son is also gay and in a gay relationship. I don’t know for sure what my neighbor thinks about their partnership, but as we sat with the family in their bereavement, brought in food, and attended the funeral, it was obvious the dynamics were warm and inclusive toward this out-of-town couple. In fact, the son’s partner read one of the Scriptures at the funeral. They were just family, a hurting family.

Fearing what else my loose-cannon brother might say, I did not take the bait during the study. But afterwards I confronted him off to the side, telling him he has a right to his opinions, but he also has a responsibility. And until he learns enough about gay people to know when his words might do great damage, he needs to keep his mouth shut.

Both hands came up, palms out. “Hey, I didn’t mean to offend anyone.” No, I’m sure he didn’t. But offend was not even the right word. Alienation was the danger, alienating this hurting man from God, by saying things that suggested God is so angry with the likes of his son that he heralds the “last days” . . . as does anyone who might defend him, which probably included this grieving dad.

On the way home, my neighbor confided in me that he hasn’t opened a Bible in years, and I began to wonder: Why had he come? It certainly wasn’t to impress me. He’d admitted he was still hurting . . . a lot. His family had been ripped apart by their untimely loss. He needed an anchor. Somehow he must have hoped God could help him put life back together, and a Bible study might be the first step in seeing if God actually cared about him. But will he come again after hearing such a rant and sweeping condemnations?

Nothing seemed to make Jesus more angry than causing a vulnerable person “to lose his faith in me.” As Jesus said, “It would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied round his neck and be drowned in the deep sea.” (Matthew 18:6, GNB).*

The truth in the adage, God loves you just as you are, but he loves you too much to leave you that way, is found as we allow Jesus to transform us into his image, which is most profoundly characterized by love. And he does not coerce with threats of shame and rejection. Instead, he inspires. As John says, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). And that must impact how we speak to and about gay people. Our words must not alienate those who would seek out Jesus.

If you are interested in learning more about RISKING GRACE, Loving Our Gay Family and Friends Like Jesus, click HERE.

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* Some translations say, “If anyone causes one of these little ones . . . to sin,” which conjures up the idea of tempting a child to smoke the first cigarette, but that’s not the intent of Jesus’ message. Of course, cigarettes can kill you, but Jesus was speaking of something far more serious. The Greek word, ptaió, is better translated as to cause to stumble or fall away or, as the Good News Bible says, “cause . . . to lose his faith in me.” Nothing is worse than causing someone to lose faith in Jesus.