The Father’s Love The answer, I believe, is found in the parable of the Prodigal Son.Ý
First of all, I must point out a very basic mistake that many people make about this parable.Ý Wesley pointed out this parable to his parents, who responded that the difference was that he was still a prodigal.Ý Most people assume that the fatherís acceptance and forgiveness was contingent upon the sonís repentance.Ý But this view forgets the fatherís willingness to give his son the inheritance before he leaves.Ý The father does not yell and scream at his son.Ý He does not threaten him with hell.Ý He does not exaggerate his mistake.Ý Quietly (and undoubtedly in great pain) he grants his sonís request.Ý He gives the son the means to squander on a life of dissipation.Ý He watches for his sonís return; and he welcomes him when he returns. As Wesley struggled, I prayed for him daily: long, heartfelt prayers.Ý And in one of those prayers I saw clearly Wesley returning to his fatherís home and being met by his older brother, who rejected him.Ý And I saw plainly that the older brother was the leader of his Exodus group, and the pastor of his Church.Ý Wesley had been struggling with his attraction to Gabe, and had come to these men seeking support to follow God in a difficult situation. And instead of being met by the welcoming arms of the father, he was met by the cold, rejecting glare of the elder brother. Notice that in the parable, Jesus never says that the younger son squandered his money on prostitutes; he may have done so and he may not.Ý It is possible to live in dissipation without hiring prostitutes.Ý But his elder brother accuses him of the worst he can imagine. Just like Wesley experienced. Totally unlike the way God would have received Wesley. Henri Nouwen wrote of the elder brother that sometimes the hardest conversion is that of the one who stays at home. The elder brother needed conversion, too. If only he understood the Fatherís love, he too, would be waiting, looking down the road, waiting for his brother to return.Ý If only those who rejected Wesley had understood the wideness of Godís mercy, they would not have treated him so harshly.Ý But we must not swiftly condemn such elder brothers.Ý The Father loves the older brother as much as the younger. He always loves all his children. |
Lemons into Lemonade In trying to write about the pain of growing up gay, I am caught in a difficult bind.Ý On the one hand, I must try to convey the depth of the pain and the difficulty of the struggle.Ý I cannot cover up that difficulty or make it seem like itís no big deal. To fail to make clear the enormity of the struggle the young Christian dealing with homosexuality faces would be a grave error. A whitewashed version of the struggle would not prick the conscience of those who make life so difficult. And yet to focus exclusively on the hard parts is to paint a totally false picture.
As an adolescent, I felt overwhelmingly alienated from and attacked by my Church.Ý The virulence of the occasional anti-gay sermon hung like summer lightning over everything. And yet as I have grown older and have begun to let go of the pain, I have begun to remember all the good things in between: the long conversations with my mother about faith; singing Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art; playing Christ the Lord is Risen Today on my trumpet in the cemetery on a foggy Easter morning; discussing faith and doubt with my best friend; reading the Chronicles of Narnia. These, too, were a part of growing up as a young Christian.Ý They were, indeed, a much greater part than hearing the hateful sermons. But in the midst of the pain and fear, it was easy for my faith to be poisoned. Indeed, I think poison is the best image to understand what I experienced.Ý I was presented with a rich banquet ñ a loving Church, older Christians who desired to mentor me, who taught me about faith and who nurtured my musical talents, parents who loved me and taught me the faith they knew and trusted in, close Christian friends of both sexes who were a deep source of encouragement. But into this rich banquet, someone poured a poison, a poison based in human prejudice, and not the truth of Godís word. That poison ñ that I was an abomination, that I should leave the Church ñ threatened to kill my faith. It certainly made me deeply sick at heart for many years.Ý It was administered in much larger doses to my friend Wesley, and he is still struggling to get up off the ground. And yet even in Wesley's case, the poison was not the Exodus ministry; I have known many who had very positive experiences at Exodus ministries. For them, the support and love they received was an antidote to the poison they had experienced growing up. The leader's unwillingness to listen to Wesley poisoned the good work that Exodus does. The failure in this situation is not evidence that Exodus ministries are evil. Mature Exodus ministry leaders do not try to force-fit people into a particular theory. They help them to process through whatever unique issues they face. But by failing to do this, Wesley's small group leader poisoned the waters for Wesley. But I wouldnít even want to focus too much on those in the Church who administer poison.Ý I think of my friend Matt, who grew up in a Church that grasped clearly the distinction between the dignity of homosexual people, and the sinfulness of homosexual acts.Ý Matt has embraced their teaching and chosen to remain celibate.Ý But where some might see disability, he sees the opportunity to devote his life to others.Ý Today, he is living among the poorest of the poor in the Third World, giving up all the privileges and comforts of his middle class upbringing to bring basic sustenance to those who could otherwise starve.Ý I do not want to minimize the struggle Matt has faced; I have known times when he cried in his loneliness.Ý He, too, has felt the sting of misunderstanding by others.Ý But he did not grow up hearing the poisonous rhetoric from the pulpit which I grew up hearing.Ý And his life is an inspiration to mine, and proof that a Church which shows love and acceptance to those struggling with homosexuality will not "give permission to sin."Ý Indeed, it has been my observation that those most likely to remain with Christianity and to embrace traditional Christian sexual ethics are those who found acceptance. Those who were called abominations generally got driven away ñ though I would not say that they were driven from the Church, for the place that uttered such lies is not the Church of Christ, but of anti-Christ. It is the place where Satan seeks to poison the Church, where by his lies he seeks to ravage and destroy souls. I would like to end with a poem from another friend, a poem which I think expresses both the pain and the opportunity for gain: |
The Cross
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THE FATHER ALWAYS LOVES HIS CHILDREN