Coming out as Christian means coming out for love. Last Sunday, July 24, I went to the Manhattan Marriage Bureau on the first day same-sex couples could marry legally in New York State, dressed in my purple clergy robe. I went to congratulate couples and offer a religious wedding to any who might want it.
A sweet communion of folk gathered in line with palpable hope and expectation outside the building long before the doors opened. There were gays and lesbians holding hands, holding sunflowers, holding one other. They were young and old, some together for 30 years, others for three. There were family and friends, straight allies and children. This was a multi-ethnic mosaic of humanity. But I was struck by the children, cherubic eyewitnesses to this moment when their parents' love was honored. Their faces upturned, full of admiration and expectation.
Three little girls sang to their moms while their tuxedo-clad little brother looked on. Children were waiting in line, waiting for their dads' number to be called, waiting for the waiting to end, waiting for the civil right of their parents to marry.
A group of supporters lined the sidewalk with a rainbow of colored umbrellas. They were there to shield those getting married from both the hot sun and the group of protesters across the street that cited Scripture to oppose the marriages.
For as long as there has been Scripture, the Church has read it through various lenses. Christians do that today as well. We all find both conviction and comfort in texts that speak to us. We are all selective. Further, what is written in Scripture is not always consistent. There is both judgment and grace; freedom and restriction; words that cause us to fear and words that give us hope.
Scripture also says, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God" (Romans 8:18-19).
My gay and lesbian brothers and sisters have endured so much suffering on the way to this historic time and place. In the name of Jesus, under the label of Christian, hatred and harm have been visited upon gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Too many Christians have failed to speak up, to stand up, to Believe Out Loud.
All of the creation is waiting, like those children in line, for those of us who call ourselves Christian to come out on the side of love. We are each created in God's image; each human being is awesomely and wonderfully made. We are designed for love, not hatred; created for community, not apartheid.
I am calling on Christians to come out of the closet, to show ourselves and to reveal ourselves as Children of God. Being Christian means having an informed faith: a faith that is felt deeply in our hearts and souls; critically examined, critiqued and engaged with our minds; serviced with our strength. To come out means reading the biblical texts through the law that Jesus himself described: Love God with your heart, soul, strength and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27). What do these texts mean for us today, given Jesus' imperative to love? Our congregations need to be bold in searching for God's call in this day and time; they need to be radically welcoming of all of God's people.
On Sunday morning, in our worship celebration at 11:15 a.m., two of our same-sex couples will join their lives in holy matrimony at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, in a congregation where love is the law we keep. You should come.
Last Sunday, when I went inside the Marriage Bureau, I didn't marry couples at the Office of the City Clerk. Only government officials were allowed to perform the ceremonies. But I'm glad I stood in line with them, witnessed their joy and celebrated their weddings. All of our children, not just those in that line on Sunday, are waiting for the Children of God to show love because wherever love is, God is.
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So these credentials as listed above do not mean much to me. To claim that one is following Christ and teaching others what He taught, and then to describe these unions as holy is to deny what He said about marriage. IMO There is a reason behind every single sin or abomination that is described in the Bible. A reason that is about what is good for mankind, what is healthy. It is not about punishment. It is about what is best for mankind.
I'd like to sit down with this writer and ask this question: What will you say to a person whom you have performed a gay "marriage" ceremony for who then later comes to you and tells you that they have been born again and asks what to do about this marriage that they no longer have the desire to be in? What will you advise them to do?
Come on over to the side of Radical Freedom!!
Demand that Chr#istianity be removed from the public square and from public education.
Demand that other Chr#istians keep their private beliefs PRIVATE and therefore Free.
If you are going to paradise, much better than here, then, go, and save the rest of us a lot of money.
Unlike sexuality, there's something that's a simple choice: choose sense instead.
from a logical point of view we cannot be children of god.
to the religious god is infinite. what can exist outside of infinite? once we state we are children of god we have created boundaries on infinite. which of course is impossible unless we redefine infinite. logic does not seem to be a necessity for religion.
it is this idea of being children of god that causes the religious to think they can be separate from and infinite god. we are expressions of that that is, isness, absolute, infinite source, etc.
what confuses the religious is sin evil and suffering. so they condemn themselves as the culprits and pronounce themselves blameworthy (ego thing) and then some even feel they need a savior to appease an angry god that demands an atonement. ie a god of unconditional love of course.
atheists are made not born with such beliefs. the same religious god made in the image of man is the same god the atheists do not believe in.
Why presume that atheists are incapable of multi-tasking? It is possible to disbelieve in any and all proposed gods......
BTW, "religion" is not limited to Christianity and its predecessors and offshoots, either...
You bring to mind the words of a minister who agreed to marry a couple, one of which was divorced, who the Catholic priests refused to marry. He explained his decision this way: "It is my job to marry people in the eyes of God; it is not my job to decide who gets to marry in the eyes of God."
Thank you, and cheers!
I mean, if Christians want to get their ethical bearings out of a book where their God allegedly commands Moses and the Israelites to commit genocide against the seven tribes occupying the so-called "promised land", that's their disease.
We don't need to make it ours.
We can source our ethics and our moral values from much better documents than that.
...I'm just sayin'. ;-)
Thanks for playing. ;-)
I'd be happy if they'd just read a science book.