Controversial Topic...Easily angered please turn away!

Today’s entry should be a bit controversial, but I’ve really wanted to write this ever since I got back from NY. Please note that I grew up in the Washington DC area. DC makes the Massachusetts political outlook seem like the Deep South. So, my liberal friends could be deeply offended by one aspect of this, and my conservative friends could be deeply offended by another. I hope neither is true…kind of.

I’ll skip half of the background/set-up, and jump right into the fact that I was at La Guardia airport at 5:30 in the morning getting ready to fly to Memphis. At the airport Starbucks, a couple of men introduced themselves since I was standing nearby and had understood their Spanish conversation.

Quickly, his friend steered us not only into politics, but also religion. Incidentally, this is not a topic that you’re supposed to have with a stranger – especially not in the North! Well, they let me know they were not Christians, and gave some loose reasons. One of the two men seemed openly flamboyant, but I had no intention of assuming they were gay. I don’t know if it was before or after he called me “cute” that he did confirm that they "were not straight."

So, here was the great opportunity, and my whole point for this entry. In my opinion, and regardless of the issue of sin, the homosexual community is one that is too often shunned by Christians. I wanted these men (one of which was clearly not open to Christianity, and the other of which was fading fast on a Vicadin) to know that I was no more worthy of being a Christian than anyone else. It is only by God’s grace that we are saved. To me, we all need a starting point with God – prayer and reading the Bible. Once you get to know God, he will guide us. I want to illustrate worthiness this point of worthiness by talking about our last Nathan Street.

This was the first Nathan Street since the Lester massacre. Brian did a great job talking to the kids about how God tells us to love everyone. After asking questions about how this man could kill his brother, cut off the fingers of children, kill/attempt to kill 9 people in such a gruesome manner; one child said, “sometimes it’s hard to love people.” For those of you who don’t know Nathan Street…these kids live in the same neighborhood as the Lester Street massacre ("Lester Street Massacre" can easily be googled since it made national news last week). They interact with Dotson’s gang, and probably know, or at least went to school with some of the dead children. So, we had the gumption to tell the kids that God calls us to love even this murderer. Therefore, if you believe homosexuality is a sin, shouldn’t you love that person anyway? That’s the easy answer: yes. The hard part about being a Christian is that, eventually you must recognize that you will never be sinless in this world on your own, and that it is impossible to remain blameless without Jesus Christ.

So, yes, the way I read the Bible, homosexuality is a sin, but (and this blog was never intended to be a personal confessional) there are so many things that I do/have done that are sins too. I believe that, as a sinner, I am no more worthy of God than a gay man/woman. When I overcome one sin, others become evident too. This is why I am so grateful that God chooses to show us mercy regardless of whether we deserve it or not. We just need to walk with him. I believe Christians should deal with sin at the point that someone is committed to seeing what it means to follow God. And I believe that it isn’t up to us, as sinners, to choose who deserves God.

In case you’re curious, (I eluded to this earlier) at most I planted a seed with one of these men - I saw no conversions. Still, God can choose to work in mysterious ways so they may still become Christians. One of the best ways to evangelize, though, is to love the person, get to know him/her and care about him/her. At that point, the person would have a better chance of being receptive to a Christian message.

Okay, my blog is usually an “I don’t care if you like this or not, it’s really about just expressing my thoughts” blog. Today, I’m actually nervous about posting it. Yikes! Okay, that’s all I have.