I’ve been a member of a church my whole life.  My grandfather was a pastor, his brother was a pastor, and there were others before them.  And now I’m a pastor.  I serve a fairly large church in Grand Island, Nebraska.  The good life.  On a stick.

I’m also a United Methodist.  My grandfather & great-uncle were Methodist.  My parents chose United Methodist churches when I was growing up.  I attended the same United Methodist Church for more than 20 years before heading off to seminary at Claremont School of Theology.

I resonated early on with the idea that God is one who expresses love rather than anger or hatred or contempt, and God calls all of humanity to do the same.  I was most moved by Jesus’ final teaching in the Gospel of John when he gave that new commandment:  love each other, and that’s how people will know who you are.

Like a good Methodist, I think that the ancient and sacred Christian texts have everything I need to figure out God’s message for the world.  As a pastor and a preacher, I am a student of the Bible and continue to read and study.

And it’s hard.  It’s really hard to figure out what’s written there because it challenges me and it makes me think and it forces me out of my comfort zone and it transforms me.  God transforms me.  And I can’t help but keep working at it, because the more I do the more I become a better person.  That’s the way I think about it.  That’s the way I experience it.

I recently read a blog that made me see that I’ve been somewhat of a hypocrite, though.  I haven’t been doing all I can – as informed by sacred Christian texts – to show the love that Jesus teaches and that God calls me to give.  I haven’t been open to God’s transforming work as completely as I could be.  I haven’t been showing the world who I am because of the way I show love for all of humanity.

I have been silent in the face of exclusion and condemnation.  I’ve been afraid of offending people.  I’ve been afraid of pissing people off.  And this stops now.

The blog was from Dan Pearce’s Single Dad Laughing site titled I’m Christian Unless You’re Gay.  It’s an excellent read.  Please check it out.

He writes of judgement, hatred, and bullying for any reason and how it’s completely against the tenet found in a number of religious traditions to express love to one another.  He specifically discusses the Christian (and I see it from other religious and non-religious traditions) abuse of gays and lesbians.  And he’s right.  I see it.  All the time.

And I’ve been silent.  I’ve been afraid to say something.  And this stops now.

I’m a Christian pastor who loves the LGBT community.  I’m a Christian pastor who doesn’t believe that homosexuality is a sin.  I’m a Christian pastor who thinks that gays and lesbians and bisexuals and queers and transgendered persons are not only invited by God into faith communities, but who are essential to the meaning of true community.

And I would be remiss not to note that the United Methodist Church disagrees with me, and instead notes that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Even so, I refuse to be silent.  I refuse to give in to my fear of the response.  I refuse to give in to the fear of consequences.  I refuse to exclude these persons from the Christian community.  Because that’s not love.  That’s not life-giving.  That doesn’t show who I am by the way that I love the world.

Many of my friends will disagree with me.  Many will cite scripture to me.

They’ll reference the creation story in Genesis and tell me that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.  Even though that story is about creation and procreation, about addressing human origin.  It’s not about faithful same-gender relationships.

They’ll reference the Levitical laws, forgetting that we already ignore most of those laws based on Paul’s writing in Galatians that the law has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ or his writing in Romans that we are no longer under the law.  And even so, careful reading of the specific Levitical text seems to show that it upholds patriarchy instead of condemning faithful same-gender relationships.

They’ll reference the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is about gang-rape and fear.  It’s not about faithful same-gender relationships.

They’ll reference 1 Corinthians and Romans, two letters from Paul – who by the way was a very gifted writer and whose Greek is well known for its form and poetry.  But they won’t mention that there’s debate on the meaning of the Greek words used (and that weren’t even translated to “homosexual” until the 1940s).  Careful analysis reflects a likelihood that these texts are likely to reference pederasty (the ancient practice of enslaving young boys who would be sexually exploited).  It’s not about faithful same-gender relationships.

And yet I would still be a hypocrite if I were to say that I have the exclusive (capital-T) Truth of God’s will for the world.  If I exclude persons who disagree with me, I’m doing the same thing as those who exclude persons based on their sexual identity.

My particular passion is about exclusion of the LGBT community, and I won’t be silent.  And I don’t intend to silence anyone else.

Instead, let’s talk.  Let’s have a conversation.  Let’s be respectful.  Let’s show love to one another, because that’s how the world will know who we are.

I’m a Christian pastor who doesn’t think homosexuality is a sin.  Let’s talk.

If you follow the Lectionary – or if your church does, or if you even know what the lectionary is – you may know that the Gospel lesson this past Sunday was the familiar story of Jesus feeding the 5000.  If you don’t know the story, I have a Jesus action figure that illustrates it!  Check this out…

My favorite part about this action figure is not just that he comes with 5 loaves and 2 fish or that he has a container to turn water into wine.  No, my favorite part is that Jesus has “Glow-in-the-Dark Hands!”  Oh yes, because you know that Jesus’ hands glowed just like the tip of Harry Potters wand when he did something magical.  A friend suggests that maybe Jesus’ hands became discolored from healing all those lepers…

With that said, be careful.  According to the warning on the top of the box, Jesus is a choking hazard and is not suitable for children under 3 years.

But it got me thinking about Jesus and his miracles and how we talk about them today.  And with that in mind, I have to wonder about all those who are asking now where God’s power is today and where God’s miracles are today.

When it came to those 5 loaves and 2 fish, did Jesus really do something supernatural so that the food sort of magically appeared as it was being distributed so that it was enough to feed 5000 men (not including women and children) plus 12 baskets left over?  Let me be clear.  I believe completely that Jesus had that kind of power, that he was capable of the supernatural.  I’m not questioning that.  What I’m asking is, did he actually use that awesome power in this case?

When I talk to people about that, they say that even asking that question is kinda dangerous, because if he didn’t use that awesome power then it takes away from the power of the story.  But I don’t agree.

A friend of mind witnessed a miracle once.  He describes it that way.  A miracle.  He was at a big conference, and they were serving communion (aka eucharist).  And they began to run out of bread!  As an usher in the back of this hall, he could see that the supply was getting dangerously low.  And then he noticed that people were very discreetly walking up behind this table and adding their own bread.  It was sandwich bread and other stuff that – it seems – people were going out to their cars and bringing back.  And there was enough so that everyone was able to receive communion!

So what if that’s what happened when Jesus fed all those people?  Does that mean it wasn’t a miracle?  Some would say that’s exactly what it means, and again I don’t agree.

Maybe it’s just a sense of pessimism about people and their nature.  I think people are greedy.  In the story of Adam and Eve, we learn about their greed for knowledge as they eat the forbidden fruit.  And Cain killed Abel because he was greedy for God’s attention.  The story of Jacob (who would later be named Israel) illustrates his intense greed, from wanting his brother’s birth-right to his father’s blessing to his father-in-law’s livestock.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ time were greedy for power and control and attention.  Many of the people were too!  Remember the guy who asked Jesus how to gain eternal life?  When he was told to sell all he had and give it to the poor, he went away depressed!

And this hasn’t stopped.  Wars among nations are most often started out of some sense of greed.  And look at today’s social insistence on instant gratification.  Greed is pervasive and it’s a sickness and it eats us from the inside out.  Stories of people who give generously and beyond their means are not as common as they could be.

So would it really be any less of a miracle if Jesus motivated 5000 men (not including women and children) to share what meager offerings they had brought for themselves with those who had even less?  No, I don’t think it would be less.  I think that’s the greater miracle.

And to those who ask where God’s miracles are, I suggest looking beyond the supernatural.  God’s presence and power can be seen and observed and experienced.  But not always in the flash and bang of magic and mystery.  Miracles are way better than that.

Yup. I said it. Jesus loves gay porn stars. And what’s more, I believe it!

A friend, classmate, and author named Steven Luff gave me a T-shirt just the other day with that saying on it, and it made me think.  Just how far does Jesus’ love go?  Is it possible that Jesus could really love a gay porn star?  A sex addict?  This last one Steven addresses in the book Pure Eyes: A Man’s Guide to Sexual Integrity, available at Amazon here (full disclosure: if you buy through that link, I’ll get a small kickback… thought you should know).

Does Jesus love gay people like Ellen Degeneres?  Some would say not, and continue that natural disasters like hurricane Katrina are actually God’s wrath because of American society’s acceptance of gays and lesbians (read here).  NOTE:  This example and the next both suggest that homosexuality is a sin, something that I whole-heartedly argue against, though I will not do so in this post.

Fred Phelps (whose website I refuse to link from here) would say that U.S. soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan are a direct result of the same.  Still others argue that the earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan were God’s wrath, perhaps a result of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 (read here).

Is any of this consistent with the Gospel message?  No.  Not to me it’s not.  And frankly, I think it gives Christians and Christianity a bad name…

And that’s the thing.  Sure, we can find all sorts of things that point to God’s wrath in the face of humanity’s stupidity.  First-century Jews (and I think some today) might have argued that violating the sacred covenant with God would surely result in divine punishment.  And there is more than a little support for that train of thought in the Hebrew Bible (or the Old Testament as most Christians know it).  And if that were our only source of sacred text, could we argue the point?

But for Christians, that’s not the only source of sacred text.  So given the Gospel text, what’s the significance of Jesus’ teachings or of his sacrifice on the cross?  Don’t most Christians affirm that Jesus taught a message of profound love and even gave his life on the cross as an ultimate act of love for all of humanity for all time?  I – as one Christian – am unwilling to say that Christ’s death wasn’t enough and that God’s wrath has to fill in the gaps.  I’m just not willing to say it.  Because I believe that Jesus loves us where we are and as we are, without qualification and without prejudice.

I am willing to say that Jesus loves gay porn stars.  And yes, I believe it.

As part of a class last semester, I had to describe what has become known the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to a current issue facing the church.  John Wesley – founder of Methodism – would view the things going on in his time through the lens of this quadrilateral: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.  Be warned.  This is a long read, but (in my opinion) worth it…  Here is the question and my response:

The United Methodist Church holds that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.  What is your understanding of this theological position of the Church?  Demonstrate its application in at least one current issue of the Church.

As one who grew up in the UMC, I don’t have a memory of a specific time that I chose this practice of Wesley’s theology over another tradition.  Even having gone through confirmation and the variety of congregations and faith traditions visited as part of that class, I felt aware of other possibilities; but none seemed as perfect a fit for me as the UMC.  In hindsight, I think the reason has a great deal to do with the way United Methodists approach scripture and the application of scripture to the world.  In short, my comfort at the earliest stages of faith with the UMC has a great deal to do with the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

The Wesleyan Quadrilateral stresses scripture as the primary source for all we know about God, the life of Jesus Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit and about faith.  The way I understand this is that the scriptures contain everything that I need – and that we as a community of faith need – in order to lead a life according to God’s call, and so the difficulty lies not in where to find God’s message but how to understand God’s message.  The texts we read today come from a long line of storytellers and scribes who have painstakingly and prayerfully worked to share this message, even across social, cultural, temporal, and linguistic boundaries.  The difficulties in bringing such a message lies not in the scriptures themselves, but in our own human limitations.  In light of these limitations, what a wonder it is that God – who has given us all that we need to know through the scriptures – speaks to us even beyond those scriptures.

Through the tradition of generations of Christians, we can be in dialogue with a community across time.  As an individual, I think it is foolish and even narcissistic to think that I alone – even with the guidance of scripture – am able to discern all there is to know about God and God’s wishes for humanity.  Instead, reading from ancient and contemporary theologians and following the example of traditional practices offers a broader perspective for the Christian faith and experience.  It is important to note that part of being in dialogue is the understanding that we may not always agree with every member of our community.  Rather than seeing this as troubling, I find this to be a sign of God’s grace and God’s infinite ability to relate to humanity and to creation.  I don’t mean to say that God is different depending on individual human perception, but instead that God responds to us according to our needs and relates to us each independently and completely.

It is the nature of God’s intimate relationship with each person that makes it possible for us to experience God, and there is no shortage of written accounts of these kinds of personal experiences from the scriptures to Augustine to Wesley’s strange warming of the heart.  My own experience began – in a sense – with the understanding that I was called to ordained ministry.  This experience did more than open my mind to Christian service, and an equally important affect was that I began to become more aware of God’s movement in my own life.  As I continued forward from that time, I was able to experience more fully God’s specific presence and call on my life.  I was also able to look back to memories from before my call experience and – with newly opened eyes – could see that God had been actively present far longer than I had been paying attention.  Collectively, these experiences draw me forward to God and to what God calls me to do.

The way I find most effective to tie together these aspects of scripture, tradition, and experience is through the gift of reason.  As children of God, we have not been created to blindly love God, but to choose to love God, and I think the only way for us to come to this choice is to use reason to put together scripture with tradition and reason in a way that makes sense for us individually.  Using this gift of reason, we can assess whether our experiences fall in line with what we read in scripture; we can discern whether the traditional practices of our faith make sense in our current context and our own experience; we can examine our reading of scriptures in light of our tradition and experiences.  In this way, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral helps us to more fully experience God’s divine lure in our lives.

One way to apply the Quadrilateral to a current issue of the Church is in relation to the immigration bill recently signed into law in Arizona.  This law will require all immigrants to carry documentation and will give local law enforcement officials wide-ranging power to interrogate or even arrest anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.  While I am sensitive to the ongoing national debate about immigration in the United States, this application will focus on the specific law itself rather than the broader issue of immigration reform.

When Jesus was asked about the most important commandment – written in the canonical Gospels – he cites Leviticus 19:18, saying that we should not only love God but that we should love our neighbors in the same way that we love ourselves.  In Luke, Jesus follows with the parable of the Good Samaritan – who reason and tradition tell us would have been considered in that context to have been an immigrant and an outcast – who acts out of love and compassion.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment: to love each other just as Jesus has loved them.  As I reason through these scriptures, I think the core of the Christian faith is love!  Is it possible to love our brothers and sisters in Christ if we are more concerned with their immigration status than their wellbeing?  I don’t think so.  To add to the scriptural support, the same chapter of Leviticus that Jesus quotes when he says we are to love our neighbors says, “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.  The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:33-34, NRSV).

This passage reminds readers of the Israelites in Egypt and I also think of the Babylonian exile.  The people of God have been aliens in strange lands, and tradition reminds us of inhumane treatment, murder, and the unyielding injustice of those who have been under such oppression.  I think of Peter’s vision in Acts, and his experience that followed preaching to the Gentiles.  Though the early Christian leaders questioned his motives, his vision and the presence of the Holy Spirit silenced the critics.

I also think of the North American slave trade of the eighteenth century, and addressed directly by John Wesley who wrote, “If, therefore, you have any regard to justice, (to say nothing of mercy, nor the revealed law of God,) render unto all their due. Give liberty to whom liberty is due, that is, to every child of man, to every partaker of human nature… Be gentle toward all men; and see that you invariably do unto every one as you would he should do unto you.” [John Wesley, “Thoughts Upon Slavery,” http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley/thoughtsuponslavery.stm, 1774.]

And finally, experience tells me that I have been invited into a community of God.  In my experience, community is not only a place for dialogue and friendship, but is a place for safety; it is a place of sanctuary.  I do not see community as a place where everyone looks or thinks or acts the same, but I do see community as a place for unity and our common connection to our creator and redeemer.  Reasoning all of these together, I see no way that this law in Arizona is a showing of love, a recognition of the immigrant as citizen, or an invitation to community.  In that light, this is a law that I cannot – as a person of faith and good conscience – support or follow.

Here’s a conversation I had with three UMC clergy from the Cal-Pac Conference on the upcoming Lectionary scripture.  The verses can be read at the Vanderbilt Divinity Library.  Voices heard are Rev. Krista Givens, Rev. Molly Vetter, Rev. J. Dan Lewis, and me!  This is a ”first-attempt” episode, so if you like it please forward a link to others and comment to let us know!

For those reading this on readers that don’t support media, you can view the original post here.

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