Words of Healing?

Out of this morning’s meditation came the following prayer:
“Jesus, nurture me that I may live a fruitful life and share that blessing with others. Help me articulate a healing word here, a concise healing word that could be heard by those God loves – which is both the haters and the hated, those who hide and those who are open about their sexuality – words I might speak to this issue that I could say to ALL men and ALL women, words of healing. Amen”

I need to articulate where I am on the issue of homosexuality. The first rule of practicing law applies here – no surprises, never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer. Not that you are going to call on me, but transparency demands that I reveal where my heart is, so here we go ...

The insanity surrounding sexual orientation makes me crazy – I may be wrong, but I find myself viewing our sexuality as a place along a line, a continuum, where we slide left or right throughout our life as we learn and grow, are wounded and are healed. Much like Conservative-Moderate-Liberal, in my mind our sexuality is a place on the line Heterosexual-Bisexual-Homosexual – where we are is a function of our hearts, minds and bodies. Life experiences, teachings, and biology.

I may be wrong. I am still working on it. The biology piece is intriguing to me – how DID God design us? A dear friend speaks of homosexuality as a result of trauma. I hear her voice. I respect her knowledge and experience. Her word ‘deviant’ is often sandpaper for me, which simply signals that the enemy doesn’t want me to hear her – actually lending credibility to her beliefs. God’s design (Genesis) speaks boldly to man and woman, but I still doubt and question.

An article in TIME (a magazine I’ve picked up once since joining our community of faith – and read only this article link) explores biology and things we may not yet understand.

The heavy handed use of Romans 1:26-32 to bash homosexuality makes me crazy. I see it as condemning a much broader range of behaviors in which all of us have participated in one way or another. A year ago our study of Romans in my small group led to a discussion of homosexuality, a conversation in which I failed to speak in defense of those being persecuted, and this failure left me feeling completely disconnected from my friends, and eventually led to my leaving the group. To say my departure lacked transparency is a gross understatement. I found and articulated many other excuses for my departure and slithered into the darkness never telling the group the truth. My inability to articulate with courage is what lead me the Beth Moore “Believing God” study at another faith community, more structure and lots of healing. (very Romans 8:28 ... Romans healing? Not bashing? ... an irony just discovered as this morning as I am writing this)

If I had that moment to do over again, the moment when I could speak up in my small group, I’d say that:

• for me the ‘jury is still out’ on whether or not homosexuality is a sin
• having been divorced and promiscuous I have often been beaten by those yielding their Bibles as weapons of mass destruction
• I will love people wherever they are on the sexual orientation continuum, encourage them to be open with me, and treat them with dignity
• I will choose to affirm what the Bible affirms
• I will build up, encourage, celebrate the humanity and the potential for greatness in every person
• when I stand before my Creator and learn the truth about our sexuality, I will risk being wrong and in need of forgiveness, rather than seek eternal damnation by being cruel and unkind which I believe our Creator will find indefensible.

You may share this with our dear friend mentioned above – or not – as you wish. You know her better than anyone and I trust the two of you completely.

As often happens, the word “coward” I used when we first talked about this before man club was not meant for you, but for me. A mirror held up so that I might see my own foundational weakness, places that need more work.

This is one of those moments when I seek to run and hide, to press delete instead of send, so if you got to the bottom of this email please pray for me.

Rw

25 Feb 2011

Genesis 1:26-28
Romans 1:26-32
Romans 8:26-28