Word of the Day

I’ve been told that when you are making a hard decision, it is good and right to not only look to the Bible for guidance but to the Holy Spirit and your community. When I delved into what the Bible said about homosexuality, its seeming prohibitions were not as clear cut as I had believed. And the Holy Spirit…well, I was trying to be open and listen…and, unexpectedly, coming to the correct answer had become less important. And community? 

I have attended a church in Boulder off and on — much more off than on — for years. And for years, I had been telling people it was a non-denominational church. When I started attending more regularly I found out it was part of the Reformed Church in America. My church had not taken a public stance on same-sex relationships but, in 2017, the leadership of the larger denomination had voted to affirm its belief that marriage is between a man and woman. I knew from talking with others that Will, the pastor of my church, was affirming. I wanted to find out how he had come to this decision, particularly because the larger denomination had not. I didn’t know him well; we had talked a few times but had never met one-on-one before. We met at a coffee shop and I began hurling all my personal things at him, telling him I was gay and all I had been going through.

Being a pastor must be so weird. But he was totally cool with the zingers I threw his way. 

He confirmed that he had taken an affirming stance and was slowly moving the church in that direction, even though it was going against the larger church denomination. It was a decision he had not made easily or lightly, but, in fact, had spent years studying. Amazing, I thought, he’s done a deep-dive. He had pulled all-nighters in prayer and study as he had had more and more conversations with people like me. And the result? He had moved in the affirming direction, despite not knowing if he was right or wrong, because he sensed it was time to decide for himself and his church community.  

Wait…he did not know if he was right or wrong, he did not have THE answer? The uncertainty…a minister saying this. The honesty of this. The vulnerability of this. I loved him so much in this moment. He had decided he was moving forward even though he suspected that both sides, affirming and non-affirming, were probably wrong, that both sides probably didn’t see the whole picture, that both sides were missing pieces, pieces we cannot comprehend or understand. It’s when you think you have it nailed and pegged down, he said, when you think you have the right answer, that’s when you are in a dangerous place. Hit the brakes…what?! What about absolute truth?

What he was saying was so different from the teachings of my youth, but, in that moment and in my experience, it felt like…wisdom. 

Will encouraged me to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. (Forgive all the church speak.) We want the true and right doctrine, he said, but God is so mysterious. He gave us the Holy Spirit to help us through muddy waters and we need to work at figuring out or divining (there’s a high church word for you) what he is telling us or how he is guiding us. Andrew Marin, in his book Love is an Orientation, says “We can never know the ends to God’s best journey for someone else’s life.” We are individuals with unique personalities and character traits, and what is right for one will not be right for another. I know that makes us evangelical Christians feel very uneasy because it smacks of relativity. But it makes sense to me. God is so much bigger than what I presume is the way a person should go. 

And then, something else. In August 2018, my parents came for a visit. One night, we were sitting around the hotel pool sipping wine and chatting, and my dad said he had something to tell me: He’d experienced an afflatus (he loves his ten-dollar words).  

He informed me that an afflatus is a divine creative inspiration.

Okay, I thought, this sounds interesting.

He said that he had been reading about Jesus’ resurrection in the book of Luke when he was “gobsmacked” by the evidence of the resurrection, that there were large groups of people who saw and conversed with Jesus immediately after he died. He was overwhelmed by the thought that the most important thing in the Bible is the verifiable account of the resurrection of Jesus, which confirms that he is the Son of God. My dad said he had always had questions regarding slavery, polygamy, women’s silence in the church, etc., which seemed to be condoned by God in the Bible. Those things had always bothered him because he wanted the absolute truth (like father, like daughter), but he was convinced God was telling him “Concentrate on knowing my Son. This is more important than reconciling every verse of Scripture.”  

Gosh, he put into words what I had been intuiting but had not yet formulated.

Were we on the same page? Was my dad telling me, in so many words, that Jesus is where it’s at, that these hotly-contested issues that divide churches —homosexuality being the topic du jour — are chatter in light of Jesus’ death and resurrection? Was he telling me that he had made peace with my sexuality, that whatever I decided would be okay with him?  

What I was beginning to realize, albeit in the tiniest of ways, was that God just wants me, wants me warts and all, as I am…what is that called? Ohhh, that’s what unconditional love is. No conditions, no prerequisites. He loves me now, right now, not when I am better or when I do better or when I confess and turn from my ways…but right this minute. He loves me just as I am. He wants me to know him as deeply and intimately as he knows me.

Talk about life-giving and affirming.

When I’m sitting with God and this sense, this head and heart knowing, washes overs me, this love for me, I want nothing more than to bottle it so I can pour it over me when I forget. 

On good days, I am almost thankful for my sexuality. Maybe one day soon I won’t have to qualify with an “almost.” For sure, my life is still messy, I have regrets, and I feel uncertain some days. But I have had to go deeper with God (the alternative was to walk away from my faith), and it is changing my beliefs from a black and white, legalistic religion to a more creative, breathtaking and wondrous faith. And I’m so grateful. My sexuality has been the thorn in my side, my secret shame, for so many years, but the coming out process, and the doing it scared and afraid, has required me to step out in faith and rely on God much more so than staying silent. I have never felt such freedom and joy. Instead of figuring out the right answer, I am trusting that God is guiding me along the best pathway for my life.