Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (6 page)

The early Christians’ countercultural allegiance to Christ—their “ethic”—doesn’t “make sense apart from a set of theological convictions, symbolically and narratively presented in Scripture (for instance, the goodness of God’s creation; the covenant with Israel; Christ’s defeat of evil, sin and death; the inbreaking of the reign of God; and the empowering work of the Holy Spirit),” writes Scott Bader-Saye.
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Viewed from the perspective of the culture, in other words, the early Christians’ actions were crazy; but viewed from within the worldview of Israel’s Scriptures and the gospel, their actions represented the only rational option.

Not only in the church but in many spheres of life, rules and demands can seem harsh and deadly if the rhyme or reason for the
rules isn’t easy to discern. A parent’s warning (“Be home before 11:00 o’clock”) or a professor’s assignment (“Read and summarize this article”) can be maddening if the child or student fails to see the bigger picture
within which
the rules make some sense. For the early Christians, the story of God’s work through his Son, Jesus, provided that bigger picture within which their strange, unnatural choices and actions made sense.

I can only answer the question “What am I to do?” if I can answer the prior question “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?”

Alasdair MacIntyre,
After Virtue

I have a friend who has dated several guys in the past and who is now living with a partner of the same sex. “I’m not a lesbian,” she says. “I’m just in a lesbian relationship.” As I’ve thought about my friend’s relationship, it has struck me that my situation is exactly the reverse of hers: I’m gay, but I’m not in a homosexual relationship. That raises the question:
Why not?

I have pondered—carefully, frequently, from this angle, then that—what it is that keeps me as a homosexual Christian from pursuing my sexual fulfillment. There is, after all, an obvious and easy solution for people like me who feel frustrated by their homosexuality: I could find a partner and learn to
express,
rather than repress, my homoerotic impulses. Didn’t Paul himself say in one of his letters that “it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion” (1 Corinthians 7:9)? Given that option, there must be a reason someone would
voluntarily
remain in a state of frustration. Why do I choose to abstain?

On the surface, the Bible and the church’s demand for homosexuals not to act on their desires can seem old-fashioned, life taking, oppressive. But could it be that if I place that demand into a larger story, then perhaps—just perhaps—it won’t seem as irrational, harsh, and unattainable as it otherwise might? Could the Christian story of what God did for the world in Christ be the framework that makes the rules—“Don’t go to bed with a partner of the same sex.” “Don’t seek to cultivate and nurture desires and fantasies of going to bed with a partner of the same sex”—make sense?

These questions have been the deciding factor in my choice to say no to my homosexual desires. In the end, what keeps me on the path I’ve chosen is not so much individual proof texts from Scripture or the sheer weight of the church’s traditional teaching against homosexual practice. Instead, it is, I think, those texts and traditions and teachings
as I see them from within the true story of what God has done in Jesus Christ
—and the whole perspective on life and the world that flows from that story, as expressed definitively in Scripture. Like a piece from a jigsaw puzzle finally locked into its rightful place, the Bible and the church’s no to homosexual behavior make sense to me—it has the ring of truth, as J. B. Phillips once said of the New Testament—when I look at it as one piece within the larger Christian narrative. I abstain from homosexual behavior because of the power of that scriptural story.

But how does this actually work out in practice? What is it about this Christian story that makes a strange, old-fashioned decree—“Don’t have sex with a person of the same sex”—seem doable, even reasonable? How, specifically, does the narrative of God’s accomplishment in Christ give me a context in which I can see that obedience to Scripture and the church makes sense?

In the first place, the Christian story promises
the forgiveness of sins
—including homosexual acts—to anyone who will receive it through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

One of the most striking things about the New Testament’s teaching on homosexuality is that, right on the heels of the passages that condemn homosexual activity, there are, without exception, resounding affirmations of God’s extravagant mercy and redemption. God condemns homosexual behavior and amazingly, profligately, at great cost to himself, lavishes his love on homosexual persons.

Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
nor men who practice homosexuality,
nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10, italics added).

Immediately following this, however, Paul made a sweeping pronouncement of grace: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (v. 11). The New Testament rings with the good news that the “unrighteous” may be redeemed. Like the prodigal son welcomed home by his father in Jesus’ parable, homosexual persons may be forgiven and set apart as God’s treasured possession—no matter what they’ve done in the past.

First Timothy 1:8-11 has an indictment of homosexual behavior equally as stark as the one in 1 Corinthians:

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for
the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral,
men who practice homosexuality,
enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted (italics added).

But, again, directly following this coldly condemning word comes a “trustworthy [saying]…deserving of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (v. 15), including all the types of sinners just mentioned.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, when the topic of same-sex erotic activity comes up, as it does almost immediately (1:18-32), Paul places it in the context of a grand narrative of God’s recreating human beings—and, indeed, the whole cosmos—through Jesus Christ. Condemning homoerotic practice in sharp terms, Paul writes: “God gave [Gentile idolaters] up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another” (1:26-27).

But this condemnation is situated within the most powerful explanation of the gospel ever written. “All [who] have sinned,” Paul says barely two chapters later, “are justified by [God’s] grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (3:23-24). “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God…[So we] rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (5:8-9, 11). “Paul’s references
to homosexual conduct place it within the realm of sin and death, to which the cross is God’s definitive answer,” writes biblical scholar Richard Hays. “The judgment of Romans 1 against homosexual practices should never be read apart from the rest of the letter, with its message of grace and hope through the cross of Christ.”
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Sometimes I think to myself, “If I’ve already given into homosexual desires this much in my lustful fantasizing, I’ve already ruined my track record. Shouldn’t I just go all the way and chuck this whole abstinence thing? God doesn’t want to forgive me yet again.” But then I remember the gospel.

Christianity’s good news provides—amply so—for the forgiveness of sins and the wiping away of guilt and the removal of any and all divine wrath through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Seen in this light, the demand that we say no to our homosexual impulses need not seem impossible. If we have failed in the past, we can receive grace—a clean slate, a fresh start. If we fail today or tomorrow in our struggle to be faithful to God’s commands, that, too, may be forgiven. Feeling that the guilt of past homosexual sins or present homosexual failures is beyond the scope of God’s grace should never be a barrier preventing anyone from embracing the demands of the gospel. God has already anticipated our objection and extravagantly answered it with the mercy of the cross.

There is a second way in which the Christian story provides a context in which to make some sense of the Bible’s no to homosexual practice. The message of what God has done through Christ reminds me that
all
Christians, whatever their sexual orientation, to one degree or another experience the same frustration
I do as God challenges, threatens, endangers, and transforms
all
of our natural desires and affections. Theologian Robert Jenson observes:

After all is said and done, Scripture is brutally clear about homoerotic practice: it is a moral disaster for anyone, just as adultery is a crime for anyone…Of course, every mandate of the law is harder on some, with their predilections, than on others with theirs. In this fallen world, that is always true of law, divine or human. Does God’s law then mandate frustration for those unattracted or repelled by the opposite sex? I fear it does, just as, given the fall, each of us, with his or her predilections, will be blocked by God’s law in some painful—perhaps deeply painful—way.
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Jenson’s point came home to me on a recent trip to France. At the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, I saw a painting by the French realist Fernand Cormon (1845-1924) that hangs twenty-three feet long and thirteen feet high. From the first moment I glanced at the painting, I was captivated. The subject is a troupe of nearly a dozen ancient desert travelers, all of them in motion. Most are half dressed, the women, long past their prime, exposing sagging breasts. In the rear of the procession, there is a dog and a traveler who is carrying a carcass lashed to a pole over his shoulder. Everyone is dusty and dirty, and the background is a stark outcropping of sand and boulders. At the head of the troupe is the painting’s focal point—an old man, bent but clearly muscled and weathered from toil and struggle. His gray-white hair is wild, his beard long and unkempt. When I first saw the painting, my eyes were drawn to his craggy body. Clearly he was a leader, bold and commanding, yet wizened and world-weary. As riveting as this painting was
before I checked the label, it became even more so once I saw that
Caïn
was the title.
Cain.
This was a picture of the wilderness wandering of Cain—the result of the first murder and God’s curse. Stunned, I stepped back to take in the painting again in light of this new understanding.

For me, viewing Cormon’s
Caïn
was a reminder that the biblical God—the God of the gospel—is a dangerous God. Cain murders Abel, and God calls him to account: “Where is Abel your brother?” (Genesis 4:9). Although he tries to evade God’s all-seeing gaze, to dodge the implicit accusation, God refuses to let Cain relinquish the dignity he has as a human person made in God’s own image. God takes Cain seriously. He treats his actions as full of import by giving them consequences. He doesn’t merely brush aside his sin; he responds by cursing him for his murderous rage but also by graciously providing for his continued survival (4:10-15). In a word, God
threatens
Cain’s life—at least the life he knows and loves—with judgment and the possibility of merciful transformation.

Both the Old and New Testaments in the Bible are replete with such stories. Genesis tells of Jacob the patriarch wrestling with a man who turns out to be God’s messenger intent on blessing Jacob—by
bruising
him. “I will not let you go unless you bless me,” Jacob pants, hip out of joint, clinging to the one who represents the dangerous God he fears and longs for (32:22-32). Similarly, one of Peter’s sermons recorded in the book of Acts climaxes with the affirmation that “God…sent [his servant Jesus] to you first, to bless you,” not in the usual way, to be sure—not by indulging people, like a cosmic Santa Claus—but “by turning every one of you from your wickedness” (3:26).

Sometimes when I ponder again what it means for me and others to live faithfully before God as homosexual Christians, I think of Cormon’s painting and these biblical reminders that the God of the gospel is known by his threat to our going on with “business as usual.” Far from being a tolerant grandfather rocking in his chair somewhere far away in the sky, God most often seems dangerous, demanding, and ruthless as he makes clear that he is taking our homoerotic feelings and actions with the utmost seriousness. Like Cain, we sometimes squirm as we relate to God. We experience him both as an unwanted presence reminding us that our thoughts, emotions, and choices have lasting consequences, as well as a radiant light transforming us gradually, painfully, into the creatures he wants us to be.

British theologian John Webster speaks of “the church facing the resistance of the gospel,” meaning that if the gospel brings comfort, it also necessarily brings affliction.
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The gospel
resists
the fallen inclinations of Christian believers. When we engage with God in Christ and take seriously the commands for purity that flow from the gospel, we always find our sinful dreams and desires challenged and confronted. When we homosexual Christians bring our sexuality before God, we begin or continue a long, costly process of having it transformed. From God’s perspective, our homoerotic inclinations are like “the craving for salt of a person who is dying of thirst” (to borrow Frederick Buechner’s fine phrase).
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Yet when God begins to try to change the craving and give us the living water that will ultimately quench our thirst, we scream in pain, protesting that we were
made
for salt. The change hurts.