Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality

I once faced a temptation that was so persistent and so overwhelming that I literally believed my whole world would go dark if I refused to give in to it," he said. "All I could do was scream to the Holy Spirit to keep me from it.

One of the most striking things about the New Testament 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.

Washed and waiting. That is my life – my identity as one who is forgiven and spiritually cleansed and my struggle as one who perseveres with a frustrating thorn in the flesh, looking forward to what God has promised to do. That is what this book is all about.

There is, however, one way of speaking that I've tried to avoid. Rather than refer to someone as "a homosexual," I've taken care always to make "gay" or "homosexual" the adjective, and never the noun, in a longer phrase, such as "gay Christian" or "homosexual person." In this way, I hope to send a subtle linguistic signal that being gay isn't the most important thing about my or any other gay person's identity. I am a Christian before I am anything else. My homosexuality is a part of my makeup, a facet of my personality. One day, I believe, whether in this life or in the resurrection, it will fade away. But my identity as a Christian - someone incorporated into Christ's body by his Spirit - will remain.

Ignoring is not the path to redeeming.

When I cannot feel God’s love for me in my struggle, to have a friend grab my shoulder and say, “I love you, and I’m in this with you for the long haul” is, in some ways, an incarnation of God’s love that I would otherwise have trouble resting in.

I know that whatever the complex origins of my own homosexuality are, there have been conscious choices I've made to indulge - and therefore to intensify, probably - my homoerotic inclinations. As I look back over the course of my life, I regret the nights I have given in to temptations to lust that pulsed like hot, itching sores in my mind. And so I cling to this image - washed. I am washed, sanctified, justified through the work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Whenever I look back on my baptism, I can remember that God has cleansed the stains of homosexual sin from the crevasses of my mind, heart, and body and included me in his family, the church, where I can find support, comfort, and provocation toward Christian maturity.

Rainer Maria Rilke: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.

I have come to realize my need to take the New Testament witness seriously that groaning and grief and feeling broken are legitimate ways for me to express my cross-bearing discipleship to Jesus. It's not as if groaning means I am somehow doing something wrong. Groaning is a sign of my fidelity.

The New Testament views the church--rather than marriage--as the primary place where human love is best expressed and experienced.

Don't let your background or commitment to your own tradition make you fearful of joining in the adventure the Holy Spirit prepares for you.

The whole story of creation, incarnation and our incorporation into the fellowship of Christ’s body tells us that God desires us.…We are created so that we may be caught up in [the self-giving love of the Trinity]; so that we may grow into the wholehearted love of God by learning that God loves us as God loves God. The life of the Christian community has…the task of teaching us this: so ordering our relations that human beings may see themselves as desired, as the occasion of joy.

That year—and countless times since—I have pondered the question that haunts me still: Why do I so often feel agonizingly, desperately, hungrily outside?

The greatest joys and experiences God has for us are not found in marriage, for if they were, surely God would not do away with marriage in heaven. But since he has already told us he is doing away with it, we, too, can realize that the greatest things God has to give us are not to be found in marriage at all.

Nouwen sought counseling from a center that ministered to homosexual men and women, and he listened as gay friends proposed several options. He could remain a celibate priest and “come out” as a gay man, which would at least release the secret he bore in anguish. He could declare himself, leave the priesthood, and seek a gay companion. Or he could remain a priest publicly and develop private gay relationships. Nouwen carefully weighed each course and rejected it. Any public confession of his identity would hurt his ministry, he feared. The last two options seemed impossible for one who had taken a vow of celibacy and who looked to the Bible and to Rome for guidance on sexual morality. Instead, he decided to keep living with the wound. Again and again, he decided. 12

If Jesus abstained and if he is the measure of what counts as true humanity, then I may abstain too—and trust that, in so doing, I will not ultimately lose.

Suffering like Jayber Crow’s in his desire for a married woman or mine with my same-sex attraction—all of it, seen from the vantage point of faith—is obedience to Jesus’ call for us to join him in his dying and self-denial.

Jayber mused, “Sometimes I knew in all my mind and heart why I had done what I had done, and I welcomed the sacrifice. But there were times too when I lived in a desert and felt no joy and saw no hope and could not remember my old feelings. Then I lived by faith alone, faith without hope.” 21 This was the price of faithfulness for Jayber Crow. He willingly accepted the pain of living without Mattie for the sake of a higher commitment. He chose not to tell Mattie of his love, not to sleep with her, in the slim confidence that such fidelity would one day make sense and be repaid somehow. The connections of Jayber’s struggle to mine as a sexually abstinent gay Christian are not hard to see. Stories of imperfect faithfulness and perseverance like this one inspire me and give me hope. I am not alone as a gay Christian. I am not the only one who has chosen voluntarily to say no to impulses I believe are out of step with God’s desires. “If anyone would come after me,” Jesus said, “let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9: 23).

Though it sounds politically incorrect to modern ears, the gospel has always said that God may demand from us what he wants, since we do not belong to ourselves. Strictly speaking, we have no “inalienable rights.” God reserves all rights for himself. And this extends even to the realm of our sexuality—what we humans do with our bodies. “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord,” Paul counseled the Corinthians, adding, “and the Lord [is] for the body” (1 Corinthians 6: 13). “You are not your own,” he wrote, “for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (vv. 19–20).

Not only does God in Christ take people as they are: He takes them in order to transform them into what He wants them to be,” writes historian Andrew Walls. 12 In light of this, is it any surprise that we gay Christians must experience such a transformation along with the rest of the community of faith?

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 same-sex sexual acts and amazingly, profligately, at great cost to himself, lavishes his love on homosexual persons.

Heterosexuals are at least given the option of marriage and thus the possibility of having their sexual urges satisfied. For gay Christians in traditional churches, there is no such possibility. Unless our orientation is reversed—unless, in other words, we become heterosexual—gay and lesbian Christians are offered no hope that we will ever be able to fulfill our deepest sexual longings.

What would need to happen, I wondered silently, for the people hanging out on this block to feel welcome in the church I just worshiped in? Would they have the impression that their lives have compounded their guilt so much that God’s grace and forgiveness are now out of reach? Would some of them feel hope sinking into the pits of their stomachs if they heard that being a Christian means they should give up expressing their sexual feelings?

And such were some of you,” Paul says, with an emphasis on how things have changed: “such were some of you”—formerly—in the past. “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

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”( 1 Corinthians 6: 11 [italics added]). This is true inclusivity. 3

the other hand, I want to say enough so that those who are trying to surrender this part of their lives to Christ will be encouraged, and also so that the rest will not be misled by a culture that increasingly is allowing only one side of the discussion to be heard. 2

What I wish,” I finally said to Denny, “is that I could feel the church to be a safe place. I’ve come to you because I know you and I trust you,” I went on, “but even more than that, I’ve come to you because you’re my pastor, and I want to see this whole church thing be what it’s supposed to be. If you’re willing and if you have the time, I’d love for you to pastor me.

Tara put her finger on a resistance to God’s love I didn’t know I was harboring. (I have since learned that many gay Christians wrestle with feelings of isolation, shame, and guilt that lead them to question God’s love for them or simply feel cold and calloused to it.)

This is perhaps the hardest truth of any to grasp. Do we wake up every morning amazed that we are loved by God? David Ford, The Shape of Living