God is tapping

Genesis 12:1-4a

          One of the things that I feared the most about ministering were wake services. As it turned out, this ministry was one of the most rewarding and touching of the many things I did. Sure, I enjoyed witnessing marriages and certainly welcomed new babies with enthusiasm but wakes were different. In something I feared, I found a gentleness, a time of vulnerability, an opportunity to witness and be present to people that were aching and needed love and comfort.

          I often say that when God wants you to do something she will tap you on the shoulder. If you disregard the request you are not so subtly reminded with a 2 by 4 or a baseball bat.  God gets what God wants and asks for our cooperation in his plan of love. The problem always is our unwillingness to take part, to engage God and cooperate. Sometime we are happy to sit at home on the couch. We love the status quo. We'd rather not leave our comfort zone. Sometimes we are afraid.

           In this passage God asked Abram to pick up everything and go to a new country. I don't think most of us will be asked to do that. I also don't think God will ask us to give up our lives nailed to a cross for the sins of our brothers and sisters. Jesus did that for us and it need not be done again. We are asked to do any array of things, much simpler things, some harder, but we are asked. Do we cooperate or do we succumb to complacency or fear?

             On the simplest level we are asked to love. Then things get more complicated. We are asked to love our neighbor, you know, that one we are not too happy with. The ugly one. The one that dresses funny. The one that smells. The one that does not share our views of the world. The one that may hate us. Considerably more complicated and a bit tougher to embrace , eh?

               There has been a great deal of discussion recently about conversion therapy. This is a thoroughly discredited method of try and make gay people into straight people. To me this is not only saying no to God but saying no and trying to run in the opposite direction. In religious terms this would be a mortal sin. Taking something of great significance, a grave matter (our very nature), and turning your back on it and thus, turning your back on God and slamming the door. I know, being gay isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sure there is great joy in accepting who are. There is the great sex. ( notice I did not say indiscriminate, random, immoral sex ). But still, gay love s extraordinary. At the same time there are haters. The gay community is very misunderstood. Scripture is warped to lambaste us, gay people people are lumped into broad categories of sick people like pedophiles and hedonistic monsters. To some people, gays are equated with the devil. So untrue. So if you think you are gay, why would you come out? Your family may disown you. You may lose friends. You have a fairly good likelihood of being mistreated and abused by ignorant people claiming that it is God's will.

           The thing is this, if you are gay, God made you that way. Just as God wanted Abram to gay to a foreign land and embrace it, God made you gay and is asking you to embrace it. Do not shrink away from what you are are. Gay or straight or whatever, it is a gift from God that you are being asked to embrace. This is the tool with which you experience God's love, God's plan for you. This is the witness of God's love in your life. Will it be easy? Maybe, maybe not. There will be joyous times and lonely times and sad times and beautiful times like everyone else. 

           Sometimes we think that when God asks us to do something, it's donating food to a food bank, helping (loving) a neighbor with a chore or simply doing the right thing. We are indeed called to do all those simple things and more. We are also called to accept ourselves, to love ourselves and accept the life journey God created us to have. If you are gay embrace it, revel in it and love it. Being gay is a gift from God, an extraordinary journey of love.

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."