Hammer on Anvil '

Okay, I’m just going to come right out and say it.  If you’re a homosexual, I think you’re a sinner.  The Bible agrees with me.

                                                            

But here’s the thing that often gets overlooked.  If you’re a heterosexual, the Bible also says you’re a sinner.  In fact, you’re also a sinner if you’re a pastor, a nun, a doctor, a factory worker, rich, poor, black, white, or just plain human (see Romans 3:23-24).

I’ll even go one further with another shocking Biblical truth.  No sin is worse than any other (see James 2:10).  What that means is that the priest’s sins separate him from God every bit as much as the gay’s.  I know some of you are ready to go up in arms about whether or not homosexuality is a sin, so let me say this – For the non-believer, it doesn’t matter.  Since we are all sinners, a homosexual would still be a sinner even if he wasn’t gay.

Oh I know, that’s all well and good in theory, but what about in practice?  We Christians don’t exactly treat a homosexual’s sins as equal to our own, do we?  We’re pretty hypocritical in that way.  It doesn’t happen with just homosexuality either.  A few weeks ago, Hannah posted about being “trampled by saints” when she was younger just because she’s quirky.

I think Gandhi hit the nail on the head when he said, “I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”  He’s right; we’re not.  We fall painfully short, and many of us who claim to be Christians are actually not.  That’s not an exaggeration – many.  Jesus himself said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.  Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:21-23).

The fact is that the gay sinner needs God’s mercy just like everyone else.  Not more, not less.  If you jump out of an airplane, you need a parachute as much as everyone else who jumped out.

But here’s the thing - if you jump out of a plane, you do need a parachute.  No amount of flapping your arms is going to save you.  You can’t save yourself and no one else can save you.  You need a parachute.  In a nutshell, that is the Christian story.

I can picture it almost like a cartoon.  You’re flying along on God’s plane (God is the pilot) when you decide you don’t like God’s rules, so you jump off the plane, not thinking about the consequences.  God is heartbroken because he loves you, so he tells his son to go after you (see John 3:16).  Jesus grabs the only parachute and dives after you without a second thought.  He catches you, hands you the parachute, and then plummets to his death.  (Okay, so it’s not a very happy cartoon.  He ends up rising again, though, so it is all okay in the end.)

Now you have a parachute and a choice.  You can put on the parachute and live to admit to God that you were wrong or you can say “To Hell with Christ’s sacrifice!” and ride your pride all the way to the ground.

That’s the Christian story.  Christians are just humans with parachutes.  We jumped off the plane too.  Some of us with parachutes need to stop pointing fingers with “Holier than Thou” attitudes and some of us who are pointing fingers need to realize that we need to put on our own parachutes (see Matthew 7:3-5 and 2 Corinthians 13:5).  But the fact remains that the gay sinner needs Christ just like the rest of us and that God loves the gay sinner regardless of the actions of those who claim to follow Him.