Perfection

It is not uncommon for persons to confuse themselves, in mind and action, when they are drawn into conflict with sophisticated ideas and practice.  A writer to an advice columnist complained about being shut out of her community circle.  With her husband, likely in retirement, she had moved into a new community, and joined in the social interchange that had been formed among the neighbors.  As the new persons on the block they were invited into the home of the others for the planned periodic celebrations with food and banter.  They liked it, with one objection – two of the couples in the group were gay, obvious by their arrival at the parties, simple identity with each other, leaving parties together – and their home context when it came their turn to be hosts.  At last the turn as hosts fell to this newest couple.  Not comfortable with the gay lifestyle, they did not invite the two gay couples to their party.  In the ensuing months the new couple were not invited to any homes.  They complained about the omissions, and blaming them for some social, perhaps personal, infractions.  There was something that had gone wrong with the neighborhood.  .  The fault was in the writer, not in the neighborhood.  She and her husband had accepted the hospitality of the two gay couples, but denied the same grace to those couples in their own home.  Acceptance of the couples in their homes was rejection in her home.  There was something inconsistent in fact. If any were rejected the remaining couples avoided the avoiders.  The new couple would need to find another home.

One wonders why some Christians (and the writer to the columnist may be a Christian personally negative about that lifestyle) take a common human tendency toward prejudice instead of the spiritual one that all persons have descended from parents given of God.  In respect for this truth the base for decency toward one another is based not on what others may do, but to treat others as we prefer to be treated.  The pattern has been garbled when we treat others the way we have decided is the way some persons should be treated and others in the way we may believe God wants them treated.  Earth’s blessings, under God, are for all.

This grace does not deny the Christian challenge to the homosexual lifestyle, and there is abundant reasoning related to accepting the homosexual in earth’s context while living and teaching the biblical ideal of marriage between male and female – with the possibility of the generation of children.  If the Christian follows the biblical pattern the matter becomes moral.  Whatever challenges God’s nature or laws becomes a matter of moral concern.  Everyone, in this or that issue, violates God.  That statement applies to persons believing in God or not believing in God.  We follow Jesus in his conduct of treating all persons with truth and grace.  He avoided no one, and he gave a lesson to the disciples when he addressed the woman at the well, while the disciples lagged behind rather than talk to a Samaritan woman of objectionable morals.

We are perfect (mature) when we treat others, no matter their orientation, with respect as human beings (even if they are not themselves respectful).  That calls for proper empathy, for yearning (prayer) for God’s care (management) in every situation.  Some Christians in the early church, and ever since, fell into the trap of holier-than-thou human contexts.  The short letters of the Apostle John addressed some of the problem, even to naming detoured persons.  The Apostle deals with it rather firmly.  I am grateful he does not turn to name-calling like bigot or homophobic.  For many it is ignorance we regret.  To invite persons of other personal orientations than mine to my home, and treating them with respect does not mean I have approved the lifestyle they follow.  I invite them because my Lord teaches me that his creation is to be treated as I, in creation, want to be treated.  That is not to be amended by differences in race, gender, lifestyles, fat or thin, tall or short, young or old, or any other factor that might be introduced to putdown others.  To be honest in this piece, the other members of the neighborhood should invite the troubled lady and her husband, perhaps to discuss neighborliness.  Even if they did not address the matter, but by equality-like respect they continued their social programming, it is likely that the love concern we ought to feel for all others would serve for Christian ministry.  Under grace or law we close no one out.