Prejudices Place Limits

Last week one of my parishioners was walking with a colleague down the halls of their workplace when they encountered, Jim, another member of our church. Introductions were made, they chatted amicably and with the recent Supreme Court rulings on same sex marriages in the news that day, the colleague asked how our church could justify gay marriage. My parishioner’s response, “Well … Jim is gay and married.”

I have occasionally been drawn into “prooftexting” conversations where in response to quotes from Leviticus about “abominations” and the sin of “a man lying with a man,” I am likely to bring up other biblical prohibitions against eating shellfish, or wearing clothes of mixed fabrics, or borrowing or lending money - laws we now disregard with impunity. Or when my fundamentalist friends quote scripture attributed to the Apostle Paul that seems to regard homosexuality as idolatrous, I’ve sometimes noted how Paul was a product of his times and as such also failed to condemn slavery and frequently regarded women as less than equal. Or I might point out that I am a Jesus follower and Jesus had nothing to say about homosexuality.

Yet in truth, I doubt I have ever persuaded anyone who wasn’t ready to be convinced that in the eyes of God, one’s sexual orientation is of no consequence. Neither have I successfully persuaded a skeptic that God blesses all kinds of loving relationships - gay and straight. What I have observed is hearts and minds are often changed by personal encounter with people and relationships that give lie to even deeply held prejudice.

The workplace encounter with Jim, and the discovery that this decent, intelligent, thoroughly likable man, was not only gay, but was part of a healthy, enduring and committed relationship with another man, chipped away at the idea that the bond between two loving human beings only can take a particular form. In our congregation we have same sex couples who have been together for more than 40 years. We have gay couples who have successfully raised beautiful children to adulthood. I have witnessed the genuine grief of men and women whose same sex partners have unexpectedly passed away. I’ve watched same sex couples care for one another through crisis and grave illness. And I have shared the joy of gay andlesbian people who have found, to both their surprise and delight, that the church can be a place where they will not be judged according to their sexual preference.

I have seen old prejudices fall away as parents observe a lesbian couple bring Bible stories to life for their children in a Sunday school classroom. I have watched a gruff old man, with the prejudices of his generation, be transformed by the simple experience of cooking barbecue, side by side, with a man he learned was gay.

Full participation by the gay and lesbian community in church councils, guilds, choirs and committees all provide opportunities for transformation and the melting away of prejudice.

Church people in opposite sex relationships may label same sex relationships as sinful. And our courts could still determine they are unlawful. My personal encounter with dozens of gay and lesbian couples has convinced me these relationships contain within them all the joy and all the challenge that can be found in every relationship. Who are we to stand in the way of God’s desire to bless all creation?

I have heard it said the Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom, not only to the slave, but to the slave owner who was freed from the shackles that bound him as well. The slave owner found liberation from active participation in a system of domination and injustice that prevented him from treating fellow human beings with respect and dignity.

I think a similar kind of liberation will take place when marriage equality eventually becomes the law of the land. Not only are we now denying justice and equality for same sex couples that seek to be married, but we also are allowing our own prejudices to prevent us from fully embracing God’s vision of universal love. How can we allow our own prejudices, our own narrow conception of the way that life and love should be ordered, to place limits on the imagination of God?

THE REV. ROGER JOSLIN IS THE VICAR AT ALL SAINTS’ EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN BENTONVILLE.