BY JASON SCHIFO
The older I get, and the more I read the Bible, I see that the one thing God desires in us is humility. I wish I could have said that this is easy, but being humble is a challenge, especially because honestly, pride is a big part of living.
We oftentimes don’t think of pride as being a bad thing, because we think of it the same as confidence. But in the Bible pride and confidence are two very different things. Pride means we don’t like being wrong, love being right, and oftentimes it causes us to focus on the weaknesses of others, rather than revealing our own. This is why humility is so important.
C. S. Lewis once said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less”, and in that having a willingness to look at yourself honestly to love others fully.
Paul wrote to his protege’ Timothy, “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus, our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” (1 Timothy 1:12-15)
Paul says that Jesus came to save sinners, and of those He came to save, Paul was (emphasis) the worst. It is a pretty powerful thing to say publicly, considering that Paul was by early church standards, very influential. So why does he tell Timothy (and us) this?
Because Paul believed in his heart that there is no one, including himself, was too far off to find God. And because he believed this there was nowhere that he wasn’t willing to go to bring that message of God’s grace, and no one that he wasn’t willing to share that message with.
In the church, there is a lot of conversation regarding “the sin of homosexuality”. I want to start with the phrase, “The sin of…” because I don’t like it very much, and it is not why you might think. It is not the word “sin” that makes me uncomfortable, but the word “of”.
The word “of” is used to connect two ideas: “sin” and “homosexuality”, but in doing so it tends to subtly move the focus away from us, and avoid a very important question: What “sin” has been committed toward those who are a part of that LGBTQI community by us?
I want to address this because as “the church” we need to humble ourselves to the fact that LGBTQI people have been sinned against. And it is time for us, the church to repent. Not every one of us is guilty, and not every church is guilty, but many have, and if we don’t admit and repent, then we deny that.
LGBTQI people have been mocked, shunned, abused (verbally if not physically), persecuted, dehumanized, and cast out of the camp like the lepers in Numbers 5. And yet many of the testimonies I have read from people who are LGBTQI contain the same plot as Numbers 5.
I testimony I was privy to hear said, “I was raised in church, but when I was honest about what I was struggling with I was treated like “I was only welcome outside the camp” When I was searching for Jesus, I felt like I was pushed to the margins by His followers and made to feel like less than. I didn’t find love in the church and therefore couldn’t find healing in the church – So I left the church.”
While they do exist, it isn’t as often that I read a testimony by LGBTQI individuals where they are overwhelmed by the love, acceptance, and grace of the church. And I find this interesting because it has been proven that it wasn’t the church’s stance on homosexuality that pushed them away from the church. In fact, recent statistics show that many LGBTQI individuals would rather attend a church that preaches what the Bible says, rather than a church that is simply affirming. What I hear over and over is that it was the lack of love in the church that drove them away.
In Jesus, we find our calling and our example.
“So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.” (Hebrews 13:12-13) In Numbers 5 they are cast out of the camp, and in Hebrews, Christ comes to redeem those outside the camp by going to them.
One of the important things in seeing Jesus as our example is that we see clearly the ways that we have been irresponsible in applying God’s grace AND God’s truth. Every grace-filled Christian must enter into this discussion armed with the truth of what God’s Word says, AND a heart that’s eager to repent, where repentance is needed for the ways in which same-sex attracted people have been mistreated.
We must be eager to love as Christ loved. Without a compassionate heart that’s zealous to repent of our sin and reach out to love others, we are not the church.
So then we have to put away the desire to laugh at memes, crude jokes, even using God’s Word to condemn others. We have to acknowledge that there are far too many blogs with the name “Christian” that are graceless spaces whose message is that those who have sinned are outside the camp. If that is so then I wonder where Paul pitched his tent because by his own admission he is out, not in.
So in addressing sexuality as the church, we begin by acknowledging, confessing, and repenting from the sin the church has committed against same-sex attracted people. Then, and only then, can we start to study so that we can reach out in truth and love, and have conversations regarding what we believe, living as the church who bears the name of Jesus Christ.
So the church must begin as Paul did in writing to Timothy, looking inside ourselves first and repenting of our own sin, before trumpeting the sins of others. Repentance has to be a part of our lifestyle in Christ that begins with us, not just others.
This doesn’t mean we agree with sin. Jesus Himself certainly did not affirm everyone’s actions, and He never said sin was okay, but He also was adamant that sin was never a reason to withhold love. Jesus came to save sinners, all of us, and that should humble us, and position us to be a part of Christ’s work, “to seek and save the lost” (Matthew 18:11).
At the beginning of this article, I mentioned pride and confidence. I did so because I desperately want us to trade our pride for humility, and properly place our full confidence in Christ. It is only when we do that that we can address this like Jesus, with grace AND truth.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
