Early this morning a message was left on my voice mail, a friend and work colleague wanted to talk to me. He stated in his voice mail that he’d been up for hours praying and weeping and he sounded distressed to me. I called him immediately and we decided to meet this afternoon for coffee.
Truly I was concerned for my friend. I really believed he was embroiled in some sort of personal crisis. I was alarmed because he’s always been down to Earth, level headed and rather straight forward. I phoned him at three and we agreed to meet at a coffee shop at four. He was late. He didn’t show up alone either; his son was with him, a very nice young man, well mannered and very bright. Instantly I saw the tension between the two of them. I saw the fact that my friend had lost weight, a lot of weight. He was carrying his Bible. His beard was long and very reminiscent of how I imagine Moses looked. Oh had I known; I would have been better prepared.
In an instant I was glad that I’d arrived early and that they were late. I’d spent nearly forty minutes quietly praying, listening to the rhythm of the world and observing all of God’s children as they moved about.
Bob sent his boy in to get a coffee and jumped right to the topic. Did I believe in the gospel of inclusion? How could I explain my sexuality and my belief that I am born again? Wow, right to it and me unarmed and having to think fast and try to recall my Biblical studies on a dime. He delved further, “When did I know that I was homosexual?”
Now mind you, I do consider this man a friend. He’s worked in my home. We’ve spent sometime together, but we’ve never had a conversation about my sexuality, I never felt the need to come out to him. I just wasn’t part of our relationship. He has shared with me in the past that he was abused by a brother in law as a youngster.
Today when Bob revisited this topic, I of course pointed out that this wasn’t love or homosexuality, but rather abuse and child abuse at that. Horrible any way you twist it or turn it. I don’t think Bob is in a place to see that and most likely never will be, he can’t discern the difference between the two. I didn’t have the heart to point out to Bob that his abuser was also married to his sister and on some level a self realized and professing heterosexual.
Bob also asked about my childhood. I really had nothing to report. I had a normal childhood. Loving caring parents, a strong father at home, no abuse, no trauma, nothing that would cause me to slip into a homosexual lifestyle. I did set that notion of lifestyle right too, lifestyle involves a choice, single lifestyle, party lifestyle; human sexuality is far too complex to pigeon hole into a lifestyle. Human sexuality simply is. The question becomes one of truth, do you live as you know you are or do you lie to yourself, God and those around you. I choose not to lie.
Today’s conversation started with the 1st Corinthians 6:9 passage, 9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders. (NIV) Couched in the black and white of Bob’s literalism and the fact that he refused to read and discuss the word in the context of it’s time made the discussion difficult. Not to mention the fact that he was using what appeared to be a 21st Century King James version of the Bible, which brings its own baggage. So, my attempt at the ritualized temple sex explanation, prostitution in the Roman Empire and the fact that the Jews of the first century still felt a cultural obligation to set themselves apart from the greater population, truly fell on deaf ears. We quickly jumped to the old stand by of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This one I know. I went on at length about abuse, rape and the like knowing that Bob would get those and so our discussion quickly left the Levitican code. What can you argue when someone says, the story isn’t about sex, and it’s about rape and inhospitality and distrust of strangers? Nothing, the conversation soon turned to me personally and that’s were I think I fell apart.
Of course when the conversation turned to contextual reference Bob would point out the modern relevance of the word. I get that and believe that the Bible is relevant on these and all issues. I do think it is sinful to lust after money, people or another person’s spouse. I think it is terrible and inexcusable to look at other people for hedonistic pleasure or pain. Jesus challenges all of us, gay, straight, celibate or not to turn away from those things. Jesus also challenges us to look at all with a father’s eye, to think with a father’s brain, to listen with a father’s ear and to speak with a father’s tongue.
Even so, through the conversation I kept getting hit with, “How do you know that you’re saved?” I must admit too that this is where I tend to come undone. I wanted so quickly to turn the conversation back on Bob and say, “How do you know that I’m not?”
I didn’t because he being armed with a Bible could crack it open and literally say, thumping with an index finger to almost any passage, “It says so right here that you are damned.”
Instead, I turned the conversation to the equality of sin and the fact that at the end of any day, how do any of us know whether or not any of us are getting into Heaven? We don’t know anything until we’re standing at the throne and we get a well done or not. Perhaps this is what disturbed me most about this afternoon. Perhaps it is the fact that this man who I care for is alienated from his son. His son said so, his words, I’m done with God and the brainwashing. He then walked away and lit a cigarette, wow talk about alienation that would have been unheard of a year ago.
I know that I sounded lame. “I am saved because I know that I’m saved and I believe in Jesus Christ as my lord and savior.” I believe in loving God with all my heart, mind and soul. I believe in loving my neighbors as I love myself.”
None of that mattered, I am a homosexual and am ok with that, was Bob’s response.
So, I asked, “Bob, what would you have me do?” Further stating, “I am celibate and have been such for nearly four years.” Should I find a woman to marry?
Surprisingly Bob said, “No.”
He stood up, hugged me, told me he loved me and left. This left me wondering what in the world had just happened. It was almost like I was being dismissed because I wouldn’t practice self loathing.
Now I’m left with lots of questions about today. What did he want, is the first question? He said he didn’t want me to get married, I asked. Did Bob want me to be tormented by the essence of my being as I suspect he is? Did he feel the need to hammer me with the Bible the way he did to create some sort of agony in me that he himself feels when contemplating himself? After all at the beginning of today’s conversation he did admit to me that he still on occasion harbored thoughts of same gender encounter but that he stomps those thoughts down. Fine, if that works for him, that’s fine with me.
Did Bob hope to discover that in my childhood I’d been hurt and that explained why I am the way I am? When the conversation didn’t lead there did he find that he had nowhere else to go? Why did Bob tell me earlier today that the conversation would just be me and him and then he brings his son? That answer is so very clear and smacks of interference and avoidance of a deeper truth.
Why did Bob guise all of this in I’m doing this for your own good and because I love you and because I’m going to Israel to build bomb shelters for the Jews and I might never again get the chance to witness to you this way again? Well ok to that too. I can buy all of that. Now comes my revelation and joy.
In contemplation of my own rebirth over the last couple of years and in thinking of old Michael, I see the Holy Spirit at work in a big way. Please know that I am not self aggrandizing here, simply observing. The old Michael would have gone very quickly to defensive anger and perhaps aggressive anger. I didn’t. I really attempted as this hour and fifteen minute conversation evolved to try to hear Bob and understand where all of this was coming from and why. For this I thank and praise Jesus.
Thinking on it now, and reflecting on the torment in my friends eyes, the tension with his son, his son’s alienation and the fervor in which he queried me; I come to the keen realization that this conversation had nothing whatever to do with my soul, my salvation or my well being; but rather Bobs. I find myself in a most interesting paradigm. Had I gone to anger, boiling words, frustration; Bob could have justified an angry Bible thumping. I didn’t and he couldn’t, now the question comes; how do I help him with whatever it is he’s dealing with now?
