real space.

Let me start out by saying that this post is not meant at all to take a side, start a debate or make a conclusion about homosexuality. Seriously. If you’re looking for a debate, please go elsewhere. You won’t yield any arguments from me.

This post is not about the issue of gay rights, straight rights, whosever rights. It’s about loving those around you, no matter who they are.

In my last post I stated Jesus loves everyone. I meant that. Jesus loves you whether you’re straight or gay. And Macklemore’s song is not necessarily discussing the homosexuality debate either. The lyrics are more geared toward a simple love… and how hateful this world can be towards it.

I hate hate. (Is that an oxymoron?)

I think Same Love by Macklemore is a pretty cool song. And although I never met Jesus in person, nor do I claim to know everything he thought or believed, I do have this sense that it’s a song he would have hummed along to. Why not? It’s catchy.

Jesus didn’t spend time with righteous Christians. He spent his time with the broken. That would have included me. That would have included you. That would have included someone gay. That would have included someone straight. That would have included a prostitute. That would have included an addict. Would we spend time with the same people?

As a Christian, I tend to cringe at some of my peers who call themselves followers of Christ and then wave their finger in the air at a gay person, or anyone against what they believe. What are we teaching others about Christ when we do this?

Has it ever occurred to you that the person you wave your finger at may just want to come and worship the same loving God you worship? Yet now we’ve pushed them away from the One who would never wave His finger. From the One who would say, Come. What gives us the right to say he is our God, but he is not someone else’s?

Can you imagine going up to Jesus, the sinner you are, hearing so many amazing things about him, how loving and forgiving he is, and he put his hand on his hip, waved his finger at you and said, “Loved? No, you are not even welcome here.” How would we feel? Jesus would be sending an extremely mixed message.

Yet we, Christians especially, send very mixed messages everyday. I’m no better. I do it all the time.

That’s not the Jesus I know. That’s not the God I know.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Jesus Christ: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage… (Philippians 2:5-6)

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another, (John 13:34)

There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? (James 4:12)

Same Love is asking us to end all hate. And I couldn’t agree more. Especially from those who call themselves righteous… who are we to judge? We are not God.

My job as a follower of Jesus Christ is to simply love. I have absolutely no right to judge a single person. Honestly, when I discovered this amazing truth, it was such a weight lifted off my shoulders. There is so much I will never understand about a lot of these issues. None of us will. The incredible truth to this is that we don’t have to know the answers. We just have to know Jesus.

Our Savior came as the ultimate lightning rod for the hatred of difference as he became the faultless model for those who are a part of the abnormal. He was despised and rejected, and still, his life made room for all of us who choose to walk a countercultural path. The beautiful struggle, and the compassion that flows from our Christ-centered hearts, is the same compassion that we have staked our entire life on, knowing that Jesus had the same compassion on us. It’s time to start including into that compassion those people many of us have thought to be the center of all things abnormal. (Love is an Orientation – Andrew Marin, founder of the Marin Foundation)

Hatred breaks my heart. Why do we continue to hate? Why do we continue to push people away? There are so many hurting people out there who are crying out for help. The last thing any of us should do, especially the Christian church, is turn them away.

My prayer is that someday we can bridge these gaps, especially between the church and the GLBT community, focusing more on loving one another than using the Word of God as a mode of defense for whatever side we’re on, initiating hatred toward each other. That’s not how God intended it. His intentions were clear: Love.

To anyone reading this who calls themselves gay or straight, normal or abnormal, healthy or sick… here I am, arms wide open, asking forgiveness for my righteous Christian heart.

I’m sorry… And as Jesus loves you, so do I.