I am, like many I am sure, hesitant to comment on the subject of our recent supreme court ruling. There is so much potential to be wrong, to offend, to come off entirely the wrong way. But at the same time, I think there are things that need to be said, and maybe I need to say them. So here goes.
There's a hashtag going around that most of you have probably seen. For the past four days, it's adorned rainbow-watermarked pictures of gay and heterosexual individuals alike, all rejoicing at this newest constitutional ruling. And the thing is, most of the remarks I've seen are beautifully written and full of genuine joy. The individuals posting these pictures are truly, truly overjoyed at what has happened. They have responded to this supreme court ruling much the way I have responded to phenomenally good news in my own life. I get the sentiment--not toward this, but I get it just the same.
On the flipside, barring the remarks I've seen from within my own church and churches close to me, everything I've heard so-called Christians comment on the subject has been hateful and rude and, quite frankly, utterly shameful. In fact, to be quite honest with you, looking from the posts made by most of the pro-LGBTQers to the ones written by those against, I tend to like the pro a lot better. This isn't to say that I agree with their position or why they're rejoicing, because I don't. Problems abound. But problems also abound in the words of the right-wing conservative evangelicals who are posting for all the world to see that they hate these fags and sodomites who will hopefully burn in Hell for what they've done, and ASAP.
I am not saying that our God is not one of judgment. He is. He has endowed all his creatures with an innate sense of what is right and wrong, and there are consequences for our disordered love, for our rejection of what He has put into place. I believe this to be true with every fiber of my being--and that is part of what makes this issue important. If God didn't care what we did, if He were really the blind watchmaker who set the world in order and then left it to run without a pre-ordained course and plan, then none of this would even matter. We could all just do what we please, marry who we please, say whatever rude things we please.
But the same law of God that ultimately sets the pattern and plan for marriage is also a gospel, a beautiful and perfectly-woven story wherein God created mankind as an outpouring of His love, giving us his law so that we might grow ever closer to Him, gathering all nations and all people, each and every one of us a sinner, each and every one of us straying from His love and His law but then perfectly redeemed, perfectly invited back to the right order of love, the designed order.
The God who gave us law gave us also beauty, pleasure, romance, and the ability to forgive and give grace to others, just as He has done for us. These human beings are as much made in the image of God as we are, rejoicing in their false idea of love only because they have hearts capable of longing for love in the first place, hearts ultimately looking for satisfaction in something that can never satisfy them. This should only make us sad, make us hurt for them, but it should not make us angry. It should not make us lash out with self-righteous anger that we have no right and no reason to have.
They say that love wins, because when we as Christians are acting as we are, why should they not believe it? Why should they not see our hatred and bitter words and understand this supreme court ruling to be the ultimate victory of love over hate?
Our duty is to disciple, to minister, to demonstrate to every single person around us that what we have inside of us is not hate, but rather the best love of all; the love that forgives and feeds, that bestows kindness and gives grace, that demonstrates the law and love of God in word and in deed, through lives that, instead of cursing the sinners grasping onto this false rainbow, proclaim the love and mercy declared by the first one.
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