Today's Thought - Belonging, Part 3 - Anti-LGBTQ

+ This Wednesday - Ash Wednesday Worship at Noon & 7pm (this one on Facebook Live). Please sign up for our Lenten Soup Suppers - Starting March 12 - 6-7pm - Come grow in the Spirit (you gotta eat, right?)?

In Grant Skeldon's study, 91% of Millennials who no longer attend worship stated that religious institutions and people who are opposed to the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people was a big reason. When our congregation began our discussion about publicly welcome non-straight people, the argument so many people used was either, 1 - We already welcome everyone (the all lives matter kind of argument) or, 2 - we think it's wrong or, 3 - why do we have to be the first UCC congregation to do this? I will answer in reverse: 3 - I said that I have been their pastor for 12 years and they still don't get that we always are first? 2 - If they took the Bible seriously, they would know that sodomy, not same-sex love, is prohibited in Leviticus, which is the source of the Apostle Paul's angst, and Jesus never said a word about it. And King David was bi-sexual. Among other arguments. 1 - Our church was not, in fact, a place where all felt welcome. I surveyed a number of people in our congregation and the community who attested to that.

I also told them that this was a non-issue among the vast majority of people under 50 (this was 2011). In spite of the non-sensical, bigoted anger towards non-straight people that is exhibited by some segments of the population (especially towards our Transgender brothers and sisters), the world is moving on. As we learn more about our biology - as we discover the truth about gender and sexual fluidity - we discover that a binary approach towards those two things is factually wrong. And while the ability to understand the nuances and intricacies of all things scientific is above my paygrade, I believe the people who study these things. I can say the same about the destruction of the earth's climates and COVID. Science is real.?

If you want to hate people based on the way God lovingly made them, that will be a conversation you will have to have with your God someday. You will have to explain your non-fact-based opinion to the Almighty and hope that God will offer enough grace for you to squeak by. In the meanwhile, I will err on the side of love, which is, for me, what people of a God who errs on the side of love for us should do. I will leave the decisions about where we end up for eternity to the God who makes all of us, even bigots, and hope that this God of love gives us a break. While I strive to be better, I will never be perfect, so I will keep chugging along, trying to do my best. And I will hope that people who hate in the name of God will join me on that journey of discovery. We could all use some improvement in our lives, I think.

Prayer - Holy God, You have made each one of us to be beautiful. Thank you. Amen.

Today's art is a stained-glass window by Florence Camm of David and Jonathan (1911).

www.leadershipministry.org?

www.calvaryreformeducc.org?