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Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Jesus and the Gay Man

I picked this up off of RumorSage, who in turn got it off of Ragamuffin Ramblings, and its really worth reading.

Basically, the author is asking if we appreciate the shock of the gospel, and to illustrate he shares the story of Jesus with the woman at the well, but set in a modern context like Chicago. (Substitute your local denomination in lieu of ECLA to get the intended flavor...)
John 4:1-33 (more or less...)

1 In late July, the Metro Chicago Synod heard that Jesus was attracting more first-time visitors and baptizing more adults than any other ELCA pastor in the city, 2 although in fact it was not really Jesus who had baptized them, but his irregularly-commisioned staff of unordained lay ministers. 3 Now when Jesus learned of this, he left the seminary community in Hyde Park and went back once more toward the ELCA headquarters on Higgins Road.

4 Now to get there, he had to go through an area just north of downtown called Boystown. 5 So he came to a part of Boystown called Northhalsted, not far from the plot of ground where Emperor Mayor Daley had ordained that the Chicago Cubs should play baseball. 6 Cub's Stadium was near there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey on the Red Line, sat down at a sidewalk café table outside the bar called Hydrate. It was just about lunch-time, and though the rainbow flags were fluttering in the breeze and the music inside the bar was pumping, there weren't many people around (because it's often hot and miserable outside, at mid-day in late July, in Chicago).

7 A waiter came to the table, wearing a bright pink "His+His" t-shirt and a "Silence=Death" armband, and raised one eyebrow at the man seated at the table in front of him in the "Come Follow Me" t-shirt. Jesus said to him, "Will you give me a drink?" 8 (All the lay ministers had gone down the street to pick up Subway sandwiches for the rest of the journey.)

9 The gay man said to him, "Hey...you tell me. After all, you appear to be a straight Christian, and I'm a gay man. Let's face it - we don't get many religious folks in Boystown, let alone places like this. And I'm not only a gay man, but I'm a Muslim gay man. So where does a guy like you get off asking someone like me for a drink?" (For Christians do not associate with gays, nor with Muslims if they can help it.)

Click here for the rest of the posting...
(There's also a follow-up post.)
Looking forward to the comments on this one...

2 Comments:

At 2:29 PM, March 09, 2005, Blogger ryan sutherland said...

Very interesting post. I want to post here what someone else posted on that original post (I just wanted to see how many times I could use post in one sentence w/o confusing everyone). Here's what someone said...

Anonymous said...

What I'm getting at with my "sin no more" comment above is the following question. Are you making the assumption that in showing acceptance of the gay man, that this means that Jesus would not want the gay man to change his ways, that is, refrain from homosexual activity?

There seems to be a tone in the comments I've read here that Jesus talking to a gay man would be some sort of shocking surprise to "uptight Christians". Untrue. There is no sinner that Jesus is not willing to come to and offer grace to. In that respect, it is no more surprising that Jesus would talk to a gay man than that he would talk to an adulterer, or a tax collector, or an embezzler, or just about any of us sinful creatures. But he does want repentance. Are you all assuming that repentance is unnecessary and not expected? That the gay man can continue in his ways because Jesus accepts him? If so, I'm not asking you to argue for your position, I'm just asking for it to be stated explicitly rather than implicitly.

This guy doesn't quite get it. Does Jesus require repentance? Yes. Does Jesus require repentance in order to receive acceptance? No. I guarantee you that the gay man repented because he had believed. Once he truly believed he would have to change his lifestyle because Jesus would begin to change him. The truth is that the gay man was filling his soul (unsatisfactorily) with his lifestyle and only Jesus can offer the satisfaction he was looking for. So, once he had Jesus he would change because they would no longer be necessary to try and fill the void.

 
At 3:47 PM, March 10, 2005, Blogger Molly said...

I know it's a little belated to post a comment about this, but I still wanted to issue a hearty "I like it!" to this creative way of showing the surprising - even shocking - nature of the Truth.

 

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