Keep your eye on the prize*

Were you expecting a Valentine’s Day message? May I be the first to point out that Valentine’s Day is not a holy day of any kind …. Sorry. (Actually, that day is the feast day of Cyril and Methodius, but I digress ….) Love and saccharine are all very nice, but not very realistic. In fact, although my husband and I always share cards and do something special on the occasion, I think we both rather think of it as a heterosexual thing, slightly foreign, sort of like Canadian thanksgiving.

Not to worry … for glbt Christians, this week is full of hope, for as Paul says, “Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it” [1 Cor. 9:24-25]. The prize, of course, is salvation, eternal life in unity with God and with each other. We already have been given this as a gift from God. Our job is to claim it. To do that, we have to refuse to be distracted, and learn to keep our eyes on the prize. We have to learn to run in such a way that we win.

Justice and righteousness go together, in the Old Testament we are told repeatedly that they kiss each other. Without both, salvation cannot be realized. So that means that, assuming we all are already right with God (righteousness), we are going to have to focus on justice. For gay people, that means, we have to demand equality. We are children of God, under God. We must not let society oppress us, and especially we must not let society use our own faith to oppress us. And, we must be careful when we fight oppression, that we understand what we are doing. It is too easy to get distracted.

Every year at the various gay pride events, we have to deal with bands of roving protestors. We always are told to ignore them, that to pay them heed is to honor their outrageous claims. And despite that, always some gay people follow after them engaging them in debate—debate which we cannot win, by the way, because if we allow ourselves to be sucked into a debate about the legitimacy of our very being, then we already have lost. No my friends, this is not the way to learn to run so we win.

We have to demand justice. We have to demand that we are given the same rights as everyone else. We have to demand that our gay lives are honored in society. Marriage? Yes, absolutely. And remember, don’t let them call it “gay marriage”—it is either marriage or it isn’t. Adoption? Absolutely. Family? Absolutely. Justice demands equality, which demands equal treatment in society. Period. No qualifications, no questions.

What about church? I want to cry sometimes about all of the gay and lesbian people who subject themselves week after week to churches where they are oppressed, told they are inherently evil, told they cannot even, simply be. My friends, those are not Christ’s churches. Remember, Jesus warns his followers to stay away from those who pretend faith. Jesus tells the leper he heals in this week’s gospel to keep his mouth shut, and the guy ignores him. The upshot is that Jesus is swamped, his ministry is threatened, by one whose faith is pretended.

My church–The Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square, in Philadelphia (www.htrit.org)–is gay affirming. No one tells you to be apologetic. No one asks you to pretend you’re a mis-shaped person. We believe in you. And we believe in God, who created you. Join us if you can, or just keep coming back to this blog. But above all, keep your eye on the prize, which is Christ Jesus.

*6 Epiphany (2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.