Homosexual Marriage 3: Compassionate Engagement

Outline

• Compassion
• Truth

Introduction

One good thing about the latest homosexual marriage legislation is…. We can now put away politics and get on with Evangelism. The homosexual contingent of society has been pushed into a ghetto around which we have wanted to build a fence, and all of our engagement with them is one of militant legislation and a media shouting match. This has hindered the gospel to an extremely broken and needy people group. I am not happy about the legalisation of homosexual marriage, it is my duty as a Christian to be a prophetic voice that tells the world of God’s norm for humanity and to call them to repentance and salvation in Christ. The trouble is that the church has gotten very hung up on being the prophetic voice and has not moved to the gospel call. The church has picked up their pickets and taken to the streets in angry protest projecting an attitude of hatred and not compassion.

I am feeling this tension within myself. I am of a generation and culture that has been very sheltered against these things. I have grown up in Christianised cultures that have characterised homosexuality as a mental illness, and a thing that only happens to bad people who have done bad things to deserve those desires. Not applying my belief in total depravity of all people I have allowed for a category of us and them not recognising homosexuality as just another form of sexual sin. All sin is unnatural in that it breaks God’s law, homosexuality also violates natural law, but so does divorce, child abuse, bestiality, adultery, etc. I don’t know about you but I have felt a definite shift in gear. Homosexuality is no longer something out there that is neatly categorised that I no longer need to engage with as I happily allow all sorts of misconceptions, stereotypes, and pharisaic attitudes. Our government have failed and we are now going to see more and more homosexuals in the home, work place and church. Sadly many Christians are not equipped to engage with them, if they ever have an opportunity to meet someone who is homosexual they will feel tempted to wave their pickets resorting to pre-legalisation, reactionary protestations. If we fail to see them as the bible describes them then we will continue to perpetuate many mistakes and fail to seize a gospel opportunity. It is time for a paradigm shift, if we fail to think biblically we will feel the desire to withdraw into our own ghettos in fear leaving ourselves, our children and our churches incapable of engaging with the issues. It is time to snap out of a political mindset into an evangelistic one, it is time to speak the truth in love.

Today I would like us to consider John 4 where Christ engages with the Samaritan woman as a model of compassionate engagement as we speak the truth in love.