Wesley's Quadrilateral: My view of LGBT rights by way of Experience

This Epiphany season I am preaching a series of sermons on “How We Know God” using Wesley’s Quadrilateral as a template. Each Sunday in worship I will be talking about one of the 4 sources we use to know God: Scripture, Experience, Tradition, and Reason. Here, in anticipation of the General Conference on A Way Forward coming up in February, I will be writing about how these 4 sources of knowing God have informed my current opinions on the involvement of LGBTQ people in the United Methodist Church. May these reflections spark you to reflect on your own opinions and how God has been present in shaping and changing your beliefs. 

God is still alive and moving. Just as he opened the hearts of people in Acts, he still opens our hearts to learn and grow in our faith today. I grew up in a very conservative church and family. I avoided LGBT conversations as much as possible early in my ministry. I was called, I felt, to share the love of Jesus with the world, and the enormity of that task made it hard to worry about this issue within the church. But as much as I wanted to think this would not be part of my life as a heterosexual, I was wrong. Because LGBTQ folks don’t just live in big cities or on the coasts of the USA. They live down the street. They come to our churches. And we have to decide how to love them as our neighbors. 

I mistakenly thought I was safe from controversy here. Twenty people all over 70 married or widowed. They were tucked off the state highways not even within the city limits of the small town in their zip code. Finding them was a chore. But, alas, here we were. In a split second I had to make the decision. “Welcome!” I said. “Where are you from?” I asked innocently.

“My wife and I have a little vacation home around the lake,” she said. 

How would I respond? My whole life I had been told that these are the people outside of the church. They were living in sin. And yet, here we were. The only people for miles, the only ones around that large lake, who valued God and the church enough to go out searching for us. What should I say? Should I send them away, ignore them or…welcome them in? 

The still small voice beckoned, “treat them as you would treat any other visitor.”

And so I did. I welcomed them into our church. I asked about their lives. I encouraged them to come back as often as they could. 

“Well, you could go to a thrift store and get a couple pairs of pants.” She said.

Shaking, I responded, “You don’t understand. I don’t have money.” 

The room went silent. It was clear that the poverty our family faced was not normal for these second career seminary students with well filled savings accounts. They looked at me with new eyes as they realized I had worn the same outfit every class. 

The next week, she stopped me in the parking lot with a card from her and her wife. Inside was a $50 visa card…for new pants. In the midst of the sacrifices I made, she was Christ’s hands and feet, an answer to a fervent prayer.  She was the only one in that class who was moved to practice compassion, and help me in my hour of need. Was she really the only one in that class that God did not call into ministry? It was clear to me in that moment, that she was more ready than the rest of us to lead others to love their neighbors as a pastor.

He was tall and muscular, a man’s man. He came to me after volunteering his time to pray with kids after an altar call at a local youth gathering. 

“Pastor, I prayed with this boy…and I need to know….do you think you can ‘pray the gay away’?” 

I took a deep sigh. “No, I don’t. And even if you could, I’m not sure that is what God wants. I think what he may need is for you to love him, the gay him.”

Then the story came. This boy at the cusp of junior high and all that entails, had one of his very good friends out him. Not even willing to admit himself that he was gay, she had told his classmates he was. After school, the other boys found him in the parking lot and beat him. It only ended after the police arrived. 
   As I studied scripture and prayed, I thought about that boy. I had been taught by the church that same-sex tendencies were a sin. Hate the sin, love the sinner. But these boys had been taught by people just like I had. And they had chosen to beat the “sin” out of him. What other sin have we tried so hard to beat out of people? How could you hate a sin that was embedded in their very being, that a boy too young to have sex could somehow know and try to deny about himself? Those boys had been taught to hate those who were different. It wasn’t by society. Housing, state programs, employers all had statements declaring they would not discriminate based on sexual orientation. The organization that held out? The church. 

As I read the stories of God’s love, of Jonah and Jesus, I couldn’t help but see a God that broke norms, broke precedent, in order to love. In order to include the outsider. I realized that God welcomes us where we are and as who we are. God did not make a mistake when he made me female. He did not make a mistake when he called me, a woman, to pastoral ministry. Now, I could believe he didn’t make a mistake when he made LGBTQ people either. 

But these were my beliefs, I held them close to my chest. This was not my struggle.

Then I found myself standing in a classroom with this junior high girl. She was The Great Hope for the future here. And here she was, stuttering those words, “I am a lesbian.” I could see how nervous she was. How would her pastor react? As I calmly told her that was okay. She poured out how it wasn’t for most adults in her life. Her parents were upset. Her favorite teacher had told her she couldn’t know yet. I responded, “I knew I liked boys by your age. If you know, you know.” 

Over the next several years, I would help her grow as a disciple. I watched the church love and embrace her, worrying that they would abandon her if they knew. I baptized her as someone already faithful in fulfilling her vows as a member of the church. And yet what if this faithful young lady was called to pastoral ministry? She would be told it was not possible in her church. 

All of these moments happened in rural conservative areas, not the kind of places that would host pride parades. Places like the community I was raised in. Each time, I prayed for God to guide me, to show me his truth, to hear him over the competing voices around me. I heard him tell me to love my neighbor as myself. I heard him tell me to stop being a part of a system of hate. I heard him tell me to recognize the call on his LGBT child’s life. I heard him ask me to make a disciple of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. 

I write this in response to God’s voice. Recently, I have been invited to be part of a group that openly condemns homosexuals. Through this invitation, I have realized that I have not been vocal enough in my beliefs. May God continue to guide me to do better and be better.