How does my homosexuality influence my spirituality?

by an openly gay Cumberland Presbyterian elder.

    The Cumberland Presbyterian tenet, "There are no eternal reprobates," no class of persons preordained to condemnation, gives me great comfort. I believe that God created my sexuality in its particular hue, not to condemn me, but to give me a means of sharing self. A Jewish proverb says we will be judged negatively for the intended joy we denied ourselves, as well as our sins. To be celibate and/or to pretend I am straight, would be to deny part of God's creation entrusted to me.

    As a white, intelligent, educated, wealthy and healthy male, I find it ironic to be an outsider, a minority, because I am gay. We are admonished to treat the outsider equitably, for "You were once slaves in Egypt." I try to generalize my experience to empathize with others who are outsiders. My ordination as an elder directs me to be "a friend to the friendless."

    Shame has been a big issue in coming to terms with my sexuality. Sometimes we feel guilty for things that are not sin, like masturbation. Our too private battles sometimes pit us in an un-winnable battle. We become defeated and debased. Ultimately we ask, "Who has failed, me or God?" when the failure is our understanding of God.

    A maturing faith moves from childlike understanding of admonitions and rules to more abstract meaning of metaphor and parable. The difference is rules and meaning; law and love. For many years I have contemplated the congregation of the church which ordained me. In a word they were survivors. I have finally understood the obvious: their strength came through their love relationship with God.

    My spiritual quest at this point is to perceive Jesus as spontaneous, not limited by the New Testament accounts.

    My model of pastoral care is to emulate Jesus on the Road To Emmaus. Jesus seeks out and gets in step with two downtrodden people. He hears out their story completely before offering his interpretation of events. He does not suggest they stop or turn around. He breaks bread with them. He provides them a means and reason to be in community with other believers before he vanishes. They then make a response of belief and they return to Jerusalem to share their experience.

    Whether a person is heterosexual should have no particular relevance to me in my ministry towards them. "For in heaven they neither marry nor are they given in marriage," so our sexuality is not eternal. Gay and straight, we face the same questions of life and death, of meaning and meaninglessness, of love and abandonment, of joy and grief. God shows no partiality of nationality or race, or any human category, that is what our tenet, "No eternal reprobates," echoes.

Mr. Texas FitzGerald      Saturday, May 3, 1997