My New Friend

Today I made a new friend. His name is not important, but his story is. You see, he is important. He is important because he was created by God; in fact, he was created in the image of God. He is human, with a heart and soul and emotions and a story to tell.

My new friend and I have much in common. We are both caucasion, close in age and even wear similar clothing. We sat across from one another on couches, each of us taking a break to catch our breath. The cold from the rainy day outside would not stay outside the walls of the humble room in which we sat, a room built to be a basement but without any floors above. As we spoke we could see our breath as it left our mouths.

My new friend and I lived our early years in “Christian” homes. In fact, we both attended a Calvary Chapel in our formative years of our journey. Both of us taught in Sunday School at a young age. Both of us witnessed division, gossip, controversy and infighting of the worst kind in our little congregations, a way of life to contrary to that great Sermon on the Hill.

I witnessed deacons frustrated with a new senior pastor and division all around. Eventually my family left the church where my Dad was an elder over some disagreement with this pastor. This was the same pastor whose family I drove to school with and the same man whose daughter I was dating at the time…good times.

My new friend saw church gossip about something else…him. His parents told the church leadership that he was gay. He was quickly pulled out from his Sunday School class and his spot on the worship team. Soon the pastor announced in a sermon the evils and dangers of homosexuality just so everyone knew where he stood and knew how to act. My friend was ostracized, banished, tossed aside as quickly as possible.

Only recently has his bitterness started to fade. He has since moved from Idaho to San Francisco. As we are interrupted by the wonderful woman who spent time in a Nazi concentration camp when she was thirteen, I have not recovered from the pain I have seen in his eyes. I wonder how the church could have better loved him. I wonder exactly how the conversations went down behind closed doors. I wonder what my friend was thinking the in the minutes before as I told him about my pursuit of Jesus. As I told him about my love and devotion to Jesus and all that He taught, what was he thinking? After we help for a moment he offers me a cigarette. I turn him down but then wonder if I should have smoked my first cigarette just to continue the conversation and tell a better story of Jesus, a story of forgiveness, compassion, hope for a new way of a life of love. I’m hoping to talk more about his journal he just showed me. In his journal he speaks of a refining fire he longs for, a fire that will purify him and make him new.

There is so much I want to say, so much I wish I could fix with the wave of a hand. For now I will have to wait. I ask God to allow me more time with my friend in coming weeks, but I really do not know if I will ever see him again.

The night before I met my new friend I spent some time reading a blog debate about homosexuality. A well known pastor and writer argued for a halt in judgment on homosexuality for a few years, to let things calm down and let us find a better way to love. Half of the responses praised his words, while the other half denounced him as a heretic or an idiot. You see, he had not clearly pronounced his belief that homosexuality is a sin in the article…really an intentional vagueness to make people think, a tool this writer uses often. The theological battle lines were quickly drawn, and the battle raged on in cyberspace, even drawing the interest of a certain well known proud to be reformed pastor in Seattle who used some incredibly crass remarks to make sure everyone knows how conservative he is. There was an implication about an acquaintance of mine and sex with farm animals in his witty shredding of the original post.
The dialogue raced on with people quoting verses and accusing each other of taking verses out of context. It all seemed so intellectual and interesting (well, other than Mr. Reformed Pastor and his derogatory comments). It all seemed so hypothetical, but now it doesn’t seem so far off. It is so real now, and our beliefs, thoughts and comments affect real people in a real world, a world in which the Kingdom of God is breaking forth. How can the Kingdom break forth in real situations? How can we be a part of the action?