Outsiders are welcome, too
We are called to engage sinful people in deep, relational ways
This is part two of a series on marriage equality and homosexuality in response to the Supreme Court decision in the United States that legalized same-sex marriage on June 26, 2015.
In part one of this series, I talked about how Christian love—a love that essentially requires ethical responsibility—is not a “flimsy” cheap tolerance that leads to justifying sin at the expense of biblical ethics. Rather, Christian love remembers how much it cost God to open his heart to humanity and leads us to live vibrant lives of ethical responsibility. This involves admitting sin, as difficult as that may be, and asking for God’s help as we struggle with our humanity.
However, what Christian love does not involve is the vilification of sinners, including the LGBT community. In fact, the only human beings Jesus vilified in the Gospel narratives were the conservatives of his day—the Pharisees. They were "conservative" in the sense that they sought to preserve, adhere to, and enforce a rigid faith tradition based on their (often exclusivist) understanding of God, His laws, and who could be part of His community.
Jesus called the Pharisees by many names. “Serpents!” “Blind fools!” “Hypocrites!” These conservatives, Jesus said, neglected the most important of biblical ethics: mercy. They were leaders who laid heavy religious burdens on struggling (and yes, sinful) human beings, essentially shutting the door to God’s kingdom in people’s faces.
According to these first century conservatives, God’s community consisted of righteous insiders who were called to protect the integrity of the community from defiled outsiders.
To be fair, it was God’s call for Israel to be set apart from the defilement of outside pagan culture. It’s true also that the Pharisees weren’t merely externalistic and legalistic in their interpretation and practices of the Law. For them, and the majority of Jewish culture—who deeply respected the Pharisees and their teachings—following Jewish moral code and rituals provided a meaningful way to preserve their identity as God’s chosen (and holy) people. After all, Israel was set apart by God to bless the nations.
Perhaps the Pharisees forgot about that last part about blessing the nations. That’s what appears to be the case when we look at their encounters with Jesus.
But in Jesus’ world, God’s community is called to be holy (set apart) to bless the nations—to invite outsiders into God’s community so that they could be healed, made clean and integrated into God’s coming kingdom.
Jesus said: “I’m after mercy, not religion. I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders” (Matt 9: 12-13).
When it comes to the issue of same-sex marriage and homosexuality, evangelicals and conservatives rightly stress doctrinal and moral purity in the Christian life. But what we often fail to see, as did the Pharisees, is that doctrinal and moral purity should not be an end in itself. It is only one side of the coin, half the story as they say.
When doctrinal and moral purity act to move Christians to exclude or vilify outsiders, we are no longer moving in the direction that Jesus and God’s Word lead us. Jesus moves us in the direction of merciful outpouring to outsiders. That is certain.
Jesus engaged mercifully with outsiders. He spent time with them and got to know them for who they were, even their struggles. He wasn't a fundamentalist (in the general use of the term). Especially in His relationships with outsiders. Rigidly adhering to the "fundamentals" of faith at all costs (like forbidding the mercy of healing on the Sabbath), was just not the way Jesus rolled. Especially if this meant excluding or vilifying outsiders to get there.
In our case today, our biblical convictions about family and marriage should not restrict opportunities to show affirming mercy and kindness to people who embrace (and subscribe) to same-sex marriage and homosexuality. We need to be open to the world, not combative towards it. We need to live vibrant lives of evangelical witness, not rigid lives of hostile religion.
In his book, No Place for Truth: Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?, David Wells explains:
"When we move from Fundamentalism to evangelicalism…we are moving from a counter-community to a community. Fundamentalism was a walled city; evangelicalism is a city. Fundamentalism always had an air of embattlement about it, of being an island in a sea of unremitting hostility. Evangelicalism has reacted against this sense of psychological isolation. It has lowered the barricades. It is open to the world" (p. 129).
Evangelicals and Christian conservatives are seen by many as moral crusaders, rather than agents of God’s mercy and kindness to those outside the church community. This has to change. The crusades are over. “I’m after mercy.”
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