What I'm Leaving Out of My Sermon:

The sermon I just finished writing is all about asking better questions.  The rather long Gospel reading for this week was filled with people asking questions.  Some were right some were wrong, some weren't actually even questions.  But there's something that I'm not going to talk about on Sunday.  It was tempting, it was current, it is appropriate, but it's also a hot potato, and I think too many people already have burnt fingers.
The story of what has gone down this week with regard to World Vision, a mission agency that primarily deals with supporting children living in poverty around the globe, has some strong connections with the story of the Pharisaic inquisition into Jesus' healing of a blind man in John 9.
Early in the week, World Vision released a statement that said they would employ people who were in homosexual relationships, including marriages in states where it is a legal possibility.  They were careful about how they said it, they were clear that they were not endorsing, nor condemning the practice of marriage between homosexual people, but they felt that it would be wrong to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation and domestic situation.
The immediate reaction was pleasure from the left and anger from the right, and the ensuing "discussion" (to use the term extremely loosely) was filled with the standard rhetoric pitting "biblical" values against civil rights.  To make a rather long, unpleasant story short, enough conservative folk squawked and pulled their money, while sanctimoniously lamenting all the starving children who were now being neglected as a result of World Vision's "caving in" to the godless culture.  World Vision then retracted their decision, causing the progressives who had recently applauded the decision to lash out, not so much at World Vision but at the folks who had essentially bullied them back into the closet, so to speak.  No one likes to have a recent "victory" snatched away from them, especially using the "take your ball and go home" strategy of resistance.  It's hard not to look at that kid like he's nothing but a spoiled brat, and probably shout names after him as he smugly walks away.
All things considered, not a glorious moment for the body of Christ.
World Vision reminds me a bit of the formerly blind man's parents.  The Pharisees haul them in for questioning about their son who is running around as blatant evidence that Jesus is something really special.  They want the details, they want to know if this guy was really blind, and if he was born that way.  The parents immediately try to avoid getting sucked into the quagmire that now exists between their own son and the religious authorities.  You would think they would be happy about their son actually being able to see, but they can't be because they're worried that they're going to be accused of heresy at any minute, and so back and forth and round and round we go.
As I have tried to steer a moderate, and I hope reasonable, course through these sorts of issues I feel the pain of an organization that was really just trying to do the right thing by actual people and keep their focus on doing the work they are called to do: help poverty stricken children.  The backlash from what amounts to a fairly minor company policy is extremely disturbing, and it reeks of idolatrous devotion to the rules.
It illustrates what has been a driving force in my own thought process on this whole issue of homosexuality: you shall know them by their fruit, no pun intended.  I look at the behavior of those who are fighting for civil rights and marriage equality. Recently, Fred Phelps the founder of Westboro "God hates Fags" Baptist Church, passed away.  The response from the LGBTQ Christian community has been not to hate, not to protest, but to express sympathy.  What? That guy was a fear-filled hatemonger, and you don't have at least a little gloating in you?  Not really, at least not that I saw.
So when the evangelical folks start bad mouthing World Vision and pulling their support, and mouthing off about what the Bible says, it looks bad.  It looks bad just on it's own, because I think Jesus really really cares about starving children, but it looks even worse compared to the gentle, thoughtful and grace-filled response of a community to the death of a man who made himself one of their most vocal enemies.
I'm saying this on my blog, because I think it needs to be said.
I'm not saying this from the pulpit, because I'm not sure everyone is ready to hear it.
I'm saying this on my blog, because I THINK it's a prophetic word.
I'm not saying if from the pulpit, because I am aware that my own personal feelings are making the prophetic edge of this whole thing entirely too blurry.
The bigger issue is allowing our own answers to get in the way of asking the right questions.  The Pharisees ask rhetorically: "Surely we're not blind are we?"  To which Jesus answers: "If you were blind, you would not have sin.  But now that you say, 'we see,' your sin remains."
We need to be aware of our blindness before we can be healed.  I need to examine my own blindness a little more carefully before I can preach about this stuff.  So, for now, here's the blog, on Sunday we'll just talk about asking the right questions.