clean

i can't remember what the context of my thoughts were at the time, but it occurred to me yesterday that gays/homosexuals are to contemporary evangelical christians as lepers were to first-century jews. by this i mean they are basically considered sinners and diseased, and are treated as outcasts, unwelcome in the community (until they are 'healed', which requires verification by the 'priest', and even then are looked upon with distrust and suspicion because its not really believed that such a 'disease' can be healed).

though i haven't done an in-depth study into it, i'm aware of the bible passages which condemn homosexual behaviour. i wonder, though, if these verses really do speak to our contemporary situation, because back when they were written they the 'category' of gay or homosexual didn't exist as we know it. from my observation, most gay people these days see themselves as exclusively homosexual, that it is not so much a behavioural decision as a reality which has been forced upon them. of course i can't be certain about this, but i don't think anyone in the ancient world who participated in homosexual acts would have thought of themselves in that way. it is more likely that these acts were done out of perversion or abuse of power, in which case it is right to condemn them. it hardly needs saying, but abuse of sexuality for reasons of perversion or abuse of power is by no means restricted to homosexual relations, and it could even be said that these kinds of abuses committed in heterosexual relations are far worse, because they usually come under the disguise of 'normality' and respectability, husbands towards wives, fathers towards daughters, bosses to vulnerable employees. if christians condemned these things anywhere near as vehemently and persistently as they condemn gays, this world would be a far far better place.

there's a beautiful moment near the beginning of the american tv miniseries angels in america in which one of the characters, who has just found out that her husband is gay, is speaking in a kind of dream sequence with another (gay) character who has just been told that he has aids. she says to him, "deep inside you, there is a part of you - your innermost part - that is entirely free of disease."

as told in matthew 8:2-3, a man with leprosy came to jesus and said, "lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "i am willing," he said. "be clean." the man was healed from the leprosy but jesus was doing something much deeper than that, pronouncing the man clean independent of his physical condition.

i think it is time for the church, as the representative of jesus in the world, to reach out our hands to the homosexual community, touch them and say, "you are clean because of what jesus has done. come and dine with us. it is not our place to keep you out."