Bob's Blog

For the past dozen or so  years, I have been praying for my LGBT brothers and sisters in the church and around our nation.  Many others have been praying for far longer than that; but for me, my reading and interpretation of Scripture, as well as my understanding of the sciences behind sexual orientation and gender identification, were slow to develop.  As a result my support for gay ordination and marriage, and my prayers for those most hurt and offended by the discrimination of church and society, were not realized until the mid 2000s.

But this morning, June 27th, 2015, the morning after the history-making decision of SCOTUS, a decision making gay marriage legal in every state in our union: my prayers have changed!  The rainbow colored lights on the White House mark a great shift in the rainbow prayers that I am lifting up to the Light of God this morning.  Today, my petitions are no longer for the gay community.  Rather, they are for the portion of my Church, and for every religious community in our nation, that continues to lag behind at best, or resist at worst, the work and movement of God’s Holy Spirit.

Speaking on behalf of people of faith, what religious zealot Franklin Graham, media hound Ann Coulter, and political extremist Ted Cruz, regard as a great travesty, many of us in the Church of Jesus Christ regard as a great triumph.  And so such people need our prayers.  Because they no longer get to be the only ones defining what it means to be Christian, nor what is or is not a movement of God’s Spirit in our nation today, they need our prayers.  Because they no longer get to be the only ones determining what it means to be God’s people, called from our wicked ways, nor what God’s healing upon our land might look like, they need our prayers.  Because they no longer get to be the ones, whose white, American, upper middle class, heterosexual, Cristian privilege, is determining the rules by which the rest of us must live, they need our prayers.

This day, many in our land are praying for our nation because they believe that we’ve gone astray.  Well friends, this day, these are the people for whom we need to start praying!  We need to be praying that their hearts might be softened to recognize the variety of ways peoples’ lives might be lived to the honor and glory to God.  We need to be praying for the Holy Spirit to remove the fear that governs so much of their lives — fear of the unknown, fear of those who are different, fear of anything that is new. And we need to be praying that the way of Jesus — the way of love and grace, might replace the way of law and vengeance.  Living with such rigidity, such fear, such resentment, is not easy.  Having been there, I know!

So today, rather than continuing to argue, or gloat — let’s pray!  Let’s continue to offer to God the rainbow prayers of the LGBT movement, what I believe to have been the rainbow prayers of Noah — that never again, will our world, our nation, or our Church, be so blinded by ours sin, that we fail to grasp the perfect, unconditional, and inclusive love of God.  And may the knowledge that we will no doubt continue to fall short of this prayer, give us all a great deal of humility in the lives that we live.

God’s way truly is the only ways worth living.  And that way, the way of Jesus, the way of truth and life, have brought new justice to our land.  Our fervent prayers have availed much, allowing love to reign, and reigniting our commitment to the bonds of marriage.  For this, and for the countless new ways in which our country is living into the Kingdom of God, we must all give thanks, and pray!