it most certainly does get better

I know I recently put up a post concerning this but it has yet to fall from the spotlight. Yesterday, Yahoo.com released an article concerning the ever growing ‘It Gets Better” movement. (You can find this article here). Although this article helped spread the hope to those who need to know it gets better, it brought with it another message, get involved. I will concede that this article does not come out and say it overtly, but it is filled with examples of people getting involved which begs the question; what are you doing to spread the hope?

As the church we should be familiar with this question. Why is it then that we are so often the ones proclaiming the message that there is no hope to the LGBTQ community? The airwaves are full of messages from worshipping communities and individual Christians condemning homosexuality even though the recent suicides have brought to light the reality of the power of words and actions. In many ways the church is directly responsible for the suicides of so many in the LGBTQ community. In many ways the church has been the biggest bully of them all by dispersing hope not in the temporal but in the eternal. 

Now, I know that the entire church has not been responsible for the propagation of such a message. There are many Christians, Christian organizations, and worshipping communities who openly affirm and support the LGBTQ community and to them I personally want to say thank you. Your voice is needed in the church. Your actions are needed in the world. 

The extremes of the spectrum regarding homosexuality will always exist. People will always condemn and harass the LGBTQ community and people will always affirm and support them. But what this spectrum has forgotten is the realization that what we say and do actually affects people. The LGBTQ community are not second class citizens, they are not worthless, they are not inferior, they are God’s children and they need to be loved. I seem to remember Jesus Christ coming for all because all are sinners, gay and straight. No expression of human love is completely devoid of sin and we in the straight community need to realize that. What was at stake for Christ was not that we all sin. What I mean is, our sins weren’t what we do that caused Him to come down, it was who we are, all of us, the fact that we are sinners. It was the fact that we were and are broken. All of us. 

The question cannot be will you spread hope or take it way. The question needs to be exactly what that Yahoo.com article asked, what will you do to get involved. The world is broken and so are we. But we need to remember that we live in the reality of the resurrection. That Christ’s death and resurrection did more than punch our ticket for eternity. It is a reality that says we can be “all things to all people.” A reality that beckons us to be “wise as serpents and gentle as doves.” A reality that fills us with the love that brought us back to life. A reality that urges us to “always have an answer for the hope that is within us.” A reality that changes the way we think and interact with all people. A reality that reminds the world of the truth that it most certainly does get better.