Part 5 Wrestling with Scripture in Counseling. As you read the story, try to picture how you might have responded as a pastor in this situation.
I felt a little calmer. Now we were back in my territory. I’d wrestled a lot with what the Scriptures say about homosexuality. I admit it’s confusing, but I thought I could help.
“Eleanor, I’ve studied the passages in the Bible that make reference to homosexuality. There are only about six or seven of them, and they’re not as clear-cut as many would have you believe.”
“Didn’t God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because they were filled with homosexuals?”
“The Bible makes clear that the people in those cities weren’t very nice people. The prophet Ezekiel said that God destroyed them because, although God had blessed them with wealth, they refused to take care of their poor and they showed abysmal hospitality towards the stranger in their midst.”
“They wanted to rape some men, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they did. The little book of Jude, in the New Testament, suggests that their real sin was crossing the fixed boundaries God had set by threatening to have sex with angels.”
Eleanor shifted in her chair. It was clear that while the discussion of the Bible had been a distraction, it wasn’t what really concerned her.
“Well, you know more about the Bible than I do, but I don’t think that Jesus approves of my husband being a queer.”
“Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, but he did speak about the almost sacred quality of the covenant of marriage. That’s the real sin we are dealing with. Why don’t you tell me more about what Harold said happened?”
“OK. Like I told you, I started screaming at him and called him every name I could think of. He sat there, receiving blow after blow, not even trying to defend himself. It was as if he had called himself all those names before.”
“Did he tell you how it happened?”
“Yeah, after I ran out of names to call him and my throat was hoarse from screaming, I finally asked, ‘How did this happen?’ I’d heard about people repressing their sexual orientation and then suddenly discovering it in some sort of midlife crisis.”
Part 6 will be on Monday, May 13. Try to imagine where it is going.
