The first issue that any Christian body has to resolve with respect to the ordination of either gay or straight, is how we feel about the call of God and our responsibility to honor it. Before we get to the most immediate issue, if we take Scripture seriously, we have to acknowledge that God frequently calls people for service who do not meet the standards that we think are essential. David is the most obvious example from the Hebrew Scriptures that comes to mind. It does not take too much reflection to realize that he broke most if not all of the ten commandments.
At the moment of his anointing, it was made clear that he didn’t meet the people’s standards either. And here we are told in clear words, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, . . . for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” What did the Lord see in this womanizing scalywag who was willing to kill another person in order to steal his wife.
I’m not raising here the argument that we are all sinners so everything is all right. What I am suggesting is that God has a tendency to call people to ministry with a criteria that often violates what we believe and can even quote scripture to support as appropriate. Paul may have been a religious zealot but he could hardly be seen as someone who had seen the light in Jesus as the Christ. When in Matthew we read that Jesus declared about Peter, “and on this rock I will build my church,” he is not talking about a person who modeled the perfect faith. In fact immediately after Jesus affirmation, Jesus had an opportunity to suggest that Peter was acting equivalent to Satan.
The first question we must answer is are we willing to ordain someone God calls. Obviously the next question is how we determine who has been called by God. But before that, we must answer the first question.
