Turning, We Burn

Second Sunday of Advent

The prophets call humanity to the potential of averting the spreading wilderness . . . by means of the greater strength of a converted heart.

Fr. Alfred Delp

Last week, I loved a young man who was sporting a large cross and a PRIDE shirt; I did so by highlighting his contradiction. With tender firmness, I urged him to make a decision: ‘Choose who you want to serve.’ May Jesus, in the power of His Spirit, empower that man—and thousands like him—to repent unto the burning love of Christ Crucified and Raised.

Not as easy as it sounds. Repentance means little these days, especially in the sexual arena. Worldly Christians, lukewarm in cultures that sustain old traditions but fail to spark new life, usually adopt a ‘Who am I to judge?’ response to exotic sinners in and outside their cosmos. A young friend of mine sharply observed in his Christian milieu that most Christians couldn’t care less about another’s rainbow identification. ‘Unimportant,’ he shrugged.

Despite serious Scriptural exhortations to turn from ‘gay’ everything (Romans 1:16–32; 1 Tim. 1:9, 10; 1 Cor. 6:9–11), we, the drowsy faithful, have forgotten the fire of Love Who so loved us that we were compelled to wake up and turn from our lesser selves. ‘And such were some of you,’ St. Paul reminds us (1 Cor. 6: 11). Yet how quickly we forget.

Where is the compelling, burning conviction that drew us out of our pet immoralities because God Himself wanted us? And where is our urgent conviction for those around us who may well go to hell because we decided in our Christian bubbles ‘to judge them not’? Today’s Advent Gospel stirs us all to repent, not merely from our own demons but to burn on behalf of a clueless, deceived generation.

John the Baptist is our fiery mouthpiece here, but he does more than demand that we refuse immoral behavior. The prophet points us to One who will light us on fire with the Holy Spirit so that repentance pivots on persons made new by God Himself (Matt. 3:11, 12).

Blazing as the beloved of God, we can lay down false identifications. We can be truly authentic because God Himself has become the basis for our personhood. When I first testified at Church about coming out of homosexuality, it wasn’t dramatic. With Christ and friends, I had simply outgrown the ‘gay’ self. My most authentic being? What it meant to be Jesus’ brother and son of His Father in the fiery love of the Holy Spirit.

Prophets emerge from that fiery love. We repent, yes, but we do so out of the authority that catapulted Jesus from the tomb. My German friend Andrea exemplifies this empowered repentance. The fire of Divine Mercy fell on her while she struggled for life in a hospital.

‘During that time, I was challenged about my lesbian identity. It was the last safe place from my former life. . . . I felt God gently asking me to accept His truth about my lesbian identity, to let it go, and follow Him completely. This is what I did. If I died, I wanted to die as a woman who has finally become a true daughter of God. One who has begun to accept His gift of femininity for her life and who thanks Him for it. God was offering me to become whole in a way that I could not see before, whole in this life and whole for eternity.’

Jesus invited Andrea to repent of a false identity, a man-made refuge where she sought to make sense of her desires and wounded self-perceptions. She had to act decisively to know Him and herself in reality. Delp again: ‘Only when we don’t cling to false securities will we be capable of seeing the Ultimate.’

Jesus demands repentance of all persons who have concluded and declared, ‘I am gay.’ We come under darkness. Crafting a ‘queer self’ out of disordered emotions and affections empowers both. For good reason, merciful Jesus calls and enables us to repent of that false identification.

It grieves us that well-intentioned Christian ministries like Eden Invitation and Revoice refuse that call to repent of ‘queer’ identities. Instead, both encourage young Christians to agree with their rainbow destiny. Biblically inauthentic. Confusing and unwise.

May Advent shake up worldly Christians today. ‘Where life is grounded, we need to feel its stability; where it is unstable and immoral, we need to know that also’ (Delp). May Jesus shine on Andrea and others who have repented unto the true God and true personhood. May we together rouse a slumbering Church. May a holy remnant call all people, including the sexually confused, to secure identity on the Rock Who is Christ.