“Should a Christian attend a gay wedding?” (AKA) Same Sex wedding. I have been asked this question a number of times and my response has always been, well why not? Some of the responses that I have received back from individuals are that they don’t support gay marriage and they do not believe that form of life style is blessed by God. They’re also led to believe that if they attend the wedding that the people that invited them would think that they are supporting what they are doing. I then ask these individuals a series of other questions like; Regardless of your view on the subject, does God love them? Their answer was “Yes”. This would then bring me to my second question; Do you believe that their lifestyle is a sin? Their answer was “Yes”. Then my next question is; Do you have sin in your life right now? To which their answer was “yes” everybody does. The final question that I asked them is; Based upon the weddings that you approve of attending, do you think the individuals that are getting married have sin in their life? Again, their answer was “yes”.
Quickly these individuals would then reply, “I see where you’re going with this, but I still don’t feel it’s right that I attend and I would also feel very uncomfortable if I did”. I have expressed to them that I can understand their feeling uncomfortable, but first I wanted to know what their thoughts were on loving your neighbor. I shared with them what Jesus had shared with his disciples in Mathew 22:39 “To love your neighbor as yourself.” So what does “To love your neighbor as yourself” mean? I shared, that I believe it is to see your neighbor as Jesus sees them. How did Jesus see His neighbor? The bible says in many different places throughout the Gospel that He had great compassion for all and ultimately died for each of our sins. His view of us was and still is, that of love and no matter what season of life we are in, He will always be there for us. In fact Hebrews 13:5 says “God will never leave us nor forsake us.” So why would we not be there for someone that is gay at their wedding day if they invited you? My argument is not in “Do I think gay marriage is right or wrong”, or what is the definition of marriage; my argument is “Why would we not love our neighbor?”
I fully understand the passion that Christians have at why they should not attend a gay wedding. My thought is Jesus never looks at us and thinks, oh they don’t dress right or they’re not living the way I feel is right. He simply says “I love you and desires fellowship with you”. In the Gospel of Luke 19, Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, a sinner and Jesus demonstrated great compassion towards him. He told Zacchaeus that He would like to have dinner with him and wanted to hang out at his house. Jesus knew the religious Pharisees and Sadducee’s would not approve of Him hanging out with Zacchaeus but He didn’t care. Jesus simply wanted to love on Zacchaeus, in fact, it was that very love that changed Zacchaeus. It wasn’t Jesus thinking He was better than everyone else, even though He was, it was Jesus simply loving Zacchaeus just as he was.
Jesus taught us to love people without condemnation and how to show compassion. I have found that having a condemning spirit will put us into an impossible position and make it difficult to love someone unconditionally as Jesus has taught us.
We want to guard our hearts from legalism and a holier than thou attitude so that we can be available to Jesus to love our neighbor when the time is called. Jesus knew Zacchaeus was not living the very best life and he didn’t have it all together. Jesus simply loved him and desired to have fellowship with him. It was in that fellowship that Zacchaeus changed. To see people in the same way that Jesus sees them, we must first see ourselves in the light of Christ and realize we all fall short of Gods glory. We’re all sinners that can be saved by God’s grace. We don’t get to God’s grace because we’re condemned or judged by someone, we get there because we are loved. When people experience true agape love that only Jesus offers, regardless of their lifestyle choices, it becomes impossible for them not to be changed. God’s love always wins.
They replied back to me with another question, “Are we not as a Christian supposed to call out sin and if we go to their wedding are we saying that we support what they are doing?” I responded with, if you want to call out sin then let’s start with each other. You start with picking out my sins (plural) and I will start picking out your sins. I then would ask, how would we feel after we are all done mentioning our sins? Would it bring us closer to the Lord? What if we focused on elevating each other above ourselves, instead of focusing on our sin as it says in Phil 2? How would that make us feel afterwards? If I choose to hang out with you, does that mean I support your sin? They answered, no. I said, why not? They relied, “Because no one is perfect.” I said, “exactly, we are not called to judge one another, but to love one another as Christ loves us.” The Bible says in Romans Chapter 2 “So do you think that you can judge those other people? You are wrong. You too are guilty of sin. So when you judge them, you are really condemning yourself. God judges all who do such things, and we know his judgment is right.” As a follower of Jesus we are to love people to Christ, it is Christ that does the judging. The conviction you have on whether or not you should go to the wedding should be centered in spending time with the Holy Spirit. I pray you allow Him to help you work out whatever your convictions are for His glory.
I then went back to sharing with them that I understood how they felt with being uncomfortable by attending, and expressed that it’s a normal feeling. Whenever we are in situations that are different than what we are used to, we will naturally feel uncomfortable. My personal belief is when I feel uncomfortable, then I am forced to lean on the Holy Spirit to get me through whatever situation I am in. By doing this it allows the Holy Spirit to move through me and Gods love to be manifested to all that I come in contact with. Personally, I think many of us need to get ourselves in more situations where we are uncomfortable. As a follower of Jesus it’s never about us, but about Christ. If our eyes are on Jesus, it should not matter what situation we are in as long as we know we are to be about our Father’s business. It should always be about Him and we know based upon scripture that He will sustain us and get us through. Psalms 54:4 “Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.”
So in conclusion, I know there are many arguments out there why a Christian should not attend a gay wedding. I believe that as the Holy Spirit leads you, both arguments can be correct based upon what He puts on your heart. My argument is simply there are too many people to love and not enough time in a day to do it. Let’s choose today to see everyone as Jesus sees them. A condemning spirit only makes us miserable and we will never lead someone to Christ or bring joy into our lives in doing so. If someone is gay and they invite you to their wedding, take it before the Lord and pray. Seek His face and allow the Holy Spirit to move within your heart. I understand every situation is different and should be weighed in prayer. If the Holy Spirit leads you to go, you must go in God’s love or don’t go. Who knows, if you do go, there might be the opportunity for you to point someone to Christ. We are all dealing with life issues and the answer to how we deal with those issues properly is found in Christ. He is always the answer! Our world is hurting and my prayer for everyone that is reading this blog is that it would cause you to draw near to Jesus. Allow His unconditional love to invade every aspect of your life. Trust Him with your life so that His love can be manifested in you so that the world can see Jesus through you. He loves us no matter what and we should love others the same.