I’ve spent the past several days praying about what God wants me to learn from a wedding Scott and I witnessed at the ocean this past weekend. We weren’t invited to this ceremony and didn’t mean to be there. It just happened our hotel room was right across from this wedding and we sat on our balcony as it unfolded before our eyes. Scott kept looking for the groom after we heard the bride bossing everyone around in the room next to ours. She wanted everything just right, and so far it was turning out that way.

The weather was perfect. The music sweet. The sun shone on the water beyond the wedding stage. For the Northern California coast in March, this was a spectacular day. There was no wind. No fog. Flowers bloomed all over the place. It felt more like Southern California, sunny San Diego perhaps.

It wasn’t until two brides in beautiful white gowns walked down the aisle, one on the arm of her mother, the other escorted by a preteen daughter, that we realized there would be no groom here. And a woman conducted this nonreligious ceremony with ease and grace and a commanding, but smiling presence.

And for awhile, we sat there kind of stunned. Eventually, Scott leaned over to me and whispered, “I can’t help feeling like men have failed these women.”

I was feeling the same way. It wasn’t until family photos after the ceremony that we saw two dads standing beside wives flanking their newlywed daughters that I realized fathers were even there. At the fringes and standing uncomfortably, perhaps their suits too tight, or as Scott and I speculated, they just really didn’t feel welcome at this wedding.

And for days I’ve wrestled with God over writing this blog. Honestly, I don’t want to address gay marriage because it’s not a hill I want to die on. I have a lot of Christian friends taking up arms over this battle, but I’d like to just live and let live. I realize gay marriage is a passionate debate. And some of you right now are thinking, Why didn’t you just get up and walk away from that gay wedding? Why sit there and watch it? And some of you are probably thinking, Why not attend a gay wedding? What’s the big deal? Aren’t Christians supposed to be loving like Jesus?

The truth is, I’d really like to support gay marriage because I love my gay family members and I want them to be happy. I’ve plowed through my Bible seeking truth about what Jesus said about marriage and this is what I found: “But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” Mark 10:6-9.  Jesus is actually addressing a question about divorce in this passage, not gay marriage. The Bible doesn’t say a thing about gay marriage, but when talking about marriage, the Good Book does say, “Don’t be faithless in your marriage,” Malachi 2:16.

I throw this out here because Christians make a mountain out of gay marriage, but I never hear an ant hill about divorce. Many of my Evangelical friends are divorced. And I’ve noticed people in the church aren’t usually shunned for sleeping together out of wedlock, or shunned for being on their third, or even fourth marriages, but homosexuality is a whole different matter in the church.

Why?

What makes homosexuality so unacceptable when other sins are overlooked or even embraced by the church?

I do want to clarify what the New Testament says about sex outside of marriage. The Apostle Paul states it is wrong, but also indirectly says sex should be between men and women.  Paul writes, “each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband” (1 Cor 7:2). There is no clearer definition of marriage in the New Testament than in I Corinthians chapter 7.

All that said, and I really did not want to get into this Christian discussion about gay marriage because it doesn’t sound loving, it sounds judgmental, just what Christians are famous for, so I’ll address love and judgement later, but the point I want to make about this wedding we watched at the ocean is this: in the middle of the ceremony the brides took a beautiful box into their hands and opened it together to release butterflies to signify their love. The problem was, the butterflies refused to fly. They absolutely would not leave that box, though it was a beautiful day and the wedding ceremony was quiet and peaceful and lovely.

So pretty soon one of the brides began pulling the butterflies out of the box to release them. Throwing them almost violently into the the air, trying to make them fly. And these butterflies forced to fly hit me in the face like a ton of bricks.

I  have done this, I thought to myself watching that woman toss the butterflies. Much of my life, I’ve forced my will on God’s creation like this. If it doesn’t fly, I’ll make it fly. I’ll make it work. I’ll force things to go my way. Yes, yes, that’s it! I will have my way in this life…

I really think this is the heart of all sin. Doing life our way instead of God’s way. There really is a rebel inside us all whether we are gay or straight who wants to live our own life on our own terms. We want to love who we want to love. Live how we want to live. Forget how God created us to live and just live the way we choose. Sin really isn’t about doing bad things, it’s about self. Exalting and satisfying the self.

The truth is, gay or straight, we all force butterflies to fly. And here is God’s answer for this: Jesus.

The Jesus who loves us. And ultimately the Jesus who judges us. I’ve always thought it was God the Father who judged us, and Jesus our Savior who just loved us. But in Revelation in the Bible, I recently read Jesus comes down to judge mankind in the end. Not God the Father, Jesus the Son, our judge. And gay or straight, we will face this eternal judgement. Jesus doesn’t look at us and say, well, you were gay so I will judge you more harshly than your straight brother or sister. No, Jesus looks at each of us and sees a sinner. Not a gay sinner, or a straight sinner, just a helpless sinner. And this is where love comes into play. Jesus looks at us– helpless sinners that we are– and he loves us. Loves us so much, he died for us. And here is the question that makes all the difference for human beings gay or straight. Did you respond to Jesus’ love in this life?

It’s not about Jesus loving you. Because Jesus offers his love to everyone. Jesus loves gay people and Jesus loves straight people. It’s about you loving Jesus back. Did you love the Lord more than you loved yourself? Did you turn from yourself and fall on your knees before Jesus asking for forgiveness for living life on your terms instead of God’s terms? Because when it’s all said and done, you will embrace the Creator’s way or you will make butterflies fly.

God help the butterflies.