Reaching People We Don't Like

John and Gary were the gay neighbors I tried to avoid. When they walked their dog or drove up to their home, I’d conveniently look the other way or at the most give the obligatory half-wave and nod. But I never went out of my way to connect with them.

John was in his mid-40s, completely bald, with a Buddha-like potbelly. He spoke flamboyantly with grandiose hand gestures, and his smoked glasses framed sunken brown eyes. Gary was a more confident man with a full head of gray hair, a clean-shaven professional look and a Hollywood smile.

The openness of their 12-year relationship made me both angry and sad. The Christian mantra says we’re supposed to love the sinner and hate the sin, but for me, that was easier said than done with openly practicing homosexual neighbors.

TESTING THE LINES

Shortly after I moved into the Detroit suburb, Tim, the neighborhood gossip, told me that John and Gary were the social butterflies on the block. “They throw quite a party,” he said, “but I usually leave before the drunken gay sex begins.”

I’d been in my house for two months when I got an invitation to one of John and Gary’s notorious parties. Naturally, I declined the offer. A few weeks later, I spoke with Tim again. “Yeah, John and Gary said that ‘Preacher Boy’ wouldn’t come to their gay party. They said they were testing you to see if you’d judge them,” he said.

Hearing this disappointed and angered me, but I was also relieved to know that my refusal had drawn a definite line between John and Gary and myself.

A year went by. I married Jodi in the spring. We were both very excited about reaching out to our neighborhood as a couple and that fall, we began making plans for an outreach dinner party. We personally delivered invitations to each neighbor, as we visited the houses and spent time talking with people. When we came to John and Gary’s house, we rang the doorbell, waited a moment, and then I told Jodi, “Well, it doesn’t look like they’re home; just leave the flier in the door.”

My wife looked at me curiously—I had knocked persistently at the other houses. Nevertheless, she followed me down the stairs and back to our home. The RSVPs from our other neighbors were overwhelming, and Jodi and I looked forward to a full house in just a few weeks.

When the day of the party arrived, we spent hours cleaning, decorating and preparing. We had three glittering tables of desserts laid out like something out of Martha Stewart Living. Scented candles, music, delicious food—it was perfect. Suddenly the doorbell rang and about a dozen neighbors arrived. What more could we ask for? Nearly half the block came, and it wasn’t long before an energetic buzz filled the room. People were excited to be there, they were talkative, they were open, and just as the topic turned to spiritual things, the doorbell rang again.

John and Gary hadn’t RSVP’d, but there they were, standing in our living room with matching gay pride sweatshirts. What a disaster, I thought. But we invited them in, took their coats and introduced them to everyone else.

It wasn’t long before John and Gary commandeered the conversation and steered it away from its spiritual direction, which left me not only angry but clueless as to what to do next. As the party went on, I actually gave up on trying to speak to anyone about God, and Jodi and I snuck off to talk about the situation.

We’d purchased the JESUS film for each of our neighbors and had wrapped it up with a bag of popcorn, intending to give the gifts to our guests at a strategic point in the spiritual conversation. Jodi and I stood in the kitchen, whispering.

“How about just giving them the video on their way out and using that to start conversations later?” I suggested.

“If you think that’s best,” she replied.

We watched the night dwindle away along with my favorite carrot cake, and then started showing our neighbors to the door, handing them their coats and the video. When John and Gary got up to leave, I said, “Well, here are your coats and this is a little something from us—it’s a video about the life of Jesus.”

John took the video, leaned toward Gary and said softly, “This will give us something to relax with together.”

Great, I thought. I’ve given them a reason to sin.

The next few days, I couldn’t get the party debacle off my mind. I began praying about how to proceed, and as I did, my sense of shame grew. I realized that I’d acted in cowardice. I had allowed John and Gary to take leadership and steer people away from hearing about Jesus. I had wasted everyone’s time and a good deal of our own money.

That night, I asked God to forgive me for acting so cowardly, and He shook me to my spiritual core with His response: “You not only acted like a coward, you also failed,” I sensed Him saying. “You failed to communicate my love to John and Gary.”

“John and Gary! They’re the ones who ruined everything,” I answered.

A LACK OF LOVE

Usually when I spend time with someone, I’m perfectly comfortable not breaking into a Gospel presentation. Instead, I make it a point to get to know people socially first—without an agenda. But in this case, I was angry that John and Gary had torpedoed our party’s evangelistic purpose—or that’s what I told myself had happened.

As I wrestled with God in prayer, I started to see that He was using this to teach me about my lack of love and even hatred for homosexuals. For as long as I could remember, I’d always felt angry when speaking to or about gays and lesbians. God began to show me that I had used my belief in the sinfulness of homosexuality as an excuse not to show His love to John and Gary.

I allowed my fear—fear of looking judgmental and fear of failure in steering the conversation to spiritual things—to determine my actions. I allowed my lack of love for John and Gary to control me instead of the Holy Spirit or Christ’s command to love my neighbor as myself.

The Good Samaritan story rang in my ears. Like the priest and the Levite selfishly passing by the dying man, I’d been passing by John and Gary. And I justified my cowardice and lack of love by their sinful lifestyle. But in God’s eyes, a lack of initiative in the lives of our neighbors is as serious as playing an active part in their destruction. When we allow excuses about our neighbors’ distance from God, their sin and their differences from us to prevent us from loving them courageously, we stand on the sidelines. We might as well watch them gasp their last breath, while we stand next to an ambulance.

I began to pray, albeit a safe prayer: “God, I ask that You would reach John and Gary. Bring other Christians into their lives who can relate to them and reach them with Your love.”

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