Teach Me to Do Your Will

“Teach me to do Your will,
For You are my God;
Your Spirit is good.
Lead me in the land of uprightness.”

—Psalm 143:10

I have prayed many times for God to show me the path He has set out for me. Sometimes I pray for a clear direction, hoping God will make the right choice unmistakable. At other times, I simply ask Him to guide my next step because I cannot see far enough ahead to know where the road will lead.

Psalm 143:10 expresses that longing beautifully: “Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God.” David does not merely ask God to reveal His will; he asks God to teach him how to follow it. Knowing the right path and having the faith to walk it are not always the same thing. We may recognize where God is leading us yet hesitate because the way seems uncertain, difficult, or different from what others expect of us.

This can be especially true for LGBTQ+ Christians. Many of us were taught that embracing who we are would take us away from God. We may have spent years praying for God to change us, fearing that our sexuality or gender identity placed us outside His will. When nothing changed, we may have wondered whether God had abandoned us—or whether we had somehow failed Him.

Yet the psalmist reminds us, “Your Spirit is good.” God does not guide us through shame, self-hatred, or despair. Those things do not reflect the character of the One whom Scripture tells us is love: “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8). If God is love, then His will cannot be separated from love. His guidance may challenge us, stretch us, and call us to grow, but it will never require us to despise the person He created us to be.

We do not have to choose between living truthfully and walking with God. The God who guides our steps is the same God who formed us and knows us completely. Psalm 139:13–14 declares, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” God knew the whole of us before anyone else placed a label, expectation, or condemnation upon us. Nothing about us was hidden from Him, and nothing about us came as a surprise.

When we ask God to show us His will, we must learn to listen for His voice beneath the voices of those who claim to speak for Him. Some people confuse their own prejudices with God’s commands. Others try to make their discomfort into a burden that LGBTQ+ people must carry. Yet Jesus warned us to judge teachings by the fruit they produce: “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). Teachings that produce fear, isolation, hopelessness, and self-hatred are not bearing the fruits of God’s Spirit. Paul tells us that those fruits are “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).

God’s path leads toward those things. It leads us toward greater love, deeper peace, honest relationships, compassion for others, and the freedom to live with integrity. It does not always lead us along the easiest road. Living openly and authentically may require courage. Following God may mean leaving behind a church that refuses to recognize our humanity, questioning beliefs we were once afraid to examine, or accepting that some people may never understand us. Nevertheless, God does not abandon us on that journey.

“Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths,” Psalm 25:4–5 says. “Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; on You I wait all the day.” We may want God to reveal the entire path at once, but He often gives us enough light for only the next step. Faith is trusting that the One who shows us that step will remain with us for all the steps that follow.

Proverbs 3:5–6 offers similar reassurance: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Trusting God does not mean surrendering our minds or accepting every claim made in His name. It means trusting the goodness of God even when our understanding is incomplete. It means believing that His love is more reliable than human judgment and that His grace is greater than the barriers others try to build around it.

For LGBTQ+ Christians, discerning God’s will may begin with accepting one essential truth: we are loved. Paul writes that nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39). Nothing includes our sexual orientation. Nothing includes our gender identity. Nothing includes the questions we are still trying to answer or the parts of ourselves we are still learning to embrace.

We may not always know exactly where God is leading us. I continue to pray that He will show me the path He has set out for me, and I suspect I will continue praying that prayer throughout my life. Perhaps that uncertainty is part of faith. We follow not because we can see the entire road, but because we trust the goodness of the One leading us.

“Teach me to do Your will,” we pray. Teach us to love more fully, to live more honestly, to extend mercy more generously, and to walk more humbly. Lead us away from fear and into truth. Lead us away from shame and into the knowledge that we are wonderfully made. Lead us onto level ground where we can stand securely in the assurance that we belong to You.

God is good. God is love. Wherever He leads us, His love will go with us.

Come to Me

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

—Matthew 11:28

Labor Day weekend is often treated simply as the unofficial end of summer. It gives many people a three-day weekend, one last opportunity to travel, gather with friends, cook outdoors, or rest before autumn begins in earnest. Yet the holiday has a deeper purpose. Labor Day was established to honor the contributions of workers and grew out of the labor movement’s struggle for fair wages, reasonable hours, safer workplaces, and humane treatment.

These concerns are not separate from our faith. The Bible repeatedly affirms the dignity of labor, commands justice for workers, and reminds us that no human being should be valued only for what he or she can produce.

Work itself is not a punishment. Before humanity’s fall, God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden “to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Human beings were created to cultivate, create, care for, and contribute to the world around us. Honest work can give us purpose, allow us to serve others, and make use of the gifts God has given us. As Colossians 3:23 tells us, “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.”

But the Bible does not praise work without limits. Scripture also condemns those who exploit workers or deny them the fruits of their labor. Deuteronomy 24:14 commands, “Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy,” while the following verse instructs employers to pay workers promptly because they depend upon their wages. James offers an even harsher warning: “Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth” (James 5:4).

God hears the cries of those who are overworked, underpaid, mistreated, or regarded as disposable. A person’s labor may be bought, but that person’s dignity never can be. The worker behind a counter, the person cleaning an office after everyone else has gone home, the farmworker harvesting our food, the nurse finishing an exhausting shift, and the teacher carrying work home at night are all created in the image of God. Their worth does not depend upon their job title, salary, education, or social standing.

Jesus Himself knew what it meant to labor. Before beginning His ministry, He worked as a carpenter. His disciples included fishermen who understood long hours, physical exhaustion, and the uncertainty of whether their work would provide enough. When Jesus spoke to ordinary people, He did not speak from the comfort of a palace. He lived among those who worked with their hands, struggled to provide for their families, and knew what it meant to be weary.

That makes His invitation in Matthew especially powerful: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

The burdens Jesus described were not limited to physical labor. He was speaking to people weighed down by sin, sorrow, fear, religious demands, and the struggles of life. Nevertheless, His words speak to every kind of weariness. Some burdens come from our employment, while others come from caring for family, worrying about money, living with illness, hiding part of ourselves, or trying to meet expectations that no human being could ever satisfy. Some people carry burdens invisible to everyone around them.

Christ does not tell the weary to work harder so that they might finally deserve His care. He simply says, “Come unto me.”

Our culture often treats exhaustion as evidence of virtue. We admire people who are constantly busy and sometimes feel guilty when we are not accomplishing something. Even rest can become another task to perform correctly. Yet God never intended us to labor without ceasing. After six days of creation, God rested. The Sabbath was given not because God needed humanity to become more productive, but because human beings need restoration. Jesus said, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

Rest is not laziness. It is an acknowledgment that we are human and have limits. We need sleep, quiet, recreation, companionship, prayer, and time in which our value is not measured by our productivity. Rest reminds us that the world continues to turn even when we stop working because ultimately the world rests in God’s hands, not ours.

This Labor Day, we should be grateful for the work others do and mindful of those whose labor is too often overlooked. We should support fairness, safety, dignity, and adequate compensation for every worker. We should also remember that God does not love us because of what we accomplish. Our jobs may describe part of what we do, but they do not define who we are.

Jesus continues His invitation by saying, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.” A yoke ordinarily represents work, but Christ promises that we do not have to bear it alone. “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:29–30).

God does not promise us a life without labor or responsibility. He promises His presence within it. He calls us to work honestly, treat workers justly, help carry one another’s burdens, and recognize when it is time to rest.

Whether this weekend finds us working, relaxing, caring for others, or simply trying to make it through another difficult day, Christ’s invitation remains the same:

Come to Me.

Bring Me your work, your worries, your exhaustion, and every burden you were never meant to carry alone.

And I will give you rest.

When Giving Is Not About Us

“But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” 

— Matthew 6:3–4

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks about something that is as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago: the temptation to turn goodness into a performance.

Jesus tells His followers, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them” (Matthew 6:1). He specifically speaks about giving to those in need, warning His listeners not to “sound a trumpet” when they give so that others will praise them. Instead, He tells us not to let our left hand know what our right hand is doing. Our generosity should come from a desire to help, not from a desire to be admired.

The same principle appears immediately afterward when Jesus talks about prayer. He warns against praying publicly simply so that others will notice how devout we are. Instead, He tells us to go into a private room, close the door, and pray to God in secret (Matthew 6:5–6). Later, He says much the same thing about fasting. In each case, the problem is not the act itself. The problem is making our faith into a performance.

I have been thinking about these verses in light of the life of Dolly Parton.

Dolly supported an extraordinary number of charitable causes throughout her life. Some were very public. Through her Imagination Library, millions of books have been given to children. She contributed to medical research, helped communities devastated by disaster, supported education, and used her fame to draw attention to people who needed help.

Yet there were also acts of generosity that received little attention, and there may well have been others that we will never know about. That seems appropriate. When Dolly did speak publicly about a cause, the purpose was often not simply to announce what she had done. She used the attention already focused on her to turn people’s eyes toward something that mattered. She encouraged others to care, to give, and to help.

There is an important difference between drawing attention to ourselves because we give and drawing attention to a need so that others will give.

Jesus makes that distinction clearer when we consider another passage from the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:16, He says, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

Few people had a light that shone brighter than Dolly Parton’s. Her talent made that light visible to the world, but her compassion showed us what she chose to do with it. She could use the attention that came with being Dolly Parton to make herself seem more important, or she could turn that attention toward someone who needed it. Again and again, she chose the latter. Her light did not become dimmer when she used it to illuminate the needs of others. It became brighter.

At first, Matthew 5:16 might seem to contradict Jesus’ warning just a few verses later about doing good deeds where others can see them. But the difference is found in who receives the glory.

Matthew 5 tells us to live in such a way that our goodness points beyond ourselves. Matthew 6 warns us against doing good so that people will praise us. One says, “Look at the good that can be done.” The other says, “Look at how good I am.”

That is a distinction worth remembering.

Jesus returns to the importance of caring for others in Matthew 25:31–46. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, He describes people who fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed those who needed clothing, cared for the sick, and visited those in prison. What is striking is that the righteous do not even seem to realize the significance of what they have done. They ask Jesus when they ever did these things for Him.

His answer is one of the most powerful teachings in the Gospel: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these… you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

They did not help because they expected recognition. They helped because someone was hungry. Someone was thirsty. Someone needed clothing. Someone was sick, lonely, imprisoned, or a stranger in need of welcome. They saw someone who needed help, and they helped.

That is what Christian charity should look like.

Most of us will never have Dolly Parton’s wealth or enormous public platform, but all of us have something we can give. It may be money. It may be our time. It may be a meal, a ride, a listening ear, an encouraging word, or simply noticing someone whom everyone else seems to overlook.

And sometimes no one else needs to know.

There is something beautiful about doing something kind that can never be repaid and may never even be acknowledged. There is no applause, no recognition, and no opportunity to tell everyone what a wonderful person we are. There is simply someone who needed help and someone who chose to help them.

God sees those moments.

And when circumstances give us an opportunity to speak publicly about something we have done, perhaps the question we should ask ourselves is not simply, Should I tell people? Instead, we might ask, Why am I telling them?

Am I pointing toward myself, or am I pointing toward the need?

Am I hoping people will admire my generosity, or am I hoping my example might inspire someone else to be generous?

Jesus never tells us to stop doing good because someone might see us. He tells us to examine why we are doing it in the first place.

And doing good does not always require money, a grand gesture, or even much of our time. Sometimes the smallest kindness can matter more than we realize. A genuine smile offered to someone who seems to be having a difficult day may be exactly the encouragement that person needs. A kind word, holding a door, asking someone how they are and actually listening to the answer—these things cost us nothing, yet we may never know how much they mean to the person who receives them. We do not have to change the whole world. Sometimes we are simply called to make one person’s world a little brighter.

Our generosity does not need a trumpet.

Sometimes the quietest acts of kindness speak the loudest—especially to the One who sees what is done in secret.

To Thine Own Self Be True?

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

— Romans 12:2 

“To thine own self be true.” It sounds biblical. In fact, it is often quoted as though it were a piece of wisdom from Scripture. But the words do not come from the Bible at all. They come from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Polonius gives this advice to his son Laertes before he leaves for France: “This above all: to thine own self be true.”

Over the centuries, those words have taken on a life of their own. Today, we often understand them to mean that we should live authentically, refusing to pretend to be someone we are not. There is wisdom in that idea, but there is no exact biblical equivalent to “be true to yourself.” Part of the reason may be that the modern understanding of the phrase can sometimes become whatever feels right to me must be right. Scripture asks something deeper of us. God calls us to integrity, to an honest heart, and to a life lived according to His truth.

That raises an important question: How does God want us to show ourselves to the world?

For LGBTQ+ Christians, that question can be especially complicated. Many of us have been told that faithfulness to God requires hiding an important part of ourselves. We have been encouraged to remain silent, to change the pronouns when talking about someone we love, to avoid mentioning our relationships, or even to construct an entirely different version of ourselves for family, church, work, or community. Sometimes we have been told that this concealment is what God wants from us.

Yet Scripture repeatedly turns our attention away from appearances and toward what is within us. When Samuel was searching for the man God had chosen to be king, God reminded him, “People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). God already sees us completely. There is no closet door we can close against Him. There is no carefully constructed version of ourselves that can fool God into seeing someone other than who we really are. He sees our sexuality, our fears, our hopes, our desires, our mistakes, our faith, and our capacity to love. Most importantly, He sees our hearts.

That is why Proverbs tells us, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). Guarding our hearts does not mean hiding them. It means caring for what we allow to shape them. We can spend so much energy worrying about how other people see us that we forget to ask what is happening within us. Are we becoming kinder? More compassionate? More forgiving? More courageous? Are we loving God and loving our neighbors? Are our lives producing the fruits of faith?

Being authentic does not mean that every impulse we have must be followed simply because it comes from within us. Christianity has never taught that. Instead, Paul tells us, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Authenticity is not the end of our spiritual journey. It gives us an honest place from which that transformation can begin.

For LGBTQ+ Christians, “do not conform” can have a particularly powerful meaning. The world has plenty of patterns into which it tries to force us. Some tell us what a “real” man or woman should look like. Some tell us whom we are supposed to love. Some tell us that heterosexuality is the only path to a faithful Christian life. Others may tell us that embracing our sexuality requires leaving faith behind altogether.

We do not have to conform to either expectation.

We can be openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer and still seek to become the person God calls us to be. We can embrace who we are while allowing God to transform how we live. Authenticity and discipleship are not opposites. In fact, we cannot truly offer ourselves to God if the self we offer is merely a disguise created to satisfy someone else’s expectations. God is the only One whose expectations we should ultimately seek to satisfy. The world may impose its own expectations about how we should look, whom we should love, and who we should be, but those earthly expectations cannot compare or compete with what God asks of us. What matters is not whether we fit the image others have created for us, but whether we are faithfully becoming the person God calls us to be.

I often talk about the path God wants me to follow, and I pray that He will keep me on that path. To me, being true to myself also means being true to the person God calls me to be. I do not always know where that path will lead, and I certainly do not always follow it perfectly, but I can continue to seek God’s guidance and trust Him to redirect me when I stray. Being authentic does not mean that I alone decide who I should be; it means bringing my whole, honest self before God and asking Him to guide me toward the life He wants me to live. In that way, being true to myself becomes inseparable from being true to God.

Paul also warns us against measuring ourselves by the lives of others. He writes, “Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load” (Galatians 6:4–5). There will always be people eager to tell us who we ought to be. There will always be someone who thinks we are too gay, not gay enough, too religious, not religious enough, too outspoken, or too quiet. If our identity depends upon satisfying everyone else’s expectations, we will spend our entire lives performing for an audience whose approval constantly changes.

Instead, we should examine our own actions. We should ask whether we are living with honesty and integrity. We should ask whether we are treating others with dignity. We should ask whether our relationships reflect love, faithfulness, kindness, and respect. We should ask whether the person we show to the world and the person God sees in our heart are becoming more and more the same person.

Perhaps that is the Christian version of being true to ourselves.

It isn’t simply, This is who I am, so I can do whatever I want. It is something much richer: This is who I am, and I will bring my whole self before God and allow Him to shape the way I live.

There should be no contradiction between living openly as an LGBTQ+ person and striving to live faithfully as a Christian. We do not have to choose between authenticity and faith. We can acknowledge whom we love. We can refuse to be ashamed of who we are. We can live without pretending. At the same time, like every other Christian, we continue striving to become more loving, compassionate, merciful, humble, and faithful.

The Third Letter of John contains a simple expression of joy that beautifully captures this idea: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 1:4). I love that phrase, walking in the truth, because truth is not something we merely acknowledge privately. We walk in it. We carry it into our relationships, our families, our churches, our workplaces, and our communities. Walking in truth means refusing to build our lives around a lie, whether that lie is about who we are or about who God calls us to become.

Shakespeare told us, “To thine own self be true.” Scripture asks us to go further. Be honest about who you are. Guard your heart. Refuse to let the world force you into its molds. Examine your own life rather than comparing it to someone else’s. Remember that God looks beyond appearances and sees your heart.

And then take that honest, authentic self and walk in the truth.

God does not need the person others have told you to be. He wants you—not a disguise, not a performance, not a carefully edited version designed to earn someone else’s approval. Bring your whole self to Him, and let Him continue transforming you into the person He calls you to be.

Healing for Body and Spirit

“‘But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the Lord.”

—Jeremiah 30:17

Yesterday, I took a bad tumble while hiking, leaving me scraped, bruised, and aching all over this morning. It brought to mind the comfort Scripture offers whenever we are hurting, whether those wounds are physical or emotional.

Some days, we simply do not feel well. Our bodies ache, illness drains our strength, or an injury reminds us that we are more fragile than we would like to admit. At other times, the wounds are hidden—grief, loneliness, disappointment, or the quiet exhaustion of carrying too much for too long.

God cares about all these wounds. Jeremiah’s promise of restoration was originally given to a people who had suffered physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Their healing would not happen all at once, but God had not forgotten them. He was still at work restoring what hardship had broken.

James also reminds us that we do not have to endure suffering entirely alone: “Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them… And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up” (James 5:14–15). Prayer does not always bring the immediate healing we hope for, but it places us—and those we love—within the compassionate care of God and the supportive embrace of our community.

Whether our pain is physical or emotional, we can turn to God when we feel weak. Healing may come through medicine, rest, time, the kindness of others, or strength enough to face another day. Whatever form it takes, we can trust that God sees every wound, remains beside us in our suffering, and continues the patient work of making us whole.

There Is Still Room

“Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.’”

—Luke 14:23

There is something beautiful about a table with room for one more person.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly uses meals to teach us about the kingdom of God. He eats with people others consider sinners. He sits at tables with people respectable society would rather avoid. He feeds crowds who have nothing to offer him in return. Again and again, the table becomes a place where the boundaries separating people begin to disappear.

In Luke 14, Jesus tells the Parable of the Great Banquet. A man prepares a great dinner and invites many guests. When everything is ready, he sends his servant to those who have been invited, saying, “Come, for everything is now ready” (Luke 14:17).

But the invited guests begin making excuses.

One has bought a field and needs to go see it. Another has purchased five yoke of oxen and wants to try them out. Another has just married. One after another, the expected guests decide they have something more important to do.

When the servant returns and reports what has happened, the master does something unexpected. He does not cancel the banquet. He does not sit at an empty table lamenting that the people he originally invited refused to come. Instead, he widens the invitation.

“The owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame’” (Luke 14:21).

These were people who could easily find themselves pushed to the margins of society. They were not necessarily the people anyone expected to see occupying places of honor at a great banquet. Yet suddenly they are being sought out and welcomed.

Then comes one of the most beautiful moments in the parable. After the servant does what he has been told, he returns and says, “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room’” (Luke 14:22).

There is still room.

Those four words offer a powerful message for LGBTQ+ Christians.

Many of us have encountered Christians who seem determined to convince us that there is no room for us. We may have been told that we can be Christian or LGBTQ+, but we cannot be both. Some have been told they may enter the church only if they hide who they are. Others have been welcomed through the doors only to discover that the welcome comes with conditions: you may sit among us, but you cannot marry the person you love; you cannot serve in certain positions; you cannot fully participate in the life of the church unless you become the person we think you should be.

Some LGBTQ+ Christians eventually find affirming congregations where they are welcomed wholeheartedly. Others struggle to find a church where they feel at home. Some remain connected to traditions they love even when parts of those traditions have made them feel unwelcome. Others have walked away from organized religion altogether after being hurt too many times.

But the people guarding the doors do not own the banquet.

God does.

That distinction matters.

The Parable of the Great Banquet is not specifically about LGBTQ+ people, and we should not pretend that it is. Jesus tells the story in a particular setting and for a larger purpose concerning God’s kingdom. Yet its vision of an abundant invitation speaks powerfully to anyone who has been made to wonder whether there is a place for them.

And LGBTQ+ history gives us a powerful example of what it can mean to go toward people whom others have abandoned.

During the darkest years of the AIDS crisis, gay men were dying while much of the world looked away. Some were rejected by their families. Some were shunned by churches that should have offered comfort. Fear and ignorance about HIV meant that there were even people who were afraid to touch those who were sick.

But others came closer.

Gay men cared for their friends, lovers, and partners. Lesbians became caregivers, advocates, and some of the community’s fiercest allies. Nurses and doctors offered compassion when compassion was desperately needed. Clergy, volunteers, friends, and sometimes strangers sat beside hospital beds, brought meals, held hands, embraced bodies others were afraid to touch, and stayed with men who might otherwise have died alone.

When I read the master’s command, “Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full” (Luke 14:23), I think of people like them.

They went toward the people others had abandoned.

They did not ask whether those suffering were respectable enough, righteous enough, or acceptable enough to deserve compassion. They saw someone who needed love, and they went to them.

In doing so, whether they understood their actions in religious terms or not, they demonstrated something profoundly Christlike. They showed what it means to refuse to leave someone outside simply because others have decided that person does not belong.

And perhaps one of the most powerful things they offered was something remarkably simple: human touch.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus touched people others avoided. When a man with leprosy approached Jesus and asked to be made clean, Jesus did not recoil from him. Matthew tells us, “Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man” (Matthew 8:3).

He touched him.

Before the healing is even completed in Matthew’s telling of the story, there is that extraordinary gesture. Jesus reaches toward someone others would have kept at a distance.

During the AIDS crisis, when fear caused so many people to withdraw, the hand that reached across a hospital bed became its own kind of testimony. The embrace offered to a dying man proclaimed something that hatred, fear, and rejection could not erase:

You are not untouchable.

You are not forgotten.

You are not alone.

There is still room for you.

There is another important lesson in the Parable of the Great Banquet. The people who are welcomed are not reluctantly allowed to occupy a few leftover chairs. The master sends his servant looking for them.

“Go out quickly,” he says in verse 21.

Then, when the servant reports that there is still room, the master sends him farther: “Go out to the roads and country lanes.”

The desire of the master is not for an exclusive table occupied only by the right kind of people. His desire is for a full house.

Too often, Christianity has been presented as though God’s table were extremely small. We have constructed fences around it and developed rules determining who is worthy to approach it. Christians have sometimes behaved as though God has entrusted us with a guest list and appointed us to stand at the door checking names.

Jesus gives us a very different picture.

The kingdom of God is a banquet, and God keeps sending the invitation farther outward.

That does not mean that nothing is asked of us. God’s grace calls us toward lives of faith, love, mercy, justice, repentance, and compassion. Jesus never teaches that following him requires nothing from us. But there is an enormous difference between being transformed by God’s love and being told that we must first transform ourselves into someone else’s idea of acceptability before God will love us.

Grace works the other way around.

We come because we have been invited.

We grow because we are loved.

And we learn to love others because we have discovered how extraordinary it is to be welcomed ourselves.

For LGBTQ+ Christians, believing that can sometimes require an act of faith. When enough people have told us that God rejects us, it can become difficult not to hear their voices when we think about God. Human rejection can begin masquerading as divine rejection.

But they are not the same thing.

Jesus tells us about a master who looks at an unfinished banquet and sends his servant farther outward because there are empty places that he wants filled.

Perhaps those of us who know what exclusion feels like are particularly well equipped to understand what that invitation means. We know what it is like to wonder whether there will be a chair for us. We also have examples from our own history of people who refused to leave others outside when the rest of society turned away.

We can follow their example.

We can go toward the person others avoid.

We can sit beside someone who feels alone.

We can offer the hand others are afraid to touch.

We can move over.

We can pull out another chair.

We can welcome the person standing hesitantly at the doorway.

And we can remind someone who has been told otherwise that God’s love is not a scarce resource reserved for a fortunate few.

When someone tells us that people like us do not belong at God’s table, we should remember something important:

It isn’t their table.

The invitation comes from God.

And there is still room.