The gospel according to John is a beautiful poetic text in several respects: for its’ comfort with framing God, Christ, as an intimate lover of souls. It works to reduce the distance between us and the immortal-unseen.

Some of the most beautiful words of Christ are articulated in it, expressed in beautiful images and language. Along with the book of Revelations, the Book of John stands out (for this blogger) as one of the high points in New Testament authorship.

During this season of Advent, I find my attention pulled to the following lines from John 14. And,I find in these verses provocation to reflect a lot more deeply on how to be at peace, spiritually, and to find reconciliation with God.

The verses from the King James Version are:

“If ye love me, keep my commandments.

16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you….”

As a gay man, I have battled constantly with the idea of being a transgressor. Being disobedient, and disqualified to fully enjoy communion with God. As much as I like to tell myself that I am at full peace with myself and with my sexuality, I find myself in a terrible cycle at times: I find a sense of peace and then, something pulls me into a sense of being disobedient and condemned. It becomes difficult to reconcile myself to God, I struggle and fight through tears and prayers and finally retrieve peace in powerful moments of what I believe to be God’s peace. Some time later, an image flashes before y eyes, a word is spoken, a song plays and the cycle of guilt rotates once again. And again and again it repeats itself (less and less nowadays but I felt trapped in this cycle some years ago).

The question still remains for me: how do I overcome my sense of guilt – guilt of being in contravention of God’s laws, by the virtue of my being gay? Do I try to convince myself that I am sinless and I am good. That ‘gay is good’? That might have worked as a slogan in the 1970s movement for gay libration (which I am grateful for) but at the end of the day, I have to confront myself and find peace in the hidden recesses of my soul that are hidden to the world. In those secret places where I do not have a public mask, Gay feels the opposite of good, many times. It feels like I have broken obedience to God. I ask myself in those times when no one is looking and I do not have to defend my gay persona – if my conscience is troubling me so much, and I am not at peace, then maybe this whole Gay thing is indeed just sinful and toxic, poisonous. Sinful. Maybe it is indeed true that God would rather have me be heterosexual. Even if I cannot possibly become straight. So, how do I deal with this dilemma?

Perhaps it helps to actually first understand what God’s commandments actually are – and what Christ call to obedient actually contains.

The commandments, Christ summarises, can be narrowed down to two lifelong assignments for each human being – the call to love God and love of my neighbour as myself.

‘Thou shalt be heterosexual’ is not an edict that is established in Scripture. Yes, there is an underlying assumption in much of the bible that assumes heterosexuality of all people. Rightly so, given the context in which the scriptures were written.

Yet, at the same time, the commandments that we are called to hold on to and to follow are those tied to love. ‘Love’ unlike heterosexuality and cultural mores is a timeless and spaceless concept. It is not tied to a particular context or time period. By its ver nature, it is unseen. It transcends space and time. So, the commandment to love endures as an eternal one. The cultural assumption in the Bible, on the other hand, speak to temporary things. Cultural imperatives that are tied to space and time.

Love.This is what we are called to obey and measure ourselves up to:

So, if it so happens that I frequently find myself in spirals of guilt and self condemnation…if I find myself being overwhelmed by my gayness as a ‘sin’, I need to remember that my focus is in the wrong place.

Christ is calling us to something much more profound and more challenging than the realities of being gay/straight. He is calling – commanding – us to love. That is plenty of work and very few of us have begun to engage with what these commandments mean. Not even the church (which I will never abandon, regardless of her stances on homosexuality) seems to be concerned with this call to love. I pray that there might be grace at all times, for those who need it, to remember to always re-centre on Love as the chief mission of our lives and souls and the essence of Christ’s command for obedience.