Mormons, Appetites and Messiah Music

Tonight at the Messiah, I shed tears when I heard the music and the lyrics to He Shall be Revealed. Those words spoke very powerfully to me. The message is powerful. He shall be revealed. Every knee will bend and every tongue will confess that He is the Christ. It won’t be a hidden idea. Everyone will know.

The lies will be brought into the light.

It got me thinking about my Gospel Doctrine lesson today. I’m the teacher. It is the calling I’ve had more than any other. I was first called my freshman year at college at age 17. I know. That was one desperate bishop. I taught a class full of returned missionaries. I used humor. I studied my scriptures more that year than all my classes put together.

I dressed up like Bo Peep to teach a lesson on finding lost sheep.

But that was then, this is now...

One man in my class is very opinionated. We were talking about the proclamation to the world on the Family. I told the story of a Methodist friend telling me our prophet is really a prophet to put out the proclamation when he did. I was tap dancing around the gay issue. I really didn’t want to go there. I know there are likely people in the room who have a loved one who is gay. But this man wanted to go there. He did vehemently. I did what I could to get him back on track…to talk about loving the individual. Here’s what I wish I would have said,

“What if we thought about people with same sex attraction the same way we think of people who are obese? I don’t mean to minimize the serious nature of sexual sin but aren’t they both about appetite? We don’t look at an obese person and think they are going to hell. But aren’t they messing with life? They know it is bad for them, even dangerous, to continue to live a lifestyle that is about giving in to base desires. But isn’t it as bad to judge them?”

I don’t know. I’m still working on it.

I hate that I belong to a church that appeals to a certain type of individual more than it does to others. Masculine men and feminine women do best as Mormons. But that is the culture of Mormonism, not the doctrine. The doctrine is about love.
There was a woman in the back row who had tears in her eyes throughout the entire lesson.

I wonder who she loves that is caught up in giving in to appetites.

If you think about the culture surrounding homosexuality, it is similar to the culture surrounding fast food. Or at least, that is what the media and higher education is going for. Happy clowns selling fattening food. Happy Gay men only showing the light humor of a dark lifestyle. An obese lifestyle often ends with lonliness. A life that doesn't seem to value living. I think of an older homosexual man in a bar alone late at night...when he is no longer wanted.

Christ still loves him. Even when others don't.

He shall be revealed.