Last night I sat down with a group of friends and watched “Milk,” the recent movie depicting the life of slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk.  I cried several times during the movie.  I cried as the various outcasts came together in community for a common cause. I cried when Harvey’s disturbed lover hung himself. I cried when Prop. 6 was defeated and celebrated with Harvey and his followers.  I felt their joy.  And I cried at the end when Harvey was killed, and when the movie showed us the clips of the very real people who inspired the movie.

While I no longer think of myself as gay, I still felt very identified with the people in that movie.  I remember the jokes and ridicule I faced as a kid. I remember watching that whole drama unfold on television in the late 70s, as a struggling junior high kid, and hearing my dad’s comments and feeling at my core that I was somehow damaged and an abomination to God, my family and society.  Tears still fill my eyes at the thought of how empty and scared I was at that point in my life. 

I also remember well the weekend I left my wife, told her I was gay, and stepped into my newly accepted identity as a gay man.  I felt as bold and as masculine as I had ever felt.  I had a new community.  I was ready to fight, and I was ready to be who I was meant to be.  No longer would I hide, and no longer would I hate whom I was inside.  I was out, and I was proud.  I believed accepting my identity as a gay man was the answer.  I was filled with hope.

As my friends and I talked about the movie afterward, we noted that it seemed that more than anything, Harvey Milk and the gay community wanted two things – two very simple things, and two things that we all want.  They wanted acceptance, and they wanted hope.  They fought for both valiantly.  They fought to be accepted in American society, and they fought for hope for the future.   As I have mulled over the movie, the thing that makes me the most sad is the reality that neither hope nor acceptance will ever be found in a gay identity, in the accumulation of rights or even in the achievement of simple equality.  Gay people will never find what they are looking for in the gay rights movement, or in their individual self-fulfillment.  The only hope and the only acceptance that ever truly satisfy are the hope and acceptance found in Christ.

Before all the Christians say ‘amen,’ they need to look inward as well.  We ALL seek hope and acceptance in things other than Christ. We may be Christians (just like a gay man or woman may be a Christian), but we still seek after human fulfillment. I know many people that think marriage will bring them fulfillment.  Others think the same way about having kids. Many people put their hope in financial security. I personally battle finding hope and acceptance in my work and ministry achievements.  I want titles, and recognition, and position, and success and often times I will think if I can just get ‘this’ or ‘that,’ things will level off and I will be good. We put our hope in our government and in our laws.  We are satisfied as long as there are laws on the books that protect US, too.  We are all guilty of identifying ourselves in ways that distinguish us and in ways that make us feel accepted and connected.  And we are all guilty of putting our hope in things other than Christ.

There are times when I don’t like being part of the institutional and cultural Christianity I see.  There are times when I wonder why I do what I do.  I can slip into the mindset of fighting for rights and making people feel better about themselves, too.  But at the end of the day, I know that fighting for rights and better self-esteem will only go so far. I know that true hope and true acceptance – the things we all so desperately crave - are found in one Man.  Jesus Christ.  How can I sit back and remain silent?  People who loved me knew I was settling for less than the best and never were content to let me settle.  I thank God for them and their love for me. I want to love like that.

David said in Ps. 39:7 “And now Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in thee.”  Peter called our hope a ‘living hope’ that we receive through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The reality is that our ‘rights’ can be taken away from men at any time.  We can never be sure that man will not reject us.  The best of people can hurt us.  I may not achieve my goals.  People may never affirm my gifts or talents.  I may be jailed for my faith someday.  I may be hated and ridiculed by men.  But if my hope is in the Lord, my hope is never shaken.  Hope in the Lord does not disappoint.  I am always acceptable to God, no matter what man does to me. 

Understanding true hope and acceptance can take a lifetime to truly grasp.  As I grow into that hope and acceptance, I find great solace in the deep knowledge that I am never alone, and that there is a plan for my life that I can trust.  For so many years I thought that real hope and real acceptance would be found in goals, and achievement, and friends, and society.  I thought it was about coming to grips with and discovering whom I really was.  But I have learned that it is not about discovering who I really am.  It is about discovering who HE really is.  That is the definition of hope and acceptance.  And so I will keep giving the reason for the hope that I have, and rest in that hope, and revel in that acceptance!  THAT is a life worth living!