How should we treat sinners that are close to us?

“Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” Zacchaeus? A known tax-collector and one among those whom the Pharisees had bad feelings about. After a confession to Jesus relating his greed and promises to pay back what he unjustly stole, Jesus is heard to say, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” (Lk 19: 1 - 10).

Does this incident have a familiar sounding reminder of a close friend or a dear relative that has gone awry from what our church teaches about sinful activities and how some religious leaders may be condescending towards them? We have been taught to follow the Ten Commandments especially when one commandment regarding sins of a sexual nature.

A particular family has discovered two grandchildren, now in their thirties and older, are homsexual. Both are women and some of their relatives are having feelings regarding confronting them and preaching the evil of living together in a sexual commitment. When using discernment like Jesus did with Zacchaeus they must place themselves in a position to show love first of all before the ills of sin that may become a treachery for them. I answered this issue before using the CCC and will reprint how the Chusch answers it as well.

Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (CCC 2357).

The number of men and women who have deep seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross their difficulties they may encounter from their condition. (CCC 2358).

Even the action against Sodom and Gomorrah was not so much because of the homosexual lifestyle as to the direct abuse towards the poor of the same communities. Accordingly the sin against Sodom was homosexuality. However, according to Isaiah it was a lack of social justice and Ezekial described it as a disregard for the poor.

“Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a scanty remnant, we had become like Sodom, we should be like Gomorrah.” (Is 1: 9). Forgetting the poor among us is a travesty that God abhors.

“Yet not only in their ways did you walk, and act abominably as they did; in a very short time you became more corrupt in all your ways than they.” “And look at the guilt of your sister Sodom; she and her daughters were proud, sated with food, complacent in their prosperity, and they gave no help to the poor and needy.” (Ez 16: 47, 49)

Homosexuality and its sinfulness becomes a problem for the individuals that are trapped within their very attractions to same sex partners. The sins against Sodom and Gomorrah went deeper than that. To neglect the poor among us and those destitute that we can do something for and do not will bring a price heavier than same-sex difficulties to those we love.

“Come down from where you are hiding. I wish to come into your house today.”

Ralph B. Hathaway