Here I Am, God; Send Me

As a lifelong Christian, I remember the exact moment it occurred to me that something within the church was fundamentally wrong. And no, it didn’t occur to me sitting in the pew with my family at 14 years old, bristling at my minister’s condemnation of “the homosexual menace.” No, I’m not talking about coming out as gay and feeling exorcized from the faith community that raised me. No, it wasn’t even the time I attended a prayer service in college, only to discover that LGBTQ+ students were barred from serving in the campus ministry of its host.

I’ll never forget the moment I found out that the United Methodist congregation I began to call home in high school voted to join the Global Methodist Church. I’ll never forget my shock, I’ll never forget my hurt, and I’ll never forget my dad’s attempt at consolation after voting in favor of disaffiliation: “We still love you.”

So absent was the presence of love in that moment that I could have laughed if I hadn’t been choking back tears. The idea of me, or someone like me, preaching the Word of God so offended enough Christians that an entire denomination was breaking apart. No longer was this great divorce over the issue of queer inclusion within the United Methodist Church an abstract source of anxiety in my life—my own church had joined the exodus. And it made my soul ache. I had spent my entire life wrestling with the call to ministry, and the time had come to answer it.

Over the following year, I graduated college, landed my first job, and spent time discerning my call. I also spent time practicing forgiveness and understanding as I attempted to reconcile the beliefs of my family with my personal experiences as a gay man and follower of Christ. In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to blame my family. Instead, I came to blame their teachers. To them I say, I see your uncritical reading of cherry-picked passages and raise you one better: The Gospels in context. Under oppressive imperial rule, a countercultural religious reformer rallied against the powers that be with a theology of radical inclusion and liberation for all. My capacity to share intimacy and love with a member of the same sex may be incompatible with certain Christians’ teachings, but it is in no way incompatible with the teachings of Christ.

I vividly remember a sermon from my youth, delivered by my pastor at the time, wherein he asserted that “homosexuals [were] the most arrogant group in America.” That arrogance, he argued, stemmed from an utter disregard for “God’s natural order of creation.” True arrogance, I counter, is asserting moral and spiritual superiority over an entire community of God’s people—it’s allowing human institutions to limit God’s grace, to declare absolute truths about our infinitely knowable and unknowable Creator. The job of a minister is not to weaponize Scripture or position oneself as a divine arbiter of moral behavior; the job of a minister is to share the good news of Christ Jesus and bring others closer to God. That’s what I hope to do, at least, as I answer my call to ministry.

As it turns out, I don’t need a church to know God, to follow Christ’s example, or to heed God’s call on my life. But I want one―one that affirms me and my queer siblings as beloved children of God, made in the image of God and of sacred worth―and I revel in the thought of working toward one. I have tired of exclusionary apologetics; I am emboldened by the prospect of an affirming and inviting UMC.

With a seminary education as my next step and a commitment to social justice my main motivator, I do not know exactly what lies ahead. Sitting in a pew opens old wounds, even if the good news helps close them. But for 14-year-old me, who was told he couldn’t be gay and Christian, for my queer siblings in Christ, whom I want only to know affirmation, and for countless others impacted by theologies of exclusion, I feel called to join in the campaign for justice within the church. Here I am, God; send me.

Jacob Farmer-Rylands is a Southside Virginia native, progressive activist, and passionate advocate for queer inclusion. Having earned his Bachelor of Arts from Longwood University in 2023, Jacob will begin his Master of Divinity as a Dean’s Fellow at Boston University School of Theology in Fall 2024 with plans to enter ministry.