June 3, 2011
By Barbara Dunlap-Berg

A 17-year-old African-American man recently told his mother he was gay. Her first reaction was judgment, shame and revulsion. Her next response was to lecture him about the evils of his ways and to say, "You'd better not get AIDS and die."

Sadly, the Rev. Gregory Gross was meeting with the teen because he had just tested HIV positive.

"It was now, not just having to face this new news, but also the shame and embarrassment of letting his own mother down," Gross said. "I can't help but wonder how things might have been different if she could have supported her gay son rather than condemn him."

Thirty years ago, on June 5, we heard of AIDS – acquired immune deficiency syndrome – for the first time. That was when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control first identified the disease that had beset five formerly healthy young men in Los Angeles.

Since then, nearly 30 million people have died from AIDS-related causes. Some, like young Ryan White, who acquired AIDS through a blood transfusion, became household names. Some – like actor Rock Hudson and singer Freddie Mercury – were already famous. Many more were faceless, nameless individuals too easily forgotten.

And while society has become much more aware of AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the stigma remains. Confusion and misconceptions are rampant, said Gross, a clergy member of the Northern Illinois Annual (regional) Conference. A licensed clinical social worker, he manages the HIV-testing and prevention program at the Center on Halsted in Chicago.

"People continue to have a gut reaction to this disease unlike any other," Gross said. "Even though people may know intellectually that they cannot contract it through casual contact, there is still the gut reaction of fear and repulsion and ‘what if?' when encountering someone living with HIV."

'Modern-day lepers'

People living with HIV are the modern-day lepers of whom we read in biblical stories, he added.

"A challenge of my work is to focus on HIV prevention while combating the stigma around those living with HIV," Gross said.

United Methodists have an obligation to meet that challenge, said the Rev. Donald E. Messer, chairperson of the denomination's Global AIDS Fund Committee.

"As disciples of Jesus Christ, United Methodists are called to continue his healing ministry to the most marginalized in the world," Messer said upon his election as chairperson.

Gross' ministry isn't confined to the United States.

Gross also is involved with Project Tariro, a United Methodist program helping HIV/AIDS patients and families to live positively in Zimbabwe. According to the World Health Organization, more than 15 percent of the adult population in Zimbabwe has tested positive for HIV/AIDS. The average life expectancy has dropped to 34 years. Every week, 4,000 people die from AIDS-related causes. Only 12,000 of those infected receive antiretroviral drugs.

"I think it's easier for people to think of (HIV/AIDS) as something ‘over there,'" Gross said. People want to help AIDS orphans in Africa. When he gives presentations on the situation in Zimbabwe, however, he always makes it a point to bring it back home.

"HIV rates continue to increase here, too," he added. "Just because we have good medications now doesn't mean it isn't a concern." And while HIV-positive people are now aging, the long-term effects of HIV treatment are unknown.

Although AIDS is not a "gay disease," homosexual and bisexual men continue to carry the biggest burden of HIV in the United States – especially young, gay African-American and Latino/Hispanic men, as well as transgender women. African-American women are seeing increasing numbers, Gross said, but for every African-American woman diagnosed with HIV, six gay men are diagnosed. The number of new infections continues to rise among young gay men.

What would Wesley do?

How would Methodism's founder John Wesley respond to AIDS?

The answer is obvious to Gross. "He would be caring for those living with HIV/AIDS while advocating for better health care and more funding for AIDS drug-assistance programs. … He would be saying it's not enough for us to wait for people with HIV/AIDS to come (to us); he would be pushing us to speak up, to speak out so people know we are here to support them."

United Methodists are good at caring for people who come through our doors or who share their HIV status with us, he added. However, we're more comfortable being compassionate than advocating and educating.

"We can do much better in our churches to speak about it from the pulpit and have regular presentations and classes," Gross said. "It's always incredible to me when I preach in a local church for World AIDS Day or give a presentation on Project Tariro, many people will come up to me after the service and share about their son or brother or uncle who died of AIDS or people who will share their HIV status with me."

Often when Gross tells a pastor that members of the congregation shared their HIV/AIDS stories with him, the minister has no idea.

"This tells me that we need to do more," Gross said. "We need to become more comfortable talking about sexuality in our local churches – beyond solely preaching abstinence only or debating homosexuality in terms of who is in and who is out. We need to have conversations in Sunday school classes and youth groups and sermons about what healthy sexuality looks like.

"Until we can do this, HIV rates will continue to climb."

'From the shadow of death to new hope'

Meanwhile, the 17-year-old HIV-positive man still is afraid to tell his mother about his diagnosis.

"We continue to strategize how to have that conversation with her," Gross said. They've talked about what the teen could do if his mother kicks him out of their home – "who could he stay with, who would be a support for him, where could he go for medical care."

When someone first receives this news, he said, "they need people around them who are going to be a support, not people whom they will need to support."

Gross, who also is appointed to Chicago's Berry Memorial United Methodist Church, seems to have found his calling.

"HIV ministry can be challenging, exhausting work," he admitted. "But it can also be an incredible blessing to be engaged in such incarnational ministry of presence – of walking with someone from testing, to waiting for results, to sitting with him and his grief and fears, to connecting him to medical care and transitioning to support groups.

"It is incredibly humbling to walk this journey through the valley of the shadow of death to new hope."

United Methodist News Service
Barbara Dunlap-Berg is internal content editor for United Methodist Communications.