I had originally intended to share a few thoughts from the sermon I gave on Super Bowl Sunday, also known as the Fourth Sunday in Epiphany to the more spiritually-minded or Epiphany B4 to any maverick clergy lingering among this holy readership, so before I get distracted yet again by my personal unresolved issues concerning football…

They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.

The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.” News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee. Mark 1:21-28

In Matthew Jesus’ ministry began in the tradition of John the Baptist as Jesus announced the coming of the Kingdom of God and called the people to repentance.

In Luke at Jesus’ first official public appearance he proclaimed who he was and why he had come by reading to those in the synagogue from the scroll of Isaiah; “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

In Mark Jesus began his ministry by doing. Throughout Mark’s Gospel little attention is given to what Jesus taught but to what Jesus did. Jesus was an activist, a healer of the sick, an exorcist of demons, an advocate for the poor, a liberator for the captive and oppressed.

In Mark the kingdom of God wasn’t a future coming alone but in Jesus the kingdom of God had broken through into the world. The Spirit of God was alive in him and he was the very content of the Good News rather than simply one who heralded the Good News. And what was the Good News in Mark? The Good News was the saving power of God that delivered humanity from anything that robbed people from living an authentic life and as this Gospel unfolds one miracle after another demonstrate people being liberated from bondage and called into freedom.  Liberation is at the very center of the Gospel and Jesus stands as the Great Liberator!

Evil or unclean spirits were as real to ancient people as their neighbor next door. If you were blind you had a demon of blindness. If you couldn’t have a child, you had a demon preventing you from giving birth. Doctors tried to eradicate demons from people through trepanning, a process that  involved drilling a hole through the top of the person’s skull so the demon could escape. Ouch! Professional and religious exorcists preformed all kinds of elaborate incantations and rituals to free the possessed but when all attempts failed there were times when nothing more could be done for the possessed person than to take them outside the city gates and chain them up for the safety of the community.

Since the Enlightenment people have been trying to offer a more reasonable explanation for these accounts in Scripture other than the actual presence of evil spirits. Was it a supernatural phenomenon, a psychological malady, mental illness or a seizure disorder? Ultimately I don’t think it matters but here’s what does: Someone who was in bondage was set free, and on this I agree with the writer of Mark, that the tortured soul in this story was freed by the power of God’s Spirit alive and active within Jesus.  The story of this one possessed by an unclean spirit is a story of God’s liberation, one that shares similar features to other liberation miracles that will follow.

1. The liberation of God meets people where they are even when they’re not where others think they should be.
   The synagogue on Sabbath was the last place anyone would expect to find an unclean spirit. Uncleanness was considered an abomination to God and to the people who earned the right to be there by following the prescribed process for being ritually clean. What makes us worthy to enter into the presence of God? If it’s total freedom from every bondage, from the chains of fear and despair, the shackles of arrogance and greed, or the weight of some addiction or shortcoming then who should come before God? Who would be left? No, the battle between good and evil isn’t limited to corrupt governments and corporate structures but it rages in the midst of ordinary people like you and me. We need to know we’re welcome to come as we are in search of God’s liberating touch just as we need to equally allow all the room in the world for others to do the same.
2. The liberation of God comes equally to those who have the faith to believe for it and those who lack all faith.
   We read countless accounts in the Gospels where people came to Jesus seeking a miracle. “Master, heal me!” they pleaded. “If you would but touch me, I will be made whole,” they believed, but not this one with an unclean spirit. He had no control over his life. Something controlled him. He took no action for himself. He spoke no words of his own. He didn’t ask to be freed because he couldn’t ask and there’s no reason to think he believed he could be freed, and yet Jesus does that very thing. There are times in our own lives when we feel powerless to rid ourselves of the chains that hold us. We who once believed it might have been possible have stopped believing. This is how it will always be. I will always be depressed. I will always be afraid. I will always be stuck in this old thinking. I will never be free to be who God created me to be. Even in our hopelessness, God in his great mercy and grace longs to unbind us and call us forth into a new life beyond our imagination.
3. The liberation of God comes amid conflict.
   Every liberation movement in history has come through conflict. The civil rights movement, the end of apartheid in South Africa and for GLBTQ people, the continuing fight for full equality under the law. No oppressed people have gained their freedom without suffering and tension. In the same way personal freedom often comes after a time of great pain and conflict. Sometimes we misinterpret the suffering as a sign God has abandoned us or an indication that we’re wrong and need to turn in another direction, and then we read this story. Jesus speaks to the unclean spirit, “Be quiet! Come out of him!” but there was nothing quiet or immediate about the person gaining his freedom. Instead he’s thrown convulsing to the ground and then in fits of shrieking the unclean spirit leaves him unharmed. Through there are times when freedom doesn’t come immediately, we can trust it will come another day after the storm.

While the scribes taught with the authority of their accumulated book smarts and their intimate knowledge of the finer points of the law, Jesus spoke with the power and authority of God’s Spirit. Empowered by the authority of the Spirit Jesus amazed all who listened to him and for most of them in the synagogue that day Jesus’ words would have been enough but not for everyone. Sometimes words seem like nothing more than words and there was someone on that day who needed much more than a good sermon. There was someone who needed to be free and so in a holy place at a holy time Jesus not only taught the Good News but he brought the Good News directly into someone’s tortured life, releasing him into the freedom and wholeness God had purposed for him all along, as God’s Spirit continues to do in and through and among us.

Whatever our demons.

When I wrote that phrase some time ago and as I write this post today I’m thinking of you who believe there’s no such thing as a “Christian lesbian.” You consider the term to be a contradiction of terms but more than that, you regard it an offense to the Gospel. You believe if someone identifies as a Christian they would seek repentance from homosexuality and would do all they could to change and short of change they would at least commit to not “practicing” homosexuality.

I also have those of you in mind who, even while doubting such a thing as a “Christian lesbian” exists have haltingly admitted to yourself that while you love Christ and are committed to the Christian life, your desire for an intimate and loving relationship is with another woman. Because of this apparent conflict you feel as though there’s a choice you’ll have to eventually make, to either walk away from your faith in God or deny, reject, or attempt to change your attraction to other women.

Whether paragraph one or paragraph two best describes where you stand, I’m writing as someone who knows your position because at one time I was you. For much of my life I believed homosexuality was a sin that led good people astray from a true faith in God. I watched Christian talk shows and gave thanks for the those who shared stories of deliverance from the “homosexual lifestyle.” I didn’t hesitate to share my beliefs with college friends who opened up with me about their own struggles with sexuality because I loved them and didn’t want to see them go down a road that would take them so far from where I believed God desired for them to be.

A few years later I was the one engaged in an internal conflict like I’d never known before and that I could never have imagined. My faith in Christ meant everything to me and my greatest longing was to live in a way that brought honor to God but suddenly I recognized my lifelong unnamed feelings as being the very thing that would bring the most disappointment to the heart of God. My fear and shame were so great I told no one and spent my evening hours crying out to God in prayers full of promise. I will change. I will do whatever it takes. I will never do anything to disgrace you. I will die before I do. And prayers of pleading. Please forgive me for whatever I did to make this happen. Change me. Help me. Don’t leave me. Please don’t hate me. In that moment I looked down the path of my future and saw nothing good.

I really have been there. I really have said and done and felt that but no longer does paragraph one or paragraph two represent who I am or what I believe. I stand in another place about both pieces of my life, as one who is a Christian and a lesbian.

1. I am a Christian.

There was a time in my life when I made the intentional decision to say yes to a relationship with God through Christ by recognizing that it was through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection that God’s saving presence entered into the world. I was a child when I first said yes and even though on my best day I live out my yes imperfectly I choose again and again to say yes each day of my life. Yes, I love God above all else. Yes, I will follow after God’s will. Yes, I will seek to love others as Christ loved. Yes, I will be the grace of God in the world.

I’m not a Christian out of my own righteousness but by the righteousness of God and the completed work of Christ given freely to all. ( John 11:25, John 5:24, John 20:31, Romans 1:16, Ephesians 2:8,9 and Colossians 1:21-23). Salvation hinges on nothing else; not adherence to church tradition or believing in doctrines or creeds. The assurance of my faith is grounded in Christ and Christ alone and to add conditions or requirements onto that reality is to imply that the death and resurrection of Jesus was insufficient, that Jesus was wrong when he said from the cross “It is finished.” While a church might say “Believe as we believe and do as we do and you may join us here” Jesus welcomes all based on nothing other than the love and grace of God.

2. I am a lesbian.

While I remember the very place and time when at the age of five I became a Christian, there was never a single moment when I made a conscious choice to be a lesbian and I always take it with a mix of mild amusement and irritation that some people will argue it was a choice. It’s amazing and yes, exasperating at times, that people who don’t know me or other GLBTQ people personally would be so presumptuous as to assume they know the reality of our lives more than we do.

My Beloved and I have been together for nearly nine years. We were married in a church filled with friends and in the presence of God. There’s nothing about our life together that would look strange or odd were the one I love a man and our relationship heterosexual. I cook breakfast. She makes the bed. We shower, dress and go to work. During the day we call each other to express our love or to remind the other to pick up more milk on the way home. After the dinner dishes are put away, we watch television or play with the kittens or putter around the house until bedtime when we fall asleep beside the other. There’s nothing bizarre about our life. Nothing unusual. While some would even consider our lives boring I treasure each day as an amazing and joyful blessing.

And yet, there’s something very different about being a lesbian in this world. Being lesbian means knowing that in certain parts of the world you can’t hold your partner’s hand in public as straight couples do without risking being ridiculed, physically assaulted, or imprisoned. Being lesbian means picking up the paper every morning or watching the news every night to hear about some new legislation that’s being debated that if passed would negatively impact your life. Being lesbian means listening to false stereotypes being painted about you and the people you love every Sunday morning by television evangelists, all in the name of God. Being lesbian means trying to explain the nonexistence of the homosexual lifestyle and the gay agenda to strangers.

But being lesbian means even more. Being lesbian means celebrating the joy of being a woman. Being lesbian means giving full expression to the depth of the love within you. Being lesbian means living confidently with God’s approval rather than with the approval of others. Being a lesbian means standing in solidarity with others who stand on the outside whether they be the poor, the sick, the elderly, or any among God’s creation deemed not acceptable by the majority. Being lesbian means finding your courage and living boldly. Being lesbian means experiencing another woman’s courage when she takes your hand in a roomful of strangers or shows her wedding ring proudly without embarrassment or thought to what others will think.

I am a Christian. That’s my faith. I am a lesbian. That’s my sexual orientation. I make no apology for being either and if after all is said and done I remain a contradiction to some folks then that’s the way it will be. I can’t prevent someone from rejecting the presence of God in my life, or calling the love between my partner and I perverted, or even denying the sufficiency of salvation through faith by requiring I be heterosexual to receive it. In the same way no one has the power to remove the confidence I have in God, or diminish the quality of love I’ve been graced to share with my Beloved, or say or do anything that will separate me from the love of God I have in Christ Jesus.

I love being a Christian and I love being a lesbian because for me it’s about living a life of wholeness and gratitude for all that God has done through Christ and for all that God is doing in me.

On a warm Saturday morning in April, Dana and I were married before nearly 200 friends and family members at Peace Lutheran Church here in Danville. Gathered together under one roof were Jews and Christians, Catholics and Methodists, Presbyterians and Lutherans and Unitarian Universalists; those who consider themselves religiously unaffiliated and an ample sprinkling of agnostics and spiritual seekers. All came to celebrate our wedding day and in doing so they gave Dana and I a gift beyond measure…by their very presence they were each an active participant in a grace-filled moment of healing and reconciliation in our lives. A moment to always be cherished, a moment beyond our wildest dreams.

Upon coming out as a lesbian seven years ago I was, without deliberate intention on anyone’s part, wounded and alienated by those I most loved, from religious institutions I most trusted, and especially from within myself, where ignorant and irrational voices accumulated over a life time made the assault coming from others pale in comparison to that when was coming from within. The specifics of my story are less important to be told here than the communal experiences in which many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons share.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people experience wounding and alienation on some level each time there’s another hate crime recorded, another marriage-protection bill considered, another false stereotype perpetuated by a religious spokesperson or politician, another occasion used to scapegoat gays as child molesters, another confrontation with a disapproving parent, another friendship lost, another message from the pulpit decrying the sin of homosexuality, another faith community re-clarifying its stand against the ordination of gays and lesbians, another anti-gay joke told and the laughter, however strained or subdued that follows, another sneer by a stranger when same-gender lovers dare to hold hands.

But for all their devastating power, there is greater power still in the collective moments of healing and reconciliation. Healing and reconciliation that come when a church or temple not only puts a sign outside their doors but then actively lives what that sign implies. How? By welcoming gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons to fully engage in the life and ministry of that faith community, by speaking the words gay and lesbian often from the pulpit, by affirming gay relationships and families to the same extent as are straight relationships and families, by entering into dialogue around issues of sexuality and religion in a way that stretches everyone gathered to consider inclusivity in a broader sense than ever imagined, and by boldly speaking up for justice outside the walls of the church or temple, wherever and whenever prejudice and discrimination rise up against a people.

Healing and reconciliation are experienced each time a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender person hears of another religious leader who has personally risked it all by standing as a witness to the ordination of a lesbian or has officiated at the marriage of two gay men, another church or temple that has broken away from its organizational leadership rather than to silently condone exclusionary policies that limit not only membership and ordination, but ultimately God’s love to one sexual orientation alone, another parent who is willing to re-evaluate their beliefs for the sake of love and relationship, another sign-carrying, smile-wearing, hug-giving band of PFLAG’ers marching in a gay pride parade, another person who stops an anti-gay joke before the laughter, and another gathering of friends and family who applaud and cheer when wife and wife are introduced for the first time.

Please understand that healing and reconciliation are not only what we offer to the gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person who walks through the doors of our faith community, but ultimately they are the gifts we give ourselves. By enlarging our embrace, we enlarge our own capacity to be embraced by the passionate love and holy presence of God among us. By being a voice of reconciliation to others, God’s voice calls those alienated places within us to new and uncharted levels of reconciliation. By being a hand of healing to another, God touches the hidden places within us that yearn desperately for healing. We all need to be recipients of healing and reconciliation, not because we are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or straight, but because we are human. Let us consider too that in opening our churches and synagogues to all God’s people we open our doors to the abundance of gifts and they enriching ministry they have to offer, for which the end result will be a church and a temple more reflective of the diversity and creativity of the One True God, by whatever name, we all worship.

This message was presented during a “Coming-Out” service at Pacific School of Religion in the Fall of 2002 by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS). Click here for the audio transcript.

My name is Anita. I’m a third year student here at Pacific School of Religion, seeking ordination in Christian ministry.

Rather than telling my story in my own words, I’d like to tell it through three letters I’ve received from people I’ve never met in response to my website that dares to suggest you can be Christian and be gay.

Letter number one:

“I find it incredibly amazing that people have become so reprobate that they actually believe they can practice abominations and end up in the good grace of God. Coming out of the closet should not be your concern, but coming out of the spirit of deception should be. I really hope that God will wake you up, but I’m afraid that it’s too late.

So why don’t you just admit that you’re in an evil, wicked, abnormal lifestyle and repent. Become normal. And put away all your false interpretations that you use to justify your disgusting lifestyle. You will suffer in eternity because of the filth of your lies, and I won’t shed a tear.”

At one time that was me, and while I would hope there would have been an edge of compassion in my own words, I believed for many years that homosexuality was a defiant act of rebellion against God.

Letter number two:

“Hi. My name is Abigail. I’m 25 years old. I’m gay, and I’m in a relationship. I have been a member of a Southern Baptist church all my life. I was the Assistant Youth Minister. Rachel and I confessed our relationship to the pastor a few months ago. Since then we have been voted out of the church, and we were asked to sign a piece of paper stating that we wished our name to be removed from the roster.

I am so confused. I don’t want to go to hell, but according to the pastor all the nations that were judged in the Old Testament weren’t judged until homosexuality had been accepted. He said that to the Lord, homosexuality is the last straw. I’m terrified that I’m going to hell.

I love Rachel with all my heart. Yet I sometimes feel like I have to choose between heaven and Rachel, that I can’t have both.

I feel so rejected. Even if I were to look for a church I’m afraid that we would be asked to leave there too. I am so confused. I wish I were normal. And I want to be close to God again, yet I feel like because of who and what I am I will be forever separated. Please help. How did you ever get to where you are? Is it possible that we’re all deceived? Are you ever afraid? Are you really afraid of going to hell?

I know that you must be extremely busy, but if you can, will you please write me back?”

At one time that was me, coming out in the context of an evangelical Christian denomination in licensed ministry for 17 years and realizing I was the
very thing that I had so detested and feared. And like Abigail, the fear of the future, the fear that I would never be able to be in ministry again, the despair of thinking that God and I were no longer in relationship, that I would have to make a choice that would be impossible.

Letter number three:

“Thank you for your web site. Your writings have enlightened and inspired me. I realize now I’m not a contradiction or a failure or hypocrite merely because I’m attracted to women and consider myself a Christian. This self-realization was truly a light-bulb moment—one that lifted quite a weight from my shoulders and made me weep with delight. I now embark on my journey to be honest with my family and friends, knowing that Jesus is there beside me.

As an attorney I work in the very system that oppresses anyone who does not conform to an accepted sexual orientation. You may not know, but in some places in my country you can be arrested in your own home if engaged in gay or lesbian acts. My new-found confidence will help me to make a difference in the application of these oppressive national and state laws. Call this youthful optimism, but I feel the stirring of a revolution. But one step at a time. Who was it said that Rome wasn’t conquered in a day?

Anita, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I want to you know that your message has spread to the bottom corner of the earth. It’s touched my life, as I’m sure it’s touched the lives of many Australian lesbians. Your passion for equality is infectious and is spreading. God
bless you. Vanessa.”

I had my own light-bulb moment. It came to me in my bedroom with my faced pressed against the carpet, praying out to God as I had done for so many nights before. It’s a moment I have never bothered to describe to people because it was so personal. But I knew in that moment as Psalm 139 said, if God knew me when I was in my mother’s womb, that this thing that had just been revealed to me, was not new news to God, that God had known all along, and the confidence I had in God’s love before I had this self-realization was still present, or it had all been a lie. And I too, like Vanessa I have the hope that things really can change one person at a time. I read those stories because not only do they tell my story, but because this place against all that we want it to be can be a very insular place. I can say the words to you, “I’m a lesbian Christian,” and you don’t look like deer in headlights, you don’t look at me with revilement and disgust. It’s almost boring around here. I’m trying to come up with a fresh angle on it, but that’s about it.

These are the voices of people. And this is why Esther came out. Esther came out for Esther because she knew that if she didn’t, at some point they would come for her, that it was about her. But she also came out for her people. And so I consider my own coming out to be one of the most selfish things that I have ever done in my life, but that doesn’t mean that God can’t use it.

I was a fundamentalist Christian for more years than I’ve identified as a liberal Christian. I grew up in Sunday School, spent the summers of my youth weeping before the altar at church camp, and graduated from a Bible College where all the courses were actually about the Bible. I was a licensed minister for seventeen years within a conservative, evangelical Christian denomination. I led workshops around the country on Christian Education and traveled from the refugee camps of El Salvador to the Arab Christian neighborhoods of Jerusalem motivated by the Great Commission and my evangelical leanings. I believed the Bible to be the literal Word of God. I believed in supernatural miracles, the virgin birth and the born-again experience as the only means of salvation. I believed in the sacrificial atonement of Jesus through his bodily death and resurrection. I sang the hymn “Faith of Our Fathers” with fervor and I unreservedly called God “He.”

It was within fundamentalist Christianity I fell in love with God, encountered Christ and received my call to ministry and for all that and more I’m profoundly grateful and yet I’m not mounting a defense for Christian fundamentalism. Having lived in the heart of it for years I have experiential knowledge of its most grievous shortcomings. I observed injustice directed toward others and times when compassion was no where to be found. On more than one occasion I ran headlong into unshakable doctrines and dogmas that made no sense in light of a loving God and a Christ of mercy and grace. When I voiced my concerns about areas of the faith that troubled me I was looked at as a renegade and a threat. I was encouraged to question less and trust more. There were inconsistencies and teachings I could no longer hold true in my own life and so I left. I don’t know if I would have had the courage to leave had it not been for the late-blooming discovery of my sexual orientation. I only know that I’m glad I left because in leaving I found a faith and a life that speaks more authentically to who I am and who I long to be in this world than anything I encountered in my former years.

My coming out as a lesbian was, needless to say, radically transformative to my theological and political perspectives and my life and heart expanded far beyond the limitations my prior convictions had allowed. I came to Pacific School of Religion knowing I was entering into a liberal community. That’s what I wanted and that’s why I came despite apprehension about being in the midst of “those liberals” at one of their “faith cemeteries,” affectionate terms ascribed by evangelical friends. At the same time the opportunity to encounter and embrace the mystery of the Christian faith in a new and meaningful way excited me. I longed for a diverse community. I hungered to learn of other people’s lives and faith perspectives and to be challenged by them. I yearned to struggle with questions in a place that didn’t demand answers. I’ve experienced all that in my four years at PSR but there has also been another aspect of life in this community that has been troubling to me and that’s the apparent intolerance I see expressed on a regular basis toward anything that smacks of conservative theology or politics.

Never was this more apparent to me than when I read an article in the February issue of LOGOS entitled “Apocalypse Nine One One.” For eight pages I read line after line of angry rhetoric and judgmental accusations aimed at fundamentalist Christians. Fundamentalist Christians who found support in the Bible for their stringent sexual mores were labeled “fools or hypocrites.” Fundamentalist Christians who didn’t grasp the call of social justice as paramount to the Gospel read the Bible through “blinders of self-righteous preconceptions.” Fundamentalist Christians were encouraged to “lower their eyes considerably and look in the slums they maintain, in the prisons they build, and in the graveyards they stuff” if they really wanted to find Jesus. Not only was full responsibility for poverty and war placed upon them, conveniently removing our culpability in such matters, but their most sincere beliefs were dismissed with a check list of pejorative one-liners, leaving no room for the possibility that what informs their belief is just as thoughtfully reflected upon, genuinely motivated, and well-intended as those held by the most liberal among us.

On this campus we’re encouraged to honor all people and yet in classroom discussions, over lunches at D’Autremont (campus dining hall), and in chapel services I’ve listened to a steady stream of ridicule directed toward conservative Christians and their religious perspective. Sarcasm is routinely leveled at their political and theological viewpoints. No serious consideration is ever given to the views they hold and how we might respond thoughtfully and respectfully to them. Instead, fundamentalist and conservative Christians are generalized with terms such as self-righteous, naïve, arrogant and ignorant. Is there any other religious, ethnic or racial group that could be characterized in the same manner on this campus and have it be tolerable? I wonder.

On two separate occasions I’ve sat in a PSR classroom where the charismatic prayer practice of ‘speaking in tongues’ was thought appropriate material for humor, being discounted as nothing more than frenzied emotionalism. As a charismatic Christian my spiritual language is an integral part of my daily prayer life. When I ‘speak in tongues,’ I don’t roll on the floor or swing from the nearest ceiling lamp. Not once do I remember a time I foamed at the mouth with my eyes rolled back in my head. When a burden is so heavy words fail me ‘speaking in tongues’ gives me a voice to take my cares to God. When I pray in my spiritual language I experience the living and active presence of the Divine in my life. Must everything have a rational, scholarly explanation in this academic community or can we as a people of faith stretch ourselves to imagine that sometimes what’s felt with the heart is as valid as what’s reasoned with the mind? Would humor be allowed in class discussions concerning Buddhist meditation or the Muslim practice of daily prayers offered toward Mecca? I wonder.

When we speak of fundamentalist Christians as we do here, when we believe so absolutely that we on the left are right then we, as much as them, are closing the door to any open conversation that might bring understanding. We treasure words like “inclusion,” “diversity,” and “tolerance” and pepper our speech with phrases like “making a place at the table for all” and “letting every voice be heard.” Those words are the language of justice and in using them we’ve set the bar high for ourselves. We should aim for nothing short of that but I wonder sometimes how we can claim diversity and tolerance when it appears that some voices continue to remain stifled among us. How many eyes roll and snickers suppressed when a student from a less liberal seminary says something in a PSR classroom that resounds with theological orthodoxy? How welcome would it be for a student to express a pro-Israeli position or to suggest prayerful support for a Republican President? How long would a poster remain on the campus bulletin board announcing a “pro-life” rally and how many angry letters to the LOGOS editor would follow an article berating fundamentalist Muslims? I wonder.

In the midst of all these questions the one lurking in the shadows is why we at PSR seem to lack all tolerance for fundamentalist Christians when we’re continually and passionately striving to embrace tolerance and diversity with everyone else. Is our intolerance a defense meant to safeguard the distinctions between liberal and conservative Christian in response to the recurring tendency of fundamentalist spokespersons to misrepresent Christianity in the media? Or is it that we fear in extending tolerance toward them we might in some way be diminishing the injustices many of us previously encountered from conservative Christian communities? In the end there are probably as many reasons as there are seminarians on campus but until we thoughtfully consider the “why” we’ll never be able to move into the “how” that expanding our tolerance will demand.

Whatever the reasons, I don’t anticipate that talking nice about fundamentalist Christians will bridge the gap between us but at least it seems to me it might build one less wall that separates us. Galatians 3:28 seeks to break down divisions among people with the words, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Could we ever imagine extending it to include “neither fundamentalist Christian nor liberal Christian?” Why should we long for unity within diverse Christian communities any less than we long for it among nations and why should we work any less passionately to attain it? Is it ever going to be possible for those of us committed to diversity to listen to the opposing side and share our truth without tearing down theirs? Can we let go of our own set of absolutes, however creatively they might be masked as such, so that we might listen to those who hold a different perspective than our own? Will we ever be able to speak words of compassion to those who don’t speak compassionately of us just because it’s the right and just thing to do? I wonder.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not standing outside these questions nor am I asking them from a place of cynical arrogance but from a genuine desire to know if what seems inconceivable could be attainable one day. I struggle with this stuff in my own life and am often mired in a self-righteousness and judgmental attitude about those on both ends of the spectrum. I go crazy when I listen to some of the rhetoric coming from conservative talk radio, muttering snide remarks in response under my breath as I drive down the highway. I get e-mails from fundamentalist Christians telling me that God abhors me as a lesbian and I go livid that they would dare to claim the same Christ I do. And in this liberal PSR community my moderate sensitivities hear plenty that makes me cringe internally. There are days I’m flooded with anxiety as I arrive on campus, feeling I don’t belong here even though I know it’s just where I belong, and wondering what conservative view I might express or moderate position I make take that day that will be considered objectionable by others who will waste no time in pointing out my ignorance.

All I can tell you is that I’m trying. I’m trying to focus on the log in my eye before whacking out the speck in everyone else’s. I’m struggling to live diversity and tolerance for all people including those whose viewpoints I so animatedly oppose. I pray to be willing to rub shoulders with everyone at the table; even those who I prefer were relegated to the folding card table in the kitchen. Sometimes I succeed. More often I fail. So trust me when I say there’s no finger pointing here and if I’m pointing at all, it’s only toward what I believe is a growing edge for this community. The liberal church saved my life and my spirit. It opened its doors and welcomed me in while my heart was still stinging from the rejection of my former fundamentalist
community. It assured me that not only was the person of Anita desired in community but so were my call and my ministry. This is where I was healed and where I found my voice. That’s why I want more for us. I don’t want us to shut out or shut up anyone even if it means including those who have excluded us. Radical inclusivity as I understand it means opening the door to those who shut the door on us, speaking with respect and tolerance of those who speak poorly of us, and earnestly seeking understanding of those who have no interest in understanding us. Are we so committed to diversity that we’re willing to risk going that far and take that chance? I wonder. I wonder and I hope.

“May God bless us with love that overwhelms all hurt and anger, and grace which established all our good work. Amen.” – Marchiene Vroon Rienstra

My partner and I, together for four years, have met dozens of gay and lesbian couples over the last week who have been together in committed relationships for ten, twenty, and thirty years.

On Sunday afternoon we went to a joint celebration in San Francisco held for Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon in honor of their fifty-one year relationship and to honor the hundreds of couples who have received marriage licenses over the last few days. There were more than 2000 people in attendance, all dressed in wedding finery for a wedding reception that was long overdue. When Del and Phyllis entered the hall to ‘walk down the aisle’ the applause was deafening. Everyone was cheering and nearly every eye with a tear or two. It was, without question, one of the most lovely, sweet, and love-affirming moments I’ve experienced.

The mass wedding reception began with gospel music from the Glide Memorial Choir. Blessings were given to Del, Phyllis, and all the couples by clergy. Speeches full of joy were spoken by politicians and city officials. Those straight allies who have stood with us, risking their very jobs for our right to marry were greeted as heroes and heroes they are to us. Throughout the following hours there was dancing and laughter, meeting new couples as committed to their love as Dana and I are to ours. There wasn’t a single blemish, a negative moment, a hateful word spoken. I felt honored to stand in the middle of such amazing and brave people and as a person of faith who looks for the sacred in every moment, God was surely in that place.

As Dana and I stood waiting at the underground station for the train that would take us back to our side of the Bay, we met a lesbian couple who have been together for more than twenty-five years. They went to City Hall on one of the first days to marry but their children grew tired and cold and so they left before they had the chance to obtain their license. They were hoping to make an appointment at City Hall in the coming week. “We’ve waited twenty-five years for this so I suppose we can wait another few days.” As we rode the train home, I watched them talking tenderly between each other, twenty-five years of shared history passing between them, the love for their family a bond between them and in my heart I prayed blessings for them and others like them who through adversity have not only held onto their relationship but allowed it to flourish.

Mr. Schwarzenegger called for an end to gay marriages in San Francisco with the claim that, and I quote him verbatim, “All of a sudden we see riots, we see protests, we see people clashing. The next thing we know, there is injured or there is dead people. We don’t want it to get to that extent.”

I must have been looking the other way because the only actions I observed at City Hall (having been an actual eyewitness unlike Mr. Schwarzenegger) were those of love and celebration. Though hundreds had filled City Hall and the streets surrounding it for days on end, the only disturbance through it all came from a small band of individuals who attempted to block the County Clerk’s office in their crusade to stop gay marriages in the name of God. And the violent clash that resulted? Dozens of gay and lesbian couples standing in line singing “God Bless America.” Oh, the carnage.

Mr. Schwarzenegger also relied on the threat that if marriage licenses could be issued in San Francisco for same sex couples then the next thing that will happen is another city would hand out licenses for assault weapons and yet another will make licenses for selling drugs available. Gay marriage…assault weapons….selling drugs. It’s surprising he didn’t take it one step further to suggest people would soon be breaking down the doors of City Hall in Topeka to obtain licenses allowing them to enter into marriage with their German Shepherd, a favorite argument by some of the most extreme oppositionists to same-gender marriage.

And this morning, in a move unsurprising and yet still disappointing, President Bush has reminded all of America of the need to protect the institution of marriage by ratifying an amendment to the Constitution defining marriage as being between “one man and one woman.” To allow gays and lesbians to marry will undo the ”most enduring human institution” and destroy the sanctity of marriage.

During the last two weeks thousands of gays and lesbians have stood in the rain for hours on end. They’ve camped overnight in the cold on city streets. They’ve traveled from across the country. They’ve done all this to be married; to say “I do” to a future life of love and commitment and at the judges pronouncement that they are “spouses for life” their children have looked on and danced with happiness.

During the same two week period, as in all the weeks and years and centuries prior while marriage has been the exclusive right of opposite sex couples, thousands of divorce papers have been filed in courts across our country. Husbands and fathers have been arrested for domestic abuse. Children have been removed from their homes because of neglect. Hotel rooms have been reserved by men and women engaged in extra-marital affairs and every network on television has vied for viewers with shows that reduce relationships and marriage to a game show, transforming potential married couples into contestants. How many families have been splintered apart in the past fourteen days as a result of family members killed by drunk drivers or murdered in gun-fire on our streets? How many marriages are disintegrating even now from alcohol and drug abuse or are being stretched beyond limit by poverty?

Just be honest about where the real threat to the institution of marriage resides.

The invitation to witness the unfolding of events in San Francisco was extended to Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Bush by Mayor Gavin Newsom. No one expects them to accept the invitation. They won’t because they can’t afford to run the risk. They can’t risk seeing our love. They can’t risk hearing our words of commitment and devotion. They can’t risk experiencing the presence of genuine love. They can’t risk encountering the truth of reality because it might well shatter the myths built out of their ignorance and fear.

“They have ears but they do not hear. They have eyes but they do not see.” It is because of ignorance and fear we continue to take whatever small actions we can to be a visible presence in our world, one person and one couple at a time. Those who live in the dark of ignorance need to be brought into the light of understanding. Those who speak words meant to impose fear must encounter expressions of love and justice. As a people committed to God’s justice and love for all people upon the earth we must continue to speak and to be visible.

I’m not an activist and I know little about politics. What I am is a Christian committed to the wild notion that God is a God of justice and grace and that as God’s people we should be pursuing a world where all people are treated justly and until committed gay and lesbian couples have access to the same rights and responsibilities as committed straight couples, justice has escaped us.

Over the past two weeks I’ve had a taste of a just world in a small corner of it and that taste has made me insatiable for more….much more.

…and certainly I’m not surprised that GLBTQ people standing outside the church scratch their heads befuddled at our continued efforts to seek ordination or have our relationships affirmed and celebrated within the church. There’s no sense in trying to deny that within the institutional policies of some churches and in the rhetoric of certain Christians anything but a welcome has been extended and the stories of heartbreak and oppression toward gays and lesbians by the church is staggering.

• The pastor of a lesbian couple, both active in the church for years, refuses to baptize their newborn son, arguing that as lesbians they are unable to raise the child in a real Christian home.

• The gay music director of a church is fired when it’s discovered he has AIDS, leaving him to face extensive medical treatment without insurance coverage.

• A lesbian clergywoman hides her sexual identity and her life partner for nearly twenty years because church policy demands she hide who she is rather than to live openly at the threat of being expelled from ministry.

• A lesbian in her early-twenties commits suicide after being told repeatedly by her parents that she’s no longer welcome in their home or will be acknowledged as their child until she gives up being lesbian and begins living a Christian life.

• A gay Christian youth is confronted by the pastoral staff of his church and physically restrained while an attempt is made to exorcise homosexual demons from him.

• By vilifying gays and lesbians as a threat to the American family, Christian television personalities grow wealthy through the financial gifts of their faithful and frightened followers and Christian churches often prove to be the greatest supporters both in financial contributions and man power of state and national legislation meant to bar equal benefits and recognition of same-sex couples.

• In congregations around the country gay couples aren’t allowed to commemorate their commitment in a church setting, gay clergy are removed from service, and gay members are denied the right to partake of communion.

• Sermons are regularly preached from pulpits around the country that perpetrate lies and false stereotyping about gays and lesbians while pastoral care of gay and lesbian Christians goes untended..

I wish the church was better than society. I wish it were more loving, more compassionate, more committed to justice for all people. More willing to extend grace than judgment. And yet, the same people that comprise the larger world comprise the church. The church as an institution stands as flawed or righteous as the people who gather within its walls, set its policies and proclaim its truths, whether they be right or wrong. There are large corners within Christ’s church where love has been replaced with law and a God of judgment appears to have replaced a God of grace.

And still I haven’t left the church because most days there are more reasons to stay than there are to go. Most days. And so I stay in the church.

When I think of why I stay in the church, a memory comes to me from my experience last year in working with the homeless in one of the poorest areas of San Francisco known as the Tenderloin. Among the people living on the streets I heard disturbing stories of churches within the neighborhood that locked their doors during the day to those who stood weary and freezing outside and on Sunday mornings refused entrance to any homeless man or woman who smelled of alcohol. Whether their stories are accurate or exaggerated I’m uncertain. I pray they’re only the imagined tales of a few but sadly I fear they’re the real experiences of too many because I’ve seen the same scenario unfold among churches toward gays and lesbians. We’ve all seen it. Many of us have felt it firsthand.

But I’ve seen something else and because of what I’ve seen I stay in the church for it was on a cold winter morning that I experienced what the church is to be within the sanctuary of St. Anthony’s. As I entered through the heavy wooden doors I looked over the grandeur of this old and glorious cathedral and there among the pews homeless men and women lay huddled and asleep as a robed priest moved among them straightening the prayer books from the morning’s mass. He moved like a whisper so as not to disturb them from their sleep, breaking the silence with nothing more than an occasional gentle word to those who nodded a greeting as he passed by. I was to learn that each morning the doors of St. Anthony’s open wide to the poor so they might enter into a church that lives up to its name, an authentic church that has become a safe refuge, a sanctuary of God that offers warmth and welcome to all who enter.

Likewise there exist individual congregations within the collective church that provide an oasis for gays and lesbians and all God’s people. These congregations are places where all worship side by side, where the life and gifts of everyone are gratefully received and where all loving relationships are acknowledged and nourished. There are no outsiders but all who desire to be so are family. And so I stay in the church, not only because such oasis congregations exist but because they allow me to dream of what the whole church could become. I dream, I pray, and I hope.

There’s another reason I continue to participate in the life of the church and that’s because not only do I believe in what the church can and should be in this world but because, simply put, I am the church. The church isn’t a building or an institution. The church is every individual believer and is built in the human heart rather than from stone. As William L. Countryman says in Gifted by Otherness: Gay and Lesbian Christians in the Church,

We will waste no time justifying our presence in the church. As baptized Christians, we ourselves are the church, and we are obviously here, as we always have been, end of statement.” No one need extend a welcome to me. No one need clear a space for me and invite me to the table of God. I am already in the church so no welcome is necessary and I have already been invited by Christ to the table and my space was secured a long time ago by His precious and gracious gift of love.

So why do I bother with the church? I bother with the church because God bothered with me, as flawed as I was and as flawed as I remain. The church is imperfect and so am I, yet I dream for the church God calls us each to be and am committed to offering what I have and who I am to bringing about its transformation. In the meantime, I’ll see you at the table!

“I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these know that thou hast sent me. I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Yesterday’s ordination and the days leading up to it have been an amazing time for me, filled with sentimental reflections of all that has led to this day and curious wonderings about what God has planned for tomorrow. That wild collision of past and future we often experience in the now of life’s remarkable moments. Our passage in John is such a moment for Jesus as he reflects upon the completion of his earthly ministry while looking ahead to the days that await his followers. And so I’ve chosen to take a detour into the text with the thoughts that have been flooding my mind and heart in recent days.

My reflections have taken me back to this chair; a chair from my kindergarten Sunday School of more than 43 year ago. My grandparents attended the tent revivals back in the 1920’s that led to the building of that church and as teenagers my parents played in the churches marching band where more than 60 years later they continue to be members…of the church, not the marching band.

I have such clear memories of growing up in that church; of sitting in this chair and swinging my legs back and forth, the bottoms of my shoes barely touching the floor; of listening to my teacher tell stories from the Bible while attaching brightly-colored felt figures onto the flannel graph board. Though I haven’t been in that old three-story building for more than twenty years, I could walk through it blindfolded today and find my way in and out of every nook and cranny because so much of my childhood was spent inside its walls. If the doors of the church were opened there was a good chance my family would be there. I loved church then as I love church now. I loved being surrounded by people who knew my name and loved me. I loved the stories and the music and the way the old wood floors in the sanctuary rumbled when the church organist hit the low notes.

It was in this old chair I first began to learn of God. I learned to have faith in God’s care and in the love of Christ. I learned to believe in the continual presence of God’s Spirit in all my days. I was taught all about Jesus and what it meant to follow him; of serving the church, of giving God the first part of every penny I was given or earned, of sharing the Good News of Jesus with others. It was in the church of this chair where I first came to the table, where I spent my youth in summer camp and on mission trips. It was in this chair and all the chairs that followed where I fell head over heels in love with God, where joyful worship inspired me, where community was lived out around me and where I first came to hear God’s call.

It was also the church where I learned how to tell the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’, between ‘true’ Christians and ‘those’ Christians, and where God’s grace held against a judgmental understanding of God’s justice lost every time. It was also the church where I heard things and saw things that didn’t fit with what my heart told me about God. It was where I was given answers to every question and where questioning those answers was seen as a lack of faith.

Today I find myself standing in another Christian tradition, one that I have chosen, one that is authentic for me and reflects what is most true for me about God and the Christian faith. Though the distance is great between here and there, as is the distance from one edge of Christianity to the other, both traditions are a part of who I am and who I am becoming. I didn’t forsake one for the other but each has impacted my life and faith. Some of what I was given there I cherish. Some of what I was given I have left behind. Lest you think otherwise, this was by no means an effortless transition, moving from that chair to where I stand today. Theological tensions, warring perspectives on current issues, opposing ideas of even what it meant to be a Christian, all these fueled a religious battlefield that was fought in my own heart, and among my closest loved ones.

I’ve seen this clashing of ideologies and viewpoints continue to play out within the church in recent years. It’s a wonder that we who learned to play fair and share our toys in preschool now bicker over our ideas of God and faith so heatedly that conversations break apart into debates and table fellowship erupts into food fights. Conservative Christians slam liberal Christians. Southern Baptists denounce American Baptists, Mainstream Protestants criticize Evangelicals, proponents of infant baptism argue proponents of believers baptism, those who affirm gays and lesbians stand against those who hate the sin but love the sinner. And so it goes.

In the Gospel of John we hear bits of conversation and see story after story that emphasis what was the most significant aspect of the Christian faith for John and that was the incarnation of God in Jesus. For John all that Jesus is, is because God is. The story John told of Jesus is the story of God because they are one. Two beings in perfect oneness. And now in these final words of Jesus, this oneness is extended, beyond the confines of the divine relationship to all of us.

Unity isn’t an option for the church, a nice extra to round out the Christian life but it’s an essential component of who we are as those who follow Christ. Even while affirming their value and necessity and honoring the ongoing call to church unity, “being one” isn’t referring to ecumenical dialogues, joint partnerships or any human endeavor. In our passage Jesus isn’t addressing his followers and what they are to do. Jesus has finished talking with them and has turned full attention to God, and in prayer Jesus places the future unity of the community of faith, not in the hands of the community (fortuitous planning given what we know of ourselves!) but rather, he entrusts it to the care of God, because our oneness resides within the very substance of the relationship between the Father and the Son.

John’s use of Father/Son language throughout his gospel account has everything to do with emphasizing the intimacy of the relationship between God and Jesus. It’s a relationship of deepest connection, revealing the inseparable union of the Incarnation. Just as the opening words of John proclaim that “the Word was with God and the Word was God” so this prayer of Jesus’ builds upon it; “You Father is in me and I am in you…we are one.”

So it is that the church isn’t to mimic the unity of the Father and the Son, our oneness isn’t be like that the oneness that exists between God and Christ but to recognize that we share in the very mutuality of that relationship. We aren’t one with God and Christ but we are one in God and Christ, immersed in the very essence of their union, comprised of the very same spiritual DNA, if you will. That’s what makes it possible that at this very moment we are “one” with all those who have come before and all those who will follow. With our oneness rooted in the oneness of the eternal God there’s no limit to how far our unity may reach.

But what about ‘them’? Notice how even our language gives away our separateness rather than our oneness. But really, does our oneness hinge on resolving every conflict, patching up every disagreement, finding middle ground that will satisfy everyone? No. There are times when opposing voices must be lifted up to address what is unjust in the church and in the message it gives to the world. Unity doesn’t require that we conform or compromise our values and beliefs, it simply asks that we open our hearts to everyone, even those we don’t understand, whose theology rattles us and whose viewpoints make us shudder.

A story is told of an old rabbi who once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day had begun. “Could it be,” asked one student, “when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it’s a sheep or a dog?” “No,” answered the rabbi. Another asked, “Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it’s a fig tree or a peach tree?” “No,” answered the rabbi. “Then what is it?” the students demanded. “It is when you can look on
the face of any woman or man and see that it is your sister or brother. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night.”

“Being one” means we no longer set our vision in the intolerance of night but allow the light of God’s love to illuminate the face of each man and woman as our brother and sister. It’s not about loving because we have to love though our teeth are clenched and our knuckles white. It’s simply about knowing how passionately we are loved by God…love so deep and wondrous that the thought of it takes our breath away. And then, living in the fullness of that magnificent love we love ‘them.’ We love as we have been loved and as we are being loved at this moment, and it is that love, God’s love, that makes us one. We who have received all love have no right, and should have no desire, to withhold love from anyone. No one is to be left out. No one is to be written off. The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer confessed, “I can no longer condemn or hate other Christians for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble they cause me. In prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner.”

Unity established in the divine relationship allows us to live out compassionate consideration rather than antagonized condemnation with all believers. It frees us from defaulting to attitudes reflected in the language of “us” and “them” to truly seeing ourselves and speaking of ourselves as “being one.” We are already one, sharing in the oneness between the Father and the Son. Our call isn’t to create unity in some future tense but to live out of our oneness that already exists in God.

The repetitive message of Ephesians 4 removes all doubt. “There is one body, and one Spirit, one hope in one calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and one Father, who is above all, and through all, and in us all.”

And so we the church, arguing over doctrine, debating war or human sexuality or the reproductive rights of women or the headline of the day, who come to blows time and time again, lurching and stumbling like weary boxers in the final round, are called to lay it all aside and meet at one table.

Perhaps we will never stand at the same physical table and break the bread. Perhaps our differences are so glaringly opposed that we simply cannot, but before Jesus who is the Living Table we can stand, and together in his presence, we are one.

May we be one, so that the world might know of the love of God given extravagantly and indiscriminating to all; a love embodied in the life of Jesus, and now lived out in God’s church. May it be so.