Gifted by Otherness: 2 of 6
June 3, 2008
We Keep the Church From Getting Too Comfortable.
When we were invisible in the church; leading the choir, teaching Sunday School, serving on committees and boards, preaching behind the pulpit, and all the while keeping part of ourselves hidden and our mouths quiet, the church was fine with us. The illusion that we were all on the same page and cut from the same mold made living together in community familiar and easy. Then we started standing up, claiming our wholeness and naming our love and the trouble started. Our very existence as GLBTQ believers in the Body of Christ brought conflict into churches and denominations. We stirred things up and life behind the doors of the church got complicated with tensions mounting and sides being chosen. And why are we making the church uncomfortable?
First, by virtue of being GLBTQ and Christian, our existence clashes with the idea that there’s as Christians we all think, act, live, and believe like each other. As GLBTQ people, no matter how normal or regular or average we think we are, to the church there’s nothing normal or regular or average about us, and yet there we are, stranding right next to them, feasting at the table, worshiping God, and hanging out in the church. Instead of continuing to function under the assumption that everyone in the church shared the same point of view, GLBTQ people have brought the reality to the forefront; that despite the best efforts to encourage and even require conformity among its members, the church has always been, and will continue to be a glorious mish-mosh of humanity; and the church has no right to turn away or reject who God has called.
The other reason we make the church uncomfortable can be summed up in one word, sex. That’s right. I said church and sex in the same breath and I’m still alive despite the crack of thunder heard in the distance.
I don’t know what your experience was but growing up in the church I somehow managed to get through my adolescence, teen years, young adulthood and beyond with barely a word about sex being mentioned within the walls of the church. The little that was said, spoken with no direct eye contact or time provided for Q and A at the end, came with a single message. “Wait! Wait until you’re married to have sex. If you have sex before you’re married it’s bad. If you have sex after you’re married it’s good. Now, bow your heads and join in a word of prayer.”
As a sexual minority we remind the church that all people are sexual beings and that for the church to address the whole person, they need to be talking about sexuality but like a nine year old girl who asks her unsuspecting father where babies come from, we make the church blush, sweat and squirm, and while they still aren’t talking honestly about their sexuality, at least we have them talking about ours. In fact, they’re downright obsessed with our sexual lives, or at least what they imagine our sex lives to be. Can you even imagine how exhausted we’d all be if we were really having as much sex as they seem to think we’re having? Oh. Did I just say that in my out loud voice? I bad.
The point is, making the church uncomfortable is a gift we bring and we stand in good company with others from Jesus to the Gentiles to the thousands who followed after across time and history. We’re not the first people to bring contention through the doors of the church but now is our time to stir up the waters so that the church might one day become the invisible church of God made visible in the world.
Posted in Gifted by Otherness, Special Series
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Another fine post, and hits on themes that I’ve been driving at online and in person. Comfort in Christianity is overrated
. Jesus never said that to follow him would be easy! I think to follow the love of God, and to really live it, is a test for us all to become willing to see Christ in those whom we would prefer not to see at all. And then you brought up the “S” word. Eeek! And I have often wondered how much of the discomfort around sex has a connection to opinions about the body. Don’t know if that’s anywhere in your ponderings, but it’s something I’m curious about. Peace.
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I was just coming over here to make a comment when your blog showed up in my mail box. How fortuitous. Now… Chapter 10… wow!!! As I was reading, my own history and many of the things I’ve been thinking of all came to the forefront. I do most certainly see that Freedom is not always freedom. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been prayed over to be delivered so I could have freedom. BUT… freedom is not freedom when it binds you to who you are not. Living a life of a hetero in pretense is slavery to someone else sense of normality. When you ARE queer, living a life as a gay person is freedom and normality.
you know… I’ve been thinking about the women in the forum who are young and going through all the thoughts and fear of ‘what if I’m wrong?’… and I feel some responsibility to share more of what it is like being 55 and having been a christian for 43 years and toiling over this subject over and over. I want to share how much I wish now I would have made the leap into reality as I am now, way back then. So many wasted years.
Now… as I’ve been thinking of all this and thinking how to say just that… my grand daughter who is 11 ran into the bathroom with me when I went to go pee the other night. “okay… so she wants to tell me something secret… right?” While she just stands there I say…. “boyfriend?” and she frowned and said… “Noooooo” Now… why I asked this.. only God knows… so I said.. “girlfriend?”… and yes… she smiled a smile only a true queer could understand. crimmenie!!! So yes…. responsibility indeed. It’s time to stand up regardless of the personal cost.
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Susan –> Oh, I totally agree with your wondering around peoples issues with sexuality being more fundamentally about the body. Even as kids most of us were probably given weird little messages that led to making us feel awkward or even shamed over our more “private parts,” as though they were dirty or bad. Even that….”private parts”….the myriad of coded words we have for our genitalia says something, don’t you think? And if we were taught to feel shame about the parts of our body most associated with our sexuality; to keep it covered not only physically but with our language, then is it any wonder that talking about sexuality makes people uncomfortable? And then in religion there’s this total separation, beginning with the ancient Greeks and Romans that Paul and the Church Fathers built on, between the spirit and the flesh. Spirit, good. Flesh, bad. Here we are, flesh and spirit all bound together and rather than learning how to integrate our full humanity, centuries of religious teaching tells us that they’re incompatible and that for spirit to excel, the flesh must be denied. Interesting interesting stuff your wondering stirs up. So what say you?
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Deb–> Wow, you said that powerfully! I really appreciate and relate to the place you’re at in reflecting at the responsibility to share more for those who are younger and will follow us. I’d want to encourage you though Deb to not see the years before as wasted years. You lived and breathed and loved God and others during that time so they were anything but wasted ad consider the apostle Paul. He could have looked back at all his years of being steeped in orthodoxy and persecuting Christians as wasted years but don’t you think the memory of those years gave him the boldness and courage to proclaim the Gospel after his conversion? Perhaps the years of your past that you wish never had to be could be the catalyst for empowering you to share your story for the sake of others. just my 2.7 cents on the matter.
June 4th, 2008 at 4:22 am
This is great!! You had me nodding my head and laughing … and yes I wish I was having as much sex as others think I am LOL
June 4th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Anita, I say you and I are thinking very much along the same lines in re: the thinking that the Spirit is good, and the body is “bad, bad, oh so very bad”. I have had more than a few talks with my spiritual mentor in re: the idea that the body must be denied, played down, ignored etc. and that the apostle Paul seems to keep having “flesh issues”. Oddly, though, Paul *also* compares the Church to the body, and talks about how the different parts of the body depend upon each other, and can not deny each other. Rightly or wrongly, I think the same applies to those of us in the church…whatever our denomination. I know that I have been, at times, sitting in the same pew with a homophobe. But neither of us are going to say, “Hey, you! Get out of here!”…at least not to each other’s faces. Because anyone who desires a relationship with God, and seeks justice and peace, should be allowed to come into communion with Christ, and none of us has the right to tell another, “You don’t belong.” Only God has the ability to discern who He knows…and who knows Him.
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I know my presence in my particular congregation turned a few heads initially because I am outwardly quite clearly an “other”. But the more people have seen me, and the more I am allowing them to see me both through my presence and my participation…the power of homophobia is getting weaker, and God’s presence is getting stronger.
Wishing that for all of you out there during this month of June!
Getting off the soap box now
Susan
June 5th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Hi Anita,
These are wonderful posts! Thank you again for all you do, and for having this incredible forum. It is a safe, nurturing space, but also intellectually & spiritually challenging, which is important for folks to have so as not to become complacent.