God Comes Out

January 1, 2006

A Sermon by Jay Emerson Johnson, Programming and Development Director at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry, presented on National Coming Out Day at Pacific School of Religion, 2005.

According to Genesis, the beauty and wonders of creation came out of a formless void.

Abraham, our ancient ancestor in faith, came out of his homeland and traveled to a distant, unknown country.

Abraham’s descendants came out of their slavery in Egypt to a land of freedom, but only after coming out of their sojourn in the desert.

Many generations later, a handful of their descendants came out of an upper room where they had huddled together in fear behind locked doors. According to the Book of Acts, their bold preaching of the Gospel “turned the world upside down.”

A religious zealot by the name of Saul came out of violent persecution to become Paul, an equally zealous missionary for the truly radical idea that Gentiles could be people of faith, too.

Given the political and cultural climate of American society today, I think it’s high time that God came out.

God has done it before, you know. God came out in the voices of ancient Hebrew prophets crying for justice and peace. God came out in the life of a Palestinian peasant girl called Mary, who declared God’s favor on the outcast. God came out in Jesus of Nazareth, promising sight to the blind and release for the captives.

God came out in Francis of Assisi and Julian of Norwich; in Sojourner Truth and Walter Rauschenbusch; in Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King, Jr., and in many, many others. And it’s high time that God came out again.

As a gay man who’s becoming a bit queer around the edges, I’ve come out before, more times than I care to count, and will likely do so many more times in the future. And it’s never easy.

These days, especially here in the Bay Area, coming out as a Christian feels a lot more queer than who I happen to date. For that kind of coming out, I need help; I need the loving support of a community – and so also with God.

When Lazarus came out of the tomb he was still wrapped in burial linens. Jesus told his friends to unbind him.

Today God is bound and all wrapped up in the politics of fear, in the ideologies of division and in the machinations of war. It’s high time God came out, unbound in bold preaching, in ministries of radical welcome and inclusion, and in fearless loving.

None of us can do this unbinding on our own. But together we can become a beacon of the God who refuses to remain in the closet.

In the words of Isaiah, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Dear People of God, that light is in each and every one of us.

Don’t hide it. Let it out. Let it shine.

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Posted in Coming Out, Queering the Bible, Theology