Healing and Reconciliation

January 1, 2006

On Saturday evening, June 15, 2002, fourteen gay-affirming churches, synagogues and community organizations located outside the San Francisco Bay area came together in an interfaith service of healing and reconciliation to reach out to worshipers of all sexual orientations. Some 250 people attended this first-of-its-kind event held at Danville Congregational Church in Danville, California. I was privileged to have been asked to participate in the evening’s service and was given five minutes to speak on the topic of “Reflections on Healing and Reconciliation.” Below are are the words I shared that evening.

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.

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