The Holy Spirit Lives on Sesame Street

April 3, 2009

The following story was contributed by Susan Gage who has her own grand and glorious blog over at Wake Up and Live.

When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. Matthew 14: 15-20

As a child, one of the television shows I enjoyed the most was “Sesame Street.” I liked the creatures and I liked to mimic the characters. That, of course, was part of the intended learning from the show. I also used to enjoy how shows on this PBS program were brought to you by a number and a letter in the alphabet. I would then spend the next half-hour noting how much “product placement” they’d do, again, as part of the intended education.

And sometimes, I think as I listen to Scripture being read aloud that I’m having a “Sesame Street Moment.” Such was the case one Sunday when the extraordinary Love of God was brought to you by the word: “All.”

“All” could be found everywhere! It was in the Isaiah 55 passage with the invite to “everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” In other words, all thirsty people, come drink this living water. The assigned Psalm 145: “The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.” And then the real kick in the pants: “And all ate and were filled.” Not a few. Not just the disciples. All. Everyone. And it numbered five thousand (plus the women and children who…oddly enough in the NRSV of the Bible seem to get tacked on in the translation). Stopping, listening, paying attention to what God seems to be saying in today’s episode of My Big Fat Love:

“Everybody’s going to be fed.”

There are no exceptions. No hidden clauses. No denials to a spot at the table. Anyone with thirst, anyone with hunger will get fed. The pantry is open to all.

I find it strange then to think how many people don’t seem to tune into the same “message channel” that I’m getting in Scripture. In my lifetime I have encountered ‘christians’ standing on street corners during gay pride events, denouncing me, damning me, and screaming, literally screaming, the same old tired seven passages taken out of context from God’s amazing love story and used to place a stumbling block between me and my Creator. And it saddens me to think how many years I allowed their shrill voices to overpower the call of God to bring my good self back to the table so I could be fed. In the same way that God feeds the shrill-voiced screamers, too. O, ye of little faith: don’t you think there’s enough for all of us?

As a teen-ager, I struggled mightily with the fear that I might be gay. All the other girls were getting turned on by boys or male TV and movie stars, and I kept dreaming of dancing with Liesl in the gazebo singing “I am seventeen going on eighteen…I’ll take care of you!” Everywhere I looked, church, school, family, therapist, I saw nothing and experienced nothing that would validate that being a lesbian was okay. Instead I endured comments about “Why don’t you put on a dress and make-up, so the boys won’t feel neutered around you!” or my coach trying to get us inspired to run faster and play harder by telling us that the other team thought we were “a bunch of faggots!” It took moving away and being in a place where nobody knew me that I could finally start making the steps toward self-acceptance. And—wow—the day I walked into the ballroom at Stephens College and saw a room full of women, many of them lesbians, I thought I heard a choir singing “Hallelujah!”

But even when I came out to myself, I discovered another closet door, one that came with stained glass windows. Random conversations with fellow parishioners revealed the homophobia still present in the church. One Sunday I listened to a lawyer who was proud to be representing a neighborhood association fighting against the location of a Hospice House for AIDS patients. I was stunned and sickened and afraid. How could someone pledge to “respect the dignity of every human being” and be proud of such an act of pure prejudice? I never questioned God’s love of me because I had already arrived years earlier during my struggle at a belief that God wasn’t the hater of gay people; people were the hater of gay people. Here was yet another example!

Hard as it sometimes is to be queer in a Christian community, I think the bigger issue sometimes is being Christian in a queer community! When I met my partner, I was still going to church, but I quickly figured out that church wasn’t her “thing”; moreover, the other lesbian and bisexual women I was sharing a house with didn’t understand why I’d go to church. So, I quit which was a good thing in one way because the church I was attending had fallen under a spell of “traditional Anglicanism.”

But it was a bad thing in that it removed me from a place of communion with people of faith. And at a time when I really could have used the communal experience of being with other believers, I had nowhere to turn. The church that I knew, and loved, and had grown up in, was being held hostage by people who denounced Gene Robinson, one of my very earliest influences in my church upbringing. The priests were on television almost daily it seemed spewing vitriol against the LGBT community. Such actions only served to drive a bigger wedge between God and the queer community and now my once welcoming church was seen as one of “them.” And how could I deny it?

Since then, that congregation split and it was a parting that helped open the way for my return, as well as others. But my decision to reconnect and return to God’s table has caused a tension in many of my friendships. If I say I’m attending services on Sunday morning, my queer friends look at me as if they’re seeing a ghost, but this time, peer pressure is not going to get the better of me. My desire to be exposed to the Word is too great. And the validation and redemptive experience of hearing that “Everybody’s gonna get fed” is too freeing and liberating to stay away.

Besides, I never know what “Sesame Street Moments” are to come unless I’m there in the pew!

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Posted in Personal Stories