Why Bother With the Church?

January 1, 2006

This seems a reasonable question for any gay or lesbian Christian to ask, particularly when so many within the Christian church have said and done all they can to let GLBTQ people know just how unwelcome and unwanted they are, unless of course, they consent to denying or repenting of their sexual orientation…

…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!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Posted in Christian Unity, Public Homilies, Welcoming All