"This isn't what I signed up for!" my fellow student exclaimed as we looked over the syllabus for the college course we were going to take that semester. "I don't have time to put in this much work. This was supposed to be an easy 'A!'" He was obviously not ready to face the long reading list and papers and projects the professor required. So he dropped out before the second class
.
There are times in our lives that I think we all want to scream, "This isn't what I signed up for!" We wanted a different outcome, a different turn of events, something different than what we think we have received. We invest ourselves in a dream of a possible future and work hard to achieve what we think we want and desire. Then something happens. The economy crashes and we lose the job we always wanted. A relationship goes sour and we are no longer with the person we thought we'd committed our lives to being with. Disease strikes and we are forced to adjust our lives to accommodate something that we never imagined possible.
So I believe it was for the disciples in Mark 10:35-45 when John and James asked for the privilege of being named Jesus' top commanders in the new religious government they think he will set up when they arrive in Jerusalem.
Jesus has been honest with them, in fact, in verses 32 to 34 which immediately proceed today’s reading, he has told them that he is going to Jerusalem to face tribulation, suffering, and ultimately death. But the disciples keep ignoring what he tells them. Why? Because: "This isn't what we signed up for." The truth that Jesus is telling them just doesn't fit with the dream they have created of what their future with Jesus would be like.
To demonstrate the truth of this, the other disciples upon hearing what the two have asked of Jesus get quite upset with their fellow disciples. Can't you just hear the squabble: "Well, if you're in charge, don't go expecting me to follow your orders." Or, the famous one my children always used on me, "Why does she get to be the boss? That's not fair!" Jesus has to get the boys together for a sit down talk and calm them down before they can work together again.
You can’t much blame the boys for their misunderstanding. They have given up everything to follow Jesus. They were the counter-cultural revolution of their day, but they were still trapped in thinking like the rest of their society. They have committed themselves to Jesus and that commitment should be acknowledged and applauded. They want Jesus to succeed, but they are having a hard time giving up their traditional viewpoint of what success will mean for Jesus and for them. However, this is entirely new territory Jesus is taking them into. It might look like the same thing they have experienced before, but it is going to be, oh, so different than they have ever imagined.
They base their idea of a successful Jesus on what they know: the ruling Sanhedrin council in Jerusalem and the formative power of the Roman Empire which has taken over the known world. Won’t success for Jesus look like it does for everyone else? You really can’t blame them. It isn’t that they are so dense and so stupid that they don’t understand what he is telling them, it’s just that this situation is so vastly foreign to their experience that they just can’t quite wrap their heads around the idea that being defeated, being tortured, being killed, could somehow bring about a positive anything positive for them. Why hitch your wagon to a sinking ship?
Jesus tells them that even if other people follow the pattern of "Lording it over each other," that kind of behavior doesn't belong in the New Community of God he is trying to create. He goes on to tell them "Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served-and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage." (The Message)
What does it mean to be in community together without anyone else "Lording it over" the rest of the community? What does it mean to be a servant, literally a slave, to everyone else? That concept doesn't sound quite right to most folks. But it is the truth that Jesus taught his followers-and that includes you and me. How will we live out that truth in the New Community of God we are creating at MCC Seattle? What would it mean for us to give our lives away as a ransom to release the captives that are being held hostage in our society by wrong ways of thinking, and wrong ways of acting?
First of all: what we become as a church may not look like what we think we know a church should be. We tout numbers and finances as the keys to success in the life of any church. How many members do you have? How many attend worship? How much money was given? How much money is being spent on mission and ministry?
We ask ourselves those same questions every single Sunday. We report those facts to you in the bulletin and in the weekly email newsletter. But do those facts really tell the whole story about what our congregation is becoming and doing? Are our own views of what it means to be a successful church being taken over and hijacked by what we have experienced in other churches, or what we have heard about from other churches?
Maybe we are looking at the wrong churches for our model. Maybe we should stop looking at the large evangelical churches that pack the pews weekly, that have the cutting edge musical groups and bands, and the video projectors and super-sized sound systems. Maybe we should start looking at churches like the Church of the Savior in Washington DC, founded in early 1940’s by Gordon and Mary Cosby and five other friends to be a different kind of church and have a different kind of ministry than any church ever had. They have never had large numbers or big budgets, but they have had a remarkable ministry that has affected not only their own community as their influence has reached literally around the world.
(From the Church of the Savior website) “From the beginning, church members sought to embody Christ in intentional and sacrificial ways, welcoming radical diversity and calling all to be ministers through the generous sacrifice of their own personal time, energy and resources. Interpreting the call to discipleship as the integration of two journeys in community—an inward journey to grow in love of God, self and others and an outward journey to help mend some part of creation—the church became the catalyst for numerous helping ministries...."
They are formed now by six independent community ministry groups that focus on their particular vision of ministry and make it happen in radical and revolutionary ways. Their membership orientation lasts three years, not two hours.
“Today, 60 years later, Gordon and Mary Cosby and others continue to play with new ways of becoming the authentic Church. What might happen in our hurting and distrustful world if people started coming together in small groups deliberately organized around perceived differences—of race, economic class, gender, age, sexual orientation, political affiliation, etc.—and from that point of diversity vulnerably opened their lives, told their stories, unmasked their shared addiction to a socio-political system that has kept them alienated, and then together they began to take steps toward healing and justice?”
Secondly, building the New Community of God will mean that we make sacrifices in our lives to be available to and for each other during the week. We cannot expect to make an impact on the greater metropolitan area until we begin to make an impact on each other. What does it mean to become a servant, or dare we say the word, a slave to others? Is that idea really as demeaning and degrading as we Americans tend to think?
Jesus and the disciples spent a lot of time together. They didn’t just meet on Sunday mornings for worship and then depart without seeing each other for an entire week. What will a stranger experience when he or she comes into our community? Those of you who have been around here for awhile should be able to answer that question. Are we treating each other like we should be treating each other? Are we making space in our lives for each other? Or is the thought of having to change your schedule to accommodate another appointment with another person, no matter how important the idea is of building community together, contrary to what you personally want for yourself? The New Community of God we need to create won’t just happen. It will need to be created by you and me as we work together, worship together, fellowship together and live together.
What have you done this past week to make space in your life for someone from our church that you don’t normally associate with, or spend time with? Are you making a personal effort to build the community we want to establish by what you do and say with those who God has called together in this place? Look around this room right now. Is there anyone you don’t know? Perhaps someone that you don’t know by name? You don’t know where they work, or even if they work? Do you know their favorite song or their favorite food? Do you know what’s really troubling them about life today? As long as there is someone in this church that you do not yet know, really know, then your work as a servant to them isn’t yet completed and may not even yet have begun.
Invite someone out to eat with you. Invite folks over to your home. Go out to the theatre with them and then talk with them over a cup of coffee about the play or the movie. The experience together isn’t about the food or the movie, or the play, it’s about talking together, spending time together, getting to know each other, discovering what another person needs in his or her life and then being a part of filling that need for them. That’s what being a servant to others means: caring, sharing, loving, and creating a life together. It will take personal sacrifice and commitment by each of us if it is to ever happen. Thinking about it won’t make it happen. Just talking about it won’t make it happen. It will take action by you and me to make that New Community a reality in our lives with each other…daily.
As long as we don’t put this concept of becoming a real living community into operation then this church will remain a disconnected, lonely, group of people who come together once a week to sing songs and pray. There has to be more to being a church than meeting together once a week. We have to become Christ to each other. We have to begin to feed each other with the bread of life.
Thirdly, we must become meek and humble like Jesus. But first we have to stop putting ourselves down. Jesus was a humble and meek person, but those words don’t mean what we think they mean today. Jesus wasn’t a namby-pamby person who let other people walk all over him.
Jesus was meek. Meek meant power under control. It was a term horsemen used to describe a powerful stallion that was under the control of its rider. Meek means “power under control.” Jesus was a powerful person who used his power wisely and properly with the idea in mind of setting others free from those things that kept them in captivity be it social order, religious practices, or economic and political institutions.
Jesus was a humble person, not proud or arrogant, who saw himself realistically. Yes he was divine, but Jesus was also fully human. Being humble doesn’t mean waiting around for someone else to recognize your worth and ask you to get involved. Humble means knowing who you are and getting involved in what needs to be done and using the power you have to effect change in the world.
We must begin to see ourselves realistically for we are God’s messengers sent to serve God’s people. Jesus said he was a ransom for many in order that they might be released from their imprisonment in the social, religious, and political order of the world. Being a ransom means Jesus was of great enough worth that his actions and words gave freedom to the prisoners of the world. Jesus released us from our own personal prisons so that we might continue his work and ministry to the world around us.
Jesus knew who he was and what he could do and he began doing it: creatively, energetically, wholeheartedly and without any reservation. Jesus saw the vision of God’s New Community and Jesus worked to achieve that vision in reality by giving and sacrificing himself. Do you know who you are? Do you know what you could be doing for the cause of Christ? Are you holding back from taking part in becoming all that this church is meant to become to this community? We can’t achieve the vision of the future of MCC Seattle without you, without your sharing the work and the joy with us.
Knowing who you are means that you understand what you might be able to do to help and that you won’t wait for someone else to ask you to volunteer, but that you will step forward and volunteer your time, your talent, your experiences, your education and training, your wisdom and most importantly your love with the rest of the people in this room.
This is an important week, an important month in the life of Washington State. Stand up for God. Stand up proudly as a Christian. Stand up proudly as a Queer person and vote to approve Referendum 71 to keep the domestic partnership law. Stand up also and vote no on Initiative 1033 which would only make the current economic conditions harder on working people, on schools, on governmental efforts to help the poorest in our society.
Be responsible Christian citizens and vote! Stand up, speak out, take action! Be Christ to the world today and every day. Be a Christian servant to others.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
I Am Weary of Gay Marriage... Mark 10:2-16
Sermon given on Marriage Equality Day, October 11, 2009.
I don’t know about you but I’m weary of all the talk about gay marriage. I’m sure that sounds like a pretty strange thing for me to say, especially on Marriage Equality Day.
But here’s what I’m weary of: I’m weary of James Dobson and Focus on the Family telling me that I and you are sinning because of who we love. I’m weary of Religious and Political Right wing leaders telling me that society will fall apart and our world as we now know it will end if you and I are allowed to marry the person we love. I’m weary of homophobia, driven by fear and ignorance, being used in an attempt to dehumanize us as “outcasts” unworthy of respect, protection, or inclusion. But most of all I am weary of the Bible being used to justify spiritual violence against us.
The state of Massachusetts has had legal marriage of same sex persons for several years now and, contrary to the predictions by our friends in the Religious and Political Right, that state hasn’t fallen off of the continent into the Atlantic Ocean. Nor has its day to day social fabric been destroyed nor even changed much from what it was like before the laws were changed. Looks to me like all of the warnings of the terrible things that would happen if Queer People got to marry each other have failed to have happened.
Today’s Gospel passage is a good example of how scripture can be misused and abused to the benefit of those who are doing the primary interpretation which they believe to be right and above all reproach. And in this case you must see it for what it is, the claims of the male-gender dominated society in which those who own the distinction of being male believe they are the very pinnacle of God’s creation, far and above everyone else, with rights and privileges that no one else owns or can seek to claim for themselves.
Jesus takes those leaders, the religious right of his own day, as well as his own disciples to task and tells them in no uncertain terms that they have got it all wrong when it comes to marriage, but especially when it comes to divorce, because their viewpoint, their reference for understanding is wrong to start with.
We have followed the story of Jesus for the last several weeks through the Gospel of Mark, as he journeys with his disciples toward Jerusalem, frequently taking the common understandings of the Scriptures and turning them upside down and inside out. I think that is exactly what needs to happen to those who are misusing the scriptures against you and me. They need to look at the example of Jesus before they open their mouths again. They need to let Jesus turn their worldview upside down and inside out.
I was a great fan of West Wing, the TV series where Martin Sheen played the character of President Jed Bartlett. In one episode the president confronts a woman who is a TV personality known for giving advice usually based upon her fundamentalist literal interpretation of scripture. She has obviously made statements about homosexuality being an abomination, so he takes her to task about exactly how much of the scripture she truly does believe by asking her what kind of a price he should set for his daughter, a Georgetown graduate who is very helpful around the house, who he wishes to sell into slavery, a practice approved of by the same Leviticus text she is quoting. Or should he stone his assistant himself or call the police to do so because the assistant insists on working on the Sabbath. Should he and his family stone his brother to death or call the entire city because his brother has grown two different crops in the same field on his farm? Or should he burn his mother at a small family gathering because she made and wears clothing from two different kinds of cloth.
The question is: can we take scriptures from either the Old Testament or the New Testament which address specific historical, cultural and limited social situations that are extremely different from our own culture and society, and apply those directly to our own times and lives, without some thought and discernment as to whether they may or may not be God’s intended truth for us today?
Don’t be fooled by those who tell you that God’s Word never changes, for the truth is how we hear it, how we apply it, how we pick and choose what we will apply to our own lives, that truth has changed throughout history and will continue to change today from culture to culture, society to society, country to country, denomination to denomination, and person to person. And that’s exactly the point that Jesus is making to the men he is talking to in today’s Gospel passage.
These so-called experts in religious law ask him what seems like a legitimate question, but they, as seems to be their habit with Jesus, simply wish to trick him into giving them an answer that they can turn around against him and charge him with blaspheming against God. Jesus knows what they are doing and he turns the question upon them. They thought they knew the correct answer. When Jesus got through with them, they weren’t sure any longer about what they thought was the truth. They just knew they didn’t like Jesus turning the tables on them. When the Religious Right uses the scriptures against us to promote their own hate and rejection of us contrary to the example of Love and Inclusion taught by Jesus, we have to speak up and speak out and tell them that they are misunderstanding, and abusing the very Word of God they say that they hold in such high regard.
Jesus’ opponents ask him: Is it lawful for a man to kick out his wife by divorcing her.
Jesus doesn’t ask them what the Scripture says, instead Jesus asks them what did Moses tell them which is a significant difference?
They answer that Moses said it was okay for a man to fill out a few papers and divorce his wife, abandon her, and send her out into the streets to fend for herself.
It was a man’s world. Men ruled the day. Women were simply possessions. Women were owned by their father until given by their father in marriage to a husband. They were then owned by their husband until divorced or until the husband died. If divorced they had no one to give them a place in society, no place to live, unless they could return to their own family, but that was highly unlikely due to the social stigma and embarrassment surrounding divorce in those days, even if it wasn’t the fault of the woman.
A man could divorce his wife simply because she couldn’t become pregnant and give him children, or even because she hadn’t given him a living son. They didn’t have medical science that could tell them the man might be the sterile one and that is why the woman couldn’t have children. But that didn’t matter. Not being able to give birth, more importantly, not being able to give birth to a son was the fault of the woman and grounds for divorce. There were many other reasons why a man could divorce his wife that were just as ridiculous and just as demeaning and destructive toward the woman.
Women got no respect. There was no equality in their society. Women could demand nothing from their husband if they were divorced. Life on the streets as a victim of violence and rape was the fate of most divorced women and even of widows whose husbands had died leaving them destitute. Without a living husband a woman was quickly moved to the very bottom of their society.
Jesus says that his opponents have answered correctly, that Moses gave them this rule because Moses knew they couldn’t live up to the real intent of what God wanted. What Jesus is saying is very important for you to understand because Jesus is telling us very clearly that what we frequently call the Holy Word of God isn’t recorded the way that God intended, but has been changed from God’s intentions by an all too human author, in this case Moses.
I point this out to you because we are the recipients of much spiritual violence against us based upon the interpretations of scriptures by Religious Right who are reading scriptures that may not be exactly what God intended because the original intentions of God have been filtered through all too human authors, translators, and interpreters.
Yes, there is no question that scripture gives us much spiritual truth, but you and I must use the discernment and the intelligence that God has blessed us with to determine what that truth might be for us in the here and now. That requires serious study of the scriptures in their historical, cultural, and geographical settings in order to come to terms with what the author intended, how it was heard by the people it was written for, what the underlying timeless spiritual truth is, and how we will apply that truth to our lives today based upon the example of Love and Inclusion taught by Jesus.
In researching for this week’s sermon I kept running up against the criticism of gay theologians by the Religious Right who are upset that we put the words of Jesus above the words of St. Paul. On the other hand, I am aghast that so many on the religious right have equated Paul’s letters on par with the teachings of Jesus by saying that all of the New Testament is the Holy Divine Word of God and that whatever Paul wrote has as much authority as what Jesus said. I don’t think so!
Jesus is paramount, not Paul. We don’t interpret Jesus’ teachings based on what Paul said.
If we are to get at the truth of the scriptures then we have to interpret all scripture, including St. Paul’s actual writings and those that have erroneously been attributed to him, through the witness and word of Jesus Christ. If something doesn’t stack up to the love and inclusivity of God that Jesus came to share with us then I question whether it is what God intended for us to accept as the truth.
Jesus tells his critics that Moses knew they had hard hearts and therefore Moses allowed an out for them that God had never intended.
Did you know that Jesus had much more to say about divorce than he ever did about marriage? Isn’t it funny in this current debate that the religious right isn’t concerned about the threat to marriage that divorce itself presents instead of the perceived threat that gay marriage will bring to heterosexual marriages? How would my marrying Mark be a threat to anyone else’s marriage? It would seem to me that if the Religious Right holds Scripture in such high authority they should be fighting to make it harder to dissolve legal marriages and do so with the same fervor and energy that they are using to oppose same-sex marriages.
Jesus then teaches that God wished for there to be mutuality between men and women instead of the gender hierarchy that had come to exist. In speaking to his own disciples he tells them that the man does not have the right to put out his wife just because he finds someone else more desirable and wants to marry that person instead. It’s a matter of disrespect of his wife, a stunning concept that they would find hard to accept in their male gender superior society. And to make his point clear, Jesus says the same thing is true of the woman who walks out on her husband to take up with another man.
Dr. James Dobson and others claim that Queer people want to destroy marriage and the family by demanding our right to marry each other. Research and history prove otherwise according to the American Anthropological Association. Many societies have held in esteem the differences of God’s creation in gender and sexual orientation.
The American Academy of Pediatrics states that it supports the right of every queer couple to legal recognition of their relationship and co-parenting responsibilities. Children of Queer families are no more likely to grow up gay or to have problems that the children of straight families. If they fear that our children will grow up gay, then how are they dealing with the fact that most of us who are gay grew up in straight families? Maybe they should be worrying about straight families with as much fervor as they worry about Queer families? Hmmm?
The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy states that: “We see no evidence that same-sex couples or family units vary significantly from heterosexual couples or family units in terms or aspirations, hopes or goals, or in outcomes for children.”
Right here in Seattle, Dr. Gottman and his wife Julie Scwartz Gottman, who have conducted research, therapy, and education at the Gottman Institute for over 30 years, say, “Gay and lesbian relationships are the vanguard of how heterosexual relationships could be. Heterosexual couples have a lot to learn from gay couples. Same-sex couples tend to be more positive than straight couples during conflict and tend to use more affection and humor when discussing difficult subjects. They tend to use fewer controlling and hostile emotional tactics during a fight, and fairness and power-sharing between partners appears to be more common in gay and lesbian relationships than in straight ones.”
We’re not doing so bad, are we?
Just a few passages earlier in Mark, Jesus had taught the disciples that they must become like children in order to be a part of the New Community of God, that is they must give up all their aspirations for power and position and take the part of the most insignificant person in that society, the position of a small powerless child.
You’d think that the disciples would have remembered what Jesus said, but now we read that the disciples are stopping families from bringing their children to Jesus for his blessing.
Can’t you imagine what they might have been saying: “Get those kids out of here! Don’t you understand that Jesus has important work to do! He doesn’t have time to be bothered by you and your children! He needs to be with the really important people! The people that can help him achieve his goals!”
I love Nettleton’s translation of Jesus’ words: “Little children can come to me any time they like, and don’t you dare try to stop them. The realm of God is centered on children such as these. The fact of the matter is that anyone who will not welcome the life of God as trustingly as an innocent child will not receive it at all.” www.laughingbird.net
I want to tell you this morning that I am not only weary, but that I am also excited about the future of Queer persons. I have incredible hope that we will see Referendum 71 approved. We have so little time and there is so much to do. In Washington D.C., today our denominational leaders have gathered together with thousands upon thousands of others to speak out and speak up about our love and God’s acceptance of us.
President Obama made some very significant statements and some particular promises yesterday when he spoke at the Human Rights Council meeting. Yes, only time will tell if he can live up to those promises, but when have you heard a President be so inclusive, so hopeful for our Queer community?
All across America people like you and me are gathering in Marches and Rallies, just like we will today, to speak out and up about their love for each other and about God’s acceptance of the Queer community. It is truly an exciting time to be alive. It may not happen overnight, but our society is changing, making room for you and I to live out our lives and live out our love with dignity, respect, and equality.
But the real reason why I am so excited is because of the young Queer people we have in our church and others who I have met recently. I went to the Thinking Queerly Workshops at Seattle University yesterday which were put on by a group of young Queer people who are out to teach us old queer people a thing or two about hope and building the future that we say we want to achieve together. I looked at them and they were, oh, so young, so very, very young. Two of our own young persons were there with me and I was so proud to see them taking part in the discussions and speaking out loud about what our society might become because of their activism.
There was a moment when I became overcome with emotion as I saw in my mind a vision of the Religious Right trying to keep these young people from going to Jesus. They ushered our Queer children aside telling them Jesus didn’t want their kind because Jesus was too busy to talk to them or care for them. But Jesus rebuked those in the Religious Right and welcomed these young Queer people, saying to the Religious Fundamentalists of: “Let my Queer children come to me any time they like, and don’t you dare try to stop them. The realm of God is centered on Queer children such as these. The fact of the matter is that anyone who will not welcome the New Community of God as trustingly as these Queer children do will not receive it at all.”
Today is Marriage Equality Day. Today is truthfully Equality Day in the New Community of God. No one has any special rights or privileges over and above anyone else in this New Community. We are all beloved Children of God and therefore we should be demonstrating our love for God and for each other through mutual respect, honor, trust and encouragement.
I don’t know about you but I’m weary of all the talk about gay marriage. I’m sure that sounds like a pretty strange thing for me to say, especially on Marriage Equality Day.
But here’s what I’m weary of: I’m weary of James Dobson and Focus on the Family telling me that I and you are sinning because of who we love. I’m weary of Religious and Political Right wing leaders telling me that society will fall apart and our world as we now know it will end if you and I are allowed to marry the person we love. I’m weary of homophobia, driven by fear and ignorance, being used in an attempt to dehumanize us as “outcasts” unworthy of respect, protection, or inclusion. But most of all I am weary of the Bible being used to justify spiritual violence against us.
The state of Massachusetts has had legal marriage of same sex persons for several years now and, contrary to the predictions by our friends in the Religious and Political Right, that state hasn’t fallen off of the continent into the Atlantic Ocean. Nor has its day to day social fabric been destroyed nor even changed much from what it was like before the laws were changed. Looks to me like all of the warnings of the terrible things that would happen if Queer People got to marry each other have failed to have happened.
Today’s Gospel passage is a good example of how scripture can be misused and abused to the benefit of those who are doing the primary interpretation which they believe to be right and above all reproach. And in this case you must see it for what it is, the claims of the male-gender dominated society in which those who own the distinction of being male believe they are the very pinnacle of God’s creation, far and above everyone else, with rights and privileges that no one else owns or can seek to claim for themselves.
Jesus takes those leaders, the religious right of his own day, as well as his own disciples to task and tells them in no uncertain terms that they have got it all wrong when it comes to marriage, but especially when it comes to divorce, because their viewpoint, their reference for understanding is wrong to start with.
We have followed the story of Jesus for the last several weeks through the Gospel of Mark, as he journeys with his disciples toward Jerusalem, frequently taking the common understandings of the Scriptures and turning them upside down and inside out. I think that is exactly what needs to happen to those who are misusing the scriptures against you and me. They need to look at the example of Jesus before they open their mouths again. They need to let Jesus turn their worldview upside down and inside out.
I was a great fan of West Wing, the TV series where Martin Sheen played the character of President Jed Bartlett. In one episode the president confronts a woman who is a TV personality known for giving advice usually based upon her fundamentalist literal interpretation of scripture. She has obviously made statements about homosexuality being an abomination, so he takes her to task about exactly how much of the scripture she truly does believe by asking her what kind of a price he should set for his daughter, a Georgetown graduate who is very helpful around the house, who he wishes to sell into slavery, a practice approved of by the same Leviticus text she is quoting. Or should he stone his assistant himself or call the police to do so because the assistant insists on working on the Sabbath. Should he and his family stone his brother to death or call the entire city because his brother has grown two different crops in the same field on his farm? Or should he burn his mother at a small family gathering because she made and wears clothing from two different kinds of cloth.
The question is: can we take scriptures from either the Old Testament or the New Testament which address specific historical, cultural and limited social situations that are extremely different from our own culture and society, and apply those directly to our own times and lives, without some thought and discernment as to whether they may or may not be God’s intended truth for us today?
Don’t be fooled by those who tell you that God’s Word never changes, for the truth is how we hear it, how we apply it, how we pick and choose what we will apply to our own lives, that truth has changed throughout history and will continue to change today from culture to culture, society to society, country to country, denomination to denomination, and person to person. And that’s exactly the point that Jesus is making to the men he is talking to in today’s Gospel passage.
These so-called experts in religious law ask him what seems like a legitimate question, but they, as seems to be their habit with Jesus, simply wish to trick him into giving them an answer that they can turn around against him and charge him with blaspheming against God. Jesus knows what they are doing and he turns the question upon them. They thought they knew the correct answer. When Jesus got through with them, they weren’t sure any longer about what they thought was the truth. They just knew they didn’t like Jesus turning the tables on them. When the Religious Right uses the scriptures against us to promote their own hate and rejection of us contrary to the example of Love and Inclusion taught by Jesus, we have to speak up and speak out and tell them that they are misunderstanding, and abusing the very Word of God they say that they hold in such high regard.
Jesus’ opponents ask him: Is it lawful for a man to kick out his wife by divorcing her.
Jesus doesn’t ask them what the Scripture says, instead Jesus asks them what did Moses tell them which is a significant difference?
They answer that Moses said it was okay for a man to fill out a few papers and divorce his wife, abandon her, and send her out into the streets to fend for herself.
It was a man’s world. Men ruled the day. Women were simply possessions. Women were owned by their father until given by their father in marriage to a husband. They were then owned by their husband until divorced or until the husband died. If divorced they had no one to give them a place in society, no place to live, unless they could return to their own family, but that was highly unlikely due to the social stigma and embarrassment surrounding divorce in those days, even if it wasn’t the fault of the woman.
A man could divorce his wife simply because she couldn’t become pregnant and give him children, or even because she hadn’t given him a living son. They didn’t have medical science that could tell them the man might be the sterile one and that is why the woman couldn’t have children. But that didn’t matter. Not being able to give birth, more importantly, not being able to give birth to a son was the fault of the woman and grounds for divorce. There were many other reasons why a man could divorce his wife that were just as ridiculous and just as demeaning and destructive toward the woman.
Women got no respect. There was no equality in their society. Women could demand nothing from their husband if they were divorced. Life on the streets as a victim of violence and rape was the fate of most divorced women and even of widows whose husbands had died leaving them destitute. Without a living husband a woman was quickly moved to the very bottom of their society.
Jesus says that his opponents have answered correctly, that Moses gave them this rule because Moses knew they couldn’t live up to the real intent of what God wanted. What Jesus is saying is very important for you to understand because Jesus is telling us very clearly that what we frequently call the Holy Word of God isn’t recorded the way that God intended, but has been changed from God’s intentions by an all too human author, in this case Moses.
I point this out to you because we are the recipients of much spiritual violence against us based upon the interpretations of scriptures by Religious Right who are reading scriptures that may not be exactly what God intended because the original intentions of God have been filtered through all too human authors, translators, and interpreters.
Yes, there is no question that scripture gives us much spiritual truth, but you and I must use the discernment and the intelligence that God has blessed us with to determine what that truth might be for us in the here and now. That requires serious study of the scriptures in their historical, cultural, and geographical settings in order to come to terms with what the author intended, how it was heard by the people it was written for, what the underlying timeless spiritual truth is, and how we will apply that truth to our lives today based upon the example of Love and Inclusion taught by Jesus.
In researching for this week’s sermon I kept running up against the criticism of gay theologians by the Religious Right who are upset that we put the words of Jesus above the words of St. Paul. On the other hand, I am aghast that so many on the religious right have equated Paul’s letters on par with the teachings of Jesus by saying that all of the New Testament is the Holy Divine Word of God and that whatever Paul wrote has as much authority as what Jesus said. I don’t think so!
Jesus is paramount, not Paul. We don’t interpret Jesus’ teachings based on what Paul said.
If we are to get at the truth of the scriptures then we have to interpret all scripture, including St. Paul’s actual writings and those that have erroneously been attributed to him, through the witness and word of Jesus Christ. If something doesn’t stack up to the love and inclusivity of God that Jesus came to share with us then I question whether it is what God intended for us to accept as the truth.
Jesus tells his critics that Moses knew they had hard hearts and therefore Moses allowed an out for them that God had never intended.
Did you know that Jesus had much more to say about divorce than he ever did about marriage? Isn’t it funny in this current debate that the religious right isn’t concerned about the threat to marriage that divorce itself presents instead of the perceived threat that gay marriage will bring to heterosexual marriages? How would my marrying Mark be a threat to anyone else’s marriage? It would seem to me that if the Religious Right holds Scripture in such high authority they should be fighting to make it harder to dissolve legal marriages and do so with the same fervor and energy that they are using to oppose same-sex marriages.
Jesus then teaches that God wished for there to be mutuality between men and women instead of the gender hierarchy that had come to exist. In speaking to his own disciples he tells them that the man does not have the right to put out his wife just because he finds someone else more desirable and wants to marry that person instead. It’s a matter of disrespect of his wife, a stunning concept that they would find hard to accept in their male gender superior society. And to make his point clear, Jesus says the same thing is true of the woman who walks out on her husband to take up with another man.
Dr. James Dobson and others claim that Queer people want to destroy marriage and the family by demanding our right to marry each other. Research and history prove otherwise according to the American Anthropological Association. Many societies have held in esteem the differences of God’s creation in gender and sexual orientation.
The American Academy of Pediatrics states that it supports the right of every queer couple to legal recognition of their relationship and co-parenting responsibilities. Children of Queer families are no more likely to grow up gay or to have problems that the children of straight families. If they fear that our children will grow up gay, then how are they dealing with the fact that most of us who are gay grew up in straight families? Maybe they should be worrying about straight families with as much fervor as they worry about Queer families? Hmmm?
The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy states that: “We see no evidence that same-sex couples or family units vary significantly from heterosexual couples or family units in terms or aspirations, hopes or goals, or in outcomes for children.”
Right here in Seattle, Dr. Gottman and his wife Julie Scwartz Gottman, who have conducted research, therapy, and education at the Gottman Institute for over 30 years, say, “Gay and lesbian relationships are the vanguard of how heterosexual relationships could be. Heterosexual couples have a lot to learn from gay couples. Same-sex couples tend to be more positive than straight couples during conflict and tend to use more affection and humor when discussing difficult subjects. They tend to use fewer controlling and hostile emotional tactics during a fight, and fairness and power-sharing between partners appears to be more common in gay and lesbian relationships than in straight ones.”
We’re not doing so bad, are we?
Just a few passages earlier in Mark, Jesus had taught the disciples that they must become like children in order to be a part of the New Community of God, that is they must give up all their aspirations for power and position and take the part of the most insignificant person in that society, the position of a small powerless child.
You’d think that the disciples would have remembered what Jesus said, but now we read that the disciples are stopping families from bringing their children to Jesus for his blessing.
Can’t you imagine what they might have been saying: “Get those kids out of here! Don’t you understand that Jesus has important work to do! He doesn’t have time to be bothered by you and your children! He needs to be with the really important people! The people that can help him achieve his goals!”
I love Nettleton’s translation of Jesus’ words: “Little children can come to me any time they like, and don’t you dare try to stop them. The realm of God is centered on children such as these. The fact of the matter is that anyone who will not welcome the life of God as trustingly as an innocent child will not receive it at all.” www.laughingbird.net
I want to tell you this morning that I am not only weary, but that I am also excited about the future of Queer persons. I have incredible hope that we will see Referendum 71 approved. We have so little time and there is so much to do. In Washington D.C., today our denominational leaders have gathered together with thousands upon thousands of others to speak out and speak up about our love and God’s acceptance of us.
President Obama made some very significant statements and some particular promises yesterday when he spoke at the Human Rights Council meeting. Yes, only time will tell if he can live up to those promises, but when have you heard a President be so inclusive, so hopeful for our Queer community?
All across America people like you and me are gathering in Marches and Rallies, just like we will today, to speak out and up about their love for each other and about God’s acceptance of the Queer community. It is truly an exciting time to be alive. It may not happen overnight, but our society is changing, making room for you and I to live out our lives and live out our love with dignity, respect, and equality.
But the real reason why I am so excited is because of the young Queer people we have in our church and others who I have met recently. I went to the Thinking Queerly Workshops at Seattle University yesterday which were put on by a group of young Queer people who are out to teach us old queer people a thing or two about hope and building the future that we say we want to achieve together. I looked at them and they were, oh, so young, so very, very young. Two of our own young persons were there with me and I was so proud to see them taking part in the discussions and speaking out loud about what our society might become because of their activism.
There was a moment when I became overcome with emotion as I saw in my mind a vision of the Religious Right trying to keep these young people from going to Jesus. They ushered our Queer children aside telling them Jesus didn’t want their kind because Jesus was too busy to talk to them or care for them. But Jesus rebuked those in the Religious Right and welcomed these young Queer people, saying to the Religious Fundamentalists of: “Let my Queer children come to me any time they like, and don’t you dare try to stop them. The realm of God is centered on Queer children such as these. The fact of the matter is that anyone who will not welcome the New Community of God as trustingly as these Queer children do will not receive it at all.”
Today is Marriage Equality Day. Today is truthfully Equality Day in the New Community of God. No one has any special rights or privileges over and above anyone else in this New Community. We are all beloved Children of God and therefore we should be demonstrating our love for God and for each other through mutual respect, honor, trust and encouragement.
Monday, October 5, 2009
A House for All Peoples!
On the 41st Anniversary of the founding of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.
Jesus calls us to include people rather than exclude them as a matter of justice. Jesus saw his mission as inviting people into an intimate, trusting relationship with God. He made it his purpose to include all peoples in God's circle of love, and not to exclude anyone. Mark 11:15-18, often referred to as Jesus cleansing the temple, is a dramatic story of Jesus taking action to put his words into force.
MARK 11:15-18: “When they arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began to drive out those who were selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves, and he would not allow anyone to use the temple court as a thoroughfare for carrying goods. Then Jesus taught them, saying, "Does not Scripture say: My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples? But you have turned it into a den of robbers! The chief priests and the scribes heard this and began looking for a way to do away with Jesus. They were afraid of him because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching."
I learned from my mother that the story of Jesus' cleansing of the temple is often used to illustrate that it is okay to get angry if it is a righteous anger. She used a little of that righteous anger on me every once in awhile. But that kind of interpretation of the story takes the focus off of what was really going on.
This story is really about the abuse of religion to benefit a few insiders while excluding others in the name of God. First-century Hebrews were not the first to use religion to exclude others. Christianity, itself, has a sorry record in this regard too, from accepting and even defending institutionalized slavery, to excluding women from leadership and ministry, and more recently excluding LGBT persons. All Christian religious institutions and leaders need to be held accountable for meeting the standards that Jesus set for all of us: The inclusion of every person in the New Community of God.To understand this Gospel story, we must ask ourselves: why were there people selling and buying in the Temple courtyard? And who were these money-changers?
Keep in mind that worship in the temple was essentially sacrificial worship. Animals such as goats, sheep, and doves were offered to God in burnt sacrifices. Because the sacrificial animals and birds had to be top quality, it would not do to just bring a few of your own from home, especially if one had to travel any distance to get to Jerusalem. The animals might not fare well on the journey. So there were animals and birds rated as perfect for sacrifices on sale in the temple courtyard. It was suppose to be a matter of convenience, created to help you worship God properly. And who could fault the priestly aristocracy which ran the temple and administered the market place if they made a suitable profit on the sale of sacrificial birds and animals.
The money-changers were needed because there were so many different monetary systems in the surrounding areas where Jewish people lived. According to temple law and custom only one kind of silver coin could be offered in the Temple as your required tithes to God. For a fee the money-changers would give worshipers the right kind of coins in exchange for whatever kind of money they had. And who would complain if the temple priestly administration got a substantial kickback from the enterprise. It was just how things were done and had been done for a very long time.
All of this was legitimate business practices mean to enable the kind of sacrificial worship which one was required to do in the temple. Though Jesus never challenged the style of worship, he was upset that this religious commercial business was being done inside the temple court.The Temple itself was very ordered in its construction and in its exclusion of those it considered to less than worthy. The outer court of the temple was called the Court of the Gentiles. Inside that was the Court of Women where Jewish women could go to pray. Inside that was the Court of Israel where only Jewish men could go to pray, and inside that was the Holy of Holies where only the priests could go.
The outer court, the Court of the Gentiles, was the only area in the temple complex where Gentiles or non-Jews could come to worship the Hebrew God. Any non-Jews who felt drawn to the Jewish religion or God could come to this court, but no further. It was in this outer court that all the buying and selling was going on.
And since the temple was centrally located, why not use the Court of Gentiles as a short-cut to get to the other side of town? Foot traffic ran right through the court. So in effect there was no place for Gentiles to come to worship God.
Objecting to all of this activity that prevented true worship of God, Jesus says: "Does not Scripture say that my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples, for all the nations?"
Here Jesus is quoting a prophecy from the Hebrew Scriptures, from the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 56 which turned accepted thinking upside down and says that those excluded from the original Hebrew covenant will instead be included by God. Let's look at this prophecy itself:
ISAIAH 56:1-8: Thus says the Living God: "Keep justice, and do what is right, for my deliverance is close at hand, and my saving justice will soon be revealed.Blessed is anyone who does this, anyone who holds it fast, who observes the Sabbath, not profaning it."The foreigners who have joined themselves to God should not say, "God will surely exclude us from God's people." And the eunuch should not say, "I am nothing but a barren tree." For thus says the Living God: "To the eunuchs who observe my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant, to them I will give in my house and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name, a name which shall not be forgotten. And the foreigners who join themselves to me, to minister to me, to love my name, and to be my servants, all who observe the Sabbath and do not profane it,and who hold fast to my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain, and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar. For my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples."Thus says the Sovereign God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, "I will gather in yet others besides those already gathered."
Previously the Hebrew community, suffering through exile in the Babylonian captivity and afterwards trying to establish their new country, their new community, in their former homeland, struggle with the tension between being holy and pure and excluding all other peoples except their own in that new community, and the idea that God will welcome into the new community all of the outcasts of society, even the foreigner and the sexually different and handicapped persons who had no place in the worship of God.
You might say, that this is God changing God’s mind about what God has previously said in the scripture. On the order of when Jesus says, “You have heard it said, but I say unto you…”
For LGBT persons this is a significant prophecy for it includes you and me in its vision of the New Community of God. Not only does this prophecy promise to give the foreigners, the Gentiles, a place within the New Community it also promises those who are sexually different, the eunuchs, a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. Those who couldn’t have descendants will now have a holy legacy. Those who have been excluded for not fitting the sexual norms of society or for reasons of race or nationality will now be included by God within God’s New Community. Jesus draws attention to this prophecy as he clears the temple area of religious abuse and racial exclusivism.We have jumped far ahead of the story of Jesus and the disciples we have been following through the Gospel of Mark. Throughout the journey Jesus has been turning people’s understanding of who is acceptable to God upside down. He keeps expanding the disciples understanding of who they will be sharing the New Community with. It makes them very nervous and it makes the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious lawyers extremely angry, to the point of wanting to get rid of him.
Let’s follow Jesus' example. Let's be inclusive of other people in our speech and in our actions.
Metropolitan Community Churches have followed the example of Jesus by opening ourselves up to all of the Rainbow variety of God’s human creation. Troy Perry, divorced and permanently separated from the children he loved, twice defrocked and rejected by his own denominations for being gay, going through the breakup of his first long term relationship with another man, seriously depressed and following a suicide attempt, receives a vision from God about a church that is open to all of God’s people, but especially to those rejected by Christians and Christian Churches because they are sexually different, begins church services in his own living room.
Told by others that it won’t work, that he should stop before he even begins, Troy Perry welcomes 12 into that first service in a suburban home in Los Angeles. From that small beginning has grown a world-wide movement and a Christian denomination that encompasses some 230 worshipping congregations in 30 countries.
Troy Perry began with nothing more than a vision from God and for 41 years Troy and others, who came to share that vision with him, have faithfully ministered in the example set by Jesus to be inclusive of others in speech and action.
It hasn’t always been so easy.
There have been many difficulties. Many of our MCC churches have been torched, set on fire and destroyed. Let me tell you the story of New Orleans MCC. On June 24, 1973 a gay bar in New Orleans was firebombed. Thirty-two people died, most of who were MCC Church members along with their pastor had gathered in the Upstairs Lounge to celebrate gay pride. Though they tried to escape they died horrible deaths trapped in an old building without many exits.Some families, when discovering that their family member had died at a gay bar, never claimed their bodies. Churches, at the urging of their denominational leadership, refused to allow the funeral services to be held in their facilities for those persons…because they were gay. Three bodies were never identified. Courageous people, courageous priests and pastors, held a memorial service anyway to which more than 200 came.
You would think that things would have changed by now. But doing research for this sermon I went online and found a very popular Christian Right website that reports on churches and pastors, rates them as to whether they are faithful to fundamentalist beliefs and teachings, but also lists those churches which it considers to be apostate, that is who go against their interpretation of the Bible, and therefore against their understanding of God and what God wants. They list MCC churches as apostate and they state we are leading others into hell with our wicked beliefs.
In the same article they talk about unity in the bond of love within the Body of Christ, but they see no apparent inconsistency in their rejection of us while at the same time teaching that Jesus reached out to and included all kinds of people in his ministry and his vision of the New Community of God he had come to establish on earth…not in heaven after we die, but on earth, in the here and now.
Jesus tried to teach that the Kingdom of God, the New Community of God, was being created in the here and now, not in some far distant future…but right now. Jesus advocated for changes in society and relationships between people immediately. It was okay to talk about a pie-in-the-sky time to come when the eunuchs and the gentiles would also worship God in the same place and in the same way as the Hebrews, but it was not okay for him to advocate for a change in public policy right now, today.
Here in the state of Washington we are coming up on a very significant vote in November 2009 in which we are trying to preserve a law that passed our state legislature and that was signed into law by our governor giving you and me and our legally registered life-partners the right to all of the benefits within the state of Washington given to those who are married. That law was called into question by Referendum 71 by those who hold to an old way of thinking which excludes you and me from full participation in our society as persons with equal rights to everyone else. Now we must go to the polls to vote to approve Referendum 71 to preserve the law that was passed. If it is not approved then the law will be cancelled and our partnerships will not be recognized with the same rights as married individuals. Let me encourage you to get registered to vote!
MCC is about bringing the new community of God into existence today. Through the efforts of folks like Troy Perry, and our moderator Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson who have been and are on the frontlines of equality issues for our community, we have formed a church that is going to all parts of the world where we are now known as the human rights church, not just the gay and lesbian, transgender and bisexual church, but the Human Rights Church.
Like Isaiah did in chapter 56 we are bringing a new word of hope to the world. We may be turning the world upside down from the world’s perspective, but we are turning it right side up from God’s perspective. Let’s begin now to make our church “A House for all Peoples!”
Jesus calls us to include people rather than exclude them as a matter of justice. Jesus saw his mission as inviting people into an intimate, trusting relationship with God. He made it his purpose to include all peoples in God's circle of love, and not to exclude anyone. Mark 11:15-18, often referred to as Jesus cleansing the temple, is a dramatic story of Jesus taking action to put his words into force.
MARK 11:15-18: “When they arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began to drive out those who were selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves, and he would not allow anyone to use the temple court as a thoroughfare for carrying goods. Then Jesus taught them, saying, "Does not Scripture say: My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples? But you have turned it into a den of robbers! The chief priests and the scribes heard this and began looking for a way to do away with Jesus. They were afraid of him because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching."
I learned from my mother that the story of Jesus' cleansing of the temple is often used to illustrate that it is okay to get angry if it is a righteous anger. She used a little of that righteous anger on me every once in awhile. But that kind of interpretation of the story takes the focus off of what was really going on.
This story is really about the abuse of religion to benefit a few insiders while excluding others in the name of God. First-century Hebrews were not the first to use religion to exclude others. Christianity, itself, has a sorry record in this regard too, from accepting and even defending institutionalized slavery, to excluding women from leadership and ministry, and more recently excluding LGBT persons. All Christian religious institutions and leaders need to be held accountable for meeting the standards that Jesus set for all of us: The inclusion of every person in the New Community of God.To understand this Gospel story, we must ask ourselves: why were there people selling and buying in the Temple courtyard? And who were these money-changers?
Keep in mind that worship in the temple was essentially sacrificial worship. Animals such as goats, sheep, and doves were offered to God in burnt sacrifices. Because the sacrificial animals and birds had to be top quality, it would not do to just bring a few of your own from home, especially if one had to travel any distance to get to Jerusalem. The animals might not fare well on the journey. So there were animals and birds rated as perfect for sacrifices on sale in the temple courtyard. It was suppose to be a matter of convenience, created to help you worship God properly. And who could fault the priestly aristocracy which ran the temple and administered the market place if they made a suitable profit on the sale of sacrificial birds and animals.
The money-changers were needed because there were so many different monetary systems in the surrounding areas where Jewish people lived. According to temple law and custom only one kind of silver coin could be offered in the Temple as your required tithes to God. For a fee the money-changers would give worshipers the right kind of coins in exchange for whatever kind of money they had. And who would complain if the temple priestly administration got a substantial kickback from the enterprise. It was just how things were done and had been done for a very long time.
All of this was legitimate business practices mean to enable the kind of sacrificial worship which one was required to do in the temple. Though Jesus never challenged the style of worship, he was upset that this religious commercial business was being done inside the temple court.The Temple itself was very ordered in its construction and in its exclusion of those it considered to less than worthy. The outer court of the temple was called the Court of the Gentiles. Inside that was the Court of Women where Jewish women could go to pray. Inside that was the Court of Israel where only Jewish men could go to pray, and inside that was the Holy of Holies where only the priests could go.
The outer court, the Court of the Gentiles, was the only area in the temple complex where Gentiles or non-Jews could come to worship the Hebrew God. Any non-Jews who felt drawn to the Jewish religion or God could come to this court, but no further. It was in this outer court that all the buying and selling was going on.
And since the temple was centrally located, why not use the Court of Gentiles as a short-cut to get to the other side of town? Foot traffic ran right through the court. So in effect there was no place for Gentiles to come to worship God.
Objecting to all of this activity that prevented true worship of God, Jesus says: "Does not Scripture say that my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples, for all the nations?"
Here Jesus is quoting a prophecy from the Hebrew Scriptures, from the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 56 which turned accepted thinking upside down and says that those excluded from the original Hebrew covenant will instead be included by God. Let's look at this prophecy itself:
ISAIAH 56:1-8: Thus says the Living God: "Keep justice, and do what is right, for my deliverance is close at hand, and my saving justice will soon be revealed.Blessed is anyone who does this, anyone who holds it fast, who observes the Sabbath, not profaning it."The foreigners who have joined themselves to God should not say, "God will surely exclude us from God's people." And the eunuch should not say, "I am nothing but a barren tree." For thus says the Living God: "To the eunuchs who observe my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant, to them I will give in my house and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name, a name which shall not be forgotten. And the foreigners who join themselves to me, to minister to me, to love my name, and to be my servants, all who observe the Sabbath and do not profane it,and who hold fast to my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain, and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar. For my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples."Thus says the Sovereign God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, "I will gather in yet others besides those already gathered."
Previously the Hebrew community, suffering through exile in the Babylonian captivity and afterwards trying to establish their new country, their new community, in their former homeland, struggle with the tension between being holy and pure and excluding all other peoples except their own in that new community, and the idea that God will welcome into the new community all of the outcasts of society, even the foreigner and the sexually different and handicapped persons who had no place in the worship of God.
You might say, that this is God changing God’s mind about what God has previously said in the scripture. On the order of when Jesus says, “You have heard it said, but I say unto you…”
For LGBT persons this is a significant prophecy for it includes you and me in its vision of the New Community of God. Not only does this prophecy promise to give the foreigners, the Gentiles, a place within the New Community it also promises those who are sexually different, the eunuchs, a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. Those who couldn’t have descendants will now have a holy legacy. Those who have been excluded for not fitting the sexual norms of society or for reasons of race or nationality will now be included by God within God’s New Community. Jesus draws attention to this prophecy as he clears the temple area of religious abuse and racial exclusivism.We have jumped far ahead of the story of Jesus and the disciples we have been following through the Gospel of Mark. Throughout the journey Jesus has been turning people’s understanding of who is acceptable to God upside down. He keeps expanding the disciples understanding of who they will be sharing the New Community with. It makes them very nervous and it makes the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious lawyers extremely angry, to the point of wanting to get rid of him.
Let’s follow Jesus' example. Let's be inclusive of other people in our speech and in our actions.
Metropolitan Community Churches have followed the example of Jesus by opening ourselves up to all of the Rainbow variety of God’s human creation. Troy Perry, divorced and permanently separated from the children he loved, twice defrocked and rejected by his own denominations for being gay, going through the breakup of his first long term relationship with another man, seriously depressed and following a suicide attempt, receives a vision from God about a church that is open to all of God’s people, but especially to those rejected by Christians and Christian Churches because they are sexually different, begins church services in his own living room.
Told by others that it won’t work, that he should stop before he even begins, Troy Perry welcomes 12 into that first service in a suburban home in Los Angeles. From that small beginning has grown a world-wide movement and a Christian denomination that encompasses some 230 worshipping congregations in 30 countries.
Troy Perry began with nothing more than a vision from God and for 41 years Troy and others, who came to share that vision with him, have faithfully ministered in the example set by Jesus to be inclusive of others in speech and action.
It hasn’t always been so easy.
There have been many difficulties. Many of our MCC churches have been torched, set on fire and destroyed. Let me tell you the story of New Orleans MCC. On June 24, 1973 a gay bar in New Orleans was firebombed. Thirty-two people died, most of who were MCC Church members along with their pastor had gathered in the Upstairs Lounge to celebrate gay pride. Though they tried to escape they died horrible deaths trapped in an old building without many exits.Some families, when discovering that their family member had died at a gay bar, never claimed their bodies. Churches, at the urging of their denominational leadership, refused to allow the funeral services to be held in their facilities for those persons…because they were gay. Three bodies were never identified. Courageous people, courageous priests and pastors, held a memorial service anyway to which more than 200 came.
You would think that things would have changed by now. But doing research for this sermon I went online and found a very popular Christian Right website that reports on churches and pastors, rates them as to whether they are faithful to fundamentalist beliefs and teachings, but also lists those churches which it considers to be apostate, that is who go against their interpretation of the Bible, and therefore against their understanding of God and what God wants. They list MCC churches as apostate and they state we are leading others into hell with our wicked beliefs.
In the same article they talk about unity in the bond of love within the Body of Christ, but they see no apparent inconsistency in their rejection of us while at the same time teaching that Jesus reached out to and included all kinds of people in his ministry and his vision of the New Community of God he had come to establish on earth…not in heaven after we die, but on earth, in the here and now.
Jesus tried to teach that the Kingdom of God, the New Community of God, was being created in the here and now, not in some far distant future…but right now. Jesus advocated for changes in society and relationships between people immediately. It was okay to talk about a pie-in-the-sky time to come when the eunuchs and the gentiles would also worship God in the same place and in the same way as the Hebrews, but it was not okay for him to advocate for a change in public policy right now, today.
Here in the state of Washington we are coming up on a very significant vote in November 2009 in which we are trying to preserve a law that passed our state legislature and that was signed into law by our governor giving you and me and our legally registered life-partners the right to all of the benefits within the state of Washington given to those who are married. That law was called into question by Referendum 71 by those who hold to an old way of thinking which excludes you and me from full participation in our society as persons with equal rights to everyone else. Now we must go to the polls to vote to approve Referendum 71 to preserve the law that was passed. If it is not approved then the law will be cancelled and our partnerships will not be recognized with the same rights as married individuals. Let me encourage you to get registered to vote!
MCC is about bringing the new community of God into existence today. Through the efforts of folks like Troy Perry, and our moderator Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson who have been and are on the frontlines of equality issues for our community, we have formed a church that is going to all parts of the world where we are now known as the human rights church, not just the gay and lesbian, transgender and bisexual church, but the Human Rights Church.
Like Isaiah did in chapter 56 we are bringing a new word of hope to the world. We may be turning the world upside down from the world’s perspective, but we are turning it right side up from God’s perspective. Let’s begin now to make our church “A House for all Peoples!”
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