"Am I the Older Brother?" Luke 15:11-32

This is the second of four PRIDE sermons for the month of June:

When I went to seminary to prepare for the ministry I looked at all those charming young men and women and decided that if I had been God there were several of them that I wouldn't have called to be ministers under any circumstances. Two years later when I was graduating I shared that memory with a graduating friend who told me, "Yes, Ray, I had the same thoughts, and you were one of the people that I wouldn't have called to be a minister."

His statement shocked me. I had thought I was one of the in-crowd as far as God was concerned. But now another person was telling me that perhaps I shouldn't be so sure, that maybe I could be mistaken about God wanting me to be a Christian minister. However, I was sure that my intentions were in line with God's desires for my life, regardless of what anyone else had to say about the matter.

A man overheard me speaking to a friend at the West Towne Knoxville Mall one day about a sermon I was to give that weekend at Metropolitan Community Church of Knoxville. "So you are a minister?" he asked. "Yes," I answered, in part regretting the beginning of a conversation I knew was probably going to be difficult because I had already pegged him as a right wing fundamentalist Christian. You’ve heard of gaydar. I’ve got fundamentalist radar. He asked what church I belonged to and I told him, which brought up the question of denominational beliefs. I told him that MCC was part of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, founded in 1968 by the Rev. Elder Troy Perry, to minister primarily to the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, and Transgendered community.

Soon we were involved in a discussion of whether or not Queer Persons could even be Christians, since in his viewpoint we were all living lives of sinfulness contrary to the design God had ordered, and of course what the relevant Biblical passages meant, or should I say the seven Biblical passages used to bash you and me.

I must say that I was able to defend my understanding of scriptures, and my work with the GLBT community as a Christian minister, to the admiration of a supportive Christian friend who worked with me and who stood beside me to interfere if the situation turned hostile. An audience of onlookers walking by suddenly circled around us to listen in. However, the other man, declaring that he was a professional Christian evangelist, embarrassed everyone present with his detailed and extremely offensive description of what he believed happened sexually between two men in order to explain how unnatural this was to him. When the crowd showed its displeasure with his statements he then ended his accusation by saying that the only reason he could think of for me not believing exactly the same way that he did was that I was demon possessed, and most, therefore, again, obviously not a Christian, even if the demon had deluded me into believing that I was one.

I’d like to tell you that when I came out to my family that they didn’t believe the very same things this man professed, but I would be lying. When I shared my decision to come out with my sister, who had been raised Southern Baptist, but now a converted and devout Catholic, she burst into tears declaring that she would not see me in heaven when I died. In other words, according to my sister I was no longer a Christian destined for heaven because I was gay. My youngest brother, a fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, was so appalled by the news that he uninvited me to my nephew's wedding lest, he said, I would use it as an opportunity to promote the so-called gay agenda. I suppose he was afraid I would bring my boyfriend with me to the wedding and he would have to somehow explain that to his congregation.

Did you know that the only gay agenda you can find on the internet is one that Christian Fundamentalists wrote about what they thought our agenda would be if we were to ever write such an agenda? In other words, the so-called Gay Agenda is a fundamentalist Christian lie about us. My brother later asked me to not contact him at all with news about my gay lifestyle, my gay church, or my gay friends. He said all he wanted to hear from me was news about my children, his nieces and nephew. I suppose this was his way of shunning me, a so-called Christian technique of tough love that is anything but loving toward the person to which it is directed.

Even though my father had told others in our familyothers about his dismay at my coming out, when I talked with him he had two important things to say. One was that the only thing I ever did to surprise him was to marry a woman after I graduated from college. In other words, my father already knew I was gay when I was a teenager and a college student. Secondly, he said that he only wanted agape love, God’s kind of love, between the two of us, and that everything else was unimportant. So far my father has kept his word about what he wanted from our relationship.
Yes, much of this family conflict on coming out as a gay man was extremely distressing, but I had the advantage of knowing that my belief in God in Christ was sure and real and that God loved me just the way I was because God had made created me exactly the way I was. I had worked through the theology for myself over many years. That doesn't mean it was easy, just that I had a firm foundation of faith upon which to build my new life as a totally out gay man.

I know the agony that others go through when they have come out to their Christian families and churches and have been met with hostility and rejection. I was privileged to hear Justin Ryan a young gay Christian musician in concert at MCC Knoxville a few years ago. Justin related how, at the age of seventeen, he had been thrown out of his home by his parents when he told them that he was gay. Justin ended up on the street, but thankfully, in his small town of Paducah, KY, there is a Metropolitan Community Church which cared for Justin and gave him a place to stay and helped him to rebuild his life. He also had the influence of some amazing musical personalities that didn’t care whether he was gay or not. They loved Ryan just the way he was, just the way God created him.

Throwing out your child is another form of the so-called tough love that some fundamentalist Christians suggest parents of teenagers and young adults should take. I think it’s pure and simple child abuse. I personally can't understand tossing my own child out on to the street with no means of financial support at such a young age to face exploitation and physical abuse. I find no justification for such parental action anywhere in the New Testament. In fact, given the story of the Prodigal Son, perhaps we should re-title it the story of the Prodigal Father, because this dad does an extremely extravagant loving thing in welcoming home his wayward child and giving him back all the family rights he enjoyed before he ran away.

There is a crisis of homelessness among gay teens and young adults because of this kind of tough love which leaves vulnerable boys and girls out on the streets where they become victims of crime, drugs, and exploitation by unscrupulous men and women. Gay and lesbian and trans youth make up 4 to 10% of the population nationally but they are 20% or more of the homeless youth in our nation. In Seattle that is often as high as 40% or more according to those I talk to who work with homeless youth here in our city. There is also an epidemic of suicide among Queer and Questioning teens as we have witnessed this past year and which resulted in the “It Gets Better” Campaign.

I have witnessed churches tell young people that they cannot sing in a choir, be part of a youth group, serve on the drama team, usher, help with the children’s programming, or be part of a youth Bible study, not because they admitted they were gay or lesbian, but because they appeared to be gay or lesbian by the way they talked, or acted, or by the clothing they wore. If you don’t fit into their narrow definition of acceptability then you must be outside of God’s will for your life, a dangerous influence that must be eliminated.

If you don’t think that happens, if you think I may be exaggerating the situation, then I’ve got some distressing news for you. I have sat on church boards and pastored churches where those exact discussions took place, “Pastor Ray, we’ve got to eliminate this dangerous influence to our youth!” That meant they would shun the young person they thought to be the dangerous influence, when they should have been reaching out in love and mercy to care for that troubled child, not heap more stress and cruelty upon him or her. If you know my personal story, then you know I got up one day in the middle of one of those kind of meetings and walked away from the senior pastorate of a church. I could not be a part of a congregation that treated people like throwaway containers, worthless and hopeless.

I have witnessed adults being told that they could not serve in any leadership position in the church because they were out about being gay. The message that comes across is, “If you are gay, then just don’t talk about it. As long as you are in the closet you can continue to be a leader in our church or a minister in our denomination.” However that kind of logic is contrary to the teachings of the church about truthfulness, honesty, and accepting others with Christ’s kind of love, especially the outcast and the stranger? Where is so-called Christian hospitality when people are refused communion, refused membership, or refused the ability to minister to others in Lay or Ordained positions just because they are gay or lesbian or transgendered.

That kind of behavior can only be compared to that of the older brother in the story Jesus told about the "Prodigal Son" in Luke 15:11-32. The younger brother asks for his inheritance while his father is still alive, sort of like telling your father that you wish he were dead. But this father unbelievably gives his son the cash and the boy goes off to live life in a far away city. Like most young people he makes some pretty big mistakes. His money runs out and he is left homeless and ends up working on a pig farm, eating what the pigs eat to stay alive. This was the most disgusting job Jesus could have cast him in to make the point of his story. Coming to his senses he decides to go back home and ask his father for a job knowing that his father's workers are treated far better than he is being treated as a hired hand.

But when he is still a long way off, his father, who has been watching for his son to return, sees him and runs to him, embracing him. Even before the young man can say much of anything to his father, the father welcomes him home, not as a worker on his farm, but as his child with all the rights and privileges that go with being the child of the owner, yes, and even full inheritance rights. Nobody hearing the story when Jesus originally told it would have missed that important fact. All of those gifts represented the father’s complete and total acceptance of his son back into the family with all rights and privileges. This is a complete and full welcome home by the father with no reservations and no regrets. The father even orders a celebration so everyone else can rejoice in the return of his son.

However, the older brother finds out about the return of his younger sibling and he refuses to come into the party. Just like he did for the younger son, the father goes out to talk to him to bring him into the party. The older brother states how loyal he has been, how hard he has worked and how his father has never thrown a party for him. Notice the slur against his father when he says, “You didn’t even barbeque a goat for me and my friends.” The father is overjoyed at the return of the lost son, but the older brother doesn't get it. He's more concerned with the fact that though he has remained faithful, as he understands faithfulness, but that he hasn't gotten rewarded for it. The father says to this son, who is being just as stubborn and disappointing in his own way as his younger brother had been previously, “Everything I have is yours.” Jesus doesn't finish the story, but I've always wondered if the older brother stayed outside or decided to go into the party. How do you think Jesus’ story turned out: Talk Back Time.

Our fundamentalist Christian families and friends cannot believe that God loves us the same way God loves them: just as we are. They cannot believe that we get full inheritance rights equal to our brother Jesus and them. We will be in the same heaven that they will be in throughout all of eternity. To God it doesn't matter if you are Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Inter-Sexed, non-sexual, or straight. God already knows what your sexual orientation is because God created you exactly the way you are.

God isn't surprised because you grew up to be gay, lesbian, trans or bi-sexual, or straight. That fact never was a secret to God because God created you the way you are and loved you from before you were in your mother’s womb according to the Bible. And your being queer never was a reason for God to keep you out of a relationship with God. God has established no borders and no boundaries to keep some out and let some in. The Bible clearly tells us that everyone is invited and that the only thing that keeps anyone out of God’s community is their own personal refusal to come in to the banquet.

I saw this past week that the current president of Focus on the Family said in an interview that he believes the fundamentalist right has lost the battle on marriage. The polls are changing in our favor. More and more people accept the idea that marriage equality is for all people. Our laws may lag far behind public opinion, but those laws will ultimately change, too.

James Dobson, Pat Robertson, my brother and sister, and all the others who claim to have a special knowledge from God about gays and lesbians are all like the older brother in the story of Prodigal Son. They can't believe that God welcomes us into God's family and they keep trying to tell us that God wouldn't act that way. And because they can't understand how God could act that way, then they claim that ministries like Metropolitan Community Churches must be demon possessed. It's the only explanation they can come up for why God is acting far differently than they thought God could or would act…running right past them and welcoming you and I into God’s welcome home party.

But now the question is put to us, will we accept that God's house is broader and bigger than we thought it could be? Is there enough room in God's house for me, my Queer brothers and sisters, and for our fundamentalist right-wing brothers and sisters? Will we welcome them into God's house, or will we also be like the older brother in the story and stay outside pouting while the celebration is going on?

It's easy for me to accuse those who condemn me for being gay as modern day Pharisees. I could call them names as easily as they seem to want to call me names. I could condemn them for their non-loving ways as easily as they condemn me for my sexuality. I could refuse to commune with them and refuse to share God's love with them just as easily as they refuse to allow me in their churches or to share Communion with them. But at some point I have to ask myself exactly what is being accomplished by my acting just like them? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I Peter 3:15-16 says, “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is within you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

God wants me to speak to those who are opposed to my being gay and Christian in love - not in anger. When, like the man who spoke to me in the Mall, I can dialogue honestly with them about my beliefs and my understanding of God's love for everyone, maybe we will make some headway in coming to a point where both sides are more willing to at least listen respectfully to the other side. They may never change the way they believe, but the evidence is that a lot of people are changing the way they think and feel about you and me. I'll never know if I don't try. And I'll never try if I refuse to join the party because they are there.

"Coming Out to God" Exodus 3:1-12

This is the first in four PRIDE sermons for the month of June:

LGBT people are making a difference in our nation and in our world as we actively strive for acceptance, for justice and social changes that mean we are included in all of the privileges society has to offer any other person regardless of sexuality, race, color, ethnicity, creed or religion. We are truly coming out.
Have you ever stopped, though, to notice that the Bible is a book about coming out? The Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter 3 is a story about coming out of innocence and shame to enjoy our bodies and sexual pleasure which is a radically different way of looking at the story than focusing on sin and punishment.
Joseph and his coat of many colors is the coming out of a dreamer, a person with a special gift. We who are gay or queer have special gifts to share with our communities. Joseph’s very special coat of many colors, a rainbow robe, if you will, is a promise that our differences are not wrong.

Coming out to love is reflected in the biblical story of David and Jonathan’s passionate devotion to each other, and in the story of Ruth and Naomi’s loyalty and devotion to each other. Their relationships may not have been sexual, but what justifies any relationship isn’t the sex but the love that is involved.
Coming out of privilege is the story of Esther, a beautiful queen who is secretly Jewish in a Persian culture. Esther comes out of her privilege to identify with her people in order to save them from a decree of death. She asks her people to fast in solidarity with her as she risks her life before the king, mirroring queer people who can pass as heterosexuals and yet give up their privilege in society and come out boldly.

Jonah, the reluctant preacher, who comes out of anger and learns the hard way what God intends for him to do after running away the first time. Jonah is called to preach repentance to the Ninevites—the very people oppressing Jonah’s people. When the Ninevites repent, Jonah becomes angry because they received the same mercy and grace as the Israelites however Jonah didn’t want to share this with his oppressors. It will do us all good to remember that God is even the God of our oppressors The same God in whose image we are created as LGBT people is the same God of the Christian Coalition, of Focus on the Family, who actively persecute us today. We must not forget to offer our oppressors opportunities to turn from their shameful ways and receive God’s mercy and grace.

Coming out of “traditional family values,” at the age of 12 Jesus ignored his family’s departure from Jerusalem to go and sit in the temple, his “Father’s House;” He left his family, he never married, and as far as we know he never had any children; he called his disciples away from their families and told them he had no home, claiming his message would set family members against one another. Jesus was hardly the supporter of so-called traditional family values—meaning one man, one woman and some children. Instead Jesus extended the meaning of family by calling anyone who does the will of God his brothers, sisters and mother. Jesus defended the eunuchs—traditionally outcasts—by drawing a circle of love and acceptance that included them.

The story of the Samaritan Woman is a story about coming out as ourselves. Jesus’ conversation with her at the well is just one example of the way Jesus did not follow traditional society’s norms for religion, race, gender, or morality—he spoke to a Samaritan woman who had five husbands and who wasn’t married to her current partner. He offered her living water—acceptance and hope for a new way of living—and she was transformed. Jesus’ encounter with this woman illustrates the call to a right relationship with God. When we seek transformation of ourselves we find Jesus calling out to us, repeating: “God loves you, God loves you, God loves you.”

The biggest coming out in all of history is the exodus from Egypt. Their experience parallels our own coming out experience, our own joyous release from the captivity of heterosexism. But then we are faced with possible death in the wilderness, no real home, no road map to follow. We may even want to go back to our former life of captivity, the closet, where at least we felt safely hidden and had food to eat.
Leaving the wilderness Moses and the Israelites got close to the promised land but they did not think that they could conquer those who were living there, so they stayed by an oasis in the desert, deciding to settle for far less. As LGBT Christians we are often told to wait and be patient for full inclusion, but waiting will not prompt the changes that need to take place. It is agitation and discomfort, not complacency that brings about the necessary changes. It is hard being out of the closet and working for change.

Exodus is a story about transformation. God tells Moses in Exodus 19: 3-6
3-6 As Moses went up to meet God, GOD called down to him from the mountain: "Speak to the House of Jacob, tell the People of Israel: 'You have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to me. If you will listen obediently to what I say and keep my covenant, out of all peoples you'll be my special treasure. The whole Earth is mine to choose from, but you're special: a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.'

MCC’s Rev. Dr. Mona West says that the haibru in the ancient East were known as the aliens, the strangers, the marginalized. She points out that word is related etymologically and sociologically by Walter Bruggemann to the biblical term Hebrew, coming from the root word abar, meaning ‘to cross over.” The Hebrews were those who crossed over boundaries, who had no respect for imperial boundaries, someone who is not confined by boundaries of others but crosses over them in a desperate search for the necessities of life. It is these people who were transformed into the nation of Israel.

Bernhard Anderson says that Exodus is the crucial event by which Israel became a historically self-aware community. It is a coming out story of a people.
That identity did not happen the moment that they came out of their closets in Egypt and crossed the Red Sea. It was through their wilderness journey and their conquest of the Promised Land, as they faced trials and rebelled against God that they were able to discover more fully what it meant to be a holy nation. Even once they attained the Promised Land they found that this journey to self-discovery had not ended. They faced new oppression and enslavement and were challenged to live fully as God’s people who embraced a new identity.

In today’s scripture passage from Exodus, Moses is out tending his flock. He believes he has covered up his previous life and would not be bothered by memories of his privileged existence in Pharaoh’s court, nor the suffering of his own people in their slavery. He has escaped a potential death penalty put upon him when in a fit of anger he kills one of the oppressors of his people. While trying to find grazing space for his flock, he encounters God in the form of a bush that burns but is not consumed by the fire and is introduced to God who calls Godself “I am the I am,” or I am who I am. God came out to Moses and in so doing God calls Moses to accept himself. God encourages Moses to be all that God had created Moses to be.
The Bible teaches us that we are made in the very image of God. Just like Moses, we sometimes try to argue with God: Surely, you wouldn’t pick me? Why, God, I’m not worthy. We make excuses about why God couldn’t or wouldn’t choose us and why we can’t be or do what God is calling us to be and do. But God keeps right on calling us, refusing to accept our excuses or our reluctance, moving us forward toward the promised future God wants us to inhabit.

When I was much younger I didn’t understand this urging by God to move me out of my former life and into a new existence that God had waiting for me. I didn’t know other possibilities existed for me than what society and family told me that they expected of me. Knowing I was different and not understanding that difference I believed what my church told me was about its so-called traditional beliefs about same sex love and what it believed was the only acceptable relationship between two people: marriage between a man and woman. I forced myself into the mold of complacency and tradition when I married my former wife.

Don’t misunderstand. I did love my wife. She was my best friend for many years. We formed a loving family that was blessed with four children of whom I am very proud and who I love more than life itself. But throughout those four years of dating and 32 years of married life I couldn’t help but think that there was something I was missing, something that my heart and soul longed for. For many of those years I was miserable and depressed as I tried to put down the real, true me and live a closeted life of acceptance by society.

Seven and a half years ago my life changed. My wife, for her own reasons, decided to end the marriage. I have to tell you that though I was upset and angry with her decision, I was also relieved. Throughout the years I had the God-given privilege of dealing with the question of whether or not God loved me just as I was, just as God had created me. I had prayed for God to change me, to make me straight, to take away my desire to be with another man, but the same answer kept coming back to me, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

In other words, God kept telling me that God loved me just the way God had created me and that God wasn’t going to change me.

So forced out of an unhappy marriage, I had to deal with the question of what did God want me to do now? It was late in 1993 and we had moved back to Knoxville, I tried going back to the same church that had ordained me to the Gospel ministry more than twenty years earlier. I was accepted, even asked to preach, to join a committee whose purpose was to plant another Southern Baptist Church in the area. Because I had previously founded a church that grew rapidly into a major congregation, I was even asked to pastor the new church. They could accept my being divorced, after all it was a fairly liberal church, but I knew that if I revealed my true self to them that their invitations to be involved would evaporate, or at least raise some significant questions about my suitability in those new roles.

So I left that church and began attending the Gay Men’s Discussion group. I found a group of men who shared my feelings and who supported one another in the questions life was handing us to answer. I found Christian men who were gay and who invited me to attend MCC Knoxville where I found a community that accepted me and loved me just as God had created me. There were many ups and downs I had to face as the marriage was dissolved and I built a new life for myself, but I found a supportive community that helped me to negotiate all the hurdles I had to overcome.
God had called me to be a Christian minister. My sexuality and major conflict with others over what our stance as a church should be concerning ministry to the marginalized persons of society, had caused me to leave the active ministry several years before. But at MCC Knoxville, a place of restitution I found grace and mercy and came to realize that God had not changed God’s desire for me to be in Christian ministry. That church acknowledged my history and my calling and eventually made a place for me to renew my vows as a minister and serve them and God. I will always thank God for the wonderful people at MCC Knoxville, for Pastor Bob Galloway and for all who gave me the love and care, mercy and grace that I needed to move forward with God into a new future of possibilities.

God changed Moses. Moses learned to accept himself as God had created him and gifted him. Moses discovered that God didn’t care about the same things that other people cared about.

Listen carefully, God is not calling you or me to become someone different than we are. God is calling you and me to become all that God created us to be…to be ourselves.

People often thank me for my gifts of ministry, for my ministry to them and to this church. That seems strange to me, because all I have done while I have been with you is to be myself. When I try to be different than the person God created me to be I don’t seem to be able to do much of anything. It is only when I allow myself to be my self that real ministry seems to get done.

Previously, during all of my life I was told that I wasn’t good enough for God, that I had to change myself and change my life to make myself acceptable to God. Boy, oh, boy, was that a great big ole lie. God didn’t ever want me to change myself; God wanted me to accept myself, to love myself exactly as God had created me.
God, the I am who I am God, the I will be who I will be God, wanted me to finally stand up and say to the world Hey, I am who I am. I will be who I will be. I am exactly the way God wants me to be. God loves me just the way I am. I do not have to change to be loved by God. By the way, world, I am a gay Christian minister.
Like Moses or Esther, there are people in our world who have lived the great “I Am”—the assurance that who they are matters and that their self worth is not built on definitions others provide.

Born in 1924, black feminist poet Audre Lorde grew up in Harlem and spent her life teaching and writing; her honest free verse gave a powerful witness about a black woman who loved women. When faced with breast cancer, Lorde reevaluated her life and become even more determined to have her words and speeches match her life. Writing of her mortality in her essay, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, “she says she regretted her silences most, “My silence had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.” She believed that culture had silenced women, blacks and lesbians specifically, but that all people could be silenced for one reason or another. Being silent about your truth in life will not protect you, even though it may feel safer. Coming out and being true to one’s self—who one was created to be—energizes one’s work and brings more life to all those around you.
Speaking the truth about her life, Lorde’s words and life inspired many women, lesbians and straight alike, to honor the truth of their lives and name themselves rather than letting society use derogatory labels. Rather than choosing to live an invisible life in the closet, Lorde claimed her God-given identity.

In his inaugural speech as the first black president of South Africa in May 1994, Nelson Mandela, who had spent 27 years in prison resisting apartheid in his country, said “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. You were born to manifest the Glory of God within.”
The Rev. Jay E. Johnson, Programming and Development Director, for the Pacific School of Religion’s Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, says the following:
“There is a price to pay for telling the truth, just as there is a price for remaining silent. Of course, there’s more to human thriving than truthful speech—but there can’t be less. Speaking the truth won’t guarantee we’ll live authentically—but there’s no hope of doing so if we lie or keep silent. Nearly twenty years ago, AIDS activists reminded us that silence equals death. Not long after that they flipped the coin over and reminded us that action equals life.
“Breaking silence by speaking the truth is a form of action for the sake of life. Speech is action insofar as speaking the truth changes people—it changes both those who speak and those who listen. The words conversations and conversion come from the same root. The truth about the ways things are and about who we are tends to do that—it changes quite a lot.”

Thinking About PRIDE, proper 7C

In this gospel passage from Luke 9 Jesus heals a mentally disturbed man and returns him to his community to share what has happened to him with others. The man is usually referred to as the demoniac, meaning that he has been possessed with many demons or evil spirits, which is how ancient people described various diseases and mental illnesses. It is interesting that the word used to describe healing is the same word also used for salvation. The man is healed by Jesus but he is also saved from a life that caused him to be rejected by others. As we have been seeing in the healings and resurrections we have been reading about these past few weeks when Jesus restores someone to health he is also restoring them to their community, giving them social and economic justice as well as healing their disease or condition.

I really struggle with this passage because it has been so often used against those of us who are Queer. So called fundamentalist Christian ‘friends’ have told me that I am Queer because I have been possessed by an evil spirit which need to be exorcised from me. Many fundamentalist Christians tell us that we are Queer because we have a mental disorder that needs healing, in other words we aren’t ‘normal’, that is heterosexual. Well, I've got news for folk who believe that way: Medical science says that being Queer is natural and normal within humanity and that I don't have a disease that needs healing. I am 100% okay exactly the way I am, exactly the way God created me. Therefore, there isn't within me an evil spirit of homosexuality that needs to be exorcised. And I am not in need of healing to repair my sexuality. In fact, Jesus is spiritually helping me to live my Queer life abundantly and joyfully!

It is worth noting that when the man is with his community that they chain him to prevent him from hurting himself or them. I, too, felt 'chained' by others about my sexuality and socially restricted by them before I came out about my sexuality. I had to hide in the closet, withholding the truth about myself from them because society told me that if I was Queer I would not be welcomed and that somehow I was a danger to them and a threat to myself because of my different sexuality.

When the man escaped the chains he went to live in a lonely graveyard. What a horrible place to live: alone, amongst putrid, rotting bodies, a place where no one else wanted to go. Throughout history society has forced Queer persons to isolate themselves from others by going into the 'graveyards' of society where no one else wanted to go to be with us. This is how the terms 'living in the closet' came about. Queer people developed their own safe spaces where they could be themselves apart from the rest of society and its condemnation.

When Jesus healed the man he sent the man back into his community and told him to tell everyone exactly what had happened to him. I don't imagine that was very easy for him to do, but he went empowered by Jesus. He no longer had to live a life isolated from others or restricted by them. He could finally be himself, whole, healthy, happy, complete, because of what Jesus did for him.

Do you feel incomplete, less than a whole person, unhealthy, and depressed? Then I've got some good news for you! That's what PRIDE is all about! PRIDE is about how we can live whole, healthy, happy, complete lives as Queer persons who are beloved by God exactly the way God created us!

Take off the chains during this month of PRIDE and be yourself. Come out of the closet and let others know that you are a beloved child of God! It might not be easy to convince everyone, but God has empowered us to proclaim the truth about ourselves to everyone right where we live and work! It's at least something to think about!

Taking a Chance on Love: God's Kind of Love

Scripture Passages you should read: I Corinthians 13, Luke 4:21-30, and Jeremiah 1:4-10.

You may think it from the way I begin today’s sermon that I’m going to talk about something other than God’s kind of love today and how we should evidence kind of love in our lives by loving ourselves and loving others like we love ourselves.

We have this picture in our minds of Jesus as always being overly polite and extremely courteous, never ruffling feathers or making anyone angry or upset. We snap at other Christians when they say or do something that we don’t like, “Jesus wouldn’t act that way,” as if we are delivering some kind of chastisement for their so-called offensive behavior. But is that a true picture of Jesus or even of a Christian. Are we supposed to always be so meek and mild as to never offend, never upset, never disagree, never act with courage and honesty? I don’t think so. Is it ever possible that doing or saying the Christ-like thing might just result in a riot?

I’ve said many times that Jesus was first and foremost honest, calling for persons to lovingly act with integrity, honor, justice and mercy toward others. Jesus wasn’t afraid to be honest with people when they misunderstood and misinterpreted God’s Truth from the Scriptures. That’s one of the biggest reasons why the religious authorities of his day had him arrested and killed. They couldn’t allow anyone to disagree with their interpretation of who God was and how God would act in the world. Killing Jesus would prove they were right and put an end to his kind of insolence, wouldn’t it?

In Today’s gospel reading from Luke, Jesus is the hometown hero returning to his adoring family and friends where they are sure he will work for them the same kind of miracles he is reported to have done for others. Why shouldn’t they expect this from him? They deserve it, don’t they? He grew up here among them. He owes it to them. When he begins preaching however they quickly develop a very different opinion of him.

This scripture story is an example of just how honest Jesus was with his own family and friends, as well as with others, and as Dan read to us, the folks he preached to that day tried to kill their hometown hero because he pointed out to them their own misunderstanding of how God would act in Love toward those who they thought didn’t deserve God’s Love and Care. In fact they felt that such people, the gentiles, were so far beyond the hope of God’s love and help that they could rightly ignore them, reject them, even hate them without any fear that God would disagree with their opinions or actions. But Jesus reminds them that the scriptures tell a very different story about whom God is and how God will act.

The prophets of old said that when God declares the Jubilee, that great celebration party of God’s New Community, all people will come together, even the hated gentiles, and the diseased, and the handicapped, and the stranger and even the eunuch; everyone that they thought God would exclude would be right there at the party with them sharing in the same happy blessings that they thought only they deserved. What? Those filthy people coming and enjoying the same holy blessings as we are promised? That was more than they could accept from him. It went against everything they thought and felt to be true about God and about them.

The truth is they were terribly confused about who Jesus was. They thought they knew this kid from down the street, Mary and Joe’s oldest child. He may have gone off and made a name for himself, but just who does he think he is telling us this kind of crap? But Jesus refuses to fulfill their expectations of him and so ‘filled with rage’ they try to throw him over a bluff to his death. Not only does Jesus elude them physically, but he eludes them spiritually as well.

Have you heard about any modern day religious authorities who think or act this same way when we don’t meet their expectations of who and what a Christian should be? They yell at us “You have no right to disagree with us because we have history on our side.” So did Jesus’ adversaries. “We understand the scriptures exactly the way God intended for people to understand scriptures,” they say. That was what Jesus’ adversaries believed about themselves. “We know exactly what God thinks,” they say. So claimed Jesus adversaries. And like Jesus we have to say to these modern day religious authorities, “We don’t think so. We think that there is another way to look at these scriptures and to understand them that are more in line with God’s kind of love.”

Some of you sitting here today have been so beaten down by others by their way of interpreting scripture that you have given up on loving yourself or ever being loved by anyone else, let alone by God, because of who you are and who you love. Listen to me clearly, when you are in a situation where religious authorities make your feel rejected, hated, excluded and judged, because you aren’t living up to their heterosexual standards, you aren’t in a situation where God’s kind of love is being shared with you the way that God wants God’s loved shared with you. So get out of that situation! Go someplace where you feel God’s kind of love evidenced in the hospitality, and welcome and acceptance that God wants you to have so you can live a healthy, happy life together with those who share your best interests and want to see you succeed being yourself exactly the way that God created you to be!

Some of you flip flop frequently between religious communities. You may come here to get some relief from the oppression you feel from other religious communities, then you start to question your feeling better about yourself and you go to back to them and get beat up and abused one more time. Stop that. Don’t let them do that to you anymore. Give up being a part of those kinds of negative religious groups and claim the wonderful, positive, life-giving Love of God for yourself. Love yourself with God’s kind of love!

Remember: God knew you were queer long before you came out about it. How? Because God created you that way. Accept that if God created you gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, or trans, or heterosexual, then God loves you exactly the way that God created you and God wants you to live an abundant happy life exactly the way you were created. God doesn’t make mistakes. You don’t have to change yourself, even if that were possible, which I believe it isn’t, in order to be loved by God. God already loves you exactly the way God created you.

Others may try to tell you that it is a failure of faith on your part that you won’t allow God to change you, when in reality it is a failure of faith on their part to accept God as being much greater and much more creative, loving, and welcoming than they ever thought possible. That was the reason the people in his hometown wanted to kill Jesus. His concept of God was so much bigger than their own, that they couldn’t accept it, couldn’t and wouldn’t even let him say it out loud.

I get hate mail all the time telling me I’m going to hell because of my understanding of God and God’s Truth which I try to share with you. We got one of those letters this past week from an anonymous person in Florida telling us that gay cities in America were going to be destroyed and all of us gathered here today will be destroyed, too, simply because the person who wrote the letter believe God hates Queer persons. Mostly I just throw those kind of things away. They aren’t worth the time it takes me to open them, and I don’t read them once I figure out that it is hate mail. But I used to be bothered greatly by that kind of belief. Yes, truthfully, there was a time as a teenager when I thought it might just be possible that I would go to hell simply because I was gay because I believed the lies that others were telling me about God. I also knew there wasn’t anything I could do to change myself. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to change.

It took me a long time to get this God-loves-you-just-the-way-God-created-you stuff straight in my own head. I prayed for many long years for God to take away the gay. I had been so thoroughly brain-washed by those in authority over me telling me what the scriptures said that I didn’t read those scriptures for myself to discover what they really said. I thought my only choice as a Christian was to live my life unhappily in a heterosexual relationship with a wife. Don’t misunderstand. I loved my wife and my children. I still do in fact.

But, imagine my surprise when I got to seminary and began to read all of the scriptures on my own and see those few verses used against gays and lesbians, trans and bi folk, were just that, a very small part of a vast amount of scripture which told a extremely different story about the incredibly affirming love of God for everyone, even for me, even if I was gay.

The first thing I started doing was to stop repeating what other people had told me was true and to stop acting on their false truths in my ministry with others. Imagine the complaints I got from my churches when I began to include Queer people and other outsiders in my ministry, to support them, to encourage them, to love them? It was okay as long as I was going away from the church to minister to them during the week. But when I started inviting these Queer folk into the church and allowing them to volunteer to work in the church they decided they couldn’t put up with that any longer. “You can’t have a gay man reading the scriptures because someone might think our church thinks gay people are okay.” “You can’t have a divorced person teaching a children’s class, someone might think we supported her decision to divorce her husband.” “You can’t let a pregnant teenager interpret for the death, someone might think we encourage premarital sex among our teens.” Oh, they didn’t try to throw me of a high bluff to my death, but I got kicked out of the church I had originally started in my own home. I had led that church to grow from a small handful of people to more than 300 worshipping together on Sunday mornings in less than two years, but that congregation had no place for a pastor, even the pastor that had led them to grow so quickly in so short a period of time, if that pastor believed that when the Bible said that God loves everyone that God really did mean everyone.

The leaders of that church wanted to keep excluding, hating, and rejecting those who they felt didn’t live up to their kind of definition of holiness, be they gay, lesbian, pregnant out of wedlock, divorced, or of a different race or ethnic group. Their vision of church was so radically different from the one I had when I began the church that I didn’t recognize that church as God’s church any longer. They called a meeting to censure me because according to them I wasn’t administering my pastorate in a biblical manner since I had officiated at the marriage of two formerly divorced persons. It was an angry, hostile group. There was no way I could win, so I got up and I walked out of that church and never went back. You and I owe it to ourselves to not stay in so-called Christian situations where people are twisting and breaking the Word of God into something God never intended and doesn’t desire. Rejection and hate are never part of God’s kind of love.

Several years later, following the failure of my own marriage for reasons other than my sexuality, I ultimately came out about who I truly was. And I found this wonderful denomination called Metropolitan Community Churches where I could be myself and could enjoy the company of others who felt about God’s kind of Love for all persons just like I did, and I could be a pastor again living my life with integrity and truth and love and hope.

We who are Queer have been excluded from communities because we haven’t fit their heterosexual norms. But we should ask ourselves the question today, “Have we excluded members of our own Queer community because they don’t fit our expectations of what it means to be Queer?” Are we doing the same thing to others that has been done to us? We need to seriously consider and answer this question if we are to truly become the New Community of God that welcomes and includes everyone.
God knows you and me more intimately than anyone else could ever know us. God’s love and knowledge of us is deeper and more profound than anyone else’s, including hometown family and friends, or even our own selves. This is what the Jeremiah scripture is trying to tell us today. When God called Jeremiah to be God’s prophet, Jeremiah responds a lot like you and me. “Oh, no God, you can’t possibly mean poor, little, pathetic me. Surely there is someone much better you could call upon to do your great and important work.” But God is insistent and tells Jeremiah that God knew Jeremiah before he was formed in his mother’s womb, long before he was born God had chosen and blessed Jeremiah with the abilities and skills to do exactly what God was calling him to do. God knows you and I better than anyone else knows us because God created us exactly the way we are. God knew us before we came to know ourselves. God is creatively present in our formation and our sexual orientation and our gender expression.
“One commentator I read this week (Allen) says that we are all OUT to God. God calls LGBT people from the very beginning and knows us in every moment. We are set apart by God and given the holy work of being fully ourselves. Sometimes just being who we are as LGBT people and witnessing to God's knowledge, love and acceptance of us in this world is our (holy work), our (divine) calling. Being known is like coming out—being out is being known.” (Out in Scripture).

We did not read it today, but Psalm 71 affirms that God who knows us chooses us to speak out God’s truth. God is our ever-present refuge from a world that shames us. God is our confidence in our weary fight against injustice. God is our stronghold in the climb over the seemingly unmovable rock of prejudice. (Out in Scripture)

How do we demonstrate God’s New Community to the world around us and welcome them into to celebrate the party with us? Paul tells us it is by loving others with God’s kind of love. It is a love that proclaims the good news of grace and acceptance, and it commands us to love God, and to love our neighbors as ourselves—to do justice and to love mercy. Now, lest you fear I am now going to preach on 1 Cor 13 also right now, I have good news for you. That is a sermon for another day.

Remember: No matter who you relate to this week, take a chance on Love. Be God’s light and love to the world by what you do and what you say. For Love, God’s kind of Love, is the more excellent way!

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.