Shekinah Glory

A few weeks ago I participated in a press conference with a group in Southeast Washington called Clergy United. All of the major local press outlets were there. The location was a historic African American church in Marion Barry’s district. This location was picked because it was a press conference in support of Marriage Equality for Gays and Lesbians and Barry has made so many negative comments about gay marriage while mischaracterizing the African American community’s unanimity on this subject. Various speakers from a multitude of Christian traditions spoke to the press about the Declaration of Religious Support for Marriage Equality that we had all signed. Today I would like to talk about why I strongly support this document and my feelings about marriage equality as a member of the clergy.

Before I wade into the hedges I think that the parameters of the discussion need to be clearly demarcated. I believe that there are two separate arenas that need justification when the civil and liturgical rights of marriage for gays and lesbians in the United States is discussed. This is to talk about the state’s role in sanctioning marriage and the church’s liturgical and biblical self-understanding on the subject.

Separation of Church and State is a bedrock principle in our democratic process for liberty. Ever since the early Baptists introduced it in the 17th Century Rhode Island Plantation it has been a protection for minority religious groups that would otherwise have been compelled to conform to the majority’s worship. In some cases it literally saved the lives of dissenters. It is a principle that protects each and every religious group from the tyranny and persecution of the majority.
I do not believe that in our 233 year striving for an inclusive secular state there is sufficient room for legislative, legal or administrative opinions on actions that should be regulated by the church. To wade into a liturgical and sacramental act is too often to side with a majority or to take only a powerful interest’s opinion into account at the exclusion and persecution of a minority. So, while the state might have a compelling interest in recording marriages for the protection of abuse to minors, the restriction of an individuals civil rights, tax, census and historical purposes it does not strike me that it will do any better at defining marriage for religions than it would be at telling us how Jesus can both be divine and human. We must have less, not more governmental intrusion in acts that historically have been liturgical and sacramental.

Now to the biblical and liturgical elements of an argument for marriage equality. Let me from the outset say that I refuse to start my discussion on the evangelical or fundamentalist’s level. That would be to string together a group of biblical passages to support my belief that Gay marriage is okay for Christians to practice. While I believe that there is ample evidence to suggest that most of the passages against gay marriage trotted out to call it an abomination are being ripped from their cultural context to support something that the writers of Leviticus or Romans would never recognize. While making a strictly biblical quotes argument on sexual ethics might be compelling to some, I do not believe that it presents anything but an ambiguous and conflicting moral direction.

To take this type of conservative biblical argument against marriage equality seriously I would have to also admit I believe that the bible has a coherent and unified stream representing a unchanging divine narrative thread throughout. Having read the Bible from cover to cover several times I believe that it takes Herculean efforts to unify texts that are diverse and span literally hundreds if not a thousand years of revelation to God’s people. I am not willing to choose one small part of the Biblical narrative that fits my political or cultural outlook to defend or defeat marriage equality. If I was a literalist then I would feel compelled to also advocate arranged marriages, polygamy, premarital sex if it brings about marriage to a brother, the idea of a kinsman redeemer, equating women betrothed in marriage to the ownership of cattle, immediate acceptance of those extolling the type of erotic premarital sex eloquently poeticized in the Song of Solomon and the bisexual friendship covenant that we see between Jonathan and David in today’s text.

Instead of attempting to unify what I believe can never be unified I would rather point to general ethical principles that I believe both Christ and Paul espoused. First, there is the freedom in Christ that releases us from the bonds of law and turns us to a much more fulfilling and humanizing path of mercy and grace. Instead of the chaos that is often predicted by those who seem to need rules and restrictions in their lives, freedom in Christ actually brings a much more challenging set of living conditions. All things are permissible, but of course not all things are beneficial. I would rather live with a sense of freedom whose ethic is a responsibility to others and not reducing life to rules or regulations.

Second, Christ appears to accept those whose behavior we find unacceptable. It is a gospel of good news that speaks to the woman at the well, the woman with a non-stop period, tax collectors, lepers, wealthy women, rogue religious leaders, thieves and a demon possessed man living amongst the tombs. For, Paul it is us uncircumcised gentile who can never fulfill the requirements of the law who need acceptance. Both show a general acceptance that God’s grace is ever expanding and accepting of those that we might find unacceptable.

Last, it appears Christ is less worried about individuals keeping sexual purity than he is that we grow a faith rooted in mercy, hospitality for strangers and in love. Jesus gives no moralizing tomes to the two women he meets who do not conform to societal norms for sexuality. Instead the first he gives an opportunity to spread his message of living water and for the other he turns against those who are judging her. Both quite antithetical to judging homosexual’s lifestyles. Even after a Romans text that many have used to vilify homosexuality as sin Paul exclaims to the church, “Judge not that you be judged for in the same measure that you judge others you will be judged.” It seems to me that nurturing a humble, caring faith that turns toward mercy, love and justice for the suffering is more important that keeping a group’s particular rule or concrete regulation.

Even if I thought that the act of homosexuality or bisexuality that led to two women or two men entering into a loving relationship with each other was wrong, which I do not, in the ethics that I believe Paul and Christ espouse it is not my concern. It is the responsibility of the two who have entered into that mutual covenant in all aspects of their relationship with each other, their neighbors and God to sin no more. As a pastor I am not to deny their covenant, but as with any couple to encourage them to live within a covenant of mutuality with their new spouse, within their community and with their God. To me there is no credible distinction of that covenant between them as being a blessing or a marital vow.

Freedom is frightening because it means a loss of control. Yet, freedom is exactly what we need more of in our country and the church itself. Freedom will mean that a moralistic majority will not be able to impose their liturgical and sacramental sexual restrictions upon a minority that is currently being denied their basic human rights. Freedom in the church will mean that no matter what you think of this issue you will be forced to show tolerance, love and mercy to those whom you believe to be outside the realm of acceptable practice.

Mark 4

There was a time when I was a pacifist. I took the passages that one should turn the other cheek as an ethical norm for all society. Mostly I held to it because I was a biblical literalist. This meant that I took the passage of turning the other check literally and thought that it informed how followers of Christ should look at words like love, mercy and peace. Now I don’t want to put down those who hold to this type of belief system, but I could hold to it no more.

What happened? My worldview shifted, my theology became much more realistic and much less idealistic and I realized that there were other passages where Jesus violently overturns tables, brandishing a whip that challenged my docile view of my teacher. Most of all I realized that non-engagement is not practical.

I will take you through an ethical test that had a deep impact upon me. Say you are part of the Cherokee tribe in the Old West during the period that used to be cavalierly called the indian wars. You were part of a peaceful tribe that has decided to return to your reservation after your council and chiefs have negotiated a treaty with the local fort. It is hunting time so many of the warriors are out hunting and you are a band of about 800 that are mostly women, children and the elderly. So confident is the tribe in their relationship with the fort that the Chief flies the American flag as well as a white flag over his lodge.

When 300 well armed soldiers come onto the reservation fully armed your leader is leaves his lodge to meet them. Leading them is the same man that the chief has just worked out a treaty. Yet, chaos ensues when the village finds itself in a full out attack. The chief tells his people not to worry as these drunken troops shoot indiscriminately into the the houses and people. He takes his white flag and says to his people, “Don’t shoot we are friends.”

Some of the people flee, hiding where ever they can find shelter from the hail of bullets. A very few defy their leader’s orders and run to their lodging for their guns to defend themselves from this unprovoked attack.

The question is: whose decision was much more moral? Was it the chief and leadership who refused to fight back because they had a treaty with the soldiers who were killing them? Was it the people who fled and sought whatever shelter they could find? Was it the people who during a hail of bullets ran to their lodges and grabbed a gun to fire back? Are any of them wrong?

When I first read the history of the Sand Creek massacre in Colorado these were the questions that confronted me and my safe and passive ideology. My conclusion was that it was too convenient for me to have a theory of pacifism which was separated from the chaos of imminent violence and confrontation with overwhelming force. My theories and biblical interpretations seem safe and hermetically sealed. I just do not have the perspective of someone peacefully protesting in Iran and finding themselves fired upon by soldiers, a family of six that lives in a war zone or a single mother that lives in the projects.

Just so we are clear this does not mean that I support every type of adventurism that our country’s most powerful military in the world takes against 4th tier armies. Nor do I believe in collateral damage, the expediency of torture and I have a tendency to believe that there is no such thing as a just war when your firepower could wipe out the entire population of the planet a 1,000 times over. I just can not make a value judgement in the situation when innocents face violent chaos and confusion.

This is why I take such great comfort in the Jesus that emerges from the cabin of a boat in the book of Mark. The story is simple, but its application is difficult. Jesus and his disciples take a boat to get to the other side of the lake and away from the throngs that Jesus has been teaching and showing miracles. So, exhausted he decides to sleep. While he is in a deep sleep a storm arises and batters the boat, filling it with water.

In desperation his disciples shake him and say, “Master, don’t you care about our well being?”

In a groggy, grouchy mood Jesus rebukes the wind and sea saying, “Peace! Be still!” Winds stop and the sea immediately quits pounding the boat.

Turning to his disciples he says, “Why do you have fear, have you lost all of your faith?”

In the midst of chaos, swirling waves, black clouds, water lapping his face, the boat’s violent heaves, the powerful cracking of thunder Jesus chose faith instead of being overwhelmed by fear. Could it be that being consumed by fear is the opposite of faith?

With the help of Jesus’ example in Mark I have come to a new definition of peace. Peace is not the absence of violence or conflict, but the active engagement of chaos and fear in our own personal lives, in our families, in our friends, in our enemies, our neighborhoods, our country and our world to bring about wholeness. It is not retreating from every thing that seems like a conflict or has the potential for pain, but to realize the location of faith in each and every situation. This will require a living faith. One that does not think of ethics in categories, but in a lived and expanding wisdom that ends with God’s love for creation. It will mean understanding my fears and letting them go for a life filled with faith.

Every time I Feel The Spirit
Pentecost

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was that awkward feeling that I was out of place. It was the end of my first year of seminary and I did not know what to do with myself in this environment. I treated it a lot like a college experience to tell you the truth. Yet, that is not a secret to my friends, professors and family. I had not been a Presbyterian for very long and quite frankly did not know if I really wanted to be one in the first place. Yet, here I was studying to be a minister in that denomination. All I knew was that I felt that God was hassling me, prodding me and irritating me. As a matter of fact God is still doing that. I could not let God go, heaven knows I tried, and in the end I am pretty convinced that it was God who was actually holding on tightly to me through some pretty scary spiritual years.

Presbyterians are Calvinistic weirdoes in our society. They are buttoned down, older, educated, upper middle class, white people. I was close to a religious anarchist in a denomination that has a 300-page constitution called The Book of Order. I had to think systematically about theology, rationally about ethics, seriously about church polity and orderly about church worship. All this, plus Calvinists do not believe in free will! What was a holiness kid was raised on tent evangelists to do?

So, we went to one of the staple Presbyterian Churches in Austin. A 500 member, respectable church called Westminster in an area of town called Tarrytown. This coincidently was down the street from the liberal United Methodist Church that George and Laura Bush had a membership in. I liked it because my boss went there and many of the people whom I thought were cool. Plus, the woman minister really got the children to participate in worship. I liked that.

Well my first Pentecost I was not disappointed. The choir sang lushly and the sermon was memorable. After the service my boss, a confirmed bachelor, approached a group of us from the seminary that were talking in a pew.

“Hey, would ya’ll like to come back to my place for Pentecost Bloody Mary’s, and lunch?” he said.

I burst into laughter, I had never heard of something so absurd, but all of us poor students quickly agreed.

“I make the first Bloody Mary, and you are responsible for the rest,” our host announced as he came in with a tray of perfectly presented drinks.

“Let’s raise a glass for all those who have come before us in the church and made us what we are today.” He said and we all said a hearty “Amen.”

Every Pentecost I remember that day; I remember it because that room was filled with people who made me who I am today. There is my wife who has so strongly reminded me of what it means to be loved and have mercy. There was Cindy who was a young Whitworth college grad, a budding military chaplain and another employee of John, our host. I thought she was a bit conservative, but I loved talking with her at work. She is not that conservative, at least not anymore. There was John, my boss, who gave me the black robe that I still sometimes wear to preach in. There was another John, an openly gay man who eventually left the Presbyterian Church because they couldn’t accept him. He is now he Pastor of the church at Yale, our loss. There was Martha a Native American teacher. She is now a pastor of a Kiowa church in Phoenix and has helped fashion one of the most important documents in my denominations history. Then there was Mindy. I would have never finished the ordination process if it wasn’t for Mindy’s example, but that is for another sermon. She was a very out lesbian woman whom many of us adored. She died of breast cancer right after accepting her first church.

That room of different people reminds me that the church’s earliest origins are filled with the greatest ethnic, social, economic, geographic, sexual orientation, class and sex diversity in the history of human society.

These around you are the saints. Even though I have quit drinking many years now, I think that there was more than just liquor spirits in that room, it was filled with the Holy Spirit. Every Pentecost since I have raised a glass and said, “Let’s raise a glass for all those who have come before us in the church and made us what we are today.” That is what I ask of you this morning. Pentecost is a celebration of life, our life, the life-giving Spirit that pulses amongst us and the life that came before us to make us this unique community that we are today. You have been blessed by the Spirit, it is witnessed daily through the love and respect that many have brought to make your life the gift of grace that it is today. That is something to toast.

Acts 10:44-48

One of my favorite movies of all time is “Welcome to the Dollhouse.” It is the dark comedy about a little girl played excellently by the actress Heather Matarazzo. This girl doesn’t seem to fit into her school, is frustrated by her family and is in love with the school bully. In particular I have loved and watched the opening scene over and over again on youtube.

It starts with the opening credits showing a pretty standard picture of a family shot in a picture frame. A mother on the side, father in the center, the older brother stands behind the father, the youngest sister is in front of her mother and then there is the main character that is homely and awkward being slowly focused on as the final credits come across the screen. In the end her toothy, smiling face is the only person in the shot.

Immediately the first scene begins, cut to a noisy middle school cafeteria with clanging dishes and one hundred conversations. The camera slowly circles the room of fully filled tables until it comes upon that same girl in the opening picture standing with a tray filled with food surveying her options. With a deep sigh, I bite on her lips she looks to her left and then turns to her right to hesitantly begin walking toward an open seat. At the last second someone rushes to the seat she was pursuing. Turning toward the next table that seat that seat is filled as well. Then she sees a seat across from someone eating alone.

“Can I sit here?” she asks.

After a long suspicious look the girl says, “If you feel like it.”

Quickly she sits down and immediately begins nibbling on her food.

After staring at her the girl across from her says, “Someone barfed there fourth period.”

In response her back stiffens, but finally in resignation her shoulders drop and without saying a word she begins eating her food again.

That is our introduction to the main character not so affectionately called “Weiner dog” by her classmates.

For some reason I have found this image to be emblematic of the church. We claim we want growth, we think we are friendly enough, why wouldn’t everyone want to be around us, but we are not able to see things from wiener dog’s perspective.

Insecure, self-conscious, without a friend, unsure of what they will encounter when they walk through the door is how it feels when you walk into a new house of faith alone, vulnerable and without the benefit of someone whom you know. I wish that you could have my perspective from up here. It is much like wiener dog. People inevitably stop and hesitate for just a second at those back doors. Where can they sit, without getting too close to someone else, but not being so isolated that in this small space they don’t draw attention to themselves. It is interesting watching their confused faces as we turn gregariously giving each other handshakes as we pass the peace.

There are so many things that we take for granted after a while that someone not used to our religious culture might feel like a anthropologist coming upon a rare Amazonian village. How do I follow this bulletin someone just handed me? Who is this nice lady at the door? What is the purpose of standing for that song and not others? How do I sing these songs? What do I do with this fidgeting child, I’m not sure I trust a church with my young child? Wow, I’ve never heard an organ live before.
Maybe it has not been so long since you first entered a church, so you can relate. For some of us it has been a lifetime inside the walls of churches. It is easy to forget what it is like to be the wiener dog at church.

“Is there any reason why these should not be baptized?” Peter asks of the Gentiles who obviously are filled with the same Holy Spirit that the circumcised experience while he is preaching. It is easy for us to forget the central controversy with us Gentiles. We are interlockers to the Jesus following party. Paul has to defend us Gentiles as ones who are graphed into an existing plant. We are not part of the original contract, but have been written in later.

I think that it is hard to imagine being a religious outsider in a country where there is a church in every neighborhood filled with Gentiles, but this was not the case for the earliest church. Peter himself was very reluctant to accept any Gentile Christ follower that did not conform to Jewish law as well. This meant that many in the first church believed that for a gentile adult man to be a true follower of Christ they must be circumcised. Yikes! That is not a very good evangelism tool.

“Welcome to The Palisades Community Church. Here is the bulletin. There is childcare provided in the nursery. Would you please sign the guest book? We have a lovely coffee hour in the basement. By the way, have you ever been circumcised?”
So, when these Gentiles walked into this worship service of the earliest church as nervous outsiders and obviously exhibited the Holy Spirit what could Peter do but recognize that they were worshipping the same God.

Acceptance is when we humbly acknowledge our own insecurities, problems and gifts given us by a good God. We may stumble onto faith in an awkward way, but acceptance by God is already secured. Acceptance of others is when we humbly realize that what faith we have been given by God in grace is extraordinary and shared by everyone else that comes through those doors.