Christ the King: A Sermon for the Last Sunday After Pentecost Year A

 

At long last, we've reached the end of this very long season of "After Pentecost." Ready or not, Advent is coming...and that means new projects to run alongside that idea that we're supporsed to be "waiting with anticipation" the coming of Christ. Seems the way of the church is to get as busy as possible before Jesus shows up!! 

I'm taking on a fun, and ambitious, project of doing a staged reading of the Gospel of Mark. The script is almost 90 pages, meaning that this will probably take anywhere from 90-100 minutes to do this reading. I'm hoping we'll get an audience for it. It's slated to go up on Saturday, February 10th. So we'll see what happens.

OK...back to today. I found myself this year bothered by the idea of "Christ the KING." It isn't the Christ part that was troubling; I'm really cool with the idea of Jesus being the head of things. 

It's this "King" business which was troubling. There are a lot of political leaders these days who think that they are the King of the country, or the city, or the state. The Matthew Gospel has the king deciding who are sheep and who are goats...something that...again...our political leaders have engaged in this behavior way too much lately. 

So most of this sermon was really me wrestling with these questions...and taking the congregation on a ride with me. See what you think.

Texts: Ephesians 1: 15-23; Matthew 25: 31-46

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Good morning! And welcome to the Last Sunday After Pentecost…also known as Christ the King Sunday.

It’s odd to call this Christ the King Sunday.

One could argue that in any Christian Church…Christ ought to be King every Sunday.

And it was relatively recent history that this last Sunday following Pentecost became Christ the King Sunday.

This whole idea started in 1925 with Pope Pius XI.

At the end of World War I…there was growing secularism in Europe and fascism was beginning to take root.

The Pope decided the best way to combat these dual pressures on the church was to declare…emphatically…that Christ is King and to mark a particular Sunday…the last one in October right before All Saints’ Day… as Christ the King Sunday.

In 19-69…Pope Paul VI thought the Last Sunday After Pentecost…and right before Advent… was the better placement for the celebration of Jesus as Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

And so that’s where we are today.

This celebration of Christ the King does raise some interesting questions for us in our time...particularly when we think about that whole history of how this day came to be a special day on the church calendar.

Just as in the era of the 1920s…we here in the 2020s are living at a time when more and more people are identifying as “Nones.”

That’s N-O-N-E-S.

They’re not interested in Christianity or any religious group.

In this country and around the world…our politics are skewing in the direction of authoritarianism…a system which centralizes power to a few and demands loyalty to an ethic that runs counter to that of a God of Love and Prince of Peace.

Perhaps we need to make a renewal of our commitment to this idea of Christ as King.

But then that poses another problem.

We live in a pluralistic society…one where we must contend with the idea that not all people who profess a faith in God also understand Jesus as the Son of God…let alone believe in a God who comes to us as the Holy Spirit, too.

We have a very particular understanding of who Jesus is.

And our thoughts on Jesus are not the same as our fellow descendants from our Biblical ancestor Abraham.

And then there are Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans: oh, my! They too live in our society…and they worship in a faith that calls them to a higher good for all creation.

It might then seem a bit arrogant for us to assert Christ as King.

Here’s the good news: we don’t have to diminish Jesus or shy away from our belief in Jesus as Christ the King.

We can have our beliefs about Christ as King and love and accept our siblings of other traditions or no-traditions at all.

Because they’re not excluded from the kingdom of God in Christ…even if they don’t profess Jesus as the Son of God.

One of the early church fathers…Irenaeus… found this hope for inclusion of all in the Letter to the Ephesians that we heard this morning.

For Irenaeus… this passage reiterates the idea that Jesus’ life, ministry, and death was in fact for all of humanity…and not just an exclusive few believers.

Jesus came into the world to be a Second Adam… restoring all people to the right relationship with God that was lost in the Garden of Eden.

The twentieth century theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer also emphasized that point. In his “Letters and Papers from Prison,” Bonhoeffer says that Christ wasn’t just a person; he was the person who represents all of humanity…no divisions between people. He is all people…and came as a savior for all of the world.

Karl Rahner…another twentieth century Jesuit priest and theologian…put forward an even more radical and controversial theory.

Rahner suggested that people who never heard the Gospel are “anonymous Christians”…having benefitted from Christ without even knowing it. His theory was highly influential on the Roman Catholic Church’s Vatican II statement. The Roman Church had to struggle with its antisemitism following World War II and the Holocaust. Rahner’s theory helped them find their way toward issuing an apology.

All this sounds fantastic, right?

It keeps asserting that Christ is King.

But then what about this passage from Matthew’s Gospel?

Aren’t some people sheep and others goats?

Doesn’t this sound like a more exclusive…only Christians get eternal life…talk?

I suppose one could read it that way…. if we believe that only Christians do the clothing of people, feeding them, offering them water when they’re thirsty, being kind to strangers, visiting the sick and those in prison.

But we know that’s not true.

In fact, we know plenty of people who call themselves “Christian” who not only don’t do these things; they have invested more time and energy in attacking fellow followers of Christ.

We can see that playing out right now with our siblings in the Methodist church.

And even the Southern Baptist Convention has turned on some of its own.  

The English hymnwriter and minister Samuel John Stone captured this well with these words in the old standard “The Church’s One Foundation”:

“Though with a scornful wonder men see her sore oppressed

By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed.”

Thank goodness Stone completes that stanza with “soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song!”

When we sit in judgment of each other…deciding who is a sheep and who is a goat…we’re putting ourselves in that seat at the right hand of God…and making ourselves King or Queen of the universe.

I think if we are honest with ourselves…we’re all bouncing back and forth between being a sheep and being a goat.

There are days when we get it all right… and others where we fall short of this expectation that we will care for the least and lowest among us…either out of ignorance or exhaustion or both.

What I think is so telling about this vision of the kingdom is that those who Jesus declares as “righteous” and even those who are “unrighteous” are totally taken off-guard.

Both groups are like, “Huh? When did I do all that?” or “We never saw you in need? When did we miss that?”

The message seems to be that we can’t know which group we’re in.

Nor should we be so quick to assume which camp we belong to.

What we can do is take in the lessons Jesus teaches through the Gospels…trust in the power of God’s love…and then do our best to emulate Christ…both in our giving and receiving.

By making that our priority…and our ethic of living…we establish Christ as the King of our hearts and minds.

In that way we can only hope for a world where God’s kingdom will not only come on earth as it is in heaven…but will be seen and experienced through us.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.

 

The Real War on Christmas

Across the United States, parking lots at department stores, malls and shopping plazas, were full of cars and retail outlets were teeming with people in search of bargains and big sales on Black Friday.  In fact, this year, the excitement surrounding the traditional day after Thanksgiving shop-a-thon was SO huge, some of the major retail outlets announced they'd be opening ON Thanksgiving Day, so that professional shoppers could hit the stores early and get the best deals on great big flat screen TVs and such.  We also have small business Saturday, and Cyber Monday for online shoppers.

And so, this is Christmas.

I'm always irritated when I hear self-righteous blowhards on Fox News carrying on about the so-called "War on Christmas."  Sanctimonious talking heads will bemoan the use of the phrase, "Happy Holidays" as an attempt to oppress Christians and not recognize that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season." (Forget the historical facts that indicate Jesus wasn't born close to the pagan holiday around the Winter Solstice where they are celebrating the return of the sun.)  They blame the atheists.  They blame the pagans.  They blame the Jews.  All the non-believers are involved in some pluralistic conspiracy to deny Christ, and destroy Christmas.

Now, let's go to that good Christian retailer Wal-Mart and buy some cheap stuff to put under that very Christian symbol of the Christmas tree.

If anyone has waged a war on Christmas, it's Christians who have put their faith in the God of More Stuff, and gave up offerings of their first fruits by being in line at Best Buy when the store opened for Black Friday. 






Those of us who are Episcopalians are familiar with a season that precedes Christmas.  It's called Advent, as in marking the time of the arrival of a major event, thing or person.  In the case of the Christian mythology, the arrival of Jesus, who is Emmanuel or "God with us," qualifies as a pretty significant event.  That is the season that we're entering into right now as we wait in anticipation for the day of Christmas, the birth of Christ.  We'll be lighting candles every week, adding a new one each Sunday, as we hear the stories and sing the hymns that remind us that we are welcoming into our world an amazing force that is both fully human and fully divine.  And, if we dare to draw near to this force, we may find ourselves changed in unexpected and wonderful ways as our own inner light burns brighter with having been in contact with this newborn king.

This is the awe and wonder of the season of Advent.  And so, as Episcopalians, I would expect us to have a little more give on the whole worldly noise about whether saying "Happy Holidays" denigrates Christ.  It really doesn't.  In fact, the time is a happy time as we wait for what this king may have in store for us and our lives.  It can be an uncomfortable time, too, for that very same reason!  As Episcopalians, I would expect us also to be the ones who recognize that even as the world turns on a dollar and a dime hawking all the things we don't really need, we would simply see it for what it is: the God of More Stuff, and not fall into that pit.

Most of all, I would hope that those of us marking Advent would pay attention to the words in our Sunday lectionary that call on us to stay awake, and be ready because we don't know the hour when the Son of Man is coming.  I take that as the charge to all of those worried about Christmas to ask the reflexive question: What am I doing to prepare for the arrival of Christ into the world?

An End of a Chapter: EfM Graduation

It is over.

Last night, my Monday night Education for Ministry group said, "Good-bye and have a good summer," to each other.  And they also celebrated my graduation from the four-year extension course.   I am happy, and a bit sad, all at the same time.  EfM is a lot of work, but it is also a chance to have some really good and intellectually stimulating conversation about "Where's God in all this?" as we go about our day-to-day living in 21st century Tallahassee.  It is additionally hard to end this chapter as I have been the group's co-mentor for the past two years, so I feel a special bond with the Monday night crew.  I thought about the ones who had graduated from this group ahead of me and how much each of them have added to my own understanding and appreciation for God and the creation that is at hand.

My friend and neighbor, Terry, came by the house last night and I was holding my diploma.  She told me how well the auditions had gone for Mickee Faust that evening, and was sorry that I wasn't there.  And she inquired as to what was in my hand.

Terry is a devout atheist, a true believer in non-belief.  Hence, I have not explained why it is that I am "never available" on Monday nights to do projects that are related to Mickee Faust or anything else for the past four years.

My grin became wider and my eyes were probably dancing with delight as she again asked, "What is that in your hand?"  I wanted her to guess.

"Something fell off the wall?"

Grin.

"Some kind of certificate?"

Grin with stifled laughter.  Her eyes darkened, and she shifted her hips to one side.

"Oh, is this some kind of church thing?" she said, in resignation.

I laughed and turned the frame around and let her read it.  And even the atheist, who thinks all religions are stupid and populated with morons, gave me a hug and a kiss and told me she was proud of me.

"So, this means you're a theologian?" she asked.

"Well... yes, in a way, I guess I am!"

That's always one of the biggest questions about the EfM program.  What exactly are we being educated to do?  Once upon a time (and, in some dioceses, it remains true for those becoming vocational deacons), EfM was a means of offering a theological education to those discerning a call to ordination outside the seminary environment.  It quickly morphed into being a program for the laity and a way for the church to respond to adult Christian Education.  It is not your typical Bible Study or a paint-by-numbers approach to teaching lay people about what it means to be a Christian.  At its very heart, what I believe EfM is about is allowing those people who are "seeking God or a deeper knowledge of God" a place to do their exploration with others while engaged in a process of figuring out, "What does it mean for me to be a Christian?  And what am I doing with the gifts and talents I have?" The coursework allows people to not only learn the roots of their tradition in the Scriptures, but to see the good, the bad and the ugly of how the Christian church evolved from its start where a man was preaching Love in First Century Palestine to anyone with ears to hear all the way to the challenges of the postmodern time that often call faith into question.   Rather than runaway from those questions, the people in EfM turn them around and around and often discover, "By golly, there isn't always a simple, one-size-fits-all answer to any of this!"   And, in my mind's eye, nothing delights the Divine more than our willingness to keep engaged in a game of "Come and Find Me."  Sometimes it's "Hide and Go Seek", but more often I think it's, "Hey You!  I'm right here!"

I posted a picture of my diploma on Facebook, and within minutes, the well wishes and more questions came pouring in:  What's your title?  Rt. Rev. Susan? (I think that might make some heads spin!)   My title remains, Susan Gage, Licensed Massage Therapist, which is a healing ministry in its own right.   Some expressed a desire to hear me preach the Gospel.  Well, I may not be in a pulpit, but I certainly strive to preach the Gospel in my own quirky, queer way here on this blog.

The question I am left with as I finish this particular chapter in my spiritual journey can be summed up in six words:

Here I am, Lord.  Now what?

I am part of a living water, a river rapid that keeps moving and pushing forward, even against the dams that have been built up to contain the likes of me.  With God, all things are possible... even if they must happen in unconventional and circuitous ways.  Given what I have learned in four years of EfM, I can safely say that God seems to find convention highly-overrated!

And We're Worried About Pagans?

What a fascinating sight to see on the major thoroughfare that leads to our state Capitol building in Tallahassee.  Big, bold and visible through the trees, the question comes at you: Are you an atheist?

Quite a change from the billboards you normally see in Florida where you might have a looming cross or very Anglo-Saxon looking Jesus and the famous John 3:16 passage: " For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to the end that all should not perish but have everlasting life!"

As a good New Hampshire-born Episcopalian, I find all of these types of billboards gawdy and off-putting.  And we don't do marquee signs to glorify the Messiah either, thank you.

But this billboard on Apalachee Parkway comes at a time when one of the local clergy from a United Methodist Church announced that she was resigning because she is an atheist.  Pastor Teresa MacBain had had enough of standing in the pulpit every Sunday preaching about a God that she just didn't believe in any more.  She spoke at the American Atheist Conference on March 26th, telling them:

"I was one of those crazy fundamentalists, haters...  I want to apologize for verbally abusing you from the pulpit. I was the one on the right track and you were the ones who were gonna burn in hell. And I am happy to say, as I stand before you right now, I'm gonna burn with you!"   

As you might imagine, the fallout from this event has been well... bitter.  According to a post MacBain put up on the Richard Dawkins Foundation site, her former church "locked her out" and she was unable to get in, presumably to collect her things.  And, this being the Richard Dawkins site, you can imagine that everyone thinks the "theists" are the bad guys, Teresa MacBain is a martyr, so much for Christians being about "love," and all religions are stupid and silly.

There are many things that I think are highly-regrettable in what I have heard about the Teresa MacBain story.  I don't think she deserves death threats, or hate mail, or to be marginalized in any way.   I don't think that's Christian, and I don't think that's the right response especially to one who has now professed un-belief.  From what I have read and heard in her statement that she made to the American Atheist Conference and elsewhere, she didn't come to this decision overnight.

At the same time, MacBain's actions are not so innocent or innocuous.  She apparently went public as an atheist before her congregation knew.  In the meantime, it was revealed that she had been posting on the Richard Dawkins sponsored site "The Clergy Project" under a pseudonym.   And if you listen to MacBain, and others on the site, apparently there are a lot of clergy out there who really don't believe in God but are afraid of losing their paycheck, not to mention friends and family, if they come out as atheists.

Call me insensitive, but I think if you are a priest, pastor, rabbi, religious leader of any kind and you don't believe in God, then I'm sorry: get out of the pulpit and earn your paycheck some other way.  It is ridiculous, not to mention unethical, for someone who is a non-believer to pose and offer spiritual counsel to people about God or Jesus while secretly denying God's existence.   God can handle the unbelief.   But the people of God in a religious institution have a right to expect their spiritual leaders to be real believers.  And there are plenty of people who do believe who would be happy to take the place of this legion of clergy posers.

Does this mean that religious leaders aren't allowed to have doubts about church doctrine as dictated throughout the centuries, or question where is God when the world looks like it's going into the crapper?  No, absolutely not.  Religious leaders need to wrestle and struggle with all of it.  It is in the questioning and the struggle that one's faith should grow stronger.  And if it does not, and you lose your faith in God, and believe the whole story is poppycock, then tell your congregation or your vestry, "I need to retire."

Like it or not, dear ministers:  your "job" is more than just something where you punch-in and punch-out like a mid-level bureaucrat in an office.   You have supposedly been granted this place in the church by the grace of God to guide and nurture people in their journey toward a deeper relationship with God.  Yours is a vocation that is with you always and should be a part of who you are not just in the church but in the world.  You are a public figure.   And there are ways public figures exit their public stage.  You can either go out quietly or you can slam doors and make a spectacle.  I know; I was a public radio journalist.  People hated me for quitting radio.  But I knew what was the healthy thing for me to do.  And when I resigned,  my on-air announcement said nothing about the level of constant backstabbing I was enduring in my work place.   I was professional and appropriate.

And I played "Balm in Gilead" as the closing music on that edition of "Capital Report".  Those intimate enough to know what I had been enduring could read between-the-lines.

People have said that coming out as an atheist is like coming out as a gay person.  To an extent, in a Judeo-Christian society like this one, that is true.  But a clergy person who comes out as an atheist?  That's more like filing for a divorce.   It stings and it causes hurt and resentment.  The wounds may heal, but whether there will ever be forgiveness will depend on the people deciding they'd rather live in joy than misery.

And to think that the clergy in this city are afraid of the pagans?  My goodness, at least pagans believe in something sacred!

      

Ministry Viewed Through a Coffee Mug

During our Education for Ministry group, we were given a reflection exercise where we had to choose an item off the center table.  We were to examine said item, notice why we had picked it, and anything that the item brought to mind.

Once we had done that, we were to consider how this item reflected our ministry.

My item was a "Life is Good" coffee mug.   Initially, I was drawn to it because I like the Life is Good series.  One of my massage school teachers always wore the company's T-shirts with the smiling stick figure drawings hanging out in a lawn chair with a beer, or surfing, or fishing, or bike riding.  As I looked closely at the mug, I found the phrase on the other side: "Do what you like. Like what you do."  I noticed it was somewhat heavy, with a thick-lipped rim.  But what I kept thinking about the cup is that it was empty, and yet "Life is Good."

That thought of "empty, but good" was the basis of my ministerial reflection.  I thought about all of the "official" ways in which I minister:  I am a co-mentor in EfM, a Eucharistic Minister, the leader of Circle of Hope, a leader in PFLAG, and very important, I am a licensed massage therapist, a ministry of healing to those broken by the world.

I looked at the coffee mug again.  Coffee mugs are common every day objects.  I thought about how I take myself, my Christianity as colored in by the Episcopal Church, into common every day places all the time.  One of the most common spaces is among those in my theater group, the Mickee Faust Club.  And while I wouldn't describe the cabaret-style theater we do at Faust as "common", the people involved are representative of the vast majority who have been injured by the church in some way and are embittered, or who just don't bother with the church at all.   In this way, I am a bit of a mystery to my fellow Faustkateers.  As I told my EfM group, I don't push the Christ message on people with lots of "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!"  But because I don't park my Christianity at the door, I know I have made some in the company have to think about blanket statements that start with, "Well, y'know, Christians are always doing...."

This, of course, is something I used to do myself.  The blanket accusation of all Christians for the sins being committed by a few.  I had had more than one or two of the little "c" "christian" persuasion scream at me to "Repent!" of my homosexuality, or corner me in an effort to convert me, or seen them in the media denouncing the likes of me.   I also was horrified that none of the big "C" Christians felt there was a need to counter these messages with the actual Gospel of Love.  Their silence hurt as much, if not more, than the ones who claimed to be speaking in the name of Christ while denigrating members of the body of Christ.   I am reminded of a passage in Romans 14:

Why do you pass judgement on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God.For it is written,

‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,

   and every tongue shall give praise to God.’

So then, each of us will be accountable to God.

Let us therefore no longer pass judgement on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling-block or hindrance in the way of another. 

It it this ethic that I carry with me into these common spaces such as Mickee Faust.   Because even among the ones who have never cared for or thought much of the church, there may be one who is looking for that beacon of light from God as guidance to a new understanding of how they are connected to God, this world, and all of creation.  In his day, Christ was that very bright beacon on a mission to get people to stop bickering over the dicta of how you love God and, in the phrase of Madison Avenue, "just do it!"   That is what we are all called to do as members of the eternal priesthood of the laity.  Our purpose, vocation and ministry is to live and show forth a life that others might see Christ in us.   And then it will be God's own doing that will go to work on the heart, mind and soul of a person.

The more we empty ourselves and share what and who we are, life will be good.

R.I.P Edna and Prayers Requested

If I only could hit the "reset" button.

Earlier this week, I learned of the tragic death of the son of a couple I have come to know and love from my church.  And no sooner had I learned of the funeral arrangements for Ren came the news that my best friend's mother was not doing well post-surgery.

This morning, she died in the hospital in Texas. 

Edna Galloway was a feisty Southern woman who loved to talk about politics and culture and serial killers.  She had a beautiful grin and almost looked like she and Eartha Kitt were separated at birth twins.  I enjoyed the times when I visited the Galloway's Ramshackle Ranch and sat at the bar in the kitchen drinking the coffee Edna had brewed (which her daughter Terry kept insisting she could give me something better!)  and listening to her stories, and what was on her mind... which inevitably would come 'round to why Texas was going to hell in a handbasket with Republican leadership.   She was a lot of fun, and she loved those who loved her daughters.  Paul, her husband who used to tease me with his love for the unloveable Dallas Cowboys, passed away a few years ago.  With the matriarch also gone, there will be a whole lotta space to fill at Ramshackle Ranch. 

My friend Terry is an atheist.  But I believe God loves those who do and do not believe.  And I am hoping that Edna has found her way to whatever is the next adventure after this realm.  Please pray for the Galloway family and their loved ones, as well as my church friends, the Starlings, and the loss of their son, Ren.

And can we please press the reset button.

Touchy Topic: Atheist and Black

I'm neither black nor am I an atheist. 

But I was very interested in the article in the New York Times from last weekend that talked about a minority-within-a-minority: African-Americans who do not profess a faith in God. 

Often times in this country, there is an almost inseparable link between the church and the local black community.  When I was working as a Technical Assistant Clerk in a predominantly African-American voting precinct, my fellow pollworkers would introduce themselves by giving their name, and any possible relations the other person might know... and then what church they attend.  I was only included in that ritual when they saw my Education for Ministry textbook that I had brought along for when I would have down time.   They'd look at it, be puzzled by it being in my possession, and then ask me, "What's your church?"   I'd tell them, and my affliliation would make me a little more real for them. Christ the ice breaker at a Leon County polling place!

One of the striking comments in the article was from the young man who came out as gay to his mother and when she tried to use the Bible to explain her problems with homosexuality, he told her he didn't care because he didn't believe in that stuff anymore.   For the mom, hearing that was more disturbing than hearing that her son is gay!

At long last... there is SOMETHING that is worse in the minds of some than homosexuality!

What struck me in that story was that the man didn't believe "in that stuff anymore" and that he is gay.  This is, sadly, all too common.  For some reason, believing in "that stuff" is seen as antithetical to being gay.  And the church has aided and abetted in pushing this as the inevitable conclusion for all LGBT people.  Those of us who refuse to accept this formula for separation from our creator, redeemer and sustainer then face other subtle forms of discrimination within the church. We are welcome to be in the pews, but the pulpit remains a thorny issue in some parts.  Announcements and thanksgiving for the rites of passage for heterosexual couples are celebrated openly while the milestones in the life of an LGBT couple remain unacknowledged or hidden.  

Such slights drive some to leave the church.  And sometimes those slights lead to the mistaken idea that God is the church.  And if the church is going to treat me as a second-class citizen, then God must think the same thing.  So, see ya, God!

My favorite theologian, Robert Capon, made the best statement to counter this misbelief:

"The truth that makes us free is always ticking away like a time bomb in the basement of everybody's church.  And that truth isn't a bunch of ideas.  It's Jesus.  Sooner or later, if we just sit still and listen, he'll blow the lid off of any prison we've built."

For those of us who are queer Christians, we are in the pews and we are being called to the pulpit because we have known the freeing power of being busted out of the jail of homophobia and the sin of exclusion.  God isn't the figment of our imagination; God is real and is empowering us not to become mere joiners of the institution, but to square up to the institution and call it back to God's ultimate mission: love, unbounded and never-ending.  I believe this is why there are a growing number of LGBT people who are coming out as people of faith.   At least in the white community.

Maybe the trend to toward humanism and atheism in the black community is a way to point out the error of the ways of the black church.  That the rampant homphobia that exists in black churches is sending the children packing... and turning their backs on God.  Perhaps atheism may be the way to shake up the theists in the African-American communities to repent and return to a message that Christ did indeed die for everyone.

Maybe God is working a purpose out....

Awards and Honors and God: Oh, My!

I'm a winner!

Well, actually, I think of it more as I'm the representative of a winner organization. 

The Family Tree, the local LGBT Community Center, presented me with an award for my work in starting the local PFLAG chapter, and for being so out and willing to be a voice for equality in our area.   When I received word of the award, I was genuinely shocked.   As I told the crowd Friday night, I do what I do because it's who I am.  I am a person who has always been concerned about justice and wanting everyone to be treated fairly.  And I love getting together with the PFLAG group and watching parents and others emerge from their shells to become active in seeking equal rights for LGBT citizens.  It's a lot easier to do justice work when there are others with you!

I never said a word about God in my remarks.  This is not because I don't believe in God, or somehow think that I am doing this life by myself.  On the contrary; I am reminded of God's presence in my life constantly.  But I'm a New Englander, and it isn't customary for us to make overt expressions of our faith, especially in mixed company.  There were some others who received honors who did make mention of being "blessed", which I appreciated hearing, and acknowledged the truth in that statement.  All of us are blessed.  All of us are loved.  All we have to do is believe it.  As I said, for me, I try to show Christ to the world in how I live, and move and have my being.  This has always been for me the appropriate outward and visible way of being a Christian.

And it is the one that tends not to repel or offend other people.   

But while I tend to take the more subdued approach, others are more willing to use a megaphone.  Such was the case with one award recipient, who stated repeatedly that everything this person had comes from God.  At the first mention I thought, "Wow!  That's wonderful."  But when it started to become a repeated mantra, I began to sense the growing discomfort in the room.   There were heavy sighs coming from tables behind me, and shifting in chairs.

I was sitting at a table with my friends from the Red Hills Pagan Council, some of whom get a little tired of the male image of God as the default in society.  When our recipient repeated the line about all comes from God and added a "Some of you don't want to hear that!", one of the blind members of the Pagan group said quietly and with innocence, "Why would you say that?"

Perhaps that was said because that has been the experience of those of us who profess a faith in Christ within our queer communities.   Quite often, we are ridiculed and chided by our peer group for associating with "the enemy."   We are forced to defend ourselves from those who think that our Christianity means that we are the enemies of reason or certainly reasonableness.   All Christians have, in the minds of some, been lumped together in the camp of hate-filled, Bible-pounding, bigoted jerks.  We aren't, of course.  And it is very painful to have people who you otherwise enjoy being around make your life miserable when it comes to faith in God.

And yet, I have not given up on those friends.  I am grounded in my faith, and it gives me the strength to remain standing in places of pleasure and pain in life.  And even some of my most ardent "anti-religion" friends see that.  And they puzzle over it. 

Like I said, I don't feel the need to always use words to show the light of Christ that shines from me to others.  I prefer it to happen in places like a PFLAG meeting where I am witness to people changing and softening their hearts, so that they can make a contribution to the struggle for justice.   I thank God for that privilege.  And I thank the local LGBT community for the recognition of that work done by PFLAG. 





  
 

Why This Fight

My brothers and I used to joke that if our family ever recorded a Christmas album, we'd use the line sometimes uttered by our father: "Merry Christmas... and Shut Up, Goddammit!"

Please: if you're one who is easily offended understand that my dad meant no disrespect to God. But four children, three of them boys who could be very loud and the lone girl trying to get a word in edgewise and having to raise my volume in order to be heard... well, even the most pious among you might snap under the circumstances!

The war on editorial pages over the phrase "Merry Christmas" has been kicking up again this season. This morning, a friend on Facebook posted one from the Times-Herald newspaper in California with the headline: Did atheists survive another Christmas nightmare? After reading through the author's arguments, I think our family holiday album would be a good gift for this man, and many others who feel the need to use "Merry Christmas" as the launching pad for missiles aimed at those who actively proclaim themselves to be atheists. I do not think that is in keeping with the spirit of the season that we are in.

I know many who are atheists, or non-Christians of another stripe, who participate in the secular celebration of Christmas. And while giving and receiving expensive gifts and eating to excess is not supposed to be the focus of the celebration for Christians, face it: we do it, too. We are a part of our culture, and we enjoy the secular fun of Christmastime. We put on Santa hats and stuff stockings. We eat Yule log cakes, and adorn and adore our Christmas trees which make our homes smell nice and woodsy. We're all a little pagan at Christmas.

But for those of us paying attention to our Christian celebration of the holiday, we recognize the gift that is given to us is Love. As the lyrics to the hymn say, "Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine." "The Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing", as we sing, "O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord". This is the special gift given to those who believe, offered freely and without reservation. Those who accept that gift, receive it. Those who don't want the gift are not forced to take it. It will remain for them whenever, if ever, they choose to take it. Ah, but this is Christmas... and the gift-receiving is to be reciprocated with the gift-giving. So what is the gift we are to give?

Our selves. Without excuses, caveats, and black-out dates in the same way that Love is loving us in our perfect imperfection. This is the best gift we can give to the one who promises eternal life.

Does that mean that people who don't participate in this gift exchange are without presents during this season? No. And it isn't, nor should it be, our purpose to flaunt this gift and hold it over their heads and taunt them in the senseless way the cited opinion piece does. Wrongly setting up Darwin and evolution as some kind of God-denying fiendish scheme is hardly a Christmas-themed message. The first creation story in Genesis reads like a description of the evolutionary process. New scientific discoveries, including the recent find in Israel of a humanoid species that may pre-date the first known homo sapiens, are signs that we are constantly evolving in our thinking and reasoning and searching. Those, too, are gifts of God. Science and faith are partners in our quest to understand our world, not enemies at war with one another. So let's stop fighting over this.

Wouldn't that make this a merrier Christmas?