The Difficult Work of Forgiveness

Sermon for 17 Pentecost, Year C

October 6, 2019   SMJEC

Texts: Hab. 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Ps. 37: 1-10; 2 Tim 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

Increase our faith! That’s what the apostles are demanding from Jesus, but why are they asking this question? I feel as though I have just walked up in the middle of a conversation. Because…well…I have. 

For whatever reason…maybe to save time…or to reign in the preacher…our lectionary diviners decided to simply pick up basically in mid-thought with our Gospel passage. So I looked a little further back in Chapter 17 to see what exactly made the apostles so concerned that they would need to increase their faith.

Here’s a quick summary of verses one through four:

Jesus lays down some hard truths about what it is to be one of his followers. To draw nearer to God through Jesus we must realize that we are going to fall short of perfection…a lot. And while we are apt to stumble along the way…anyone who causes another to trip and fall and falter in their journey with God…that one might as well be prepared to die because a great millstone will be tied around their neck. That’s harsh. But then Jesus goes on to tell the apostles that if a person does them wrong…and then that same person repents and asks for forgiveness…the expectation is that the offended one will forgive their offender. And if the offender then sins against them again…and again…oh, and again and again and again and again and again? If the offender turns around and asks for forgiveness…the offended has to forgive. Not “ought to.” They have to.

I think we can now see why this might cause the apostles to swallow hard. In the days of Luke’s writing…the way of justice was one of retribution and revenge, not repentance and mercy. Even in our own litigious society, we would rather haul someone into court and seek judgment against the wrong doer than to engage in an act of forgiveness. Think about it: we’re less than a mile from the Capitol Building and the U.S. Supreme Court. Can you imagine if every contentious debate would invoke this Jesus model of forgiveness and mercy? 

If you have been following the news in Dallas with the trial of the white police officer who shot and killed her black neighbor, you might have heard that Officer Guyger broke down in tears and admitted that she had shot an innocent man. In her initial phone call to 9-1-1, she had openly worried that her actions would cost her in her career. That doesn’t exactly sound remorseful for the fact that she shot a guy who was in his own apartment eating ice cream because she had mistakenly thought she was at her own door. But at the trial, she expressed sorrow and openly wished that she had died. The jury found Amber Guyger guilty of murder. The victim’s family members were then allowed to give testimony about the life of Botham Jean which had been cut short. He was a happy man. He sang beautifully and was a member of his church choir. He loved people and they loved him. His death was like a crater in their lives. I’m sure many of us can relate to that feeling when a sudden or unexpected death plunges us into the numbing other worldliness of grief.

But then in one of those rare instances that happens in a murder case, Botham Jean’s brother, Brandt, looked at his brother’s killer and forgave her in open court. He did not excuse her crime. But what he expressed later is that he did not want to spend the rest of his life saying, “I hate you.” He wanted to free himself and his heart knowing that he had settled this matter with her conviction. And he hoped that she would find Christ. He then asked the judge if he could hug her. The two bee-lined toward each other and embraced. How much faith did that take for him to offer forgiveness to his brother’s murderer and to believe her repentance? How much faith did it take for her to embrace his act of mercy? Meanwhile, outside the courtroom, the protestors, who were deeply hurt and angry at the 10-year sentence in this case, chanted “No Justice! No Peace!”  And yesterday, news broke that one of the key witnesses who helped to convict Officer Guyger…one of Botham Jean’s neighbors…was shot to death. “Increase our faith.”

The ability to acknowledge that we’ve done something wrong, that we have caused hurt to another person… and to say we’re sorry requires humility. And the act of having the compassion to offer mercy also requires us to step down from a seat of judgment and stand on that floor of forgiveness. 

Increase our faith indeed!

I can imagine on most days, when we’ve been wronged or violated we might feel more like the prophet Habakkuk. Rather than asking for more faith, we wail to God “Where are you?! Why are you making me witness this?!”  

I know I am upset every time I hear of yet another shooting, or when I hear the newscaster say that each month is “the hottest we’ve had on record” as scientists confirm that—yes--the temperature of the planet is rising. Yes, we are losing more species of birds. 

Such tragedies and hardships can leave us feeling powerless and hopeless in the face of what seems to be a cruel and unjust world.  In the words of the theologian Howard Thurman, “Why does the evilness of evil seem to be more dynamic than the goodness of good?”  Such a force can feel too difficult for us to handle.

Here’s the thing: it is too difficult for us to handle! That’s what Habakkuk realizes in his complaint. God answers him: “There is still a vision for an appointed time.”  God is not going to say when that time is, but he is telling the prophet Habakkuk to have faith and keep watch. In other words: stick with me and I will get you to the other side of this troublesome time. 

Spoiler alert: the book ends with Habakkuk singing a victory hymn and declaring God’s glory.

All the evil and the brokenness in the world is too much for us, but it is not too much for God. That’s Jesus’ point when he answers the apostles.  Note that he tells them they don’t need to have faith the size of a boulder; just faith the size of a mustard seed…just a jot of faith…just a small amount of humility to trust in God. 

Putting trust in God is a way of finding inner peace and strength in times of difficulty. Wecan’t solve all the problems of the world or our community. But if we gave even one ounce of our energy to connecting to the Source of Light and Love that became Flesh through Jesus Christ…the promise of God is to meet us and strengthen us for God’s service to free our hearts to bring more love into our world. It’s about making our faith so strong and free that we could uproot a mulberry tree and toss it into the sea. 

There’s a closing sentence in our daily morning office that I have found to be a helpful reminder of this as I head out the door to start my day: 

“Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation and in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever.” 

Pride Hits 50ish

Hello to those of you who are still occasionally checking this blog site. Seminary definitely has taken the ginger out of me having the mental bandwidth, energy, or actual time to keep up with posting on here. Pity! And that's why God gave me a summer break. That's right: a break. No tests. No papers. No CPE. I will have to do all of that in good time. But for now, I can do things in my own way, and at my own pace. 

It also means I've been free to participate in the Mickee Faust Club's "Queer As Faust XII" cabaret. Originally, I was only cast in one piece, in which I was acting behind a screen. Not much to do there. I was also directing two other pieces.  Fortunately, our artistic director made the artistic decision to put me in the cast of our opening musical number, one of the pieces that I read and had wanted to direct. But to be in it was much sweeter. It was a chance to dress in drag, Drag King in my case, leather jacket and blue jean cut off shorts. And it was the opportunity to tell the story...in song...of our liberation as same-gender loving people.

The struggle which, in truth, began even before those hot summer nights in 1969 in New York City remains a modern day movement of continuously working for our right to be treated with respect and dignity. Transwomen of color are at tremendous risk of being murdered. The attacks on lesbian and gay people are on the rise worldwide. And we are living under a presidential administration in this country where the second in command pushes for policies to encode homophobia in the name of "religious freedom." All of these things seem to me to be contributing factors as to why the youth
of this country are showing signs that they aren't as "tolerant" of the LGBTQ+ community as in previous years.

It is a curious argument to make that Christians, who should be living in the liberating love of God, lack some sort of earthly freedom that keeps them so shackled that they need a law to protect them. Of course, they aren't actually under any kind of duress; they just want ban queer people from jobs, housing, or public accommodations. In other parts of the world, it is permissible to kill someone if they are discover they are gay.

This is why it is so important, now more than ever, for Christians who are queer and have known the loving, lifegiving, and liberating God make themselves known and seen. This isn't the time for us to be tame and toothless. We know we are part of the Gospel story. We have experienced God's truth as a loving, loyal, leader for Love. Therefore, if there is a group that must be ready to take to the streets on behalf of our community and show our young men and older women that when Jesus talks of "other sheep" who he must gather into the fold, he is searching for all those who have been hurt by the church corporate. And we must also be ready to shine the light of Christ into the dim places of our society where racism and anti-immigrant feelings still prevail. We are called to be bold and brave...just like those drag queens, butch lesbians, and street hustlers were at the Stonewall Inn in 1969. As this Pride Month ends, let's not forget the struggle our predecessors endured gives us the strength to keep fighting on. Or in the words of our Faust opening anthem:

We're here! We're queer! We'll never give up the fight.

When the Homework Hits Home

Sometimes, I scare myself.

With our usual Old Testament professor in the Holy Land, the Academic Dean Melody Knowles was filling in as our lecturer. Her assignment was for us to write a psalm of lament for a community (thus assuring people would write on broader topics).  After much thought and prayer on where to go with this assignment, I decided to write on a topic that has driven much of my recent political action:  the wide availability of guns and the wanton killing of people in various otherwise innocuous settings.

And then, it happened again on Saturday. This time at a synagogue right before morning Shabbat services at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood. Just hearing the names and ages of those killed told a story to me. My wife is Jewish and routinely attends the Saturday morning service at her temple. The congregation is usually some of the stalwarts and most committed members of that Jewish community, the ones who volunteer to lead in any number of ways. Saturday is also the day when major ceremonies such as bar and bat mitzvahs take place. At Tree of Life, a baby and his family would be celebrating the bris, the time of circumcision. And so at this time of happiness, a man armed with an assault rifle and Glock pistols came into the sanctuary, shouted about killing Jews, and proceeded to do so. Eleven died at the scene...others were wounded.

And we are back to another round of a local community in mourning, the communities around that community offering love and support as they mourn, and a nation reeling from its own negligence to address gun violence.

So, with that....hear is the psalm that I wrote and posted for my class on Friday morning:

A Psalm Lamenting Gun Violence

1 O God, where are you?

        Why do you not answer?

2 Do you not see the body counts rising,

        or hear the mourners’ scream?

3 The tears of fathers and mothers

            Soak cheeks and inflame throats.

4 Does this blood cry out to you?

            Will these lives cut short touch you?

5 The opponents say not to talk of the horror.

            They reprimand us, saying “Too soon!”

6 Answer, Lord! Is it too soon?

            or is it too late?

           

7 Are we left to offer thoughts and prayers

to an empty void?

8 You are the God who hears our prayers

            and you know our thoughts both in our hearts and minds.

9 You wipe away the tears from the eyes;

            you do not take pleasure in violent deaths.

10 You alone hear the hoarse cries for help.

            Lord, come quickly to save us.

"Welcome Home": Remembering Matthew Shepherd

Matthew Shepherd's remains have finally found eternal rest at the Washington National Cathedral, twenty years since a brutal murder in a Wyoming field sent his soul home to God.

I will never forget where I was when I learned the news of the attack on Matthew Shepherd. I was sitting at the traffic light at Magnolia Drive heading east on Apalachee Parkway. I was listening to NPR at the top of the hour and the news anchor announced that there had been a murder in Wyoming. A young man had been brutally killed, tied to a fence to die. His crime deserving of this gruesome death: he was a gay man.

And I wept. Twenty years later, I still weep.

Words cannot adequately capture all the emotions swirling inside me as I came to honor his life and the legacy that rose up out that act of senseless violence. To see Bishop Gene Robinson carrying Shepherd's ashes in the procession had multiple levels of powerful meaning. I found myself brought back in time to 1998. Gene Robinson was still Canon to the Ordinary in New Hampshire. It would be another five years later that he would be elected the ninth bishop of New Hampshire and my otherwise sweet and somewhat mild-mannered Episcopal diocese of my childhood would be attacked from all corners of the Anglican Communion, and +Gene would receive hundreds of death threats and have to put on a bulletproof vest every time he presided. Bishop Gene shared that on the day of his consecration in November, 2003, he received a note of encouragement from Judy Shepherd, the mother of Matthew. A connection was made. 

In 1998, I had already gone into exile from the Episcopal Church in Tallahassee. The traditional welcome signs had already disappeared at St. John's in downtown Tallahassee. In their place, an eagle that looked straight out of the Third Reich adored the corners of the church. It was truth-in-advertising: not everyone was welcome and the LGBTQ community most certainly was not. I was covering the Florida legislature where I regularly had to deal with lawmakers who had no problem telling gay teenagers visiting their offices that they were going to Hell, or looking this particular reporter in the eyes and gleefully talking of their latest piece of legislation that would attack the gay community. These were the years when I really should have been able to turn to the church.

Fast-forward to sitting in Washington National Cathedral today and being twenty years beyond that time. And all the things that have happened in between. There are far more people willing to be out and visible as LGBTQ and there are more straight people who are OK with the likes of me. Hard-earned rights such as marriage equality have been won, and lots of Fortune 500 companies were ahead of the government on recognizing the partners of their LGBTQ employees. In the Episcopal Church, there has been a sea change in the number of outwardly-queer clergy in the church, and there have been changes in the canons to live into the words spoken by former Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning: "in our church there will be no outcasts."

But progress doesn't happen without more struggle. I couldn't help but remember that Matthew Shepherd's death would be followed by one of the most deadly mass shootings in the history of the country at an Orlando gay night club on "Latin Night." And as Bishop Robinson mentioned in the sermon, Matthew Shepherd's murder was preceded that year by another grisly hate crime involving the dragging death of a black man, James Byrd, in Texas. Even though Matthew Shepherd felt welcomed and included in his Episcopal Church, not all Episcopal Churches or dioceses are equally welcoming.

I have quoted before the words from Judaism's Pirkei Avot that "it is not our duty to complete the work but neither are we excused from doing it." We owe it to the generations growing up today to break up the boulders of prejudice and hatred that keep blocking our forward progress. Those boulders are becoming larger and more formidable in today's Trump-inspired climate of trash talking and viciousness toward "the other." But that means it's time to switch out the pick ax for the heavy machinery. And we need to be willing to do it. As Bishop Robinson says that begins with the fundamental act of voting.

Matthew Shepherd's remains have now been laid to rest in a safe and public place. It is too bad his life could not be kept safe in public spaces in Wyoming 20 years ago. Let us not allow his death to be an ending but a beginning for some and a recommitment from others to equal justice for all, no matter "whose arms they're wrapped up in."* Today was a beautiful homecoming for the entire Shepherd family. May God continue to stay with them and make Love's presence known.

****
*paraphrase of Randi Driscoll's lyrics, "What Matters" sung as a prelude at the service.

Uncovering the Truth

Today, the nation is standing by as we watch and listen to an ugly, painful, personal account of when privilege thinks it can do whatever it wants whenever it wants to whomever it wants.

I am, of course, talking about the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as she recounts what happened to her many years ago when she was attending a party at a private high school in Washington, DC. Dr. Ford has stated that an inebriated 17-year-old white boy named Brett Kavanaugh attempted to rape her when she was a teenager. Kavanaugh is a nominee for a lifetime Supreme Court appointment. A lifetime appointment. A lifetime of making decisions that will affect the lives of all of us in this country, and especially the women of this country.

Dr. Ford is not the only woman who has accused Kavanaugh of attempted or actual rape. Two others, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, also say Kavanaugh attacked them during roughly the same period. The Republicans and the man who calls himself the President of the United States have refused to honor the request of the women to have the FBI investigate their stories. An odd decision if they want to clear the name of the man...their man...accused of these assaults. They also have refused to subpoena Kavanaugh's friend, Mark Judge, who was also present during the alleged assault of Dr. Ford at that prep school party. Judge apparently wrote a book, a fiction, in which one of the characters had a name remarkably similar to Kavanaugh was known as a drunkard who liked to put notches in his belt in his conquests of girls.

Instead, the Republicans have hired a female prosecutor with an expertise in sex crimes to be the primary interrogator of Dr. Ford.

While I don't know any of these women or Brett Kavanaugh, I know this culture of prep school in the 1980s. Male power, privilege, and entitlement were a toxic cocktail that existed unchecked and unchallenged in these places. Dr. Ford's story...and those of the other women...ring so true that in a strange way, I find myself shaken at a personal level. There were incidents very similar to these types of assaults that happened on my campus and the typical reaction from the school was to keep it all under wraps, with no police involvement, and punishment meted out by the school's Discipline Committee. In my Freshman year, there were members of the hockey team expelled for a violent sexual assault on a female student. It was a terrible and scary event, and I attempted to use it as a way of convincing my parents to please withdraw me from the school. After a weekend of discussion and tears, my parents convinced me that it was better for me to stay at the school. And so I did. And I still want the T-shirt that says, "I survived a New England prep school."

Listening to Dr. Ford, she sounds like women I have heard tell their stories of what happened to them in sexual assaults. Their voices are tense. They sound small. It is hard to listen to them. And yet their voices must be heard.

I believe her.

More Than Expected

Portrait of President Barack Obama.

On Friday afternoon, I needed out of here.

Introverts need time alone to recharge and be ready to do the next extroverted thing on the agenda. And my off-the-scale introversion has been tested mightily in this new seminary environment. So I looked up the bus and Metro schedule, grabbed my SmarTrip card, and headed into Washington, DC, to the National Portrait Gallery...one of the items on my "to do" list for this time in Alexandria.

And I was blown away. 

It wasn't just observing the work of artists who, in some cases, did some very interesting brush strokes to create a person's likeness (the Bill Clinton portrait was a psychedelic experience!). But as I moved along the wall and took in the story of the presidents we have had in this country, I was catching glimpses of just how complicated, messy, unjust, and painful the struggle has been to keep together a country like ours. Truthfully, we invaded a land that was already occupied...not unlike some of stories from the Hebrew Scriptures...and set up camp and pushed others off into a wilderness that we would then claim another century later. And we did this on the backs of others brought here against their will. Some were not so keen on that idea of slavery, and then they met with fierce opposition that disrupted their presidencies. And then there were wars. And economic depressions. And corruption and largess. 

But then there was a video playing in an alcove. It was clips of speeches saved by the History channel. And there were the accomplishments: the ADA. The reunification of East and West Germany. And....marriage equality.

To stop and listen to Barack Obama's speech before a crowd of weeping LGBTQ+ activists and couples holding rainbow flags brought me back instantly to the rush of feelings I experienced both when the noxious Amendment Two passed in Florida...on the same night that Florida helped to elect Barack Obama as our president in 2008...to the incredible sense of a weight lifted from my shoulders when we were able to get our marriage license on January 6, 2015. I wept as I contemplated how even the presidents I did not admire still managed to perform the role of leader...and for more than just their own kind.

As Reagan bellowed, "Mr. Gorbachev: tear down this wall!" another museum visitor looked at me and shook his head.

"And now Trump wants to build walls."

Once upon a time, we did have presidents of the United States.

There was a line to see the portrait of Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley. The artwork felt so vibrant and full of life with all the green foliage surrounding the seated Obama looking out at the viewer. But even more than the portrait itself was the excitement of those lining up to have a posed picture with the portrait. All ages and mostly African-Americans wanting to be standing just at his feet...make sure to get my good side poses...young children with their parents looking wide-eyed and in awe of a man who looked more like them than I do.

"He served TWO terms?" I heard them ask. "Did anyone else get to serve two terms?"

It was sweet to watch and to listen, and even the Smithsonian worker was grinning as she kept an eye on the line.

First Lady Michelle Obama's portrait resides on the next floor up and she is in a room with artists' portraits, Broadway and pop music stars, and another Wiley portrait of Notorious B.I.G. There was no line for Mrs. Obama's portrait, and so my moment with this painting felt more private. I examined the ease of her pose, the grace of her dress, and I gave thanks for her strength and composure and her endurance of eight years of public life in the face of some extremely hateful and racist commentary on her and her husband. And I cried once again.

Once upon a time, we did have First Ladies who cared.

The rest of my tour took me past legends of classical and jazz music, sports, and movies. The bust of Chuck Jones, Warner Brothers animator, delighted me. All his characters surrounded him helping to chisel away at his features.

As I left I gave thanks not only for the opportunity to have access to such a treasure of art work, but for the experience of moving through history and realizing that we have faced and been through so much as a people...and we still press on...even when it seemed like an impossible task. And I was reminded of what I remember reading in a Henri Nouwen book that, to put it into my own words, we minister out of our own brokenness and wounded souls. Those wounds, like the wounds inflicted on Jesus' body on the cross, are our place of healing that we bring to the world we encounter.

Thanks be to God for the artists who helped me to have that learning experience.

Endings and Beginnings

The remains of Immanuel Chapel and the new Immanuel Chapel at dusk.

Welcome to three years of intense community-living.

OK, that's not what they said, but that was my sense at the end of today's first day of orientation at Virginia Theological Seminary. 

This has been a very long, strange trip to get to this point. And I had a very long drive with Isabelle, made longer by rainstorms and insane amounts of traffic on I-95, to reflect on where I have been, what I was leaving, and....

What the hell am I doing?!?!?!?

I had a happy life with a cat who had become very attached to me. My spouse and I have been through many ups and downs and twists and turns together for more than 27 years. I have friends, some very close to me. I had a massage practice with wonderful clients and participated in all the antics of the Mickee Faust Club. 

And yet....here I am. 

It made me think about all those stories in the Gospels about the calling of the various disciples. The way the evangelists tell it, Peter and Andrew and James and John and Matthew and all the others caught sight of Jesus, heard "Follow me," and just dropped their lives and went on their way after this itinerant rabbi who was preaching a radical old idea of love God and love your self and your neighbors with no asterisk or black out dates. I wondered, "Really? Did these guys just so easily and willingly drop their lives to follow Jesus?! Didn't they think this was a bit wild? Did our chroniclers of Jesus' life and miracles clean these stories to avoid the messiness of human attachment and emotion?"
After my own experience, I am convinced that if we wanted to do some midrash on these stories, we'd find that it wasn't so easy for them either. In fact, we get hints of that, dropped here and there in the Gospels, where these followers of Christ express frustration with their decision to leave behind everything. In Matthew's Gospel, right after Jesus informs the rich man that to "be perfect" he needs to sell all of his possessions, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus, Peter basically says, "We sold everything. We have nothing. What about us?" Later, in that same Gospel, the disciples get testy with each other about who is the greatest apostle of them all. It is the attachment to things, to comforts, that seem to needle at the apostles in ways that I, as one who is going through that process of endings and beginnings, can relate. Even if our evangelists don't outright tell us things, my sense is that the women who followed Jesus and the men who get the credit for being "the twelve" had parts of them that were pained in all of this, and had hoped for something not as a difficult. Even the greatest of saints can get the blues.
With that in mind, I guess I'm in good company. Certainly in the first few days of meeting my new classmates, I can sense that I am not the only one who is experiencing the pain of separating from all that was familiar to embark on something as countercultural as devoting your life to love and serve for the purpose of extending God's Love to a world that isn't fair, isn't just, and can be unbelievably mean. 

Will somebody help my cat understand that?