Ego vs True Self

The ego despises our inner Wisdom, which knows that when we change our thoughts, we change our lives. The ego fears change because it thrives on control. Changing ourselves for the better may lead to a move, a new job, a new partner, or a new community. But yes, the change has to first come from within- a denial of the fear that ego propagates. Only then do we know what outer things will align with our True Self.

"Lifestyle"

Please stop calling my life a "lifestyle." Remember "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" with Robin Leach? Collecting mansions like a certain presidential candidate is a lifestyle. The fact I am attracted to men and love men intimately is not. I have a life and I like to think I have style, but please keep them apart!

Sustaining Unity

“Sustaining Unity”

Sermon for Celebration MCC; Naples, FL

August 5, 2012

Rev. Brian Hutchison, M.Div.

Texts: John 6:24-35, Ephesians 4:4-7,11-16

I think Spirit’s work is pretty apparent today considering that the texts given to us in the lectionary ask us to unite in Christ, while in the United States over the past week thousands of Christians have lined up at Chic-fil-a restaurants in protest of same-sex marriage. Their action, the religiously-based anti-gay words of the company’s president Dan Cathy, and the company’s financial support (in the millions) to organizations deemed “hate groups” by the Southern Poverty Law Center leave the rest of us more progressive Christians wondering if the church can ever be whole. Will the body of Christ always be broken? Needless to say, this week has made it very difficult to follow Jesus’ command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

            This kind of culture war may be depressing, frustrating, and tiring to us by now. I know it is to me. But if we look into our history in the LGBT movement, we know this is not the first time this kind of culture war has happened. In 1973, the LGBT community in San Francisco led by activist Harvey Milk boycotted Coors Beer Company for requiring polygraph tests for all employees to ensure they were not homosexual. Gay bars across the country followed suite in the boycott. Five years later in 1978, the company finally removed its ban on gay employees. In 1995, the company even gave domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples. But to this day, it’s still hard to find a Coors beer in San Francisco.

            Then in 1976, the LGBT community (including Metropolitan Community Churches) boycotted any orange juice made in the state of Florida, as the Florida Citrus Commission had hired anti-gay spokeswoman Anita Bryant for their ads. For those who don’t know, Bryant was vehemently homophobic, calling all gay men pedophiles. She strongly supported the Briggs Initiative in California, which would have put a ban on gay teachers in the public school system. The unofficial but still very real ugly side of that debate brought about bumper stickers that stated, “Kill a queer for Christ.” Fortunately, that bill was defeated, but not without a lot of time, money, and effort put to fighting it. And the messages that were put out through the media certainly reached the ears of millions of vulnerable LGBT youth that internalized their hatred.

            So as annoying as the whole Chic-fil-a controversy may be, it is now a part of our history. Many heterosexuals will look back and see this event as the time when they finally saw the face of bigotry take its kind mask off and show its true ugliness. But at this point in time, what is our work to be as followers of Jesus Christ? I think our texts for today tell us exactly what.

            The Gospel reading you heard today is from the Gospel of John. Bible scholars place John separately from the other gospels- the “synoptic” gospels. Of the four canonical gospels in our Bible, John was written the last. In fact, it was written nearly a century after Jesus’ birth. So there had been time for belief to change within various Christian communities about who exactly Jesus was. This passage from the 6^th chapter addresses that exact question. Even after Jesus is said to have previously fed the 5,000 and had walked on water, the people still demanded a magic trick from him. Or maybe they were just hungry again and knew where their previous meal had come from. But regardless, Jesus takes a different approach and takes up a teaching opportunity.

            In the tradition of the gospel of John, Jesus (who is identified in the first chapter as the ancient entity Holy Wisdom or Sophia) opens their eyes to an eternal truth. Jesus tells them, “I AM the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” In the gospel text, the people are portrayed as kind of dense. They don’t get it. But as the reader or hearer of this story, you are encouraged to get the point. Physical food is important and we should never downplay the incredible amount of poverty in our world. But Jesus knows that before the issue of starvation and all issues of suffering can be solved, a mind shift must happen among the people.

            The people asked Jesus for a miracle, but they were really asking for a magic trick or a supernatural act. In God’s reality, a miracle is actually something quite common, something that God built into the fabric of the world since the beginning. A Course in Miracles teaches that, “Miracles are natural. When they do not occur, something has gone wrong. Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense, everything that comes from love is a miracle.” Think about that. Your loving relationships are miracles. Your gifts of time and kindness to friends and to strangers are miracles. The care you give to your animals is a miracle. Your lovemaking is a miracle. And your support of this church is a miracle.

            I have heard some say, “It would take a miracle to unite the church. Even different sects of the Christian Right can’t get along.” They are correct. It does take a miracle. It takes many miracles! But remember, a miracle is but a mind-shift from fear to love. Miracles are part of the history of Metropolitan Community Churches. In 1983, a worship service was held at the MCC in San Francisco for a meeting of the National Council of Churches. Unbeknownst to the MCCers, the National Council had never in their thirty-year history taken Holy Communion together because they each understood and performed the sacrament in different ways. But Rev. Nancy Wilson and Rev. Freda Smith consecrated communion for that service and invited ALL to the table, as we do in MCC. And as Jesus promised in today’s scripture, none went hungry or thirsty. All received the special blessing of being truly united in Christ. The queer miracle of that day was that all present felt the Spirit moving in the service and even those from traditions that did not ordain women or LGBT people still received communion.

            That is what we are still about. MCC is an ecumenical movement. We have different beliefs, but we share the same value of God’s radically inclusive love. Jesus says that those who believe in him will not be thirsty. Some have interpreted this as a requirement to profess a particular doctrine in order to get a ticket into heaven. But Jesus the Jewish Rabbi was not about creating extensive doctrines of faith. His only doctrine was that of mutual love and respect, which is deeply rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures.

            ACIM also teaches “A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service one individual can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his/her own and his/her neighbor’s inestimable worth simultaneously.” In eastern traditions, this is called “Namaste,” “the Divine in me recognizes the Divine in you.” See, to believe IN Jesus is to simultaneously see the Divine/Christ within him AND through his humanity see the Divine/Christ within ourselves.

            We too often downplay our worth. Too many churches have taught us that we are terrible sinners in the hands of an angry God. We are told to fear hell and damnation, and avoid it by conforming to social norms. But we have affirmed for 44 years in MCC that our love is not a sin; rather it is a miracle! In this recent culture war, some have taken the lukewarm middle ground of saying, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Well guess what- our very lives are what they are calling sin. And I don’t very much appreciate being called a sinner either. Of course we all sin because a sin is simply an action that lacks love. But I refuse to identify with lack of love. I AM a lover, I AM free. These are our affirmations for today.

            For decades we have taught tolerance. We have figured that tolerating each other is a good middle ground. I don’t know about you, but when it comes to fighting for my essential rights, I don’t want to be tolerated. I want- no I DEMAND freedom. Within our own family relationships and friendships, it is a good expectation that those we share our lives with will not just tolerate us, but will rather affirm and celebrate us. I can’t and won’t demand that of fundamentalist Christians. But I will refuse to stand by idly as one particular brand of the faith is used to lessen my quality of life and the quality of life of those I love. Amen?

            But the same must be expected of us. We must fight for the freedom of all and move ourselves beyond mere tolerance. Theologian John Shore says this:

“How can we not just tolerate someone who believes differently than we do, but actually respect them for those beliefs? Because nothing less than that will do. It can’t. Simply tolerating someone who believes differently than we do isn’t enough. “Accepting” them isn’t enough. Having true and abiding peace with them means loving them. And that means respecting them. Because love without respect isn’t real love at all. It’s at best condescending patronization.

I am a Christian. How do I fully, earnestly, deeply and truly respect the Muslim? The Jew? The Hindu? The Buddhist? The atheist? How do I embrace each one of them with the same respect and love with which I want and even expect them to embrace me?

Here’s how: by telling myself the truth—and reminding myself of that truth, over and over again, for as long as it takes—that what another person believes is none of my business. None. None! The second I start thinking about someone else’s religious beliefs is the second I move out of the realm of my proper concerns and into the realm of concerns that are God and God’s alone. The moment I concern myself with what you believe is the moment that I screw up. That’s the moment in which my claim to be a person of God is shown to be a sham, since I have just proven that I am more concerned with who you are, and with what you believe, than I am with my own relationship with God.”

            As children of God the Holy Parent, we are heirs of all of God’s blessings. In the words of MCC founder Troy Perry, “God does not have stepsons and stepdaughters.” We have every right, and I would argue even the duty to stand up against the modern-day Empire of fear and suffering- both for ourselves and for all people on the margins of society. Companies like Chic-fil-a are part of the Empire. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the organizations that they support (The American Family Association, the ex-gay organization Exodus International, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the National Organization for Marriage, and others) are the Empire of our day. They waste endless resources promoting the dogma that one way of living is the only valid way and everything else is immoral. That is the very definition of bigotry. And I cannot believe as a Christian that Jesus was a bigot. To be Christian is to be Christ-like, and I’m frankly not seeing much Christ-like behavior coming from that camp. I affirm everyone’s right to believe as they choose, but as the scripture from the book of Ephesians stated today, we are called to “speak the truth in love.”

            We cannot deny our truth. Our truth, as stated in Ephesians (which was not actually written by the Apostle Paul himself but rather someone who wrote in his name), is that WE ARE fully alive. WE ARE gifted by God with so many wonderful gifts. WE ARE united on the margins to help each other survive and thrive. We step together rhythmically in the great dance of life which is the dance of justice, right-relationship, and peacemaking. The Empire still attempts to intimidate today as it has throughout the ages, even masquerading as Christ. But we shall not be moved. We stand boldly in the knowledge that we are not small in this world. And in doing so, we demonstrate that we don’t have to shove ourselves together to be united as the body of Christ; we just have to see ourselves as God sees us- unbroken and whole. This day we are full of the Christ Presence and empowered to live without fear. And this is truly Good News. Amen.