“Adversary
Turned Advocate”
Sermon for MCC
New Haven
April 14, 2013
Rev. Brian
Hutchison, M.Div.
Texts:
Acts
9:1-6
John
21:1-17
According
to Luke, there was a great blinding light that flashed around Saul of Tarsus, a
light as bright as traffic cameras when you just couldn’t make it through the
intersection in time, a light as bright (according to some TV shows) as an
alien abduction, a light as bright as the paparazzi surrounding the latest
scandalous celebrity.
With
the flash of light, Saul sees a vision of the risen Christ who asks him, “Why
do you persecute me?” and tells him, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
This event has been told for millennia as “the conversion of Paul.” One might
think from this simple description of the event that Saul converted from
Judaism to Christianity. But this is not true. It was too soon after Jesus’
life and death for there to be such thing as “Christianity.” There were only
those who claimed to follow what they called “The Way.” It was these people who
Saul saw as dangerous deviants who he had to eradicate in order to protect the
polished religion of his ancestors.
Luke
describes Saul (who changes his name to Paul after his change of heart) as a
Pharisee who took the Jewish law extremely seriously. Psychological analysis of
what we know of Paul shows a range of extreme behavior that probably stemmed
from his own insecurities. Some scholars have even suggested that Paul was a
closeted homosexual who took out his sexual repression in his preaching. We
will never know what Paul’s preferences were, but we can at least safely say
that everything he wrote and everything that is attributed to him is not ‘made
of gold’. We cannot and should not take everything Paul wrote as authoritative.
If we did, we would all be in prison or would at least be sued for
discrimination.
Paul
was a flawed man, confused even, and he admits this in the letters that he
wrote that are included in the Christian Testament found in our bibles. Modern
scholars now agree that half the books in the Bible that carry Paul’s name were
not actually written by him, but were in fact written by later followers of
Paul who wrote in his name.
Of the 14 books in the Christian Testament that have been traditionally
attributed to Paul, only seven of them were actually written by him. Romans, 1st
& 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1st Thessalonians,
and Philemon where written by Paul. Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1st
& 2nd Timothy, and Titus were probably written by those who
wrote with Paul’s name. And scholars do not attribute Hebrews to any particular
author. (I’m glad for that. In my opinion, the Book of Hebrews has been used
far too often and can be used far too easily to defend anti-Semitism.)
So
when we look at just the letters (called epistles) that Paul wrote, we see a
different character. Paul’s letters mostly declare the Gospel of Jesus as we
know and love it: freedom for the captive, food for the poor, justice for the
oppressed, and gender equality in the church. The other letters mostly declare
strict enforcement of the Jewish law and of ancient gender norms. They sound
more like Saul than Paul, don’t they?
The
verse I think of that best characterizes Paul is Galatians 3:28, “There is no
longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male
and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”.
Do you hear how inclusive this message is? Even if I read it from the King
James Bible, the message is the same. This Paul preaches equality. On the other
hand, in Ephesians 5:22-24 (not written by Paul), it says, “22 Wives, be subject to your
husbands as you are to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the
head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. 24 Just as the church is subject to
Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands”. I don’t think anyone in this room agrees with this message.
The feminist movement eliminated that notion over the past 40 or so years in
the U.S. But millions of Christians around the world still take such verses as
authority instead of as just a description
of what the writer thought at the time, nearly 2000 years ago.
This
is the kind of behavior that is unfortunately currently happening in the
African country of Uganda. This past week, I viewed the documentary “God Loves
Uganda,” (GodLovesUganda.com) which was screened by Yale Divinity School’s
LGBTQI Coalition. The film follows extreme evangelical groups that are
exporting anti-gay rhetoric overseas in a heavily funded movement. Many
evangelicals have given up on the fight against LGBT rights in the U.S. because
they know they have lost. But they see Africa as fertile ground for preaching
their homo-hatred.
Person
by person, they have convinced thousands of Native Ugandans that LGBT people
are demon-possessed, sick, deviant, sinful criminals who deserve imprisonment
or even the death penalty. And how do they back up their message? The Bible, of
course. They quote the laws of the Torah as if they followed them all
themselves (or even should or could). They quote the letters of Paul (both
those Paul wrote and those he didn’t) as if they knew Paul personally. And the
desperately hungry, ill, impoverished people of Uganda listen to this message
because they have no other reasoning to explain their suffering. Their logics
goes something like this: “God is punishing everyone
because the homosexuals are disobeying God and trying to take over the world. Their
aim is to destroy the family unit. They are the anti-Christ.” Well it may not
make any sense to us, but is makes enough sense to them that LGBT people are
being imprisoned and murdered in Uganda every day.
There
is even legislation that has been presented time and again over the past three
years in Uganda to enforce imprisonment or death for known homosexuals. It is
popularly known as the “Kill the Gays Bill.” Even the fact that this kind of
legislation has been raised changed the culture of Uganda for the worse. It was
this anti-gay culture shift that brought the brutal murder of Ugandan LGBT
rights activist David Kato in January 2011.
One
of the most prominent scenes in the film is David’s funeral. The anti-gay evangelical
preacher leading the funeral warns those gathered that this is what happens to homosexuals; so you better repent now or
suffer a similar fate. These unkind words deeply upset David’s friends and
family. So pro-gay Bishop Christopher Senyonjo stayed after the service at the
gravesite and gathered the mourners to give David a proper burial. The Bishop
(who had been excommunicated from the Church of Uganda because of his pro-gay
stance, though he is heterosexual) gave thanks for David’s life and courageous work
and assured those surrounding the grave that he was indeed in heaven.
MCC,
remember the words you heard today read from the Gospel of John: Jesus says to
Peter, “If you love me, feed my sheep!” This is precisely what Bishop Senyonjo
was doing. In the midst of a culture that starves the children of God, he fed
them. They needed words of comfort, not words of damnation. And this wise
defrocked bishop did for those poor mourning souls what the official church
refused to do. He embraced the true teaching of Christ. I think he would fit
right in with MCC!
Isn’t
it terribly ironic that the “red letters” of Jesus in the Gospels and the
liberating words of the Apostle Paul have been thrown out by these thousands of
evangelical missionaries, in favor of a legalistic, dogmatic, fearful message
of exclusion? Jesus and Paul both gave their lives to defend the poor and the
outcast, the marginalized and misunderstood. And now this crusade seeks to undo
the Gospel of Love in the name of the One who first preached it. The irony is incomprehensible.
The
other irony is that the root of such homophobia and homo-hatred is fear about
one’s own sexuality. In the early 1980s as the Moral Majority was being
developed and televangelism was taking off, a man named Mel White was ghost
writing for big-name preachers such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. His big
secret was that he was gay. It took years for him to gain the courage to not
only come out publicly as a gay man but to also come out against the anti-gay
rhetoric of the religious right. He wrote about his journey in his book Stranger at the Gate. Since then, (until
recently), Mel has been an MCC minister and head of the nonviolent resistance
organization “Soul Force,” which he founded. (Learn more at soulforce.org). Mel
was like Saul, persecuting the people he would come out to defend for the rest
of his life.
I
suspect that there are many like Mel in the anti-gay evangelical movement. The
phrase from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”
hits the nail on the head. Think of it this way. In 1948, sexologist Alfred
Kinsey conducted a study of sexual orientation in the United States. The
results showed that only 33% of men had exclusively heterosexual feelings. 10%
were exclusively homosexual. That leaves 57% of the male population that was at
least a bit bisexual. If these statistics are applied today to the evangelical
population, think of how many closeted gay and bisexual people there are in the
movement who are not allowed to express their sexuality. And we know how that
scenario expresses itself: self-hatred and oppression of those who resemble the
hated self.
A
prime example is actually shown in the film “God Loves Uganda.” A missionary of
International House of Prayer (IHOP) Rev. Jo Anna Watson confesses in the film
that in college she mostly hung out with gay men because she was involved in
theatre. They would all go out disco dancing together. Then she started having
feelings for other women. She says that she has since released those feelings
and is now “married to the people of Uganda.” And what an abusive and
dysfunctional relationship it is. She is one of the primary trainers of young
missionaries who spread the anti-gay “gospel.” I must ask the question of such
people, “What if she had instead found MCC?”
Friends,
when it comes to searching for truth in their message, the nets come up empty,
just as the disciples’ nets that night long ago. It took a reminder from the
risen Christ for them to think in a different way. So they cast their nets on
the other side of the boat and the
nets came up overflowing. That is how it is with the Gospel. Either you profess
an exclusionary message of fear and fire insurance or you profess a Gospel of
Unconditional Love that brings abundance.
Some
people don’t know what to do with the Gospel of Unconditional Love. When the
risen Christ demonstrates it to the fishing disciples, Peter is so confused
that he throws clothes on (who knows why he was naked!) and jumps into the
water to help bring in the fish. He didn’t know what to do with himself! But by
the time they came back ashore, Jesus had already prepared brunch for them: a
meal of fish and bread over a charcoal fire.
It’s
these kinds of rituals that center our lives. Every week we celebrate Holy
Communion to remember Jesus in the breaking of the bread. Like Paul, we have
never met Jesus in the flesh. But we somehow recognize his Spirit as if
recognizing a long lost friend. Whenever we eat a potluck meal or eat brunch
together, the presence of Christ is there in our hospitality. Through our
meals, we demonstrate the radical hospitality that is characteristic of the
Spirit of Christ. Our arms, our tables are wide open. None are turned away. Our
queer brunch with Christ stands in stark contrast with the exclusionary
practices of some, as I have told of.
In
the words of Paul in Romans 8:31, “What then are we to say about these things?
If God is for us, who is against us?” (NRSV). I imagine the risen Christ of
Paul’s vision stopping homophobic missionaries on the road, blinding them with rainbow light, asking them, “Why do you
persecute me?” (Head of IHOP) Lou Engle, why do you persecute me? (IHOP
Minister) Jo Anna Watson, why do you persecute me? Pastor (of a 10,000 member
anti-gay church in Uganda) Robert Kayanja, why do you persecute me? Pastor
Martin Ssempa (known for showing gay pornography in his church to disgust
people, saying “They eat the poo-poo), why do you persecute me? Pastor Scott
Lively, why do you persecute me? (He is being tried in US Federal Court for
inciting the persecution, torture, and murder of LGBT people in Uganda).
As
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton boldly declared to the world in 2011, “Gay
rights are human rights.” The Obama administration boldly declared that the U.S.
government would do everything in its power to fight human rights abuses of
LGBT people around the world. Since then, sanctions have even been put on
countries that do not cooperate. But the government can’t do everything for us.
Our voices count too.
Continue
to sign petitions against anti-gay legislation whenever you see them. Pray for
LGBT people around the world every day. And in one of the most important
decisions of your life, if you still have any homophobia left inside of you,
listen to the risen Christ who says to you kindly, “Why do you persecute
yourself? Why do you persecute the Christ within you?”
The
reality of our people’s lives around the world is not a matter of opinion; it
is a matter of life and death. Join me in boldly fighting for life. Amen.
