Justice Now

“Justice Now”

Sermon for MCC New Haven

January 20, 2013; 10:00am

Rev. Brian Hutchison, M.Div.

Texts: John 2:1-11, 1Cor. 12:4-11

         On this past Tuesday January 15^th, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have turned 84 years old. We all know his life was taken much too early by assassination in 1968 at the age of 39. In the United States, King’s birthday is celebrated on the third Monday of January, which will be tomorrow. Also tomorrow, President Barack Obama, America’s first African American president will be sworn in for a second term with both Abraham Lincoln’s Bible and King’s Bible.

         This week, I reflect on the impact Dr. King and the civil rights movement have had on my life and on the LGBT community. I remember in second grade coloring a sheet we were given with a picture of King sleeping in bed with a thought bubble above his head that read “I have a dream.” At that age, I wondered why a dream meant so much. We all dream, right? The teacher explained to us what the kind of “dream” King referred to meant. She told us that this kind of dream is about hope for a better future. She then told us that as a Black woman, not too long ago she would not have been allowed to be a teacher for white students. We were all amazed by this because we loved Mrs. Penndel so much. She then pulled out the record player and put on the record of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Even now, I can remember the chills that went all over me after first hearing it. To this day, I still get those chills. I now know that King’s prophetic voice has always resonated so strongly with me because I too have a calling to preach social justice in our world. And I will.

         The social Gospel I preach is not only for people like myself: white, gay men. The social Gospel I profess and preach is the gospel that King and those who inspired him including Bayard Rustin, Mohandas Gandhi, and Jesus preached. It is a message of Good News. That Good News is that we are all One Human Family and each person in this multi-billion member family should be treated with dignity and respect and should be given equal rights. As ACIM (1:88) says, “God is not partial. All [God’s] Children have [God’s] total love, and all [God’s] gifts are freely given to everyone alike.”

         Some LGBT rights leaders have been criticized for comparing the LGBT rights movement to the civil rights movement. “After all,” they argue, “LGBT people were never taken from their homeland and made slaves.” I’ll stop the argument right now by saying that we get nowhere when we start playing the game of “I’m more oppressed than you are!” What I can attest to is that same-gender-loving and gender-variant people have suffered under patriarchy, heterosexism, homophobia, transphobia, hetero-privilege, homo-hatred, and hetero-supremacy for millennia. Some societies throughout history have been more favorable of queer folk, especially indigenous cultures of Africa and the Americas. But we know all too well through our own experience the prejudice that we continue to face today in our current context.

         In light of remembering MLK’s birthday, I want to talk a bit about the man behind King’s civil rights career: Bayard Rustin. Bayard was instrumental in teaching King most of what he knew about nonviolent social action, which they also learned from the followers of Gandhi in India. As a young man, Bayard was a professional singer in Harlem, mostly of Negro spirituals. His grandmother was a Quaker and Bayard professed his grandmother’s faith all his life. The Quakers (also known as the Society of Friends) have a long history of pacifism. They have always refused to go to war. So when Bayard burned his draft card and encouraged others to do the same, he was put in prison until the war was over.

         This wouldn’t be the last time Bayard would be put in jail. For sitting next to a white man on a bus in North Carolina, he was put on the chain gang for 22 days, working 10 hours a day in the hot sun. (Rosa Parks wasn’t the first African American to refuse to move to the back of the bus; her act was just well timed.) After Bayard returned to New York and reporting on the barbaric nature of the chain gang, North Carolina finally banned it. The next time Bayard was arrested would haunt him for the rest of his life. This time, instead of being arrested for intentional civil disobedience, he was arrested in Pasadena, CA for public lewd acts and sex perversion. Bayard had never hidden his sexuality and his colleagues in the civil rights movement never gave him flack about it. But being caught having homosexual sex in public not only put him in jail; it was the blackmail that white supremacists would hold over his head for the rest of his life.

         But even after this event, Bayard didn’t have shame about his sexuality. He was known for his many lovers who admired him for both his good looks and his charismatic personality. In fact, his first partner Davis Platt eventually broke up with him because he was always finding new men in his bed J It wasn’t until the end of his life that he would settle down for ten years with his partner Walter Naegle. So needless to say, Bayard had a lot of “energy”.

         It was his charismatic personality, intelligence, and networking ability that brought him to be hired as the organizer for the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. (This year marks 50 years since the March.) Bayard worked tirelessly to get 100,000 people to attend and his work paid off when over 200,000 people showed up on that historic day. Martin Luther King may have been the face of the March, but Bayard had been the one to really make it happen. And because of what he did for the African American community, his sexuality was irrelevant to all but those who opposed him. The Black Panthers called him a “homosexual pervert” because they opposed his philosophy of nonviolence, not because they cared who he slept with. Bayard took such insults in stride and continued to fearlessly work for social justice for the rest of his life.

         We know that the struggle against racism continues today. Amen? We may have a president of African descent, but that fact does not mean racism has been defeated. A perfect example of this sad fact is an e-mail that was widely distributed by Republican Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal this week. The e-mail was a prayer for President Obama’s death using the 109^th Psalm. The text reads, “When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.'” This is what this legislator considers “Praying for your enemies.” We know that’s not what Jesus meant by that.

         Many people in our country live in irrational fear. And unfortunately many of these people call themselves Christians. To be Christian is to follow in the Way of Christ, which is the Way of Love. But there is no Love in racism, sexism, or homophobia. There is only fear. ACIM teaches us that the opposite of love is fear. And Christian scriptures tell us that perfect love casts out fear. If we are to heal ourselves and the prejudice of our country, perfect love, unconditional love is the only answer.

         It is this same love at the center of the civil rights movement that is also at the center of the LGBT rights movement. In Bayard Rustin’s own words, “Gay is the new (n-word).” Until her death in 2006, Martin’s wife Coretta Scott King was a follower of Christ and also an ally to the LGBT community. She said in 2004, "I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice... But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King, Jr., said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere' ... I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people." She later said, "We have a lot of work to do in our common struggle against bigotry and discrimination. I say 'common struggle,' because I believe very strongly that all forms of bigotry & discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination."

         Mrs. King’s message of radical inclusivity reinforces the messages of her late husband and all those who inspired he and Bayard Rustin. This is a common struggle. We need not create a hierarchy of injustice. We need only fight injustice wherever we find it.

         At first, I wondered what today’s Gospel reading had to do with the occasion of MLK’s message and the fight for justice. After all, we most often hear about Jesus turning water into wine through jokes or cartoon strips. When I go to parties, it’s a common joke when the booze runs out that I should make some more from the tap J It can seem like a menial “look what I can do!” magic trick if we don’t look at the details. But in the details of this story lies a profound message: transformation happens and the abundance of this transformation is for ALL.

         I like to think that Jesus was a party man. After all, he did want the guests of the wedding to enjoy themselves, so he provided 120-180 gallons of good wine (apparently he had good taste!... I wonder if it was a white or a red…) But beyond that, he wanted to demonstrate the bounty of God’s abundant grace. From the stone water jars used for Jewish rites of purification came something new and transformed, just as from the Jewish faith came the Way of Christ.

         Out of the stone jars of the Black Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Rights Movement comes a new and flavorful, thirst-quenching drink: the LGBT Rights Movement. It is not any more or any less relevant or important than the movements that came before it. But it is a movement of our time, and a movement of the holy Spirit of God.

         Like Bayard Rustin, we must have no shame in this fight. We are fighting for our very lives. Hate crimes happen every day. Forty percent of homeless youth are LGBT. HIV infections continue to rise among young gay men. We are not treated equally in the workplace. And churches are still preaching hatred to our next generation. We have work to do, church.

         When you recognize these injustices in New Haven, will you join me in speaking truth to power? (If so, say Yes!) Will you join me in fighting the good fight? Will you ACT UP with me? Will you reach out with a hand of compassion? Will you walk next to me in following in the footsteps of Rustin, King, Gandhi, and Jesus the Christ? Engaged action will be the lifeblood of this church if we are to thrive. Today, we choose to act in the loving justice of God, and so we choose abundant life. What a miracle! Amen.