Queer Sheep: Square One to Square Forty-Four

“Queer Sheep: Square One to Square Forty-Four”

Sermon for MCC New Haven

September 15, 2013

Rev. Brian Hutchison, M.Div.

Luke 15:1-10

         Rev. Elder Freda Smith was the first woman ordained in Metropolitan Community Churches in 1971. She was also the first female Elder in MCC and was Vice Moderator of MCC for decades. Freda Smith is significant to MCC’s history because she brought feminism to a male-led denomination. She insisted that our bylaws were fully inclusive of women. She also insisted that gender-inclusive language is used throughout our churches. So since 1981, MCC has had a policy of Inclusive Language, which has expanded to also include issues of racism, classism, ablism, and more.

         I mention Rev. Elder Freda today because the gospel reading today from Luke is one of her favorites. She has a famous sermon she preaches around the world called, “Purple Grass.” In that sermon, Freda imagines a flock of sheep. They are good sheep. They generally listen to the shepherd and go where he leads. They bleat their prayers before counting shepherds at night. But in that flock was one sheep that did not like to graze the way the other sheep did. The other sheep liked to eat green grass, while this sheep preferred purple grass. She had tried eating green grass but just didn’t like it. But purple grass- now that she found delicious! She would search the whole pasture just to find patches of purple grass to eat. The other sheep found this odd. They would bleat at her angrily for not liking the same grass as them. “Baaaaad!” This discouraged the poor little sheep. She knew she was different but didn’t know why there was anything wrong with that.

         One day, the flock bleated so angrily at the sheep that enjoyed purple grass that she ran away from the flock. She had been shunned. Cold and alone at night, she feared wolves. She missed her shepherd. She thought to herself, “I bet the shepherd wouldn’t mind if he knew I liked purple grass. I miss him.” Then seemingly out of nowhere, the shepherd appeared, happy to have found his lost sheep. He picked her up, wrapped her around his shoulders and brought her back to the flock.

         When they returned, the shepherd placed her right in the middle of a patch of purple grass. “He knows!” she thought. She happily began to graze away. Seeing how the shepherd had encouraged that peculiar little sheep to eat what she liked, the flock stopped bothering her. Finally, the flock was whole again.

         I didn’t tell this story the same way Freda Smith does. Freda tells it with a special radiance that has made it a well-loved tale. But the moral of the story still rings true for us all these decades later. It still has the power to touch our lives the way it has changed the lives of many over the years.

         I don’t know about you, but I love me some purple grass! I could graze all day, amen?? I first knew that I liked purple grass when I was four years old and I haven’t ever gotten sick of it. I know within the depths of my soul that God is the one who gave me the appetite for purple grass and I am no longer ashamed to eat it every day.

         Jesus asks in the parable from the Gospel of Luke today, “Which one of you having a hundred sheep and losing one wouldn’t have the heart to go looking for the lost one until it is found?” Fundamentalists tend to twist this passage to say that the so-called “sinner” needs to be brought back to the flock to stop sinning. He had wandered away from the straight path. She was on the road to hell. But this is all read into the text. The shepherd doesn’t shame the sheep for leaving. He doesn’t threaten to make her into lamb chops J. What does he do? He rejoices! He throws a party for finding the lost sheep again.

         Though this is commonly called, “The Parable of the Lost Sheep,” we have to remember a very important spiritual truth: we are never truly lost. Remember the words of Psalm 139 (7-12), “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

         Children of the Omnipresent God, there is nowhere you can go where God is not present for you! You can be in the middle of a natural disaster and God is still there holding you. You can hit rock bottom on drugs or alcohol or overeating and feel like life isn’t worth living anymore, and God is still there trying to breathe life back into you. God sits with those in prison. God plots against those who run the worldwide sex trafficking business. God was in every room of every floor of the twin towers when they collapsed twelve years ago in New York City. And God kissed the wounds of the children in Syria who were victims of chemical warfare.

         I believe the phrase, “Home is where your heart is.” And I also believe with all my heart that God seeks continually to lead us all home. When we sing songs about God leading us home, it’s not just about the afterlife. The Good Shepherd seeks to bring us home to ourselves, to our most authentic and loving selves.

         In the Gospel of John (10:14-16), Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as [Abba] knows me and I know [Abba]. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” In 1992, an international organization called Other Sheep began as a ministry to LGBT people around the world. In addition to MCC’s ministry around the world, Other Sheep has preached the Good News of God’s radically inclusive love to queer folks around the world, even when there wasn’t a faith community like MCC that would take us in.

         Square one of our ministry in 1968 when MCC was founded was to help individuals to accept themselves as children of God just as they are. After that, our mission was to change society to be more accepting. We are still doing that important work. But there are still more “other sheep” who avoid religion like a plague. Two of the largest demographics in the US are “spiritual but not religious” and “spiritual and also religious.” The number of people who have been either shunned from the flock or turned off by the flock’s behavior has risen consistently over the past thirty years. We now find ourselves in a postmodern, post-church world. We are not alone in struggling to attract new people. Our society is just plain tired of being preached at and chooses to stay estranged from the flock.

         You may have noticed that I use the word “queer” a lot. I don’t do it just because I like the word or because I personally identify as such. I know that there is a generation that had this word used against them. But today, if someone called me queer, I would smile and agree!

         In the wider sense of the word as it is used now, queer is not just an easier way of saying LGBT. “Queer” smears the lines between and among these modern categories. It recognizes that people do not fit neatly into boxes, into strict categories. And God is the same way. God cannot be put in a box! Christians have been attempting to seal God into chapels and cathedrals for centuries. But their efforts have never kept God out of the bars, the bathhouses, and the back alleys.

         If we want to be relevant in the 21^st century, we need to break out of the box as a community of faith. We can’t do things “the way they have always been done.” It has been said that the “Last Seven Words of the Church” will be “We have always done it that way.” There are some gems that are worth keeping. And there are some antiques that are worth restoring. But there are is a field of purple grass that God has prepared for our future. That is our dream. But in order for the dream to become a reality, you have to believe it. Will you believe the dream with me? If so, say “Amen!” Amen.

“Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your convictions.” – Dag Hammarskjold, First Secretary General of the UN