Miracles in the Wilderness

“Miracles in the Wilderness”

Sermon for MCC New Haven

February 17^th 2013

Rev. Brian Hutchison, M.Div.

Texts:

Romans 10:8b-13

Luke 4:1-13

         I know many of you know the Jesus Prayer (known as the Lord’s Prayer, the Model Prayer, or the Our Father) by heart. So for the sake of today’s message, I am going to first read to you a translation from the original Aramaic that you will not recognize. This way, your mind will not just replay from rote memory.

Translation by Neil Douglas-Klotz in Prayers of the Cosmos

O Birther! Father- Mother of the Cosmos

Focus your light within us - make it useful.

Create your reign of unity now-

through our fiery hearts and willing hands

Help us love beyond our ideals

and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.

Animate the earth within us: we then

feel the Wisdom underneath supporting all.

Untangle the knots within

so that we can mend our hearts' simple ties to each other.

Don't let surface things delude us,

But free us from what holds us back from our true purpose.

Out of you, the astonishing fire,

Returning light and sound to the cosmos.

      Amen.

This version is just as true as the one that many of us know by heart and if you want to experience the Jesus Prayer in a new way, I would suggest trying this one. But for the purpose of you being able to recall parts of the prayer, I will refer today to the traditional phrasing.

         I begin today with this prayer because just like Jesus’ forty days in the desert, this prayer reflects Jesus’ spiritual ideals. Essentially, Jesus’ temptation in the desert was to do the opposite of this prayer. Let’s start with the first temptation given in the Gospel of Luke: bread. The temptation was to turn a stone into a loaf of bread. The scripture tells us that Jesus was very hungry because he did not eat at all during his time in the desert. Remember that the Jesus Prayer asks of God, “Give us this day our daily bread.” This is usually a phrase that we see framed above dinner tables or even woven on banners in churches to refer to Holy Communion. While it is right and good to give thanks for what we have, the Aramaic actually uses bread as an analogy for wisdom. So while Jesus was tempted in the desert to embrace what the powerful considered wisdom, Jesus knew true wisdom, the Word that comes from God. And as Paul reminds us in the scripture we heard today in his letter to the Romans, “The Word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.” We need not look any further for the truth we seek than our own being, our own body, mind, and spirit.

         The second temptation Jesus faces is to take power and glory all for himself if he worships the Tempter. We know in reading all of the Gospels in our Bible that Jesus never asked to be glorified. He never asked for political or worldly power. He always pointed to God as the source of all he said and did. Jesus knew he was very gifted. He knew what great power he held and what he could do with it for himself. But the mission God had given him to subvert human understandings of power and glory kept Jesus from giving in to Ego. What is called “the devil” in this text is essentially what the Greeks called the Ego, the small selfish self that manipulates in order to get its own way.

         In the book The Hidden Teachings of Jesus: The Political Meaning of the Kingdom of God, Lance deHaven-Smith writes that “The Hebrew word Satan comes from the same root as seteh, which means, “to turn away.” … When Jesus spoke of Satan, he was not talking about some malicious ghost; he was pointing out to us that people are faced with a spirit that tempts them away from their humanity, away from their soul-given connection with God and with one another” (87).  When we look at today’s Gospel passage, we can see from Smith’s explanation that Jesus was being tempted to turn away from God and God’s mission for his life.

         This second temptation also has a reflection in the Jesus Prayer. We say, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the Kin-dom, and the power, and the glory forever.” Jesus was tempted to live up to people’s expectations of him. Many wanted him to lead a violent revolt against the Romans and become their literal king. They wanted a warrior, but God gave them a Hippie :) Jesus’ mission was not violence, it was non-violent resistance to power that oppressed people and caused mass suffering. The Kin-dom of God he spoke of was not a new rule, but rather the counter-kingdom where the Love of God reigns. A bumper sticker I saw recently said, “Do you really think Jesus would be a member of the NRA?” I know my answer is “absolutely not.” Jesus would put a flower in the butt of a rifle, not carry one himself.

         Smith teaches us today something about the root of the words power and glory. He writes, “…the word “power” in Greek is dunamis, which means “force.” … In Greek, the word glory is doxa, which means “opinion.” Jesus had to decide within his time of struggle before starting his formal ministry to hand over all power and glory, all force and opinion to God. He was vowing to not attempt to take down the Roman Empire by force and he would not let people’s opinion of “certain kinds of people” stop him from associating with, reaching out to, ministering with, and even making chosen family with the so-called “least of these” on the margins of society. Remember, people look at the outside of a person, but God is concerned with the heart.

         The third and final temptation that Luke lists in his Gospel is for Jesus to jump off the highest point of the temple because angels would save him anyway. There are two points I want to make about this temptation. The first is that we should note the location of this temptation: the temple. The temple was the center of religious and political life for the Jewish people at the time. Doing a magic trick for the crowds of Jewish people at the temple would certainly wow them, but that is not the purpose of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus’ ministry was centered on miracles, but as A Course in Miracles states, “The use of miracles as spectacles to induce belief is wrong, or better, is a misunderstanding of their purpose. They are really used for and by believers” (1:10). The Course also says, “Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe” (1:42). If a miracle is a turn from fear to love, then Jesus’ time in the desert was really a time of miracles. He was choosing to embrace the God who is Divine Love instead of the Ego, which is fear.

         The second point I want to make about this temptation is that the Tempter quotes scripture. In fact, the Tempter proof-texts by taking a Bible verse out of context, using it against Jesus. Does this sound familiar to anyone?? Fundamentalists today take Bible verses out of context all the time just to prove their own point. They know the text from rote memory, but often forgo the context and deeper meaning behind the text. Jesus saw straight through this proof-texting and quoted scripture in return, “Do not put the Lord God to the test.”

         So here comes the practical stuff, the life-application. Smith proposes a very challenging question: “What if we began from the premise not that we want to maintain a social formation based on industrialism and competition, but that our aim is a society of humility and love?” (84). Some of us were taught that resisting temptation had to do with resisting pleasurable things. That’s why the stereotype of Lent is giving up chocolate for a few weeks. No, the power of Lent is rather in realizing our ability to let go of the things that tempt us to be less loving. In traditional terms, the purpose of Lent is to turn away from sin because after all the definition of sin is “lack of love.”

         I have heard some Christians say that observing Lent is wrong because it is not mentioned in the Bible. Well I hate to tell you, but a lot of our traditions are not in the Bible. The Gospel of Mark doesn’t mention the Resurrection, so no Easter for Mark! The Gospels of Mark and John do not mention Jesus’ birth, so no Christmas for them! My point is: we practice our spirituality here in MCC in ways that help us to grow closer to God and to one another. Lent is not just for Catholics or other so-called “high church” folks. We can see the good in deepening our prayer practice, meditating more often, taking on new spiritual practices, highlighting spiritual practices we already do, and questioning our faith. Lent is a time to “go deeper” into the Mystery of God.

         Lent is 40 days (actually 46 including Sundays), which reflects Jesus’ 40 days in the desert. During this time, don’t deprive yourself of joy. In the footsteps of Jesus, instead deprive yourself of life’s idols and instead embrace authenticity. During these forty days, intentionally try to resist force and opinion, as Jesus did. In other words, ask yourself, “In what ways do I embrace violence in my life and toward whom am I judgmental?” On this spiritual journey, what wisdom could you gain? Jesus chose the wisdom of God over the values of those in power. Could you perhaps pick up a Positive Thinking book or read Spirit & Truth devotional over these weeks?

         There is plenty to give up that doesn’t do us any good and there is also plenty to take on that enriches our lives. Jesus said, “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” Friends, choose abundant life this Lent. I’m on the journey with you. Amen.

On the Inclusion of Heterosexuals in MCC

On the Inclusion of Heterosexuals in MCC

I was asked today about the inclusion of heterosexuals in Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC). This has been a topic of discussion in our movement since the very beginning. Heterosexual allies have been members and regular attendees of MCCs since the very beginning of UFMCC in 1968. We have always expressed as a denomination that ALL are welcome, not just Gay and Lesbian people. We recognize that even within the "LGBT" community, Bisexuals sometimes partner with people of the opposite* sex, as do Transgender folks. (*Note that I use the word "opposite" within the ideology of the binary gender system (which I do not agree with) in which a person must choose to be either male or female.)

UFMCC is a Historically LGBT Church, just as denominations like the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) are Historically African American Churches. MCC grew out of the Gay Liberation Movement of the 1960s. So sexual orientation and gender identity have formed our story as a people. The founders of MCC did not seek to just form a system of LGBT community centers; rather they were (and are) people of Christian faith who sought to work for social justice and worship freely as LGBT people. Within our Christian identity, we find affirmation of our whole selves, including our sexual orientation and gender identity. And we also find a special calling through our experience as outsiders on the margins to be a prophetic voice in the world for social justice for everyone.

That "everyone" includes all heterosexuals whose privilege is challenged by other demographics such as race, class, ability, age, etc. So when a heterosexual attends worship at an MCC, s/he may at first feel out of place because the majority of those in the room are LGBT. But in listening to the message of radical inclusion, s/he will find that s/he is fully welcome.

Including hetero folks in MCC does not however mean compromising our identity and forgetting our history. On any given Sunday, you are likely to hear me mention in my sermon something about LGBT rights and identity. I speak very openly about bodies and sexuality (within appropriate boundaries of course). I also speak from my own experience, so I speak from my social location as a Gay man. As a feminist, I also do my best to challenge sexism and misogyny. You will also hear me speak weekly against racism. LGBT rights are not my only concern in regard to how I interpret the Good News of Jesus, but I do know that the intersection of gender/sexuality and the Christian faith is our history and our home.

I have been a regular attendee at several Historically African American churches over the years. I have enjoyed the rich sense of culture that is expressed and embodied unapologetically within worship. I was oftentimes the only Caucasian person in the room, but I was always welcomed with open arms. Sermons at these churches always included stories from Black History and challenged the oppression of people of color. These elements never made me uncomfortable as a white person because I share the same values as those in these churches. I too am anti-racist.  I did not misinterpret their authenticity as people of color as being anti-white. I know that there are groups such as the Nation of Islam that claim publicly to hate white people, but there was no reason to associate these inclusive Historically African American churches with such exclusive groups.

Such is the same with MCC. We are not anti-heterosexual. We ARE however against heterosexism, homophobia, homo-hatred, hetero-supremacy, biphobia, transphobia, cisgender-supremacy, and the like. We do not tolerate such ideologies in our churches and we fight publicly to eliminate them in our society. We welcome all heterosexuals into our communities who share these values of equality and justice. All present will experience each week a healthy dose of queer activism. If that makes you uncomfortable, I advise you to reevaluate your own internalized oppression. Just as it would be incredibly wrong, rude, and racist to ask a Historically African American Church to be "less Black," it is wrong, rude, and oppressive to ask MCC to be "less queer." MCC has recognized since our founding that queer activism is Christian activism. It is our faith that calls us to transform the world into a more loving place and a safer place for all people; and who better to address issues of discrimination than those of us who experience it (implicitly or explicitly) every day.

My final thought on this topic is to say "thank you" to all the heterosexual allies who have stood up for LGBT people even when it required sacrifice of your own privilege. It is a great joy and comfort to know that we are not alone on this fight for equality. You are appreciated, you are loved, and you are always welcome! Just know, you will experience the Divine in a unique way in our churches, a way that shows brightly the queerness of God.

Love Eternal

“Love Eternal”

Sermon for MCC New Haven

February 3, 2013 10:00am

Rev. Brian Hutchison, M.Div.

Texts:

1 Corinthians 13: 1-8; 13

Luke 4:21-30

         Have you ever found yourself pushed to the edge of a cliff in life? No, I don’t mean literally, like Thelma and Louise, though if you have been there, I’m glad you decided to turn around and live to tell the tale! Today’s Gospel passage from Luke is about just that: telling and living our truths so loudly that we are pushed to the edge of society, or even the edge of life.

         Jesus spoke his truth boldly in his hometown of Nazareth. We heard in last week’s reading what Jesus’ mission was: to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (which to Jesus meant bringing about what he called the Realm of God). These words were at first pleasing to those he was speaking to because they had probably heard about the wonderful things that Jesus had done in other places. But then Jesus does something very unexpected: he challenges their privilege.

         Remember, prophets are not fortunetellers; rather they are challengers. Prophets proclaim hard truths in the face of those living lies and lives of hypocrisy. Jesus essentially tells the people of his hometown that he will not do the same wonderful things that he has done elsewhere for them because they were not ready to receive them. These people thought they deserved Jesus’ blessing because they were ultra-religious people who believed in God’s exclusive promise to them, and them only. Jesus demonstrates through examples in the Tanach that God’s grace is far more inclusive than they could imagine.

         Because of his message of inclusivity that challenged their privilege, the people literally drove Jesus to the edge of a cliff to kill him. They were enraged that one of their own would not give them all they thought they deserved. And this is where we can learn from Jesus. Right when they are about to throw him off the cliff, Jesus passed through the crowd and simply went on his way. He just kept going. He didn’t let anyone stop him. He knew he had a mission to live and his hometown people would not stop him.

         Many of us come from places where we were not accepted as same-gender-loving or gender-variant people. When some of us have spoken our truths loudly in the fashion of Jesus, our hometown people have pushed us out. In too many cases, violent hate-crimes happen against us, many leading to death. And sometimes we don’t even have a choice in proclaiming our truths to the world around us. Some of us naturally walk or talk or gesture in ways that are indicators to the world that we are gender non-conforming. I know when driving across the country with my husband James, his swish from the car to the gas station in states like Wyoming and Nebraska made me nervous. And someone (not to be named) told me just last week that a child asked her, “Are you a boy or a girl?” which of course she took with humor. We can’t help but be who we are, but sometimes it gets us into trouble.

         To live our lives fully in wholeness and integrity, we need to have an outlet of self-expression. Jesus knew he couldn’t stay in his hometown because they wouldn’t accept him, so he moved on. In the 1970s, many gay and lesbian people moved from small towns to large cities such as San Francisco and New York. The Castro district in San Francisco was an Irish Catholic ghetto until gay men flocked there in the 1970s and took over the neighborhood.

         In 1968, Rev. Troy Perry decided to call our denomination “Metropolitan Community Church” because of the phenomenon of LGBT people flocking to metropolitan areas for safety. So Jesus’ story is our story today. Whenever we can, we go where we are accepted and celebrated, not where we are just tolerated and even hated. That is one of the main callings of MCC today. Though other churches tolerate queer folks, we celebrate one another in our rich diversity in MCC. (We are extremely blessed to have a host church, United Church on the Green UCC, which celebrates us, not just tolerates us.)

         In many ways, we have become comfortable in the rights and privileges we now hold in the United States. Since we can now legally have our own bars and sleep with who we want to and publicly dress in whatever gender expression we want to, we have become complacent. Since the invention of life-saving protease inhibitors in the mid-1990s, AIDS activism has been reduced to AIDS walks. Protests have been reduced to pride parades. Since many cities and states have granted us some relationship rights, the fight for marriage equality has dragged on for decades. And it took far too long for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to be repealed. As a people, we have been pacified with small bones tossed to us. What we have all but forgotten is that our God holds a seat for us at the table, not on the floor where the scraps are thrown.

         As a people, we are afraid of the cliff. Once we get far away enough from the cliff, we naturally don’t want to go back to that place. I’m personally terrified of heights, so I avoid high places unless there’s glass or at least a rail to keep me from falling. I get it. Why cause ourselves more suffering when we have what we have?

         Why? Because those who came before us fought long and hard for the privileges we enjoy today. Countless men and women in the United States were taken to jail during raids of gay bars just half a century ago. Millions of our three-dollar bills have been spent on attorneys to defend us. Our spiritual ancestors put their bodies on the line in nonviolent resistance so that we could have church today without question. In countries around the world today such as Afghanistan and Nigeria, MCC has to meet secretly because they would be killed if it were found out that “homosexuals” were meeting for any purpose.

         We recall that one hundred thousand of our spiritual ancestors were arrested in Nazi Germany for being “homosexual” and were marked with pink triangles on their prison uniforms. Ten thousand of those were sent to concentration camps and were murdered along with Jews and other groups deemed “undesirable” and “unfit to live.” Paragraph 175 in the German Penal Code written in 1871 read, “An unnatural sex act committed between persons of the male sex or by humans with animals is punishable by imprisonment; the loss of civil rights may also be imposed.” The Nazis strictly enforced this law that was previously all but ignored. Same-gender love was amounted to bestiality. The same kind of rhetoric is used by fundamentalist Christians today. We especially remember these facts today because people all over the world recall that on January 27, 1945 (that’s 68 years ago last week), the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps were liberated.

         Our queer spiritual ancestors worked hard with sweat, blood, and tears so that we could pursue happiness freely today. We are obligated to them to continue the fight. We are obligated to them to also not allow the masses to push us over the cliff. Like Jesus, we must slip through the crowd and walk on.

         The trouble in our faith after seeing the edge of the cliff is we are faced with questioning the nature of God. Jews call what is commonly called “the Holocaust” the “Shoah.” Holocaust means “burnt whole,” while Shoah means “catastrophe.” I choose to use the word Shoah because of these meanings. After the Shoah, theologies, the ways we think about God, are forever changed. From that point forward, we cannot think of God as the old man in the clouds who swoops down to save all the good people, destroying the evil ones. The reality is that the Nazis killed between 11 and 26 million sacred children of God (depending on what demographics one includes).

         This is the greatest example in recent history to tell us about the character of the Divine. God is the Light within us, and should we choose to hide that Light and deny it, we have the negative potential to do great harm. This does not mean that God does not care or that God wills evil to happen. It does mean however that God has entrusted us with being Her hands, feet, and face in the world. We are God’s body if we choose to embrace the God within. God’s body is all colors, all abilities, all ages, all gender expressions, all sexualities.

         As this Black History Month begins, I recall that in 1898, African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Bishop Henry McNeal Turner wrote, “We have as much right biblically and otherwise to believe that God is a Negro, as you buckra, or white, people have to believe that God‘ is a fine looking, symmetrical and ornamented white man. For the bulk of you, and’ all the fool Negroes of the country, believe that God is white- skinned, blue-eyed, straight-haired, projecting-nosed, compressed-lipped and finely-robed white gentleman sitting upon a throne somewhere in the heavens.
Every race of people since time began who have attempted to describe their God by words, or by paintings, or by carvings, or by any other form or figure have conveyed the idea that the God who made them and shaped their destinies was symbolized in themselves, and why should not the Negro believe that he resembles God as much as other people? We do not believe that there is any hope for a race of people who do not believe that they look like God.”

         Our Christian faith tells us that God is Spirit. No one has ever seen God apart from creation because such a thing is not possible. The question of what God would look like if God decided to show up is irrelevant because God has shown up 525,600 minutes of every year! God shows up every day in the choices we make to embody the Love of God in discipleship.

         In the midst of the Shoah, Lutheran minister and anti-Nazi activist Dietrich Bonheoffer defined what it truly meant to be a disciple. Within his context of Nazi Germany, true discipleship was not easy; it was costly. He wrote in a poem, “[People] go to God when [they are] sore bested: find [them] poor and scorned, without shelter and bread, whelmed under weight of the wicked, the weak, the dead. Christians stand by God in [God’s] hour of grieving.”

         The former ancient idea of a distant and wrathful god is dead. Some decide to prop up the rotting corpse of their petty god each Sunday, demanding worship of exclusion and ego. But we have moved on beyond that nonsense, church! Like Jesus who snuck through the crowd and went on his way, we do the same. We have no time in this short life for the pain that oppressive god-talk can cause us. We leave it behind because all it ever sought to do was throw us off a cliff.

         Instead, we embrace the God we know in Jesus Christ who in the words of the Apostle Paul is fully expressed in what we know as Love. Paul gives us a picture of the character of God when he writes, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

         The author of First John (4:16) wrote words that remain at the center of MCC theologies today: “Whoever lives in love lives in God and God lives in them.” So if God is Love, then God is patient, God is kind, God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. God is not irritable or resentful. God rejoices in the truth. God…never… ends.

         Friends, Divine Love is eternal. Love will always win at the end of the day. But we cannot take that fact for granted. God gives us grace beyond measure out of Her own loving nature. But this same God grieves when we suffer. His tears saturate the earth. They are the tears of fearful immigrants who long for citizenship. They are the tears of the poor who long for healthcare and safety. They are the tears of the young women whose government seeks to control her body.

         MCC is not a complacent church; it is an active church. Its waters are not stagnant; they are living. If we are to fully embrace our calling as Metropolitan Community Church and as disciples of Jesus Christ, we must not allow even thoughts of the Shoah to throw us off the cliff of depression and despair. We must instead heed the call of our God to walk through the crowd of oppressive voices and walk on. Just walk on in the knowledge that in the words of the Course, “You are the work of God, and [God’s] work is wholly lovable and wholly loving.” Say this affirmation with me: I am … the work of God… I am… wholly lovable… and wholly loving. Take this essential truth into your spirit today and as the dissenting voices surround you this week (as they always will), the matchless Love of God will shield you. May it be so. Amen.

“Our Mission: The Queer Body of Christ”

“Our Mission: The Queer Body of Christ”

Sermon for MCC New Haven

January 27^th 2013

Rev. Brian Hutchison, M.Div.

Texts:

1 Corinthians 12: 12-26

Luke 4:14-21

A selection from gay 19^th century poet Walt Whitman’s

Leaves of Grass: “I Sing the Body Electric.”

“I sing the body electric,

The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all, in all nations and times all over the earth?

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,

…

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,
Man's, woman's, child, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's, father's, young man's, young woman's poems,
…

O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!”

I encourage you to look up the full text of this poem and read it in its entirety. Walt Whitman so beautifully expresses the beauty and goodness he sees in the human body. (And he goes into detail about almost every part of the body, and I do mean EVERY part.)

In our post-Puritan society, we still hold onto a lot of baggage concerning bodies. As a culture, I am sad to say the United States is “body-negative.” Though we have largely embraced the free-love mentality of the 1960s and sex symbols are everywhere in the media, we have not as a culture embraced our bodies as good, holy vessels that have great potential for good, holy experience.

I think it is fitting that the Apostle Paul uses the analogy of the body for understanding the way the church should function. Each human body, even with what we call faults, disabilities, flaws, and undesirable traits, is beautifully and wonderfully made. We give no glory to God when we say things like, “At least he’s beautiful on the inside.” Even those who have been badly burned or scarred carry beauty with their bodies.

Paul tells us that each one of us is a member of the Body of Christ. And each member of the body has a purpose that is no lesser than the others. We are diverse, but in our diversity we have strength, as the body has integrity. Most people have hands that allow us to do many things, but the body cannot be all hands (can you imagine what that would look like?). Most people have eyes that allow us to see and through them know what we are doing. But we could not function as a blob of eyeballs! So it is with the Body of Christ. We truly need one another.

Give some time today and this week to ask yourself which body part your life most resembles. (I know where some of your minds went!) Are you a foot that helps the body to travel softly across the earth? Are you an eye that gives vision for the church? Are you an ear that listens for truth and takes it in? Are you the loins that help the church to procreate? Are you the birth canal that delivers God into the world each day?

Embracing each part of the body as a blessing from God is being “body-positive,” and that is part of the identity of MCC. I have told congregations before that MCC is the third breast of the body: giving nourishing milk to the world, but so unexpected!

The global Body of Christ is a queer body. Like our queer bodies, it experiences violence. Its parts are so different, yet somehow fit together. They have different beliefs and values and yet all claim to follow in the Way of Christ. Some parts are ill and some parts are well. Some parts are old and some parts are new. The jury is still out on whether some parts are implants (and by that, I mean churches that have a message of hate). But somehow, this body has moved forward through two thousand years of history.

Since the early 1980s, in MCC we have declared to the world that the Body of Christ is HIV-positive, that the Body of Christ has AIDS. Thirty-two years later, this is sadly still true. Today, more than 34 million same-gender-loving and heterosexual people around the world are living with HIV. And all are children of God. An illness does not disqualify anyone from being a member of the Body of Christ, amen?

Jesus cared about bodies. He proclaimed in our reading today from the Gospel of Luke, quoting the Prophet Isaiah “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because [She] has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. [She] has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” In reading this scripture, Jesus was telling those in his home town of Nazareth that he was taking this passage seriously, that his mission was to do exactly as it said.

Part one of Jesus’ mission is to bring good news to the poor. Take a look at the front of your bulletin or at the poster in front of me. This picture is called “Patrono De Los Desperados” or “Patron of the Desperate Ones” by Mexican artist Octavio Ocampo. No, this is not just a picture of Jesus, and it is not a picture of Marjorie the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock :). Ocampo has presented in this artwork his vision of the Body of Christ. It is made up of women and men (and even a dog) who scavenge for food and belongings among the garbage. This Body of Christ is not cleaned up. It has no façade. It is a true face of Christ, composed of those on the margins of society, the “least of these.” Jesus and Ocampo remind us that the poor are part of our body.

Part two of Jesus’ mission is to proclaim release to the captives. We remember today all those who are kept prisoner illegally, those who are part of a worldwide pandemic of human trafficking, and those who are in prison for their crimes. The raw truth of the corrections system in the United States is shocking. Hear this carefully.

The US has the highest number of people incarcerated in the world. As of the last census in 2010, 2,266,800 people, almost 1% of the population is in prison. Two percent more are on parole. This fact alone is shocking, but what is even more shocking is the disproportionate number of people of color in prison. Forty percent are African American, though African Americans make up only 12.6% of the total population. Twenty-one percent are Hispanic, though Hispanics only make up 16.4% of the total population. People of European descent make up 34.7% of prisons, but they comprise 72.4% of the total population. Some conclude from these statistics that people of color are just more likely to be criminals. But I cannot accept that as truth. What I see beyond these statistics is gross injustice. People of color are struggling in this country out of a history of racism. And so instead of putting them in the fields as slaves as was once legal, they are put behind bars.

Now don’t hear me wrong. I am not saying that those who commit crimes should not be brought to justice. What I am saying is that systemic oppression is pushing these folks into prisons. Spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson says, “We see criminals as guilty and seek to punish them. But whatever we do to others, we are doing to ourselves. Statistics painfully prove that our prisons are schools for crime; a vast number of crimes are committed by people who have already spent time in prison. In punishing others, we end up punishing ourselves. Does that mean we’re to forgive a rapist, tell him we know he just had a bad day and send him home? Of course not. We’re to ask for a miracle. A miracle here would be a shift from perceiving prisons as houses of punishment to perceiving them as houses of rehabilitation. When we consciously change their purpose from fear to love, we release infinite possibilities of healing.[1]”

Crime in our nation is a complicated thing to tackle. But there are steps that can be taken now, and we are called as the Body of Christ to advocate for them. Especially with gun law reform in the news right now, the time is ripe for a plentiful harvest. We can stop violence as Christ calls us to do. We just must act together as a society with the Mind of Christ.

Poet Kahlil Gibran reminds us, “Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world. But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you, so the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also… You are the way and the wayfarers. And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone. Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.”

We all have the negative potential to commit misdeeds and crimes. And we all also have the collective responsibility to ensure that “stumbling stones” are removed so that those who come after us will have a lesser chance of stumbling.

Bishop Oscar Romero gives us our charge today in his poem titled The Long View. Listen to the words and find liberation:

“It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The kingdom [of God] is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying that
the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

That is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything and
there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.”

         Church, we know that there is so much in our world that is upside-down. Jesus knew that of his world too. Jesus didn’t single-handedly stop global evil in his ministry 2000 years ago. Many terrible things have happened over that time. But he did give us tools to work with, truths to live by, and the Holy Spirit to lead us. And as we boldly live by these truths through our beautiful bodies, knowing with every fiber of our beings that we are made in the image and likeness of God, we can work miracles.

         Together, let’s worry less about how we should worship in church and be concerned more about how we should worship God through service. Let’s worry less about what we get and be concerned more about what we can give. Let’s worry less about how others have done us wrong and be concerned more about how we can better treat others with love. We are the queer Body of Christ and we have a mission to live out. With these frail, vulnerable, fallible, transitory, beautiful bodies, we can, with God’s help. Amen.

---

[1] Williamson, Marianne. A Return to Love, 86.

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.

"Dive Deep!", a Sermonette

“Dive Deep!”

Sermon for MCC New Haven

January 13, 2013

Rev. Brian Hutchison, M.Div.

Texts:

Luke 3:15-16; 21-22

Isaiah 43:1-7

Repeat after me: “I am” … “God’s Beloved Child” … “God” … “is well pleased” … “with me.” Imagine it now in your mind: the sky opens up, the warm presence of the Holy Spirit flows over you, and you hear the voice of God in your mind’s ear say to you. “You are my Child, the Beloved. You make me happy!” Saints do you know what joy God takes in you? Can you comprehend that even when you aren’t at your best, God still sees you with the eyes of a Parent with unconditional love?

Some say that this message was only for Jesus. This message came to him as he was being baptized in the Jordan River. But as we are ALL God’s children, this message is for us too! And some say that this message is just for those who have been baptized formally by the institutional church. But baptized or not, we are still ALL God’s children and this message is for us all. Some say that our sexual orientation or gender identity takes away our status as God’s children. But that is a deadly lie that is in no way the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

After a suicide attempt, MCC’s founder Rev. Troy Perry experienced a reaffirmation of his life. He had lived, though he had slit his wrists in the bathtub. And while lying in a hospital bed, he heard in his mind’s ear the voice of God tell him, “Troy, you are my beloved child! I don’t have stepsons and stepdaughters!” This is the epiphany that ever since has been preached in every MCC around the world. Our queerness does not make us second-class citizens in the Realm of God; rather our queerness gives us a unique calling.

         This calling has to do with the fact that with our very lives, we demonstrate the Gospel by speaking truth to power. We have been and continue to be on the margins of society, viewed as abnormal. But “normal” is a category created by man, not by God (and I do mean "man"!). “Normal” to God is human beings loving each other. When a human loves another, it is a miracle, and miracles are what is “normal” to God. This miracle of love is the only relation God recognizes in our world. All else is an illusion. Only we are tricked by this illusion.

         Holy Baptism is a recognition of a change in heart from fear to love, from the illusion of lack to the reality of abundance. It is not about specific belief. God doesn’t care about the wording. Remember, we created our own languages; God speaks the language of the heart. One chooses as an adult to be baptized if s/he is ready to live in the fullness of Christian life- that is following Christ. It does not mean being a puritan, not ever enjoying the pleasures of life anymore. That is only a stereotype of what it means to be a Christian. To be a Christian, marked by the outer sign of the waters of baptism, is to follow in the Way of Christ, which is the Way of Love.

         Baptism in Christian traditions is a sacrament. A sacrament is an outer sign of an inner reality. So in MCC we have two sacraments: Holy Communion and Holy Baptism. We practice Communion every Sunday and we offer Baptism whenever someone wants to be baptized. Today, we will have the opportunity to both remember our baptisms (for those of us who have been baptized before) and be baptized for the first time. But before we do that, I have to give you some history of what baptism has meant traditionally.

         The five meanings of baptism that are widely known in the mainstream of Christianity are: 1) Forgiveness, 2) Union to Christ’s death and resurrection, 3) Incorporation into the church, 4) Receiving the Holy Spirit, and 5) New birth or regeneration. Going through the act of baptism is not to perform a magical ritual that causes these things to happen. Whether you have a little water sprinkled on your head or you’re dunked, it is always a recognition of something that has already happened in the heart. The baptized is recognizing that she is forgiven of misdeeds, not of her identity. (We affirm in MCC that our identities are not sins and therefore do not need to be forgiven.) The baptized knows what it means to walk through the fires of hell and live. The baptized has a deep desire to be an integral part of Beloved Community. The baptized feels the guidance of the Holy Spirit on his life or wants to feel that guidance. And the baptized is willing to leave negative life patterns behind, embracing instead the positive, loving Way of Christ.

         In the 3rd century Syrian church, female deacons (called deaconesses) were appointed for the baptism of females. This was because of the very intimate nature of baptism.  In that church, the whole body was anointed with oil before baptism.  One did not anoint oneself; a fellow church member of the same sex did it.  Can you imagine stripping down naked in front of your fellow church members as they watch you being covered in oil? Well rest assured, we are not going to do that today. You can do that on your own time if you like :)

         No, today we are here to reaffirm our greatest identity, our identity as Children of the Living God. This is an identity that no one can take away from us, for we are all born with Original Blessing. God’s blessing of the abundance of life is ours today.