Sermon: Compassion and Courage and the Homosexual Debate

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Compassion and Courage and the Homosexual Debate

By Charles Rush

January 18, 1998

was moved on Friday to change my sermon topic this week. I promise to come back to the subject of ‘overcoming unhealthy shame and guilt'. Today, I want to address the spirit of how we should approach the coming discussion on our church and gays. I have chosen two passages of scripture that are marvelous in their hyperbole.

The first one comes from Judges after a great injustice was done in the land. All of the tribes of Israel were sent a message to come together and adjudicate this injustice. The scripture says ‘Now they each came from afar and they assembled as one man. Later, after they have heard the case, they are all so outraged and unanimous in their opinion that something needs to be done right now that the scripture says ‘And all the people arose as one man saying ‘We will not any of us go to his tent' but we shall act together. That is unity! 25,000 people, not one dissenting vote.

The second happens after King David has become morally and politically compromised in his older age. As a result, there arose political factions in his own government, and division was created. The bible says ‘Now Israel fled, every man to his own tent. And all the people were at strife.' You know about this kind of fractiousness. In grumpy church meetings or school board meetings, people come home and begin calling one another. In office meetings, groups of two or three are huddled about in hushed tones, grumbling with one another, commiserating.

Largely, these are the two models we have inherited when it comes to substantive discussion over difficult issues- Uniformity or Anarchy.

Certainly this is true in the long history of the church. I am reminded of Clovis, I believe, who was the first French King to embrace Christianity. Actually, it was his wife who converted and then persuaded the King. Whereupon the King assembled all 20,000 of his soldiers by the banks of the river in Paris and invited them to all be baptized as Christians. He then went on to say that if they chose not to be baptized, they would have their heads cut off. That day, thousands were added to their number, as Acts says. This has always been the danger of Orthodoxy. In its best sense, all of the great councils in Church History from Nicea to the Second Vatican Council give us a summary of the faith and to provide us with a tradition of what has been accepted as true and believable. But their danger has been and remains that they force a belief on us from above or from without, in a manner that violates our conscience. There has always been this danger of an enforced uniformity.

But the American sectarian model has not been much better either. Americans do not have to submit to any authority since the Church and the State are separate and religion here is a voluntary association. If the Catholic heresy has been coerced uniformity, the Protestant heresy has been schism. In the South, every time a Baptist Church got into an argument over something, they would start a new church. Baptists in the South think that a split in the church is missions. Almost invariably, when I have asked a 2^nd Baptist church or a 2^nd Methodist church how they got started, they usually say something like ‘Well, back in the 60's most of the folks at 1^st Baptist were dead set against having women deacons. Solution- start a new church. As a result, there are something like 120 Baptist denominations in America. We don't know how to disagree and still get along very well.

When I was just out of college, watching my first big denominational fight (over divorced Ministers or Abortion, before that it was Vietnam), I said to myself "I cannot believe that people are unable to discuss a controversial issue, keep their convictions, disagree with other faithful Christians, and still stay together as the Church." I was not naïve, I was incredulous. Twenty years later, I still believe it is possible. We can have a discussion about substantive things, knowing that we will disagree, keeping our convictions, and all of us will grow together. I want to say something this morning about the ‘Why' and the ‘How' of this discussion.

At the outset of a process like the one I have suggested we have, invariably I hear the question ‘Reverend, why do we have to do this?' It is legitimate, reasonable, and important to ask that question. Usually it is framed like this ‘Reverend, why do we have to have this now that the church is growing? Why do we have to invite controversy when we finally have a balanced budget? Why are we talking about gays when frankly there are only a few of them and frankly we have been a pretty tolerant place up till now?"

There are a couple of obvious answers to this question. Number 1, a couple came to me and asked me if I, representing our church, would bless their union. That is a concrete pastoral question that deserves a direct response. Our church has been accepting of gay members but we have never blessed a gay union. We have never said ‘We support your union in life-long monogamy.' I got to thinking about the request and I realized that we should not duck this question. Every decade has a moral and spiritual challenge and the present challenge in the church has to do with how and to what degree will we incorporate our gay children into the religious community. We cannot avoid a simple, but profound answer to that question. I could have sidestepped the issue but someone else would have come along next year. I could have given my personal answer as an individual Minister but it is not really a question for me as an individual. It is a question for us as a church. About every decade or so, we need to re-define who we are as a congregation and that is really what we will be doing addressing this moral and spiritual challenge. And think about, it beats the hell out of assembling a mission statement doesn't it. [We had nearly 30 people ask to be on the committee. Would we get 30 people on the mission statement committee? I don't think so!]

Secondly, in the wider traditions in our church that is how we discern the Spirit of God in our midst. What a daunting question, ‘how do you know what God wants you to do?' If you ask that question of a good Baptist or a good Congregationalist, the answer is the same. We figure it out in the discussions, the give and take, that we have with each other, guided by the Bible and guided by the Spirit of God in prayer. It is inefficient to be sure. It would be quicker if we just let the Minister make a decision or just have the Bishops meet and decide for all of the church. But we don't do that. We get the local congregation to take up an issue and decide what they feel is the right spiritual thing for them to do, at this time. Seminary students regularly ask me the question, ‘how do you know if you are serving the right church for you? How do you know that you are called to a particular church?' It is a good question. This is the answer that I tell them. ‘Well, in one sense you don't know. At least you never know unambiguously. On the other hand, it is amazing that if you pray about it and the search committee prays about it, a great deal of the time there is a divine chemistry that takes place and somehow you get a sense that it is the right thing and usually you also get some kind of validation from someone else that it is the right thing, and you really do know, quite in spite of our human limitation. That is to say, God works through people. I believe that the same thing will happen in a substantive discussion about gays in the church. I believe we can and we will be able to come together, not in a unity of agreement, but that we will be able to discern what is spiritually right for our church in our community at this time.

Why? This is why. And there is a human reason too. You also have to ask yourself the question why not? You have to put yourself in the shoes of someone who is gay. What if you were gay? How would you feel about our world, if you were in their shoes? There is never a really good time for a discussion like this if you want to avoid controversy at all costs or if you are really comfortable with things as they are at present. I understand that and I appreciate that. Things are pretty good around our church and I was taught as a child to avoid controversy in religion and politics at all costs. But the wheels of history do not roll on a track towards inevitability. Choices must be made.

I was reminded of that reading ML King this week. He wrote in a very different context than ours and about a different issue than the one that we are going to talk about, so there is no direct analogy from there to here, I want to be clear about that. But there is an indirect analogy so I want to share this quote at length. A group of liberal Southern clergy asked Dr. King ‘Why now?' in an open letter and this is what he wrote back from jail.

Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was ‘well-time,' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the words ‘Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait' has almost always meant ‘Never.' It has been tranquilizing thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We have come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.' I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.' But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?'; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading ‘white' and ‘colored'; when your first name becomes ‘nigger' and your middle name becomes ‘boy' (however old you are); when your wife and mother are never given the respected title ‘Mrs.'; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at a tiptoe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of nobodiness; then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they can experience the blackness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience." (Letter from a Birmingham City Jail)

[Don't go home and say you didn't hear great preaching today]. Like I said, there is no 1 to 1 historical analogy. Our times are much less brutal and sexual orientation is much more complex than the issue of race. But I do know this. We need to ask our gay children about how they feel about themselves and how they feel in our wider community and in the church. One thing I am sure of- there is more and different pain that you would imagine and we will all grow from this discussion. We will learn from our gay children and we will learn about ourselves. There is no convenient time for that discussion, it is true.

That is the ‘Why' for this discussion. What about the ‘How'.

One of my favorite images in the Bible for the church is the people of Israel crossing the Sinai desert. They are a people on the move but they don't really know where they are going. And neither do we. I want to be very clear about this today. I do not have a pre-conceived outcome that I am carefully steering our congregation towards in this discussion. We do not know where we are going exactly. I recognize that this is very different from a business plan mentality but not all of life can be crammed into a business plan either. We are moving towards consensus but we want to hear from a range of options within the congregation and let wisdom emerge.

The Bible says that when the people of Israel were crossing the desert God was present to them in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. A cloud by day because the Sinai desert, if you have been there, reaches 140 degrees during the day, so the cloud was a gracious cover that kept them from burning up. A fire by night because the wind blows strong at night and the temperature drops down sometimes to 40 degrees so you are freezing to death, the fire being a gracious presence of life giving warmth at night. Now each day the cloud moved and the people of Israel had to move with it. Of course, they didn't have to move with it, they could choose to sleep in or just stubbornly shake their fist at the heavens and say ‘I'm staying right where I am for the rest of the year. Whadaya think about that God?' And they would shrivel up and die. It is a great image of the Almighty- keeping us on the move because we would not generally move unless we really had to.

There are some qualities of Spirit that we need to cultivate as we go forward in this process. Certainly, first and foremost, is a desire of the goodness of movement, believing/trusting that we will grow. We need to look in the mirror and say ‘I am open to a fresh movement of the Spirit. My mind is not made up. I may have a definite conviction at the present time but I am open to change.' I can pretty well guarantee you that you will change. Even if you end up pretty much with the same general conviction that you have now, it will be for better more substantial reasons than at present. And you will be changed for the better by interacting with people who challenge your assumptions. As I used to say to my students at Rutgers ‘Those who do not know their opponent's arguments do not completely understand their own.' First, we need to be open.

Secondly, we need to cultivate understanding and respect. The way here is not clear. It is ambiguous. Everybody has limitations built into to their perspective based on their limited experience and their limited education. But everyone has some valuable things to offer as well. No one person has profound wisdom but collectively we have tremendous insight. I'm on the Ethics Committee at Overlook Hospital with Roz Kendellen and Doe Dunn from our church. Every month we review different cases and all of the Doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, (and the rest of us) comment on the case. It is remarkable to watch a collective opinion begin to take shape. All these different points are raised. Slowly there begins to emerge a perspective, a frame. Now, in order for that to happen, you have to show respect and understanding towards those people different from you. You have to ask follow-up questions to find out what really motivates one person's convictions, find out what is at stake for them.

What we do not need is contentious arrogance. I am thinking of Pat Robertson from the Christian Coalition and Bishop John Spong in Newark. Robertson is convinced that he is right on the issue of gays in the church and anyone who disagrees with him is not only a heretic but is unwittingly aiding the work of Satan in the world. Bishop Spong is sure that anyone who disagrees with him is an uneducated dinosaur that is unaware of the depth of their prejudice and bigotry. They are the different faces of arrogance from the right and the left. We need to try to understand one another in love and respect one another, blessing one another even in our disagreement. Secondly, we need understanding and respect.

Thirdly, we need to covenant with one another. Covenant is an important word, particularly when you are starting out on something and you don't know where you are going exactly. Before the Pilgrims ever got on the boat in England, they knew they needed some real faithfulness, some strength of togetherness, if they were going to take an uncertain voyage together across the Atlantic. So they wrote out the Mayflower Compact and they pledged to one another that come what may, they were in this thing together. We need to treat this like a spiritual family- you can love them, hate them but you can't leave them.

We need that too. We need to say to ourselves, ‘I am going to stay in this discussion to the end. I am going to work this through in trust. I am not going to pick up my ball and go home if I don't get my way.' I have to presume that if you have any substantive discussion, with any substantial emotional content, there are going to be times when you feel like quitting. There are going to be times when you get mad or hurt. We have to say to each other, I am going to work through this constructively and not just turn away bitter. We will grow together if we covenant together.

Finally, we need to face our fears. Remember that when the Israelites got to the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey that God promised them, they sent out spies to check out the land. The spies came back and said ‘the land is filled with Giants' and the people were all afraid. Of course, we have fears. Some are legitimate; some are of our vain imaginings. Let's face the fact, most of us have very little serious exposure to gay people. They are only 4-5% of the population. Most of us have made a lot of judgments based on our limited encounter with a relative, some folks we work with, a friend of the family who was gay. Stereotypical characters on television and the movies fill in the rest of our gaps for us. Humans are remarkable that what they don't know, they usually first sketch out as a Monster of some kind or other. We are anxious and somewhat fearful about the unknown.

And it is not just our lack of exposure to the gay community either. There is always fear and anxiety when we begin to believe that our church community might change. That is legitimate. We know that our church in the past has been a place of safety, support, comfort, and refuge. Why change that? We are afraid that in change we might lose some of what we have most valued about what our church has meant. That is fair. But we have to trust each other enough that even as we change, which is inevitable in any case, we will keep what is best. And we might just get better.

Next week, we will get this larger discussion moving when David Bartlett comes to talk to us from Yale Div. School. David has evolved towards a wider acceptance of gays in all aspects of the life of the church. I haven't asked him to tell us what to think or do. We wouldn't listen to him anyhow. But I think it is fair for him to reflect for us ‘how my mind has changed' on this subject. I think it is helpful to ask someone farther down the path to report to us on his journey. He is not a crusader either, just a pastor- (now a professor)- who has tried to respond faithfully to some concrete issues that came up in the regular course of ministry. He has gone a little further than our church and he will give us a report of his journey. We will have a forum afterwards and you will be able to give voice to your opinion. And later we will have other group discussions where you can share and exchange your ideas.

I do not believe that all tension is bad. It is true that contentiousness and pettiness simply are destructive. But I know that there are creative tensions that are productive for our spiritual growth. I think this is one such creative tension. We may disagree, we may have some uncomfortable times, but if we have good will towards each other, if we have respect and understanding, if we honestly face our fears, I know that we will sharpen one another's ideas, deepen one another's compassion, mature one another in growth. Pray and trust. Let us be together in support, even if we are not uniform in perspective. Amen.