A few weeks ago I traveled to Kansas to celebrate my 35th
(!) high school reunion. The festivities were held on Friday and Saturday night
in Topeka, where I grew up, but Sunday I was to go to my sister Lori’s in
Lawrence, KS. We had a full day planned: a first birthday party for my
grand-niece, Averie, and a birthday dinner for my 26 year old niece, Rachael.
But Lori wanted the day to start with church. Her daughter,
Rachael, had discovered a new church and had told her mom about it. I first
heard of this church a few months ago when Lori and I were on the phone. “It’s
contemporary and really simple,” Lori had said, “There’s just a few songs, the
sermon, a prayer and a closing song. Then you’re done.”
She went on to rave about the rock band and the casual
appearance of the ministers, their fun use of videos and their small group
ministries. I was pleased she and Rachael had found a church where they could feel comfortable, though I was not sure I wanted to attend; I worried
about the theology. In my experience, “contemporary” non-denominational churches
with praise bands and coffee bars have a conservative, evangelical bent that
focus on “loving the sinner and hating the sin.”
Still I was curious about this church and so I
headed to Lawrence after getting in an early morning run. Lori was especially
excited to tell me about what the topic of the sermon just happened to be for
my visit: Gay marriage.
Great.
Still, I gamely smiled and marched like a good little
soldier into the Lawrence theatre where Eastlake Church rents space each Sunday
morning. My niece, Rachael met us there.
“Did Mom tell you what the service is on today,” she asked with a big smile. When I said yes, she responded, “I’m 90% sure we won’t have to worry
about what they’ll say.”
This made me feel a little better, but as the lights dimmed
and the young members of the band walked on stage, I felt my gut tighten.
Listening closely to the lyrics of the praise songs (like any good Unitarian
Universalist would do) I felt my sense of unease growing. One song mentioned
over and over again, how the singer would call to Jesus from a miry pit, “rescue
me! Deliver me!” This sounded a lot like something ex-gay ministries would tout—Jesus
can save us from the pit of homosexuality.
Finally the lead minister, Matt, came out and began his 40
minute talk. This was the last of a four part sermon series called “Survey Says” and each
week, one of the ministers would address questions people wanted answered. This
talk actually addressed four questions: would there be an increase in
persecution of Christians in America, Is there a heaven and hell, If I’m afraid
to die does that threaten my salvation and the Big One: What Do You Believe
About Gay Marriage?
As Matt spoke, even though I really appreciated his
perspective (for the first question he said people voting differently than you is
not persecution, it’s democracy, and atheists are not anti-Christian, they’re
anti-asshole, they’re anti-douche bag) I still kept waiting for the other shoe
to drop.
Finally he got to the marriage issue and when he said he
believed in marriage equality and all three ministers would be available to
officiate at any legally sanctioned marriage, I thought I was going to burst
into tears. I mean seriously.
You have to understand that for most of my ministry I was with MCC-- a predominantly queer Christian denomination-- and I can't recall how many times someone walked through the doors of that church, broken and beaten down by their former church's interpretation of homosexuality. I couldn't tell you how many times they had to recover from being told they had to be ex-gay, in ordered to be loved by their god. So maybe my trepidation that Sunday morning at Eastlake Church was understandable. Even though by then what Matt would say shouldn’t have been a surprise, I still didn’t trust where the message was going. I thought he’d say, gays and lesbians are welcome but marriage is between one man and one woman.
Instead he fully affirmed the human dignity and worth of
queer folk, and unequivocally welcomed all into their church. Instead of delving
deep into scriptures and the translations, he offered two links for those who
wondered how he had reached this decision –this one from 2005, written by John
Thomas, then General President of the UCC, and this one by Justin Lee, author
of the book Torn: Rescuing the Gospels from the Gays vs. Christian Debate. In
summary, Matt simply stated that homosexual relationships mean something
different than what was depicted in biblical times and that of all the things Christians were called to, loving one another was chief among them. Then, just as promised, a prayer, a closing song,
and we were out the door.
As the lights came up, I looked at the other folks gathering
up their belongings and exiting; I thought about how many of them might be
struggling with their sexuality or know someone who was. I thought about how
this simple validation in a contemporary Christian church- complete with a rock
band with a thumping bass line might have saved lives that day.
In June I wrote about the historic decision on marriage equality given by the US Supreme Court and I focused on its relevance, on the
struggle to win that fight but I failed to mention the unintended blessings it
would also give: a reason to live. As many of you know, I belong to a facebook
page called Sibling Survivors of Suicide. In the wake of the Supreme Court
ruling, I was amazed to see how many of my fellow siblings posted their joy at
the decision and said that they only wished their brother or sister could have
been alive to witness this day, adding their siblings killed themselves because
they had been gay or lesbian, because they didn’t think their god could love
them, because someone told them they were going to hell, because they had been
bullied in high school- or middle school- because of their sexual orientation,
because they were raised in a culture that said they were second class
citizens, at best.
I thought about how long the journey, how arduous the struggle,
how Sisyphean a task justice-seeking is; and yet, with each small victory
attained, with each nudge that topples the dominoe
s of injustice, somewhere in
some small town, a life is saved, a love is lifted up, and liberty and justice
for all seems, at least in this moment, ours.
That’s what I experienced at Eastlake Church that morning,
as I blinked back tears of joy. And that was at the center of the bittersweet
celebration of the Supreme Court’s decision on my sibling survivor page.
In 2004, long before I could see the unexpected turn this
journey would take, I wrote a paper on Marriage and the Patriarchy, in which I
questioned if that issue should be the building we put our ladder on, but in
the end I believe that this struggle for equality will have ramifications
beyond two people’s decision to say “I do.” Perhaps, by legitimizing love we
can finally begin the process of detaching qualifiers such as gay or straight
marriage and just say marriage. Perhaps, we can begin to dismantle the
hierarchies of love that have held sway for so long. Perhaps then we can join
together, all of us members of the human race, to care for our planet, in all
its diversity, and one another, in all of ours.
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