Category Archives: Gay Sermon

Speaking of Unity

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Blessed Damozel (1878).

The following is a sermon based on Ephesians 4:15, entitled Speaking of Unity. I offered it at an annual gathering of pastors and other church leaders.

Ephesians 4:14-15:

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Messiah.

Organizing Idea: Forsaking anger, we speak the truth in love, and so draw closer together, preserving God’s will: the unity of the body of Messiah Jesus. 

I.

Picture this scene: We fall in love. 

I’m a bit proper, and intimate chat—you know, what the young folks these days call “spicy” talk—that makes me uncomfortable. 

I don’t know how to handle love-talk, so as we walk through your garden, you whisper “sweet nothings” to the roses. 

I laugh as you tell the roses how much you love them.

But there’s one problem: We fall in love during a war. 

You leave to fight in the war, leaving me with instructions on how to care for the roses.

I do my best to keep the roses alive until you return. 

There’s one more problem: one thing you told me to do I won’t do—and that is talk to the roses. 

Why not? Well, that’s ridiculous! 

Honestly, I won’t talk to the roses because I miss you. 

In the letter I send to you, I share that the roses are surviving—but they are not thriving. The roses are alive, but they are not living because they are not getting the conversation they need. 

Why did we fall in love in the middle of a war? What a silly thing for anyone to do. 

II.

What you just pictured is a scene from the new, fabulous Broadway musical Operation Mincemeat.

Jak Malone won the Tony Award for his performance as Hester Leggatt, who sings about falling in love during World War II and caring for the roses while her lover, Tom, is away fighting the war.

For reasons you’ll need to figure out yourself, the song is called “Dear Bill.” 

III.

Roses are, of course, a cliché for love.

Teenagers at prom.
Honeymoon suites.
Romance novels.

But in Hester’s song, the roses are more than cliché.

They’re a revelation.

The roses in Hester’s song reveal what it means to speak of unity. 

Ephesians repeatedly emphasizes that God’s will is to unite everything and everyone (1:10). In fact, God, through the cross of Jesus the Messiah and the ongoing advocacy of the Spirit, has completed that goal. 

Unity is not something we create. 

Our pastors, leaders, youth, members, or visitors can’t command or create unity.

God gives unity to the body of Messiah, to the church. Unity is grace.

That’s why Ephesians urges us to “accept each other with love, and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together” (4:2-3). 

Preserving unity, the unity that God gives us through the weakness of the Messiah, in the Spirit—that is our work. 

Planting, growing, and watering the roses–that’s God’s work. 

Our task is tending to them, giving the roses the conversation they need to thrive. 

But there’s one issue: we are living in wartime. 

IV.

We are in the middle of a serious culture war. One that too often successfully pulls us out of the garden, almost guaranteeing that the roses won’t get the conversation they need to thrive.

Military helicopters are descending on Chicago, targeting communities of color—and ICE, armed like Roman soldiers, are kicking in the doors of citizens and their children, hauling them into the streets.

Rome’s agents ruthlessly round up our fellow human beings without papers—the vast majority of whom are, like all of us, trying to build a good and decent life.

Across this divided land, killers strike our fellow citizens in their homes, on campuses, and as they walk to lunch—and yet we only recognize some victims as saints.

Today, our government is shut down because we refuse to agree that our neighbors deserve affordable healthcare.

V.

We are in the middle of a war, so all the chatter I am hearing in my circles, from both sides of the partisan divide—and everything in between—about buying guns is not so surprising. 

Even Ephesians encourages believers in the Messiah to arm themselves. We are to put on the belt of truth, take up the shield of faith, wear the helmet of salvation, and wield the sword of the Spirit (6:13-17).

The author of Ephesians encourages us to dress up like Roman soldiers.

That’s no small thing. Fashion moves us. 

Remember that time you finally fit into those tight jeans or that expensive dress you never thought you would fit into… and then immediately booked a flight to New York to walk the runway during Fashion Week? Or, remember the time that you got a great haircut, and you seriously thought, “I could be a rockstar with this hair.”

Playing dress up as a Roman soldier is not as innocent as it seems. 

And before you think I am overthinking this, consider that the author of Ephesians, just a few verses earlier, explicitly commands us to adopt a Roman lifestyle. 

Just before asking us to dress up like Roman soldiers, he commands wives to submit to their husbands, and slaves to obey their masters.

If it’s any consolation, he does request that husbands and masters, masters and husbands, treat their property with kindness (5:21-6:9).

That’s so cringe. I know. 

It’s also very, very Roman lifestyle advice. 

But like every text written in wartime—Ephesians is all about a clash of cultures—it resists simplicity.

VI.

Earlier in the letter, the author of Ephesians declares, “I’m telling you this, and I insist on it in the Lord: you shouldn’t live your life like the [the Romans] anymore. . .” (4:17).  [unstated exegetical note: It is because the author moves in this direction that I emphasize the Roman cultural connections rather than the Jewish ones. The author of Ephesians was likely Jewish. See Daniel Boyarin’s excellent study, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (1999), for an analysis of the overlap between Jewish and Roman cultures, along with its main theme: how Judaism and Christianity eventually became distinguishable religions].

But in the middle of his musical, let’s call it, The Roman Family Musical, the author offers some Roman advice that is actually sound: he tells us to avoid anger. [Underlying source: see Martha Nussbaum, Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice (2016) for a sophisticated and careful analysis of the character of anger.]

The Romans, and the Greeks before them, believed that anger was a female thing. They thought males were rational and disciplined, and females were childish and prone to excess.

One thing is certain: when you lack control over your own body, anger does feel empowering.

Even so, avoiding anger is good Roman advice because human anger is always an injustice. 

Anger always works against God’s will to bring everything and everyone together.

Please don’t take my word for it, the truth is as close to you as your own family.

The author of Ephesians commands children to obey their parents (6:1-4). But this time, there is good reason to comply with his command: 

The commandment to love your parents is the only one that comes with a promise: We should listen to our parents so that everything may go well for us and that we may live a long life.

That’s promising! 

And parents, if you want to command your children’s respect and ensure everything goes well for them, avoid provoking them to anger.

That sounds promising, too! 

I confess, I am surprised; I never took Ephesians for a letter with much promise.

In fact, I typically feel like this dude is a prude.

No drinking. No cussing. No joking. No rock, pop, or blues music. No good sex (it’s all missionary style for him).

But this time, I thought: maybe the perils of anger explain his social conservatism. 

VII.

Nowadays, anger is a respectable thing to feel, especially if you are a male. 

The fruits of male anger are predictable—a terrible tale as old as time: males drink, males boast, males covet the spouses of other males.

Outrage follows. Men die. And women and children are the collateral damage of male anger.

Here is a new thing about anger: it’s especially powerful on social media. 

Rage-baiting is all the rage. Why? We love it. We like it. We comment on it. 

The algorithm gives us more and more of it. Influencers and social media platforms profit from it. 

There is a reason we describe getting angry as “going nuclear.” It is the most potent weapon in our culture war arsenal.

Anger always goes viral. 

Here’s why: Anger is a feeling that is always—and I say again—always related to the pleasures of retribution, of punishment, of revenge, of domination—of really sticking it to someone who stuck it to you. 

The logic of anger is devilishly simple: if I can wound the one who wounded me, I will be made whole again.

Anger is always a form of magical thinking: the thought that revenge will right a wrong. 

It won’t.

Anger is always a verb. It is always about getting even. 

That’s why we should avoid provoking our children to anger and getting angry ourselves. 

“Get angry,” we are told, “but don’t sin” (4:26-27).

In other words, don’t get angry, because anger is always related to sin; it is always opposed to God’s will, to unity and its preservation in the church.

Speaking of unity, I remember visiting family in northern Idaho. 

I was in my mid-twenties, sitting with my brother and uncle in a bar called the Six Devils.

After I enjoyed about six devils, I decided it was time to share some angry thoughts. The result was predictable: more anger.

My brother, a huge, muscular guy (the opposite of me), stormed out of the bar—and my uncle did too, after he started to cry. 

What I said damaged our relationship; it certainly did not bring us closer together.

That’s why the author of Ephesians urges us to forsake anger and begs us to adopt a different lifestyle, one characterized by speaking the truth.  

That’s one word in Greek—it means to speak the truth continuously.

Like anger, speaking the truth is a verb. But it’s not angry speech. It is not permission to say the nastiest things imaginable about people while smiling. 

Well, bless your hearts. 

Speaking the truth–quite unlike anger–is always a matter of love-talk, and love-talk is always talk that inspires–indeed is–the preservation of unity in the body of Messiah Jesus. 

VIII. 

Now, with that in mind, let’s re-imagine what speaking of unity—what giving the roses the conversation they need–looks like. 

Picture this scene: We are back in the garden; the roses are there between us. I start talking to them because I know you don’t like it when I talk too directly about love. Here’s what I say to the roses:

I was asked to preach at the Church of Christ, but I was told there was one topic I could not mention in my sermon. 

So, I angrily left the garden to fight on the Western front of the culture war.

Walking to the battlefield, I was reminded of a time I asked a layperson to avoid a topic. I asked them not to disparage members of the church I was serving from the pulpit.

One member was barely back on his feet after being disowned by his entire family. Another member was coming back to church after she had stayed away for years, fearing abuse from the pulpit. Yet another member had just lost his husband.

Please, I asked, preserve the unity of the Spirit in peace.

This layperson had somehow learned to say yes when he meant no, and he offered a condescending and damaging message that drove people–including me–away from one another and that congregation. His comments severed our unity.

As I marched to war, I considered what it meant to be prohibited, in the name of unity, from preaching a message of extravagant welcome. 

I also started to feel sad. I learned, again, that Rev. Kay Ray was right when he observed that I was excited about ministry because I hadn’t been doing it.

I thought despairingly: If being the United Church of Christ means that one church can degrade and exclude people like me, my family, and our friends, while another church can boldly fight racism, preserving the grace of unity is surely impossible.

The feeling only worsened when I remembered the times that even our leadership expressed the view that folks like me in the church are a “controversial” issue. 

They think it is a sign of faithfulness not to take a position on such a “controversial” issue. 

Here is what should be controversial: 

Rome’s Supreme Court empowers conservative parents to pull their kids out of public-school lessons that entail “controversial” themes and even to send their “controversial” children to conversion therapy. Yet, it denies caring parents of those same children the power to make their healthcare decisions.

“Controversial” adults in North Carolina now have to hand over their false birth certificates, the ones they received at birth, along with their real ones, whenever they require a passport, other necessary documentation, or for identity verification purposes.

What should be controversial is our historical ignorance. 

Did you know that the Greeks thought that males and females were different species? A similar idea, Ibraham Kendi reminds us, enabled some white folks to justify the institution of slavery. 

The Romans got rid of the idea of the sexes. Male and females represented points on a sliding scale—the only difference being that some genitals stuck out while others turned inward . . . . 

What sticks out asserts reproductive power; what turns inward submits to reproductive power. Rome privileged and empowered what asserted itself on women and on both male and female slaves and other non-citizens. 

What we now think of as sex and sexuality are the creations—very real and very unnatural social creations—of the 1700s and 1800s. [Underlying source: see David M. Halperin, “Sex/Sexuality/Sexual Classification,” in Critical Terms for the Study of Gender (2014), 449-486, for this history and a spirited and clear analysis of it].

There is no such thing as “biological truth.” But too many Christians seem to be sticking with Rome. Some of y’all are too Roman for my liking.

My anger was further enflamed when I remembered times that our leadership couldn’t even celebrate the good that the Southern Conference had done, like our fight in 2015, because they couldn’t bring themselves to name it, to mention it explicitly. 

Rome’s Court is—once again—looking for an opportunity to make some of us sit at the back of the bus.

And some of our leaders are uncomfortable even discussing their own desires, fearing they may cause controversy.

Family, unity should not come at the expense of diversity in the church.

We should not be cutting off toes to fit into a Roman sandal.

If unity comes at the cost of the dignity of other parts of the body, it’s just not worth it. 

In fact, it just not unity.

It’s not a just unity.

It’s hostility. 

And it is contrary to God’s will. 

Yes, I was feeling some kind of way when I received your letter. Something about it made me drop my weapons and walk away from war.

Honestly, I missed being together with our roses.

As I walked back to our garden, I did feel like a motherless child. 

I felt like a kid who had grown up without a good enough mother, tossed to and fro because his caregiver was not reliable—except in their efforts to provoke him to anger.

But something about your letter also made me feel like I no longer had to be an angry soldier out fighting the culture war of rage.

Your letter, your hymn, inspired me to think that speaking of unity—giving the roses the conversation they need to thrive, to really live—is an infinitely more pleasurable use of our time.

Your Psalm reminded me: 

It’s good and pleasant when we live together in unity!

Unity feels like precious oil on the head, running down over the collars of robes. 

It’s like the smell of morning dew.

It’s like the simple beauty of water droplets gliding across rose petals. 

It’s life forevermore (Psalm 133, redacted). 

May it be so.

Amen.

Gay Erasure? No thanks.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, American, born Cuba, 1957-1996. “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991. The Art Institute of Chicago and the Smithsonian.

Straight allies mean well when they support gay marriage. “It’s not gay marriage,” they assert; “it’s just marriage.” Likewise, they mean well when they envision a time when gay pride is no longer necessary. “Gay people will be so integrated,” they argue, “that parades and all that will no longer be necessary.”

Love is love.

I don’t blame straight allies for making those cringey statements. They are, after all, taking their lead from gay folks whose singular purpose in life is to fit in, to walk the straight and normal path laid out for them.

Gay parents are often leading the efforts of gay normalcy. “There is no gay way,” these parents contend, “to brush a kid’s teeth.”

If parenting were only that simple, right? Maybe it is, and perhaps that is why we have so many assholish kids running around nowadays. Just a thought.

Who is afraid of gayness? A lot of people apparently.

Here is my obligatory gay statement this June:

I am proud of my gayness. It is the best thing about me.

I am deeply grateful for my gayness. Devoted to it. It delights me.

Gayness animates my personhood, my intimate/married life, my fatherhood, my faith, my scholarly artistry, my style, my hopes and dreams.

I am alive today because of gayness.

Four hellish, it seems, truths:

  1. We, all of us, need gay marriage.
  2. We, all of us, need gay pride.
  3. We, all of us, need gay parenting.
  4. We, all of us, need gayness.

May it be so. Forever and ever.

Amen.

Possessed by “Demons”

A sermon based on the Gospel of John 19:25-29 (FYI: the word “home” is NOT in the Greek text):

*

As Jesus is dying on the cross, the disciple he loves—the boy he loves—the one, we are told, who is responsible for the Gospel of John, is on his mind. In the final moments of Jesus’ life, his beloved’s future is his ultimate concern.

We don’t know the identity of the man Jesus loved, but what we do know is that he is the only disciple Jesus is explicitly said to have loved.

We also know that he is the kind of guy who prefers the company of women. He is with the women at the foot of the cross.

We know too that the relationship between Jesus and this man is one characterized by physical and emotional intimacy. And their intimate connection is no more pronounced—or obvious—than it is in this moment, in the final moments of Jesus’ life.

As he is dying on the cross, Jesus no doubt feels like a motherless child: ripped from the circle of maternal security, cursed and abandoned to the whims of colonizers. Maybe he is even second guessing himself. Why could he not just be normal, act like every other king? In his moment of despair, doubt, questioning—Jesus is concerned that his man learns the lessons that will ultimately result in his resurrection.

Jesus makes sure that the man he loves is adopted by the maternal figure. Jesus declares, “Woman, here is your son.” To his beloved he says, “Here is your mother.” The text tells us that Jesus’ beloved “from that hour took her into his own.” In other words, the man Jesus loved accepted being placed under the exclusive care of the one the narrator calls Jesus’ “mother,” the one Jesus calls simply “woman.”

This text—indeed, the Gospel of John—clearly reveals Jesus as a lover of another man, as one who is concerned in his final hour with the well-being of his boyfriend. Here at the end of Jesus’ life, we are once again reminded that Jesus is not like all the other boys, like all the other rulers and kings. We are reminded that Jesus is a “mama’s boy,” more like a queen than a king.

And that is what the Romans were getting at when they plastered, in the languages of both the colonized and the colonizer, “King of the Jews” above the crucified Jesus’ head. They were calling Jesus the F-word, the 6 letter homophobic slur. The message of Rome is clear: the cross is where not being like all the other boys, not being like all the other kings and rulers, the cross is where being queer will get you; the cross is where being a mama’s boy will get you.

Not much has changed. Consider how we are taught to think about a boy’s secure attachment to his mother.

There is a tradition that is made up of the writings of primarily white psychologists talking about white boys and their relationship to their mothers. Their fear is that a white boy left under the care of his mother will become chronically effeminate, a hopelessly effeminate boy, a monstrosity, one who lacks a positive masculine self-regard.

There is also a tradition of primarily white scholars talking about African American boys and their relationship to their mothers. In this tradition, the dangers multiply: African American boys cared for by their mothers become incapable men—not only gender deviant but also unable to take care of themselves and their families economically, and so end up in jail.

These are the white lies we are told about our secure attachments to the maternal—and their power should not be underestimated. They clearly tell us that if we are mama’s boys, we will be defined as monsters, demons, Satan himself. They teach us that our particular lives and loves are hellish and evil, cursed, and that we will be treated accordingly. Hell is for queers.

But as Lil Nas X has shown us, hell is not such a bad place—especially if you’re the King of it.

In his now in/famous music video, Lil Nas X, judged and condemned, descends—in fact, he slides down a stripper pole, into hell. He feigns interest in Satan before ultimately wringing Satan’s neck.

Lil Nas dethrones Satan and becomes the king of hell, Satan himself. Lil Nas X becomes what Rome said he should fear: the face of damnation itself.

In his music video, Lil Nas fully embraces what Rome names as a hellish lifestyle. He quite literally puts himself in Satan’s shoes. This is his liberation, his resurrection.

Lil Nas X perfectly understands his situation. He knows that he is not really a hellish creature. But he also knows that that is how Rome sees him—really.

And not just him. You will recall that when Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who killed Michael Brown, testified before a grand jury, he described the young African American man he killed this way: “It looks like a demon.”

Lil Nas X understands his situation. Like Jesus, he descends into hell, and he embraces fully what Rome condemns, tortures, and murders. In fact, Lil Nas X and Jesus may have learned this from their mothers.

As Hortense J. Spiller argues in her now classic essay, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe,” speaking specifically of the symbolic situation faced by African American women, an African American mother may “[actually claim] the monstrosity . . . which her culture imposes in blindness, . . . might rewrite after all a radically different text for a female empowerment.”

Hellish creatures: that is what we are to Rome, that is how Rome sees all of us who dare to defy its laws in the name of Justice. Why not claim it? We know the truth; we know the Gospel, that “now, apart from the law, Justice is revealed.”

But where we see Jesus, where we see Justice, Rome sees Satan.

Rome sees Satan, but to us, Michael Brown is a child of God.

Rome sees Satan, but to us, Lil Nas X is a preacher of the Gospel.

Rome sees Satan, but to us, Jesus is the Messiah.

Rome sees Satan, but to us, Jesus is the Word of God.

Rome sees Satan, but to us, Jesus is our Salvation.

What Rome thinks is foolish, we know as the wisdom of God.

To those of us being saved, Jesus Messiah is the wisdom of God. Jesus Messiah is the way, the truth, and the life.

And what he wanted for the man he loved is a secure attachment to the maternal figure. That is what he wants for all of us who love him: that we may be(come) what Rome fears most, the desecration of its power over us.

May it be so.

Amen.

Rest From Cruel Dominion: Embracing Mercy on the Sabbath Day

A Sermon Based On Deuteronomy 5:12-15 and Mark 2:23-3:6

[5/20/24: Sermon writing is a laborious process, and most clergy spend a lot of time, in the midst of hospital visits, countless meetings and emails, and other obligations, getting it just right. I posted my first draft of this sermon, to be given June 2nd, on May 15th. It has undergone a lot of changes, but I think I am hitting the right notes now. **Guiding statement: I propose to preach that we rest from cruel dominion, from thwarting animal justice and restoration, and to the end of becoming compassionate and merciful sovereigns of the earth.** We all need help with (sermon) writing well. Thomas Long is, in my opinion, the best help for writers of sermons.]

I.

Human animals rule the land. We rule the air. We rule the seas. We have dominion over the earth.

I completely agree with Matthew Scully, a Republican, when we argues in his eloquent and moving book, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy—I entirely agree with his argument that “[t]he term dominion carries no insult to our fellow [,non-human animal] creatures. We are all set forth into the world with different gifts and attributes. Their gifts, the ones their Creator intended for them, are good for many things—governing just isn’t one of them. Someone has to assume dominion, and looking around the earth we seem to be the best candidates. . . ” (12).

That truth doesn’t make us better or more valuable or less animal than, say, pigs, octopuses, cows, elephants or bats. Our dominion merely reflects our difference, our unique—yet completely animal—place in the world.

So the question we face today—and every day—is not whether we have dominion over the earth—we manifestly do—the question we face is a much more difficult one: What kind of sovereigns are we?

Are we merciful, compassionate, filled with wonder at the sheer diversity of life all around us and so are sovereigns committed to respecting and protecting the inherent dignity of all animal life?

Or, Are we cruel sovereigns, rulers who thwart animal access to justice and to restoration.

II.

We are so very often cruel sovereigns of the earth.

Our cruel reign is sometimes expressed through our faith in what Martha Nussbaum identifies, in her powerful and life-changing book, Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility—in what she identifies as our faith in a Romantic view of nature.

We enjoy Romantic thoughts of “Natural” spaces—and of “Natural” people, too. We love to imagine that there are, out there somewhere, pristine, self-regulated, balanced places and self-sufficient, rural people.

The Romantic idea of “Nature” intoxicates us, but when we sober up and actually observe nature, I think we start to agree with the 19th-century philosopher John Stuart Mill: “Nature is cruel and thoughtless.”

When we sober up, when we are truly in nature, I think we begin to learn what ecologists teach us: “balance of nature” is a nice slogan for fruit and veggie supplements, but no such thing exists in nature.

And rural poverty and isolation from needed resources, like quality healthcare, may be, from the Romantic point of view, the “Natural” order of things, but that is just another reason for us to sober up.

Our faith in “Nature” makes us neglectful; it enables us to ignore the suffering of our fellow creatures. But we are not always neglectful, are we? Sensing that our fellow creatures, including members of our own species, can serve the needs of some dominant group, we force them to serve the free market.

Consider the slaughterhouses throughout our county. Who works there? What do they do all day? And what creatures are killed there? How many are killed there? And how are they killed there? And what’s the big deal? For some answers, read a book like Steven Wise’s An American Trilogy: Death, Slavery, and Dominion on the Banks of the Cape Fear River.

If we open our hearts, we may feel the cries for mercy coming from slaughterhouses all over our country and from those allegedly pristine Natural places. Feeling those cries, we may even be persuaded to rest from our cruel dominion.

III.

God asked us, in the 4th Commandment we read earlier, God asked us to take a break from our cruel dominion. We are asked to rest from cruel dominion on the Sabbath and to remember that God liberated us from the regime of cruelty.

That’s nice—but carefully consider the logic of the Sabbath Commandment: Liberation from slavery in Egypt is the justification for pausing the institution of slavery among those liberated from it. You heard the text: Let your male and female slaves rest on the Sabbath day. I guess you can take the slaves out of Egypt but you can’t take the Egypt out of the liberated slaves—except, maybe, on the Sabbath Day.

But there is a reason the command to let female and male slaves rest on the Sabbath is repeated twice: cruel dominion is all too often the policy of the Sabbath Day.

The story we read from Mark teaches us that cruelty has become a Sabbath Day tradition. Consider this story, another version of the pious cruelty Mark critiques:

All of 17-years-old, I attended a winter church retreat in McCall, Idaho. I managed to get very sick while at the retreat.

I will spare you the details of all the ways my body was trying to expel the sickness.

Anyway, I ended up in hospital, stayed the night on an IV, and returned to the retreat in the morning, in time for breakfast. I walked into the cafeteria and nearly vomited at the sight and smells of sausages and bacon. I consigned myself to hunger.

Later that morning, we gathered for worship and for communion. The chunk of communion bread I ate was so satisfying that, after the service, I went back to the communion table, and I started to chow down on the huge loaf of leftover bread.

It felt so good.

As I was being restored, clergy So-And-So walked over to me and calmly, but with a tone, reminded me that I was eating the body of Christ—and he suggested I stop eating it like a wild animal, by which he meant I should just stop eating it altogether; communion was over.

Being a good teenager, I just completely ignored him. I was not going to be blocked from what I needed to heal.

I hope we have the courage to teach our youth that lesson: sometimes holy trouble will look like totally ignoring religious people. Sometimes, even as your hand is being swatted away by church folks, you just have to keep reaching out your hand and ripping off huge chunks of bread, of justice, of healing. Even on Sundays, in the name of Jesus, you may have to find the courage and tenacity to resist cruel dominion.

Cruel dominion, all the ways, through our inaction and action, we block animals from justice and restoration—cruel dominion is so often a Sunday tradition. But tradition is not destiny. We don’t have to be like clergy So-And-So, blocking people from food, from healing, from justice. We can do something different, if only for one day a week. We can obey the 4th Commandment; we can rest from our cruel dominion.

IV.

Some of you have may noticed a story about the Hurricanes a few weeks ago. I know we have Canes fans in here today. Maybe you saw a story about them entitled, in part, “Hurricanes Use Rest As A Weapon.”

What they did was refuse to practice early in the morning on game day. They went out of their way to get on the ice the day before the game, choosing to rest on the morning of the game. The Canes know what we all know: rest impacts how we perform.

Rest makes us smarter. Rest makes us stronger. Rest makes us patient. Rest makes us merciful and compassionate. Rest makes us woke. 

Woke just means that cruel dominion exhausts us. If we’re woke, that just means we want a break from all forms of cruel dominion.

Rested, we may wake up woke, ready to forsake all forms of slavery, all forms of cruel dominion.

Rested, we may even begin to hear that part of the 4th Commandment that asks us to give animals a rest. Rested, we may start to consider animals as something other than property to be used and as something other than food to be eaten. Rested, we may find it in ourselves to liberate animals from slavery to us.

V.

Philosopher Jeremy Bentham was right when he compared our treatment of animals to slavery. Our cruel dominion over animals can even be hidden in practices that are actually good from our fellow creatures. Think about some of the reasons we stop eating meat:

We stop eating meat to save rainforests, as our meat eating habits require more and more land to raise all those cattle. There are 1.7 billion cows on the face of the earth, and all those cows weigh more than all wild land mammals combined.

We stop eating meat because cows produce more greenhouses gases than our entire transportation sector, changing our environment.

We stop eating meat because it is not healthy for us.

We may even stop eating meat because we oppose cruelty to animals, and industrial farming is terribly cruel to animals. We have an intuitive sense that if we are cruel to animals, that if we support such cruelty, we will also be cruel to one another.

But notice: all that concern, it’s all about us.

Rested, we may realize what Aristotle did: animals like pigs, cows, and chickens “are self-maintaining systems who pursue a good and matter to themselves.” Rested, we may grasp that most animals, including all the ones we like to eat, are sentient creatures.

Sentience is about a lot more than feeling pleasure and pain. It also means that you have an opinion of yourself; you see yourself in a certain way, and you see others in your group, and other objects in the world, in a certain way. And you move accordingly, you move in a way that aligns with your sense of yourself and your sense of how the objects in your world conform to your understanding of what is good and what is bad for you.

Rested, we may grasp that the sow is sentient; she was not created to be food for us; she was created to pursue her goods: a long, satisfying life, and friendship, intimacy, family, nutrition, play, secure housing; rested, we may now understand that the sow desires to pursue her projects and to accomplish her goals.

Rested, the smell of sausages and bacon on the Sabbath may make us want to vomit.

Rested, we may come to this table and reach out our hands, not to kill and eat our fellow creatures, but to be restored by the taste of bread and of grapes.

VI.

Now, I understand if you were with me until that last bit about not eating sentient animals, like pigs. I get it.

I became a vegetarian just last November after I read Nussbaum’s book—and by the reactions of many family and friends, you would think being a vegetarian is the most weirdest thing to be in the world!

Yes, of course vegetarianism is weird, especially if the reason you are a vegetarian is rooted in animal studies, in the fact that most animals, including all of the ones we just love to eat, are sentient in the most expansive sense of the word.

Of course vegetarianism is weird; from day one we have been taught that justice is not a thing for non-human animals to enjoy.

Of course vegetarianism is weird; from day one we have been taught that justice is not a thing for non-human animals to enjoy. Humans animals are entitled to justice; cows, pigs, and chickens are entitled to ketchup.

Again, I completely agree with Matthew Scully. He writes, “I am betting that in the Book of Life ‘[They] had mercy on the creatures’ is going to count for more than ‘[They] ate well” (45).

Rested, we may even learn that it’s possible to forsake cruelty and to eat well!

VII.

On the sabbath day, just for one day, let’s rest from our cruel dominion; let’s eat more bread and drink more wine (I mean, grape juice).  And if you just can’t, there is good news for you: right now, in Singapore, synthetic meat is on the menu. It’s “real,” and it’s lab grown. And I imagine it will come our way soon.

For today, let’s start simple; let’s embrace the deepest truth of our faith: God liberated us from cruel dominion.

Today, let it be heard and believed that God gave the middle finger to cruel dominion: God delivered the Messiah Jesus, crucified, dead, and buried, from the grave. 

So today, let us really rest from cruel dominion; it’s just done day; it’s just one small act—but tomorrow, rested, you may wake up woke, ready to play the game of dominion differently, ready to become the human animals God created us to become: kind and merciful sovereigns of the earth.

May it be so.

Amen.

Advocates of Grace

A Gay Sermon based on Exodus 32:1-14 and Matthew 22:1-14

***

I started preaching when I was 17 years old. I preached with some regularity at a small church, in a small town, in Oregon, close to the Idaho border.

There was a retired pastor in that church, and by that time he had lost his eyesight entirely. One Sunday he approached me after worship. He had brought his robe, his Geneva gown, to church. He had brought it with him that Sunday because he wanted to give it to me. He knew that one day I would become a pastor, and I would need his robe.

His robe is the robe I wear every Sunday, and his initials are embroidered on it.

Have you ever wondered why some clergy or preachers wear robes, some with stripes and stoles?

The stripes on my robe signify blood, sweat and tears; what they tell you is that I have worked very hard, and at great cost to myself and to my family, to learn how to be a servant of Christ. These stripes don’t say I am smarter or better than you; what they say is that I take serving you as a pastor very seriously.

The stole is also a symbol of service; it is a symbol of the towel Jesus Christ used to dry the feet of his disciples.

And the robe is itself meant to equalize us; it is meant to erase whatever wealth my clothing may signify, and it is meant to reduce attention to anything like my own status—because I am not the point; the point is not my personality; the point is not loyalty to me.

The robe is meant to remind me, and it is meant to remind you, that my singular calling is to serve you, the church, and—by way of God’s grace—to use the gifts given to me by the Holy Spirit to direct us to what is not me or you, namely the good and gracious God, the God of Jesus Christ, and the giver of the Holy Spirit.

I am sure you heard, in the parable Jesus told the religious and the religious leaders (Matt 22:1-4), the folks we learned a few weeks ago who make God unbelievable—you heard about that guy who did not wear a robe, the guy who wanted to enter the feast of grace even though he was not loyal to grace, even though he was not changed by grace?

You heard about what happened to him, right? He was cast out.

Grace has a dress code.

And while the robe I wear literalizes it, we are all supposed to wear the right gown to church, to this feast of grace.

And we talked about that clothing-style, that Christ-style, when we celebrated two baptisms a few weeks ago: “As many of you as were baptized in Christ have clothed yourself in Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male or female” (Gal 3:27-29).

When we clothe ourselves in grace, social distinctions become worthless, harmful idols, ideologies that serve only to make us feel better in the face of total uncertainty about what we are to do now that all the normal categories, all the idols, all the ideologies we relied on have been rendered and are even now powerless in Jesus Christ. . . .

We create idols when we are uncertain, when we find ourselves away from home, away from the normal, away from what is familiar.

That seems to be why Aaron made his bad choice (Ex 32:1-14). He was unprepared for the new world he was in, for the freedom made possible by Moses’ civil rights movement.

Yet, shouldn’t we blame Moses for not preparing Aaron and the Israelites for the uncertainly caused by his prolonged absence, by their leader being away from them for a long time? He was up on that mountain in God’s presence for 40 days and 40 nights . . . . Surely, Moses could have done more to make sure Aaron had the right theological education, the right kind of spirit before letting him step into the pulpit?

But that didn’t happen—and Aaron gave in to the demands and imperatives of fear, of certainty, and he created the golden calf. He attempts to make his choice, his answer to the people’s fear and anxiety, God.

Aaron made a bad choice.

And we get it; it happens—but the problem is: Aaron refused to take responsibility for his bad choice.

Later in the story, Moses comes down the mountain and confronts Aaron about his ungodly sermon, his ungodly leadership—and how does Aaron respond?

Well, he says, I just threw the golden rings in the fire and out popped an idol, out popped the golden calf. I didn’t have anything to do with its creation. It just is what it is, Aaron says; I was just reading what the text says. It’s just the Word of God (but the story tells us that Aaron formed it, and it ends by explicitly telling us Aaron made it).

Maybe if Moses had just given Aaron more theological training, then he would have made a different choice. But that is the least important thing about a good theological education. The best theological education, whether you have a degree of some kind or not, the best theological education teaches you to do at least one thing well: to take responsibility for your all your choices, especially your bad choices. 

Theology, preaching, pastoral leadership: all of that is an entirely human enterprise. Congregations and pastors all make choices, the best choices they can make, especially in the face of uncertainty.

We pray about them.

We read Scripture.

We talk together, and at the end of the day, we make a choice to act in one way and not in another, to be a home for some things and not for other things.

And if we are honest, and if we are faithful—if are loyal to the God of grace—we take responsibility for our choices, especially for our bad choices.

Because we know grace is not cheap.

God’s grace is actually supposed to change us, to remind us that our choices cannot save or damn us because our choices are not God or God’s choices.

God’s grace is actually supposed to change our lives; that is why Paul, for example, teaches us to hold each other accountable for our choices, especially our bad choices. “Is it not those who are inside [the community of faith],” Paul writes, “that you should judge? God will judge those outside” (1 Cor 5:11-12)

Consider Paul’s judgments in First Corinthians 6:9.

Here is how it reads:

“Do you not know that wrongdoers [in the church] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Those who are sexually immoral, like idolaters and adulterers and the self-indulgent [malakoi], like males who sexually exploit other males for the purpose of personal gain [arsenokitai], and thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers. None of these will inherit the kingdom of God.”

Now, I’ll be clear about my choices.

What I translate as “males who sexually exploit other males for the purpose of personal gain,” the underlying Greek word there is arsenokoitai. Fun fact: no one living today knows what that word really means.

No one.

No one.

And if someone tells you that they do know what that word really means, and if they say it is just so obvious, that is just what the text says—well, what that tells you is that person is making a bad choice, that person is giving into the clamor for certainty, that person is under the spell of an idol.

In the late 1940s, and for the first time ever in the history of the world, the RSV made the choice to translate the words arsenokoitai and malakos (which I get to in a moment) as homosexual, itself a word made up in the late 1800s. The RSV has since changed that translation, collapsing the meaning of those two words into one, charming noun: “sexual perverts.”

The NRSV makes a different choice, choosing to translate arsenokoitai as “sodomites,” an 11th-century Christian invention.

Again, no one knows what the word arsenokoitai means, really—but we do know that words like “homosexual” and “sodomite” are choices, and, as I my translation makes clear, they are not the only choices available to a reasonable translator of ancient Greek terminology.

I have made a second choice, too.

What I translated as “self-indulgent,” behold!, we know what the underlying Greek word actually means, the word malakos literally means “soft.”

Second fun fact: the idea that a man should actually love his wife is a modern invention. That, actually loving your wife, would have made you soft in the ancient world.

You would be soft for wearing deodorant.

Ok, so what is Paul’s message for us, living all these thousands of years later? I think Paul is referring broadly to a way of life we have already talked about, the kind of life that Paul really gets cranky about, the kind of lifestyle that is about doing whatever you want, to whomever you want, for the purpose of getting what you want and without any consequences. Paul really doesn’t think that kind of life meets the demands and imperatives of grace because it is a lifestyle that refuses taking responsibility for our choices.

Now, that’s my interpretation; it’s a choice. It is an educated, informed choice—and a choice that meets the demands and imperatives of grace: it does not give into the clamor for certainty, the demands for an idol, for something that distracts us from the hard work of spiritual discernment.

As Aaron learned, our spiritual choices matter. And we should be clear about the choices we make, and we should take responsibility for all of our choices, even our very bad ones.

Why? Because we are loyal to grace. We heard both Jesus and Paul define the alternative, right?

When we are invited to the feast of grace and are not changed by it, are not compelled to be honest with ourselves and with God, and especially about the difference between our ways and God’s ways, well, we are refusing grace for an idol; we are asserting that our will is the divine will; we are testifying that whatever we think or do is justified, is of ultimate significance.

It is an all too common thing, especially these days, to reject divine grace for human merit or wisdom. As Jesus teaches us, “many are called, few are chosen.” It is a warning to us all.

But what are we to do with that . . . ? That doesn’t sit well with us, right? So let’s ask, What would Moses do?

When he is close to God, when he is in the presence of God, when he is in God’s rest, Moses makes the choice to be an advocate of grace.

When God is ready to annihilate the people for creating an idol, for confusing their thoughts with God’s thoughts, for refusing to take responsibility for their choices, when God is mad as a hornet at the people for making a bad choice, Moses chooses to speak up: “Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.”

Moses reminds God of who God is, of what God promised: blessing and freedom and goodness and a future for God’s people.

And Moses wins the argument; Moses changes God’s mind: “And the Lord changed [their] mind about the disaster [they] planned to bring on [their] people.”

When Moses is close to God, in the presence of God, he makes the choices to do one thing: he argues for grace.

When Moses is close to God, he is an advocate of grace.

And how can we not be the same?

When I put on this robe on Sunday mornings, I am reminded of God’s grace and mercy. I am reminded to make the choice of grace.

I am reminded of Paul’s teaching in Romans, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

While we were still making bad choices and refusing to take responsibility for them, while we were refusing to apologize, when confession and repentance were the farthest from our minds, Christ still chose us; Christ argued for us.

When we put on God’s grace, when we put on the robes of Christ, we acknowledge that grace is not cheap.

We acknowledge that grace requires our total loyalty.

We acknowledge that grace demands that we take responsibility for our lives because we know our choices are not God; they can’t save or damn us.

Yes, we so often fail to live up to the demands and imperatives of grace. We fail to take responsibility for our choices, choosing instead to confuse our judgements with God’s judgments.

But Christ does not fail to argue for us. And so God does not fail to choose us, again and again and again. . .and again, God invites us to come to the banquet of grace.

Don’t forget your robes y’all.

Amen.