March 7, 2004
Second Sunday of Lent
CHRISTIAN GOSPEL: Lament over Jerusalem ~ Luke 13:31-35
There are two faith issues in the news today. Probably you could say there are many more than two, but two of them have been getting lots and lots of coverage. I've already mentioned The Passion, Mel Gibson's movie, and I don't want to speak to you extensively about it until I have had an opportunity to see the movie myself and then listen and read all that is being spoken about it.
The other issue is gay marriage. Newspapers, radios, television - everywhere you turn - images of people standing in line in Portland, in San Francisco and New York State, waiting to get marriage licenses. It's important for us as a church to address this issue. It's important for me as your pastor to address this issue. There are some people who might say, "Well, what does religion have to do with those things out there? Why don't we just come here and pray and love Jesus and God and call it a day?" But, if you look at this passage from Luke's gospel, the thing that stands out, the thing that's distinctive is that Jesus is firm in his conviction about what he needs to do. He feels called to go to Jerusalem. He is determined to go to Jerusalem no matter what the cost. Now there are some people who would say that Jesus is required by fate. His path has been set by God. He was sent to earth, as the publicity for the movie The Passion says, "He lived to die."
There are a lot of Christians who would give you that interpretation. I don't believe that is the reason Jesus died. I don't come here to be with you in worship because I believe that God needed to send his son to be killed in a violent death to pay the price for a sinful humanity. Instead, I believe that Jesus came to live. He lived his life with such faithfulness - challenging the authorities, showing God's love for all people, welcoming, opening up his arms - that the Jewish leaders felt threatened. The Roman leaders felt threatened. And they called for Jesus' death. Jesus knew there was a good chance that was going to happen. Just like Martin Luther King knew there was a good chance he would be killed. But that doesn't mean their only purpose for being was to be killed. Instead, their purpose for being was to live, and to live fully, as they felt they were called to live faithfully.
And so I want to address this issue. I support gay marriage. There are two things I want to bring to your attention as I move into the comments that I share with you. Both things are distinctive for the United Church of Christ. We are a non-doctrinal church - a non-doctrinal church. That means that we do not have a list of what you have to believe in order to be part of the United Church of Christ. Many other denominations have a Book of Order, a Book of Discipline, a Statement - a Doctrine. When you sign your name for your membership, you are agreeing to support those positions. The local church, or individuals, have no authority to believe otherwise. That's not the case in the United Church of Christ. One of the pillars of our faith is that we believe in freedom and responsibility. We don't have a free license to believe whatever we want to believe and everyone else be damned. When we come to be part of this church, we come for the freedom we are offered, but also we accept the responsibility that is ours as part of a covenant community. We come together as Family - as people of God. We don't say that if I don't like the way you cut your hair, or if I don't like what you made for supper, I'm going to take my ball and go home. I'm done with you. When we agree to come together, we agree to come together in freedom and responsibility in a relationship. We can all believe what we choose to believe, but we agree to be together. We agree to be in conversation, speaking what we choose to believe - to learn from each other, to share with each other - not to condemn, not to win, but to learn from each other.
The second part of who we are as the United Church of Christ, and who we are as part of the Reformed tradition, is we are a church where the minister has freedom of the pulpit. Freedom of the pulpit means that the minister has the right - and indeed has the obligation - to speak to the congregation the words that the minister believes the people need to hear: words spoken in love and in truth out of the faith of the minister. When you call a minister, you are calling a minister to do exactly that: to speak the truth in love to you. What if a minister comes to a church and the grounds are badly tended, the church building is in poor repair, the people of the congregation are not warm and friendly to strangers, the members of the church choose not to share very generously of their income to support the work of the church? In all of these problems, a congregation hires a minister to point those things out - to call the people to a higher level of responsibility. And so it is that people don't always like what the minister has to say. But the primary purpose, the primary job, is not to come and make everybody happy, but instead, to come in and speak the truth in love.
There is one last thing I'd like to say by means of introduction, and it has to do with this issue of "setting your face." There are Christians who say they have "set their faces" when they are in support of gay rights. There are other Christians who will say that they have "set their faces" - that they are determined to uphold the faith - when they speak against gay rights. Just to say that you are going to be determined as Jesus was determined, doesn't decide what it is you are going to be determined about. There are lots of Christians who are determined on all different kinds of issues.
A theologian and therapist, Rollo May, writes in a book The Courage to Create that it requires courage for us to face all of the complexities of the world we live in today. What courage to be creative and face the future most requires of us, is the ability to make a commitment to something while, at the same time, being open to the possibility that we could be mistaken. People don't want to do that. People want to say, "If I have the truth, then, damn it, I'm going to follow the truth and there's going to be no veering away from it! For the truth is the truth." But Rollo May says that this kind of position actually shows no respect at all for the truth. We know that God is greater than our understandings. We know that the world is so complex that none of us can understand it in its entirety. So how could any of us be so arrogant as to say that we understand all of the truth? If we respect truth, we have to say, "This is what I believe the truth to be, but I am open to the possibility that someone else may understand another truth. I'm open to the possibility that I could be wrong." As I come to speak to you, I want to stand here with that position. What I say to you is what I believe deeply. What I say to you is what I believe God wants me to say to you as your pastor; but I say it also with humility, open to the possibility that someone could convince me that I am mistaken, or that there is another truth to be known.
Now when we talk about the issue of gay marriage, there are some who would want to go back to a debate whether homosexuality is a sin or not. I think that our statement from our Open and Affirming vote should be sufficient to be a starting point for all of us - to say that all people are created in the image of God, all people are born with the same rights, with the same grace, with the same love. We have said it as a congregation. Now remember, you as an individual don't necessarily have to agree. But we have spoken as a congregation in a meeting with a vote in which there were only two dissenting voices. The dissenting votes were registered over this concern for gay marriage. So you have a responsibility, if you don't agree that gays are created in the image of God, to take seriously the vote of the members of this congregation which declared that to be a God-given truth.
But if you want to move back into the Bible, there are only a handful of places to which people can point for evidence that homosexuality is condemned. Those are not in the gospels, and in fact, Jesus says nothing about the issue of homosexuality. When Jesus is setting his face to Jerusalem, it is not to condemn perverts. It is to do something different. He is not setting his face to speak against gays because he had nothing to say about the issue. Most of the places that people point to as condemnation about gays and lesbians are passages that are in the Hebrew Testament, the Old Testament. They are the passages that can be interpreted in other ways, and are interpreted in other ways by other Christians, but are used by some people to condemn. There are passages you might recall in the Bible that have been used to support slavery. There are passages that are used to make sure that women do not have a visible role in the church. Now if you want to talk about following the rules of the Bible, you will remember that we all pick and choose our rules because otherwise we would not be eating ham for Easter, we would not be eating cheeseburgers, we would not be mixing our fibers and, when our children disobey, we would be putting them to death. Those things are all called for in the Scriptures. We choose to ignore those laws - understanding that there are things said in the Bible that are bracketed by the customs of the times, by the situations that people were facing. When we talk about homosexuality in the Bible, we have to look at what the Bible says as a whole about how to treat people. And it doesn't say, "Say hateful things about people and try to destroy their lives." It says to love and accept people. And Jesus calls on us to love our neighbors as ourselves. So, while the Bible can be debated, we have already said as a congregation that we believe there is more to be said and that God's Truth for our day is that gays, and lesbians, and bisexual and transgendered people are children of God, just as we are.
Now what about this issue concerning gay marriage, instead of just civil unions? Why do we have to have laws anyway? If people want their rights in the society, why can't they just have a contract drawn up that protects those rights? Well, contracts may work for some things - may work for sharing property. But contracts don't work for everything. Try and get a lawyer to write up a contract that says that two people who are not married in the eyes of the government can file their income tax jointly. A contract is not going to make that possible for you. Try to find a contract that will allow you to have someone else's Social Security after that person dies. A contract is not going to do that for you. How many people, upon going to the hospital when your husband is being brought in by ambulance, have to show your marriage certificate at the door before they will let you into that emergency room? You don't have to. All you have to do is say, "I'm his wife," and they say, "Please, come in quickly." Now if there are two women who are partners and one gets taken to the hospital, the partner may be excluded from the room hearing, "Only family." "But I've got a contract here!" "Oh, a contract here - Power of Attorney? We're going to have to check that out."
When our oldest son, Matthew, left for Iraq, he sent me a Power of Attorney so that I could change his insurance policies and his investments. I called to do that, and they said, "Umm, we need to have that Power of Attorney in our hands." So I had to fax it to them. After I'd faxed it to them, I called and I said, "Now you have the Power of Attorney. I'd like to make these changes," They said, "Oh no. This is not our form. We have to send it to our lawyers to make sure it's OK." Four days later I was able to call and make those changes in his policy, even though I had his Power of Attorney. What is "Power of Attorney" going to do when the emergency squad has taken your partner to the hospital and you walk to the doorway and they say, "No, you're not allowed in."
What gay people need to have is the same civil rights that we have. Now that says nothing about theology - nothing about sin - just civil rights. They need to have the same civil rights that we have. And, if you want to talk about civil rights, that's exactly what I think should be a case for all of us. We should all have - anybody who wants to be married - should be required to have a Civil Union first. If we want rights under the State of Washington, we should have to go get a marriage license in Washington State, be married by a Justice of the Peace or a judge in Washington State. Then, if we want to make a religious statement, we can come here to the sanctuary and have a religious ceremony. Then we would all be on the same grounds. All of us would have a civil marriage because that's what marriage is for the state, a legal agreement. What we do here is a spiritual agreement - a covenant between two people and God. But what's done at the courthouse is a civil agreement. When I perform a marriage, I am required to act as an agent of the State of Washington by signing a marriage document. In fact, I'm told that if I do a marriage without signing a document, then I can be fined or jailed. I believe there should be a separation of church and state, and the government should put its approval on a civil union. And then, after that, we should put our religious endorsement on a spiritual union.
Now this issue about "setting your face" is an important one - "setting your face" - holding onto the faith. I believe strongly that gay people are children of God, created in the image of God as we are. I believe they should have the right to have a full marriage, or a full civil union, whatever it is that all of us are going to have together. And I believe that it's important for us to stand up and talk about that. There are people who say that civil union for gays is going to destroy marriage. Well, if we watch the news, and hear about Britney Spears and Michael Jackson, and watch the news about many other people, we know that heterosexuals are doing all that they can to destroy marriage, not needing any help at all from the gay community. In fact, if you look in Newsweek this past issue, in the "My Turn" section, you'll find a piece written by a straight man who has gay friends. And this straight man ended up being deputized to do marriages in San Francisco. He said he's not sure if he ever wants to get married - not into that "commitment thing" - but that it was a powerful, powerful affirmation of marriage to stand with couple after couple - gay couples - who wanted to make a commitment to each other. If you watched the news, you know that there were couples who have been together for 20 years, 30 years, 50 years like some of you in your relationships - fifty years together! And where do we stand if we want to condemn that relationship and say that is an evil relationship? If people want to commit their lives together of the love that they feel for each other, they should have every right to do so.
Now lest you think that we don't make much difference here, here in Kirkland, here in this congregation, I want to tell you a brief story about our Open and Affirming Statement on our web page. I received an e-mail about a month ago from a woman that I have not seen since 1984. She was a substitute organist in the first congregation that I served. She found me and us on the internet and wrote in support of Matthew and his service in the Marine Corp. She said her husband had been a Marine and had served in Vietnam. He hoped that we would get out of Iraq as soon as possible. She wanted to thank Matthew for his commitment to the country and to express their concern for him during his time of service. Then she said, "I want to thank you also for your Open and Affirming Statement." She said, "My son came out when he was 16 years old." (A couple of years after I left that congregation.) She said, "It was very hard for me. But," she said, "I have finally come to the point of knowing that he is a wonderful person and that he is loved fully by God. And I want to thank you for your statement affirming that." This is in Council Bluffs, Iowa, halfway across the country, from someone I haven't seen for almost twenty years. The statement that we, right here, make in support of the gay community, provides strength and encouragement for her in Iowa. It's a powerful witness.
Making a powerful witness is what this Church has always been about. We have not always been right: the Salem witch trials, driving out Roger Williams from the Colonies, some of those things show a great deal of intolerance. But we have learned along the way what God's love means for people. We have been against slavery, and have worked in the abolition movement. We have been against apartheid in South Africa and stood with union workers in California. We ordained the first woman to ministry, the first black person to ministry, the first gay man to ministry. We have worked hard to support the public airwaves for communication for the general public instead of letting them be bought up by individuals who want to be rich. And so, as a denomination, we have this history of standing for these things. We are not a denomination that sells salvation and Jesus so that we don't burn in hell. That's not the focus of our church. We understand ourselves to be a covenant community in which we come together to do the best we can to share God's love with all of God's people. That requires us to do some brave, courageous things sometimes - to stand up and let people know who we are.
Now we say, "But the pews are empty. Where is everybody if we have such a wonderful message?" Well, in the most recent issue of the United Church News (and again I want to urge you to sign up for it because it's a free newspaper), it talks about an advertising campaign that has recently been launched by our denomination. In six trial locations, starting March first, we have a thirty-second commercial that is airing. After those test markets, there is a plan for those commercials to be shown nationally. They had focus groups come together before the commercials were produced. The focus groups - people from the general public - said first of all they have no idea who the United Church of Christ is. If they think they have heard about us, they've heard about The Church of Christ, which is a conservative denomination in the South. More than that, most of the people that were gathered, particularly the young people, have bad opinions about "Church" in general. "Church" has been a place where they were not accepted, where they were told they weren't dressing right, where their hair was too long, where they were not accepted for one reason or another. "Church" is a place where they have seen friends hurt, people who were divorced driven out of the church, people who were different in one way or another were rejected and made to feel inferior. And they really don't want any part of "Church" at all. But this commercial, addresses what is an increasing understanding in our denomination. We understand ourselves as a people who offer a radical inclusivity. And that inclusivity says that everybody is welcome.
The thirty-second spot you can find on the web page. I hope we'll get a copy of it so we can show it to you here after worship in a couple of weeks. It shows a large, stone church building and out front are two well-muscled gentlemen in black T- shirts and black pants. There are theater posts and chains where they are letting people in to worship. So they let in two blonde women, and they let in a heterosexual couple. Then two gentlemen come together holding hands and they say, "No, not you," and then, "No, not you" to a black man, and, "No, not you" to an Hispanic woman, and, "No, not you" to a man in a wheelchair. Then the screen fades to black and in white print it says, "Jesus didn't turn people away." That fades out, and words come up that say, "Neither do we." And then there's a picture shown of a whole diversity of people, and the voice-over says, "The United Church of Christ. No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here." This is the truth that we have to share with our community. This is the truth that we have to share with people who are searching for somewhere to belong. Words of condemnation are not going to build any church in the long run. Words of condemnation are only going to leave a small group of surviving people who are circling the wagons to protect themselves from what they think is the evil world "out there" - while the loving world out there goes its way without the church. What we have to share is a gospel that says that God's love is for all people. Jesus walked to the cross not to pay the price of sins, but to demonstrate God's love to all of us, for all of us. And I believe that sharing this message is the only faithful thing that we can do.
I pray for God's strength, the presence of God's spirit with us. Thanks be to God.
Amen.