LIving Life As An Active Verb

I had the privilege last Sunday (Aug. 31) to preach once again at my parish,

St. Augustine's-in-the-Woods Episcopal Church in Freeland, Washington.  Here is what I said.

 

          It’s Labor Day Weekend, the last holiday of what has been a dazzling summer here on Whidbey Island.  Our rector is taking a rest from at least his preaching labors today.    

    

          As a result, you’re stuck with me.  A retired dude with nothing better to do on a Labor Day Weekend.  And besides I can’t go anywhere because the ferry line is backed up.

           

There is, however, some method in this madness.  September begins tomorrow.  And many of you know what that means.  Stewardship season gets underway at St. Augustine’s.  And yours truly is chair of the annual stewardship campaign.

           

          So that’s what I’m going to talk about today – stewardship.  Now as I say that, I may notice some of you gaze longingly out the window, check text messages on your cell phones or turn down your hearing aids.  But give me a chance.  I’m going to share some thoughts on what stewardship means in a modern Christian community.

         

          Yes, stewardship does include making a financial commitment to our parish.  We have to pay our bills.  We’ll ask you to do that during the pledge campaign that kicks off on September 14.  And yes, stewardship does include making a time and talent commitment to our various parish ministries. Somebody has to do the work.  We’ll ask you to do that at the Ministry Fair after worship services next Sunday, September 7.

And a reminder that this year, the Ministry Fair takes the place of the old volunteer check-off that used to come in the pledge card.  That just didn’t work.  So this year’s pledge card will ask only for our financial commitment, and the Ministry Fair will ask for our time and talent commitments.    

         

           As we begin this 2015 stewardship season, I’d say we are in pretty good shape at St. Augustine’s.  We don’t owe a penny of debt to anybody.  We’ve had a record number of people making financial pledges in both of the past two years.  In fact, there were 110 pledgers this year.  Our ministries remain diverse and dedicated.  More new people continue to join us.       

          

          We do face a serious financial challenge because of the loss of the generous and long-time financial support of more than half a dozen people who have left us this year.    

          We needn’t live in anxiety about it.  Our parish is blessed to have resources to help us meet this challenge, if we use them wisely.  But it does make our stewardship season this year all the more important.  The future really is in our own hands.   

 

          By stewardship, however, I mean way more than writing a check to the church once a week or volunteering to be part of a ministry.  I believe it means this:  serving, sharing, tending and protecting what God has given us.  Serving, sharing, tending, protecting.

Those are all active verbs.  Stewardship is not a passive, somebody-else-does-it endeavor. 

       

          Let’s dig a little deeper and go all the back to the beginning.  Genesis chapter Two.  “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” To work it and take care of it.  Sounds to me like the Lord God told us what our stewardship responsibility is right from the get-go.   

           

          Moving forward a few thousand years to First Chronicles:  “For all things come from you, Oh Lord, and of your own have we given.”  In other words, everything we have comes from God and it’s our duty to give it back.  Sounds to me like somebody was writing the very first pledge campaign letter.             

 

          Traveling on a few centuries to the Gospel of Matthew:  “Jesus said, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Your treasure and your heart. Those are key words.  We’ll come back to them in a minute.

           

          Finally, there is today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans.  As always with Paul, he’s doing a full-throated exhortation about how we’re meant to live.  This particular reading almost approaches a primal scream.  Listen to some of the language he uses:  Love one another. Outdo one another.  Do not lag in zeal. Be ardent in spirit.  Live peaceably.  Rejoice. Feed. Persevere.  Contribute.  Bless.  Overcome evil.  Live in harmony.

          Hear all those active verbs that Paul uses?  That’s what stewardship sounds like.

           

          And that’s why stewardship isn’t just about making a pledge or volunteering for a ministry – although please, please do both!  It’s really a way of life.  Living in gratitude for all that God has given us and demonstrating that gratitude in a hundred ways every day of our lives.  St. Francis of Assisi said it better than I just did when he told his disciples to preach the Gospel and use words if necessary.

           

          I could spend the rest of this homily spouting stuff about stewardship you’ve probably already heard.  But you get the picture.  Instead I’m going to tell you a story about someone very close to my heart.

           

          This is about my great aunt, Bertha Carter.  She was born in Washington Territory, before we became a state, in March of 1889.  And she died in Tacoma in 1993 at the age of 104.  She was my grandmother’s sister, the oldest of six siblings.

 

          My Aunt Bertha was what we used to call “a good Christian woman.”  That’s a term that has fallen out of style these days, and what a shame. We really ought to reclaim it.  Those simple words carry great positive energy and meaning, and in my humble opinion they are the main reason we come here every week.  To become good Christian women and men.

          

          So let’s try something.  Please turn to the person next to you right now and say to them, “You are a good Christian woman or man” and have them return the favor to you.  Try it.  See what I mean?  Those words can unleash an amazing, positive, grateful energy into the room. 

           

          Aunt Bertha didn’t have an easy life and she wasn’t famous.  Nobody wrote a book about her . . . but maybe I will.  She was a poor child who was forced to leave school after the fourth grade to work and help support the family.

 

           At the age of 18, she married a man almost twice her age, and they set out to homestead 40 hardscrabble acres on the road to Mount Rainier near Eatonville.  Together, they cut down trees and pulled stumps with a horse and harness, built their farm house and a cow barn, and ran a dairy farm for 40 years. 

           

          Here’s my favorite part of the story.  One day in 1915, her husband Curt got sick and couldn’t drive his rickety Ford truck to get their milk to the dairy in Tacoma.  So Bertha did it.  When she got into town, a cop pulled her over and demanded to know what she was doing.  He scolded her that women aren’t supposed to drive. 

 

          She pointed her finger right back at him and said if he didn’t get out of her way and let her get to the dairy the milk would go sour and the farm would go broke.  Well, she made it to the dairy. 

And the very next day Bertha showed up at whatever the Department of Motor Vehicles was back then and got what our family believes was the first driver’s license ever issued to a woman in the state of Washington. 

 

          When Curt died, Bertha was 60 years old.  She had to give up the farm.  And in order to support herself as a woman alone she took in and cared for what she called “old ladies” until she was 94.  Some of those old ladies were younger than she was.

 

          Bertha understood what living in gratitude means.  There was no church out in the country where she lived, so she started one.  A one-room, all-denomination Protestant church.  When she couldn’t persuade a pastor from town to come preach, she or Curt would do it. She took communion to the sick. Taught Sunday school.  Brought food to everybody.  And read the Bible to people who couldn’t see any more.

 

          She never owned any expensive clothes and didn’t want any.  She always wore simple cotton print dresses, and when they wore out she’d cut them up to make patches for the crazy quilts she sewed. 

 

          She had a habit of repeating certain key phrases – words to live by, she called them.  “Waste not, want not”….was one.  She made a pie out of every apple she ever picked. “The Lord will provide”. . .was another.  She didn’t live in fear; she knew her God would always come through. And, of course, there was, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”  She hurled that one at me when she caught me reading comic books instead of mowing the lawn.       

 

          After she left the farm, she would make what she called her “rounds” every Saturday morning to visit “her people.”  She drove the same car for 25 years.  It was a 1940 Ford V-8 with those “suicide” rear doors that opened backwards.  I loved that car.  I remember her pulling up to our house, bringing us something she’d grown or baked, always asking the same question:  “How are you folks doing today?”  We’d fill her in on our lives, and then she’d move on to the next set of “her people.”

 

           She wrote little notes of encouragement on scraps of paper, in her fourth-grade school girl script, and mailed them to those she thought were “down in the dumps.”  While I was in the Army in Vietnam, she’d send me chatty letters about the apples in her yard or the birds on her fence.  Sometimes she’d  enclose some religious pamphlets from Oral Roberts.  She’d scribble a note on each one saying something like, “Read this just before bedtime” or “Jesus wants you to know this.”

She gave away most of what little money she had.  She’d always say others needed it more than she did. 

The last time I saw Aunt Bertha was a few months before she died.  She was living in a nursing home.  She had become very impatient with God and just couldn’t understand why the Lord hadn’t taken her yet.  She was frustrated that she couldn’t drive and make her rounds any more. 

As I came to her room, I looked in and saw her standing at the bedside of her roommate, an elderly, bedridden woman with dementia.  The woman was moaning and trying to mouth some words.  Bertha was standing beside her, holding her hand, trying to calm her and asking if she’d like a drink of water or a bite of peaches.  Still taking care of old ladies, I thought to myself.

My Aunt Bertha was a good Christian woman.  She lived her life in gratitude for what God had given her and she demonstrated it in a hundred ways every day of her life.  Her treasure was where her heart was.  She was an active verb.

And so, my friends, my good Christian women and men, that’s the challenge I give you as we begin our stewardship season here at St. Augustine’s.  Live your lives in gratitude for everything you have been given.  Demonstrate it in a hundred ways every day of your life.  Show that your heart and your treasure are in the same good place.    

And guess what.  You can get started when you leave this room in a few minutes by signing up for the Stewardship Kick-Off event on Sept. 14.  The sign-up sheets are just outside Campbell Hall.  Then come to the Ministry Fair next Sunday and find a new ministry to commit yourself to.  Then pick up your financial pledge packet at the kick-off on September 14 and spend some time considering how you will support our parish in the year ahead.  Then turn in your pledge card at the All-Parish Dinner on October 23. 

And most of all:  Make yourself an active verb.



Welcome, Outcast!

 

Here are the words I spoke on Sunday January 26, 2014 at my parish,

St. Augustine's-in-the-Woods Episcopal Church on Whidbey Island.

           Well now.  This is interesting, isn’t it?  Me, standing up here.  I can just see my late, beloved mother out there among you, leaning over to the woman next to her and whispering, “Who does he think he is?  He’s not a preacher!”  No, mom, I’m not.  But as you well know, I always have something to say.  Our brave rector has courageously turned the pulpit over to me this morning.  And, Nigel, I am especially grateful that you offered it today and not on Super Bowl Sunday next week!

            What I have to say is more akin to a testimony, the kind the early Christians offered to each other when the Spirit moved them.  Speaking out loud about a truth as I have come to understand it. 

            I have spent my life and made my living with words.  And, since I became a Christian rather late in life, I’ve had the intriguing challenge of deciphering such exotic words as nave and narthex and catholic and eucharist, and—especially in this current season – epiphany.  What I have come to understand about epiphany is that it simply means understanding a mystery.  Or, perhaps more accurately, striving to understand a mystery. 

            The greatest mystery, of course, is Christ himself, and we are meant to spend our lives pondering that.  This morning, however, I want to talk about the mystery I find in a couple words we Episcopalians toss around quite a bit:  “Welcome” and “outcast.”  Both come from the Middle English.  “Welcome” meaning “one whose coming is pleasant.”  “Outcast” meaning someone who is rejected and literally cast out of the community.  

            My questions this morning:  What do we mean, exactly, when we say all are “welcome” here?  And who is an “outcast?”

To explain my epiphany about these two words, I first need to share a bit of my personal journey of faith.  All my life – and long before I became a Christian – I have seen signs that I believe came from God, and I have tried to pay attention to what those signs mean. 

            What I haven’t been all my life is religious.  My parents didn’t attend church, and after I failed at being a Swedish Lutheran as a teenager, neither did I.  As I came to grips with my sexual orientation as a gay man, I decided that Christianity was not for me.  That stuff about abomination in Leviticus can’t be swept under the rug.  I refused to take the socially acceptable way around it.  I just couldn’t lie and fake it and deny who I am in order to find favor with a God who thought I was abominable. 

            As I got older, however, I felt a yearning.  I was successful in my career and had a loving personal relationship with Terry, but it wasn’t enough.  One Sunday, a friend invited me to attend a small Episcopal church on, of all places, Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.  Before I walked in, I noticed an old, rusty sign outside that read “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You” – exclamation point!

Being a confirmed skeptic, I could feel my suspicions rise.  Where’s the fine print?  The Episcopal Church Welcomes You – exclamation point!  So long as what?  So long as you look and act like us?  So long as you are straight?  So long as you agree with us politically and socially and biblically?  So long as you keep quiet about things that might make us feel uncomfortable or challenge our assumptions? 

            Those were my honest suspicions as I entered that church back in 1996.  And I’d be willing to bet they’re not much different from those of some people who pass by our church every day.  Whether we recognize it or not, churches have a lot of fine print that keeps people away.  What do you suppose our fine print says here at St. Augustine’s?

            Despite all my doubts, Jesus tapped me on the shoulder that Sunday 18 years ago.  I was baptized and confirmed within a year.  And, never being one to do things half way, I have since served on the vestry and been senior warden at three Episcopal Churches – Trinity in Santa Barbara, St. Thomas in Dallas and most recently right here at St. Augustine’s.           

I have found my spiritual home in the Episcopal Church.  And I’m proud of how far it has come in the past four decades, on civil rights, ordaining women and publicly accepting gay and lesbian parishioners, among many other things.  But I still wrestle with what the “welcome” sign means – like the one hanging outside our front door right now.  If we welcome everybody, do we expect “everybody” to change and be just like us?  Or, and here’s the rub, if we welcome everybody, are we willing to let “everybody” change us?  Welcome.  One whose coming is pleasant.  But what if they’re not who we’re expecting?

 I was struck by what Paul wrote in today’s reading from First Corinthians.  It seems that the church in Corinth was growing.  But it was attracting different kinds of Jesus followers who claimed allegiance to different disciples.  And they spent a lot of time arguing.  I presume, as in all church fights ever since, it was mostly over what’s correct and what’s not.  As I read it, Paul is pleading with folks to forget their silly differences and welcome everybody.  I’d say that advice still goes for us today.

Every week we Episcopalians gather for the Eucharist.  In the prayer, we hear that Jesus yearned to draw all the world to himself, and one way he did that was by breaking bread with sinners and outcasts. 

Think about that with me.  Sinners, we know, are those who disobey God.  All of us qualify for that label, don’t we?  But who’s an outcast, and who decides?  Other than the roundly detested tax collectors, who do you suppose the other “outcasts” were at those meals with Jesus? 

I’d guess they were lepers and anybody else considered unclean.  Widows and all unmarried women – certainly, there were no lower outcasts in the First Century.  The blind, literally and figuratively.  The destitute.  Anybody considered not a good enough Jew.  Maybe even a Greek or a Roman, on the down-low.   And, unless human nature was different then, I’d guess that a few gay people were there, too.  But unlike the other outcasts, they wouldn’t have dared say out loud why they were outcasts.  Only Jesus knew their secret. 

So why did the outcasts come to dinner with Jesus?   I suppose it’s because he gave them permission to be themselves and to be honest.  I imagine these dinners could get pretty loud and raucous.  Outcasts didn’t – or couldn’t – conform to society’s behavior norms of the day.

What else did Jesus do at these meals?  He acknowledged their common humanity simply by eating with them.  He listened.  He didn’t change the subject.  Their “different-ness” didn’t scare him.  He offered them hope.  He told them they weren’t outcasts in God’s eyes.  This was the world’s first come-as-you-are-party. 

We know from John’s Gospel that when the religious folk of the day saw Jesus hanging out with these outcasts, they were shocked and appalled.  They called him a glutton and a drunkard for associating with the likes of “them.”  Aha!  Now there’s the proof I’m looking for. 

“Outcast” is purely a human construct, isn’t it?  We create “outcasts” in order to feel superior to somebody else, to make them less than us.  That way it’s easier to dehumanize them.  The outcast label allows us to put out of sight things we don’t like or that make us feel uncomfortable.  Outcast.  Someone who is rejected and cast out of the community.     

 Don’t get me wrong.  I think we do pretty good job of welcoming the newcomer here at St. Augustine’s.  Certainly that was true in our case almost five years ago.  We have always felt a special warmth here, and Terry and I are very grateful for that. 

But if we’re truly honest, can we say that we fully model Jesus’s come-as-you-are party?  Are we a safe place where people can be authentic and open?   Do we really listen when what’s said is disagreeable or strange or makes us uncomfortable?  Do we expect newcomers to be like us once they join or are we open to the change they will bring to us?  Does the Episcopal Church Welcome You – question mark?

Jesus told us there would be a price to pay if we follow him.  Discipleship isn’t easy.  But he didn’t say exactly how our lives would change if we follow him.  In last week’s Gospel reading, two of John’s disciples asked Jesus where he was staying.  Remember what he told them?   “Come and see.”   That’s what I did that, and my life has changed.  Did he make me straight?  No.  But he did make me better.

            Most gay people grow up feeling like outcasts.  We don’t experience the romantic joys and disappointments of the teen years the way our peers do.  Too often we can’t share what we’re feeling with anyone.  Not our parents, not our friends, not our church.  It’s easier and safer to just stay quiet.  Even though things are better today than when I grew up, there still are many gay people – young and not so young – who struggle with this.  They really need an invitation to Jesus’s come-as-you-are party.

            But this isn’t just about gay people.  In one way or another, every one of us is an outcast.  Something about each of us makes somebody else disappointed, angry, embarrassed, uncomfortable or anxious, and they have cast us out.  That’s why we all need an invitation to the party.

While Terry and I were living in Dallas in 2008, I met Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire.  As many of you know, his election as a bishop, as an openly gay man, set off a shock wave across the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.  Some quit the church.  Parishes split apart, including St. Stephen’s in Oak Harbor.  A few Episcopal bishops and a number of priests resigned.  The Archbishop of Canterbury disinvited Gene from the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Communion Bishops because of the worldwide uproar. 

The day in 2003 that he was installed as Bishop, Gene received death threats.  He wore a bulletproof vest under his vestments, and Mark, his partner of more than 20 years, went into hiding.

Gene visited our little parish in Dallas in 2008 as a favor to our rector, with whom he had attended seminary. The very conservative bishop of the Diocese of Dallas had forbidden Gene to vest or preside at the Eucharist while he was in town.

But our small, maverick of a parish was thrilled to have him among us.  As senior warden, I got to introduce Gene at coffee hour.  It was a joyous moment. 

He gave me a warm hug.  And as he did, I felt something like metal buckles down his back, and it dawned on me.  Gene was still wearing a bulletproof vest under his purple bishop’s shirt.  The Episcopal Church Welcomes You – question mark?

I’ll share a few of the words Gene spoke that morning: 

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says this really astounding thing.  “There is much that I would teach you.  But you cannot bear it right now.  So I will send the Holy Spirit who will lead you into all truth.”  I take that to mean this:  Don’t think for a minute – you bunch of thick-headed, uneducated fisherman I chose as my disciples – that God is done with you and those who come after you.  Does anyone doubt that we were led by the Holy Spirit to turn our backs on defending slavery using Scripture?  Is it not the Holy Spirit that is leading us to a fuller understanding of the gifts, integrities and experiences of women?  And I would say that the Holy Spirit is leading us to recognize gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.  We should see this as a sign of a living God.  He didn’t retire someplace in the Bahamas at the end of the first century.  He has never stopped revealing himself.

God bless you, Gene Robinson, and amen.  And may the Holy Spirit continue to lead us into all truth here at St. Augustine’s. 

Led Into All Truth

The Right Rev. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

 

On Sunday Nov. 17, I was invited to speak at Trinity Episcopal Church in Everett, Washington, about my personal journey of faith.  Here is what I said:

 

Good morning.  You don’t know me.  I am a stranger among you.  I don’t wear a clerical collar.  I never studied at a seminary.  Nope.  I went to the UDub . . . that secular bastion down the road a piece.

 

Nonetheless, your brave Rector, Rachel Taber-Hamilton, has invited me here today.  She has asked me to share my journey of faith and some thoughts on what it ought to mean when a church says it welcomes all people.

 

What I have to say is inspired by the teachings of Jesus as I understand them.  It’s my testimony . . . speaking out loud about a truth as I have come to know it.

So, who am I?  Here’s the shorthand.  Pretty much in this order:  I am a free man; a follower of Jesus; an American citizen; a semi-retired journalist , educator and PR guy; an environmentalist; a preservationist; a vegetable gardener; a 1940s music devotee; and a Democrat – well, usually.  I also am right-handed, stand six-feet-four, have blue eyes and am follicly challenged, as you can see.

 

And, oh yes, I am a gay man.  I have been in a devoted relationship with the person I love for 38 years, and he finally became my husband last Dec. 9, the first day it became legal in Washington.

          

          I rattle this off so you can decide how I am different from you.  We human beings love to focus on our differences, don’t we?  Every week we come here to proclaim that all people are children of God, made in his image. We offer the peace of the Lord to everybody.  But in church and at coffee hour we usually sit and talk only with the people we know.  The ones like us.  That’s where we’re comfortable.  That’s what we’re used to.  Nothing wrong with that . . . is there?

           

          All my life . . . and long before I became a Christian . . . I have seen signs that I believe came from God, and I have tried to pay attention to what those signs mean.  

            What I haven’t been all my life is religious.  My parents didn’t attend church, and after I failed at being a Swedish Lutheran as a teenager, neither did I.  As I came to grips with my sexual orientation, I decided that Christianity was not for me.  That stuff about abomination in Leviticus can’t be swept under the rug.  I refused to take the socially acceptable way around it.  I couldn’t lie and fake it and deny who I am in order to find favor with a God who thought I was abominable.

            As I got older, however, I felt a hollowness, a yearning.  I was successful in my career and had a loving personal relationship, but it wasn’t enough.  One Sunday, a friend invited me to attend a small Episcopal church on, of all places, Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.  Before I walked in, I noticed an old, rusty sign outside that read “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You” . . .exclamation point!

           I could feel my skepticism rising.  Where’s the fine print?  The Episcopal Church Welcomes You . . . exclamation point!  So long as . . . what?  So long as you look like us?  So long as you are straight?  So long as you agree with us politically and socially and biblically?  So long as you don’t do anything that upsets us?  So long as you keep quiet about things that might make us feel uncomfortable or challenge our assumptions? 

            Those were my honest suspicions as I entered that church back in 1996.  And I’d be willing to bet they’re not much different from those of some people passing by this church right now.  Whether we recognize it or not, churches have a lot of fine print that keeps people away.  I wonder what your fine print says here at Trinity Everett.

            Jesus tapped me on the shoulder that Sunday 17 years ago.  Despite my doubts, I was baptized and confirmed within a year.  And, never being one to do things half way, I have since served on the vestry and been senior warden at three Episcopal Churches – Trinity in Santa Barbara, St. Thomas in Dallas and most recently St. Augustine’s on Whidbey Island, where your Rector met me through her husband Nigel, our Rector.           

I have found my spiritual home in the Episcopal Church.  And I’m proud of how far it has come in the past four decades, on civil rights, ordaining women and publicly accepting gay and lesbian parishioners, among other things.

But I still wrestle with what that old “welcome” sign means.  Is it just our way of saying “Have a Nice Day?”   If it’s genuine, how do we put it into practice?  What keeps people away from us? 

            Every week here and everywhere, Episcopalians gather for communion.  And we hear that Jesus yearned to draw all the world to himself, and one way he did that was by breaking bread with sinners and outcasts. 

            Think about that with me.  Other than tax collectors, who do you suppose the other “outcasts” were at those meals?  I’d guess they were lepers and other unclean people.  Widows and all unmarried women – certainly, there were no lower outcasts in the First Century.  The blind, literally and figuratively.  The destitute.  Anybody not a good enough Jew.  Maybe even a Greek or a Roman, on the down-low.   And, unless human nature was different then, I’d guess that a few gay people were there, too.  But unlike the other outcasts, they wouldn’t have dared say out loud why they were outcasts.  Only Jesus knew their secret. 

            Here’s my point:  There was no fine print on the invitation to dine with Jesus.  All outcasts welcome, period.  I imagine the dinner conversation got pretty raucous.  These were outsiders.  They didn’t – or couldn’t – conform to the behavior rules of the day.

So why did they come to dinner with Jesus?   I suppose it’s because he gave them permission to be themselves and to be honest.  What else did he do?  He acknowledged their common humanity simply by eating with them.  He listened.  He didn’t change the subject.  He told them they were not outcasts in God’s eyes.  He offered them hope.   It was the world’s first come-as-you-are-party. 

We know from John’s Gospel that when the religious folk of day saw Jesus hanging out with these outcasts, they were shocked and appalled.  They called him a glutton and a drunkard for associating with the likes of “them.”  That was the first episode of the shame-and-blame game.  Some churches still play it. 

So I wonder.  Do we invite people to a come-as-you party at our church? Are we a safe place where people can be authentic and open?  Do we sincerely acknowledge the common humanity of those different from us?  Do we really listen when what’s said is strange or makes us uncomfortable?  Does the Episcopal Church Welcome You . . . question mark?

            Because if the answer is yes, we ought to do a better job of showing it.  Welcome means more than praying together and breaking the bread and extending the Lord’s peace to each other.  It means examining our biases and discarding our quick judgments.  It means acknowledging those we consider “others” by sitting with them and listening even when it’s not comfortable.

Jesus never told anyone exactly how their lives would change if they followed him, so neither should we.  What he did say when they asked that question was, “Come and see.”  I did and my life has changed.  Did he make me straight?  No.  But he did make me better.

            Most gay people grow up feeling like outsiders.  We don’t experience the romantic joys and disappointments of the teen years the way our peers do.  Too often we can’t share what we’re feeling with anyone.  Not our parents, not our friends, not our church.

Too often, we don’t share because we don’t want to disappoint or embarrass or upset people. That’s a habit we sometimes carry with us through life.  It’s easier to just stay quiet.  Even though things are better today than when I grew up, there still are many gay people – young and not so young – who struggle with this.  They need an invitation to Jesus’s come-as-you-are party.

            But this isn’t just about gay people.  In one way or another, every one of us is an outcast.  Something about each of us makes somebody else disappointed, angry, embarrassed, uncomfortable or anxious.  That’s why we all need an invitation to the party. 

While I was living in Dallas in 2008, I met Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire.  As many of you know, his election as a bishop, as an openly gay man, set off a shock wave across the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.  Some quit the church.  Parishes split apart, including several in our own Diocese.  A few Episcopal bishops and a number of priests resigned.  The Archbishop of Canterbury disinvited Gene from a meeting of Anglican Communion Bishops because of the worldwide uproar. 

The day in 2003 that he was installed as Bishop, Gene received death threats.  He wore a bulletproof vest under his vestments, and Mark, his partner of more than 20 years, went into hiding.

Gene visited our little parish in Dallas in 2008 as a favor to our rector, with whom he had attended seminary. The very conservative bishop of the Diocese of Dallas had forbidden Gene to vest or preside at the Eucharist while he was in town.

But our small, maverick of a parish was thrilled to have him among us.  As senior warden, I got to introduce Gene at coffee hour.  It was a joyous moment. 

He gave me a warm hug.  And as he did, I felt something like metal buckles down his back, and it dawned on me.  Gene was still wearing a bulletproof vest under his purple bishop’s shirt.  The Episcopal Church Welcomes You . . . question mark?

I’ll share a few of the words Gene spoke that morning:  

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says this really astounding thing.  “There is much that I would teach you.  But you cannot bear it right now.  So I will send the Holy Spirit who will lead you into all truth.”  I take that to mean this:  Don’t think for a minute – you bunch of thick-headed, uneducated fisherman I chose as my disciples – that God is done with you and those who come after you.  Does anyone doubt that we were led by the Holy Spirit to turn our backs on defending slavery using Scripture?  Is it not the Holy Spirit that is leading us to a fuller understanding of the gifts, integrities and experiences of women?  And I would say that the Holy Spirit is leading us to recognize gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.  We should see this as a sign of a living God.  He didn’t retire someplace in the Bahamas at the end of the first century.  He has never stopped revealing himself.

God bless you, Gene Robinson, and amen.

Thank you, Trinity Everett, for inviting me.  And may the Holy Spirit continue to lead you into all truth. 



Mountains, Water, Friends, Potlucks and . . .

           Here is my latest "Rockin' a Hard Place" blog talk that I performed June 29-30 as part of the Postcards From Whidbey Island variety show at the Coupeville High School Performing Arts Center.

          Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!  C’mon, do it with me!  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That’s the collective sound we Rock dwellers make when that yellow thingy is finally back in the sky and summer’s come to Whidbey after the long, wet winter. 

          Life’s good here in summer, isn’t it?   Well, mostly good.  Except for our annual invasion.  Tourists.  Thousands of them.  Craning, creeping, crawling.  Devouring everything in their path.  Hogging every parking place.  Asking stupid questions. Disturbing our bliss. 

          Oh, I know.  Those mobs spend big bucks and keep our broke little paradise afloat.  We need ‘em.  Or else this Rock might be nothing more than a mussel farm and a drive-through coffee stand, surrounded by tall trees and giant thistles.
   
           But that tourist invasion can be troublesome when you’ve driving on the two-lane path we call our state highway.  Example One:  Get behind a forty-foot RV from Florida going forty miles an hour while you’re trying to get to Freeland.  Speed up, would you? I live here!  I’d like to get to PayLess before the snow falls!  Pull over if you want the thrill of smelling Scotch broom.  I get that every day!
 
            Example Two:  Get in front of a shiny red convertible.  Obviously rented from Hertz.  Filled with tourists.  Barreling south from Deception Pass.  Afraid they’ll miss the ferry.  And their flight.  That leaves from Sea-Tac in 90 minutes.  Get off my bumper, would you?  I live here!  I’d like to be around when the snow falls!  I hope you get caught cutting in the ferry line!  And any fool knows you can’t get from Whidbey to Sea-Tac in 90 minutes!

            Of course, tourist season also means the end of those cheap winter specials at our restaurants here on the Rock.  Forget the twelve buck weekday salmon dinner at Christopher’s.  Buh-bye, nine buck pork loin and garlic mashed potatoes at Front Street Grill.  I even think the six ninety-five chicken-fried steak at the Tyee is on summer break. All replaced by tourist-enticing things like a juicy, local, grass-fed steak for only thirty bucks . . . or a hundred ways to dress up a Penn Cove mussel, starting at just nineteen ninety-five.

             So, what is it we Rock dwellers do while our local eateries are jammed with tourists spending a fortune?  We go to potlucks, of course.  Where we share all manner of local favorites with each other.    

Now I could describe what a Whidbey potluck is like, but instead let’s hear it from a happy couple about to go to one.  These are people I made up . . . but I bet you’ll recognize them.

 See, what I notice about couples who live on the Rock is that – come rain, wind, landslides, power outages or tourists – they’re always very, very content.  Love this island.  Never been happier.  Can’t imagine living anywhere else. 

So, here’s my impression of a pre-potluck chat between Chad and Chick, one of those cheerfully content couples in Coupeville.

 What time we supposed to go, Chick?

 They said to be at Sid and Sal’s by six, Chad.

 Means get there about six-thirty, don’t it.  What’re we bringing?

 The usual.  Deviled eggs and three-bean salad.

 Sure no need to change that menu!  But I do hope Sal doesn’t make her celery stuffed with whatever that is.

 Why’s that?

 I’d never tell her, but it tastes kinda funny.  Never know what she puts in it.  But I do hope Lon and Lou bring their Rockwell beans.  The Sherman family recipe.  You know if they’re comin’, Chick?

 Oh, Chad.  Those two haven’t missed a potluck in 10 years.  You’ll sooner see a sunny day in December than for Lon and Lou to bring something other than Rockwell beans to a potluck.

 Well, you’re right about that.  And let’s hope Tom and Trish bring their chicken casserole with those crispy onion things on top.  Say, this is making me hungry!

 Now don’t spoil your appetite, Chad.  There’s always too much to eat at a Whidbey potluck.  You’ll never starve.  Dave and Dixie will be there, too.  They always bring something they make with all that zucchini they grow. 

 Hey, speaking of zucchini, you see the one I brought in from our garden this morning? If I hadn’t picked it, that green monster would probably weigh four pounds by tomorrow!  That stuff grows like a weed on Whidbey!  Aren’t we lucky to live here!

 I’ll make some zucchini bread to take to the Methodist potluck on Sunday.  And, yeah, thank God we live on Whidbey!  Mountains, water, friendly people, potlucks . . . and more zucchini than we can eat.  What more could you want?

 Yup, we’re blessed.  Know what?  While you’re making those deviled eggs, I’m gonna sneak in a little nap before we go!  Wake me up around 5:45, would you, so I can put on a clean pair of jeans and fresh tee shirt?

 OK, Chad.  But don’t put your grass-stained sneakers up the couch! 

 See, I told you you’d recognize those people!  That’s how it sounds when we get ready for a potluck here on the Rock.  Anyway.  I need to get home and pick my zucchini before it gets too big.  See ya!

 

 

 

 

 

Emmanuel

            Could there be a more inauspicious beginning?  A poor married couple, living under an oppressive and brutal dictatorship, is ordered to travel miles from home only a few days before she is to give birth.  When she goes into labor, they take refuge in someone’s cave-like living place, and she delivers a son in a portion of the house usually reserved for the livestock.
           
           This, we are told, is the story of Emmanuel – how God came to live among us for a time.  It’s a story of hope amid despair, renewal amid devastation, love amid pervasive hate.
           
            I didn’t become a Christian until I was 52 years old.  I had rejected religion as harsh and judgmental, guided by rules and mythology made up by angry old men who claimed some kind of divine right.  About as believable as a fat guy in a red suit coming down my chimney with a bag of presents.  Bah, humbug!
           
           As I got older, however, and began to think about the enormity of the idea – God dwelling among us, taking our human form – I began to understand the power of the story.  The innocence of childhood.  The power of love to conquer hate.  The immediacy of reality over abstraction.  And it hit me.  A child is always meant to lead us, to show us the way.  How else will we ever know God?
 
           Flash forward to December 14, 2012, Newtown, Connecticut.  Twenty children murdered for no reason.  Twenty young faces flashed endlessly on television screens.  Twenty stories about dreaming to be an astronaut or a painter, or helping others, or always smiling, or loving peace, or being the “light of our family.”  And it struck me.  Every child is Emmanuel – fresh from the arms of God, full energy and passion and innocence, effortlessly showing us how things are meant to be. 
           
           It seems so futile.  Every child brings hope for a better world.  Then we snuff out that hope, over and over again.  Darkness falls.  Hopelessness returns. With what, then, are we left?  I guess it’s just this:  No matter how evil we become, no matter how selfish, blind, dishonest, greedy and murderous, hope does spring eternal with every birth of a child.

           O come, O come, Emmanuel!  And ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here.
           
          

Married

Lotte Lenya and Jack Gilford as forbidden lovers in "Cabaret," 1966

          A subplot in the 1966 Broadway musical “Cabaret” concerns the doomed romance of an elderly Jewish fruit vendor and his non-Jewish landlady in early-1930s Berlin.  Their love was taboo in the anti-Semitic German culture of the day, and their marriage was against the law – even before the Nazis made it a capital crime.  At one point, the man sings these words to his forbidden lover: 

How the world can change.
It can change like that-
Due to one little word:
"Married."
See a palace rise
From a two-room flat
Due to one little word:
"Married."

And the old despair
That was often there
Suddenly ceases to be.
For you wake one day,
Look around and say:
Somebody wonderful married me.

            I have thought about that a lot since Referendum 74 was approved by the voters in Washington, and same-sex marriage became legal in the state this month.  My partner Terry Bible and I have been together for 37 years.  We met in 1975.  Our relationship was still against the law in many states.  Those old laws were rarely enforced by then, but everybody knew they were on the books.  Even living in a big city like Los Angeles, we were cautious whom we told about having a “roommate.”  Our official status was always checked “single/never married,” our public lives were quite separate, and only those we chose to tell knew who we really were.  Prejudice, if it happened, wasn’t overt.  Just whispered.

            It has gotten so much better through the years.  The “stigma” that my mother worried so much about has pretty much disappeared.  We have lived in diverse communities in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Dallas, and have shared our lives openly with everyone.  It’s amazing how many straight couples these days tell us how much they admire the longevity of our relationship.

On our 30^th anniversary in 2005, we had a church wedding at Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara, before 200 friends and family members.  And since we moved to Coupeville in 2009, we have enjoyed a warm reception by this very friendly, close-knit community that we love so much.  This is where we intend to spend the rest of our lives.  On Dec. 6, the first day it was possible, we got a “legal” marriage license at the Island County Auditor’s office in Coupeville.  At least 10 other same-sex couples, most of whom had been together for many years just like us, were lined up, waiting for the office to open.  After the required three-day waiting period, we had a civil marriage service on Dec. 9, officiated by Coupeville Mayor Nancy Conard.

So, after 37 years together, with every aspect of our lives already enter-twined, and every human being we know already aware of who we are, what difference does “legal” marriage make?  A lot.  It feels good knowing that Terry has all the legal protections and benefits of any other spouse in Washington.  It feels good knowing that when I am introduced as his spouse, people will automatically know we’re married.  And it feels good knowing that all the young gay men and women who come after us won’t have to share their love in the shadows or pretend to be something they’re not or tell lies about the person they love.  They’ll be able to marry that person, just like anybody else can.

Most of all, it feels complete.  Somebody wonderful married me.  Thank you, Washington voters.  Thank you very much.

Thoughts and Deeds

 

Here is a piece I wrote for the newsletter of St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church in Dallas, just before Thanksgiving, 2007:

 

Thanksgiving is always a time to reflect on the Pilgrims and Squanto. I’m sure you remember the story we all learned in grammar school. Squanto was a member of the Patuxet tribe in what is now Maine. In 1608, he was kidnapped and taken to England as a slave/servant. When he was freed and returned to America a decade later, he found that his entire tribe had been wiped out by diseases the English had brought with them. He had every reason to hate his captors, but he didn’t. Instead, he helped save the Pilgrims of Massachusetts Bay – who by the spring of 1621 were sick and starving – by teaching them how to plant and fertilize native crops like corn. If there had been no Squanto, there likely would have been no first Thanksgiving.

I thought about that story the other day as I was reflecting on all the good things that have happened since we began the Saint Thomas Community Garden earlier this year. And I reflected on angels – like Squanto – and miracles – like the first Thanksgiving. In college, long before I professed my Christian faith, I took a philosophy course from a rumpled professor who looked like Einstein. A devoted agnostic, he nonetheless offered these definitions that have stuck with me for more than 40 years: Angels are God’s thoughts, he said, and miracles are deeds inspired by God’s thoughts.

Now I suppose any number of learned theologians might quibble or disagree with those definitions. But as I have watched our community garden take shape over the past six months, I’ve seen too much evidence to doubt my old professor. Consider this:

• Our garden committee knew we needed a shed to store tools and hoses before we could even get started. But we had no money to buy one. One night, Lynn Armstrong, a friend from Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, mentioned she had a shed on her rental property. Thought: “If you want, you can have it,” she said. Deed: Harold Spiegel had his crew moved it to Saint Thomas.
• We looked at the enormous size of our proposed garden and asked ourselves, how will we ever get this weed patch ready to grow vegetables for the hungry? Our parishioner Harold Spiegel owns Preservation Tree Service, the best-respected tree company in Dallas. Thought: “My crews have some down time and we can help,” he said. Deed: Harold and his crews tilled our soil, trimmed our trees, and gave us mulch and compost – all at no expense.
• There was no water in the garden space, and we had been warned that it might cost $5,000 or more to install a water meter and run a pipe to the garden. Our Senior Warden Kathy Carson has worked with the city water department in her real estate profession, and Harold Spiegel’s crews know how to install landscape watering systems. Thought: “Let me see what I can do,” Kathy said. “I think we can handle it once we have a meter,” Harold said. Deed: The city installed a water meter without charge and Harold’s crews ran the pipe to the garden at no cost.
• I created a sign to promote the garden but I had only some flimsy stakes to put it up near Inwood Road. It looked pathetic. Saint Thomas’s neighbor to the north, George Hendricks, noticed the forlorn sign. Thought: “I want to make that look better,” Mr. Hendricks told Stephen Waller in a phone call. Deed: At his own expense, Mr. Hendricks bought plastic piping and tie-backs. He straightened up our sign and made it look great.
• We had no tools or hoses to use in the garden. John and Kris Braddock are new members of our parish who moved here from New York last year. They used to have a country house with a big garden north of Manhattan. Thought: “We have lots of garden tools, hoses and garden furniture just sitting in storage,” John and Kris said. “Do you want them?” Deed: Our shed is now filled with the Braddocks’ tools and hoses, and their beautiful Adirondack-style garden furniture is arrayed under our spreading oak tree.
• As we contemplated how much work it would be to keep tilling the soil by hand to make sure it would be ready to plant next spring, we thought: “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a power roto-tiller to use in the Saint Thomas Garden? But we can’t afford one.” Our parishioners Bruce Davis and Wayne Palmer have a beautiful home and garden in Oak Cliff. Thought: Bruce emailed Stephen Waller to say that he and Wayne had a Toro power roto-tiller they weren’t using much. Would we want to use it in our community garden? Deed: I had the pleasure of using Bruce and Wayne’s power roto-tiller to break up the soil before we planted the seven varieties of winter vegetables you now see growing in our community garden.

Thanks to all the angels who brought God’s thoughts to our community garden. And Thanks Be to God for the miracles those thoughts have created. Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

(P.S.:  Another miracle occurred in April, 2008.  The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, accepted our invitation to come to St. Thomas the Apostle and bless our community garden, in an amazing celebration.  The garden has now been helping to feed the hungry in Dallas for almost five years.)