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!