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.
