Widely and Wildly
(Rutgers, May 3, 1998; 4th Sunday of Easter [Lessons from 5th] , y ear C)
John 13:31-35 (NT, p. 112); Acts 11:1-18 (NT, p. 135)
Carl Bisson embodied Jesus's commandment
to love one another ,
the commandment proclaimed in this morning's First Lesson.
And Carl was also a prophet of the widely and wildly inclusive
love of God that is described in our Second Lesson!
In my sermon on these texts today,
there's really only one thing I need to say, namely.
To have known Carl is to understand these lessons.
To have known Carl is to understand these lessons.
For Carl's life is the only illustration needed to
make clear the meaning of these words of Scripture.
It's strange.
Ten days ago, in reviewing the schedule of lectionary texts,
I had such a strong feeling that I shouldn't use the texts for today
and that I should instead substitute the texts for next Sunday.
So I yielded to my feeling,
and all the preparations earlier this week for today's service
were focused on these texts which we have now read.
Ten days ago I had no inkling of what I understand now.
namely, that the Holy Spirit was already at work then
to prepare our community for remembering Carl's life
in the most appropriate manner possible during today's service.
For to have known Carl is to understand these two lessons.
According to our First Lesson, from the Gospel of John,
on Jesus's last night on earth he said to his disciples:
'' Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another. ' ,
Now, when Jesus spoke about loving one another,
he was talking about something quite different
from the saccharine sentimentality and genital gymnastics
that our popular culture celebrates.
When Jesus spoke about loving one another ,
he was talking about the offering of the whole of oneself-
the offering of heart, soul, mind, and strength
for the well-being of others.
He was talking about an outpouring of self
that has nothing to do with self-denial and
that has everything to do with self-fulfillment.
You see, the love of which Jesus spoke has this irony to it:
To live for the sake of others is to find fulfillment for oneself;
to live for the sake of others is to experience
the essence of what it means to be alive,
the essence of what it means to be fulfilled!
And to have known Carl is to understand immediately
what Jesus was talking about.
For to have known Carl is to have experienced firsthand
a person who offered to others the whole of himself,
who offered the whole of his heart, soul, mind, and strength
for the well-being of others.
To have known Carl is to understand
what it is to be truly alive and fulfilled!
To have known Carl is to understand
the quality of love Jesus commands us to have,
for it was such love that Carl had for us.
To have known Carl is to understand
what it is to truly be Christ's disciple.
Carl was an embodiment of self-giving love.
But there was more to Carl than just love.
Carl possessed, as well, the righteous anger of a prophet.
Carl had within him the fire of the Holy Spirit,
a fire that compelled him to demand of the church
that it act with justice toward persons like him-
toward persons with a homosexual orientation
whose sexuality is fulfilled not through a gift of celibacy
but through a gift for the kind of long-term partnership
that he had with John.
And that is w hy our Second Lesson of the morning
is such a perfect one for our memorial remembrance of Carl.
For it is an absolutely central and indispensable text to the
proclamation of the widely and wildly inclusive love of God.
For a number of us straight Christians who grew up homophobic,
our encounter with homosexual persons such as Carl
was, like Peter's encounter with Cornelius, transformative,
an experience of conversion
to a more profound depth of Christian faith
and of deliverance from the sin of homophobia.
In our Second Lesson this morning we read that almost 2 millennia age
the Spirit moved in a way that Jesus's first disciples,
all of whom were Jewish, found wholly unexpected.
God chose to bestow the gift of the Spirit of Christ not only on Jews
but also on Gentiles like Cornelius.
This was a watershed moment in the history of Christianity,
the moment when the Holy Spirit clearly signaled
that God's love was much more widely and wildly inclusive
than any of Christ's followers had dared to imagine.
And the Book of the Acts of the Apostles devotes more space
to this story of Cornelius and Peter than to any other single story,
including the Day of Pentecost itself!
When Peter had his daytime vision of a sailcloth full of animals,
many of whom he considered to be unclean and non-kosher,
but all of whom God had chosen to pronounce clean and kosher-
when Peter had that vision
and when Peter encountered the power of the Spirit
that was present with Cornelius
Peter had the good sense to recognize that
God's vision of those to be invited
into the community of faith was
so much more inclusive than Peter's own vision,
that God shows no partiality
to one category of person over another.
Peter had the good sense to suspend his cultural presuppositions,
to recognize the movement of the Spirit for what it is,
and to get out of way of the Spirit's wide and wild work!
Almost 2 millennia ago the Spirit canceled the boundaries to God's work
that we humans keep wanting to erect.
Almost 2 millennia ago, a Jew, Peter, recognized
that a Gentile, Cornelius, was his spiritual equal.
And ever since that time, all of us Gentile Christians have been equal
heirs of the word of God revealed to Jewish Christians like Peter.
We have been equal heirs of the good news that
God considers no class or category of person profane or unclean,
and equal heirs of God's command
that we, too, ought to consider no class or category of person
profane or unclean,
that we, too, ought to display
the widely and wildly inclusive nature of God's love..
The question, "Can persons be both fully Gentile and Spirit-filled?"
was answered long ago by Peter and others in the church
with a resounding, "Yes!"
The reason they said, "Yes!" was because they
had come to know Cornelius and other Gentiles like him.
And to know Cornelius and other Gentiles like him
was to understand the correct answer.
The question that haunts the church today is not all that different.
It is the question,
"Can persons be both fully Gay and Spirit-filled?"
And to know Carl and countless other gay and lesbian Christians,
is to understand that the correct answer to that question is also
a resounding, "Yes!"
Every one in this community of faith can attest that
Carl was in truth one of those upon whom God had visibly
poured out the gifts of the Holy Spirit for ordained office.
We all know that Carl was a true Elder of the church,
if any one ever was, for he had the gift of love, and
the gift of revealing the light of Christ to others.
And Carl had another gift of the Spirit as well,
the gift of prophecy,
the gift for proclaiming to the church God's call to justice.
Carl, as a prophet of God, fearlessly named the sin of homophobia
and demanded of the church equality and justice.
+ Carl, as a prophet of God, with the gift of the fire of the Holy Spirit,
called upon all the rest of us to say to the Presbyterian Church
something very much like that which Peter of old said
to the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem: namely,
"God has given to gays and lesbians
no less a gift of the Holy Spirit
than God has given to straights."
Many of us here this morning are Gay and Lesbian Christians,
Christians whose lives, like Carl's,
reflect the power of God's Spirit,
Christians whose gift from the Spirit, like Carl's,
is equal to that of any other Christian,
whose gift from the Spirit, like Carl's,
has been expressed in a life of compassion and love,
a life of deep and intense spirituality.
And all of us here today know many other Gay and Lesbian Christians
whose lives, like Carl's, reflect both the power of God's Spirit
and the love for one another that Jesus commanded.
Carl was aglow with the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit.
Let us today commit ourselves to pick up where Carl left off
and to follow in the footsteps of this man
who loved us with all of his being
and called us to work unceasingly for the full equality
of gays and lesbians within Christ's church.
Carl's leg of the race has finished,
but not before he passed off to us
the baton of his love and of his passion for justice.
And now the rest of the race is ours to run!
I invite you now to stand and to join me in a moment of silent tribute
to the memory of Elder Carl Bisson,
after which I will offer a closing prayer.
Please stand.
MINUTE OF SILENCE
Let us pray.
O God, we give you thanks for the life of Carl Bisson and for his
gifts as an Elder of the church. W e thank you that his life so richly
illustrates for us the meaning of Scripture.
O God, Carl has now passed on to us the baton of the love and the
passion for justice that you gave to him. In our leg of life's race, may
we prove faithful both to you and to his memory.
In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.
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