I have known for some time that the Gay Pride Parade in New York was on the fourth Sunday of June and that what the parade celebrates is important in the life of Rutgers Church. But what prompted me to preach specifically on Christian Gay Pride was a reference to religion in an interview with T. R. Knight. As many of you know, he is an actor in the popular television program Grey's Anatomy.
On the set of the show another actor, Isaiah Washington, referred to a member of the cast as "a faggot." Knight heard about it, concluded the reference was to him, and came out as a gay man in People Magazine. Sometime later a writer for Advocate Magazine interviewed Knight, and wrote that "he's riled by the hypocrisy of some religions that teach God loves everyone but then exclude gays...." "You are taught you are wrong, that you are bad. So you don't do anything, and you wrap yourself in a little straightjacket, and you put yourself in a little room."
There have been other interviews on television and in print in which gay or lesbian persons were asked how they could reconcile that part of their identity with being Christian. Clearly there is a widespread perception in the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered] community that the Christian faith itself is hostile toward people who are sexually attracted to people of their own gender rather than to people of the opposite gender. There is good reason for such a perception. Large segments of the Christian Church, especially segments that get lots of attention in the media, practice in word and deed a condemnation of homosexuality as sinful. Often they say they condemn the sin but not the sinner, or that they accept a homosexual orientation but not acting on it. Such distinctions are meaningless, or worse, in my judgment.
It would take too long to refute the misuse of Scripture some Christians employ to condemn homosexuality. It is enough to say that the authors of the few Biblical texts that refer to homosexuality had no knowledge, as we have, that sexual orientation is not a choice but something established either before birth or shortly thereafter. The few texts used, or misused, to condemn homosexual practice are dealt with thoroughly and clearly in many books, but especially in one published recently by a Princeton Seminary professor. The book is A Time to Embrace, and the author is W. Stacy Johnson, who has degrees in both theology and law. His thesis is that it is time for the entire Christian Church and for American culture to embrace not just gay or lesbian people and their sexual expression, but also to embrace the opportunity for gay and lesbian people to marry. I very much agree with Professor Johnson.
What I want to say this morning is that all people, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and straight can be proud of who they are—people made in the image of God. As Paul writes in our first reading "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; [and I would add, there is no longer gay or straight]. For all of you are one in Christ Jesus." Being made in the image of God is not limited by race, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation. What God created God called good. And it is good, very good—not perfect, but very, very good.
It seems clear to me that all human beings are born into a flawed universe. There is no such thing as perfect parenting, so we all have to work on feeling good about ourselves as we grow toward adulthood. Some people, a fortunate few I think, receive very good parenting; and some people are born with assets our culture prizes: outstanding good looks, keen intelligence, and a certain kind of charm. Such people may have a head start on the journey toward wholeness, but they also have things to work on as they mature, like a sense of entitlement or even pathological narcissism.
In contrast some people struggle from an early age with a sense of inherent inadequacy, because our culture says that something about them is bad and unacceptable. Such people need someone or someones in their life who will say and keep on saying to them, "You're wonderful, you're worthy, you're enough as you are. Celebrate who you are. Develop your gifts to their full extent. God's purpose for you is life in all its fullness. Love God, love other people, and love yourself in a healthy way."
The Christian Church when it is true to its gospel will be a place where that message is proclaimed and heard. People who have come to trust in a loving God through some kind of encounter with the risen Christ will spend time, money, and energy countering negative messages internalized by people our culture marginalizes or even wounds. I believe churches like Rutgers need to find new ways to publicize their understanding of the Christian faith, new ways to tell the truth that God is love, welcoming, inclusive love, not exclusive, condemning judgment. In this church we need to expand our advertising program.
Somewhere in one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, I read about a woman who was grieving the death of her father. "He was a special kind of father," she said. "From the time of my childhood until I went out on my own, the first thing he would say to me every morning was, 'Have I told you yet today how much I love you?'" How many of us were fortunate enough to have that kind of affirmation during our childhood? People who grow up hearing positive messages about themselves often develop a healthy kind of pride—not the arrogant kind, but the kind that is more like quiet self-confidence. That kind of pride is legitimate. It is based on gratitude for God's gift of life in creation, and on God's gift of unconditional love that can heal our wounded psyches and move us toward wellness.
I'm glad this morning's Gospel reading is the story of the man who lived among the tombs. Many artists have been drawn to him, especially gay male artists, who couldn't pass up a chance to paint a man depicted as naked, muscular, and bound with chains.
Jesus spoke to the man and asked him his name. Jesus saw him as a person, not as a spectacle. Whatever he did or however he did it, Jesus restored the man's dignity as a human being and set him on the road to fullness of life. The change was sudden and dramatic, so phenomenal that it shook the confidence of people accustomed to seeing the man as an object of ridicule. Change is never easy, and people who learn to celebrate their identity, especially if it includes a homosexual orientation, can expect resistance and hostility. There will be protesters at the Gay Pride Parade today, some of them carrying signs that quote the Bible out of context.
In this morning's Gospel story, the townspeople who witnessed a suffering man's transformation wanted Jesus, the source of the man's healing, to move on, to get out of town. Resistance! But the man wanted to learn more about the love that had changed him. He asked to travel with Jesus. But Jesus told him to stay with the people who knew him and tell the story of his new-found salvation, because that's really what it was. The revealer of God had looked at him and had seen the goodness, the potential within him. He had called him by name and set him free.
That's what Jesus and the affirming love he embodies can do for anyone—especially for people struggling to be free of negative messages from family, from culture, or from misguided churches.
As a Christian I celebrate Gay Pride today. I celebrate the kind of confidence God wants for all of us, whatever our attractions, so long as we act on those attractions with respect, care, and integrity.
Thanks be to God.