Delivered at Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House
Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 2, 2010
(c)2010 Ray Bagnuolo
How would you Email God?
Recently even Dell has gotten an Email address. So I figured for sure, if Dell had one – God had one, too.
What would God’s Email address be?
Maybe more interesting would be the conversation…
and The Reply!
Annie Dillard [on the front cover of the bulletin] suggests that there might be reason to run for the hills:
“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return." (Teaching a Stone to Talk)
The author of today’s Unison Prayer, Aaron Zeitlin, suggest that it doesn’t matter whether you praise or curse God in your Emails or sing out God’s graces or revile God. Either way, God will know you love God. Based on what Zeitlin says, what you most need to be concerned with is:
…if you sit fenced off in your apathy, says God,
If you sit entrenched in, “I don’t give a hang,” says God,
If you look at the stars and yawn,
If you see suffering and don’t cry out,
If you don’t praise and don’t revile,
Then I created you in vain, says God.
Well, Annie and Aaron are not God’s spokesperson’s but they do make us think. What is the relationship we are to have with God, what does it mean, what does it call us to do, and what of being here in worship?
Michael Lindvall, who is the Senior Pastor at The Brick Presbyterian Church, says the following about worship in his book, The Geography of God:
Worship that does not make you anxious once and again
Worship that fails to stretch your mind and spirit to the edge of discomfort
Is something other than worship.
A little later on, Michael says,
“If you and I enter worship facing anywhere but toward God, the experience may please us, it may inform us, it may comfort us, but it will hardly transform us.”
Transformation, emerging…a NEW JERUSALEM.
There are so many books written about the transforming and emerging churches in the modern, post-modern, information age…
It’s almost like we are trying to get somewhere. If we just get the right formula: Done! Finito! Time to sit back.
Truth is we are not going to be emerged or transformed until we are stunned to one degree or another. Stunned into a moment of clarity and a psychic and spiritual change that is often referred to as the Aha! Moment. However, even that pales in describing what John of Patmos gives us in his visions.
Think of Picasso, Chagal, deKooning Van Gogh…think of Picasso’s Guernica, of Chagall’s American Windows, de Kooning’s Spoletto, or Van Gogh’s The Starry Night…
Visions of art, music, sound, cosmos, eschatological forbodance – all wrapped up in one series of dreams…
All emerging through the discomfort and unease of a Babylon and beast to the NEW JERUSALEM – now on Earth.
“The focus is now on Earth, since this heavenly city has descended to Earth. It is no longer necessary to raise one’s eyes to the sky to see God. Yes, to see a manifestation of God as in all creation, but God is now on Earth.
Where? Look around. This should make us a little uneasy…
And the emergence of God the touch of God is not in the temple – note: no temple has descended. Jesus is the temple. No building required.
Hold on, because the ride has changed. The rise and risk of transformation is happening…just as it has been from the day that out of his grace, not sacrifice, but out of his grace and fulfillment Jesus didn’t give up his life – he gave it away.
What are we giving away in this NEW JERUSALEM? Please keep your donations coming for our mission, because we need depend on it…but for a moment put the money aside. What are you giving away of you as worship in this place and presence of God?
Last night, I worked the desk. As I sat there, getting ready for today and directing folk to wherever they needed to go, a woman came in who could not get down the few steps into the foyer but not up the steps to the meeting she wished to go.
Another woman who was on her way to the meeting stopped to help her. Sat down, took out her meeting book, helped her find a more accessible meeting, asked her again if she would like to get some help to make it up the steps, and when the woman declined…the person helping her walked her outside, keeping her company as she went off to another meeting.
The person who helped the other gave away: her plans, her movement, her momentum, her thoughts of the moment to help another who needed some help. I cannot be convinced of that as being anything other than worship.
Recently, I was reading about Solomon’s Temple and his decline. The author spoke of how later in life, Solomon continued to acknowledge God as beyond human comprehension, but for Solomon and those who followed him, God because too identified with a place, made of human hands, a dynasty, and ultimately a city of oppression and injustice.”
Revelation. God is. God cannot be kept. Look around. Find worship, be worship.
John’s Gospel this morning goes further. Find the seek the relationship that Jesus had with God and enter into it as a disciple. Forget about perfection. Jesus acknowledged that betrayal was no reason for expulsion. Judas was not the only one who betrayed Jesus. While most dramatic, perhaps, so did Peter and so did all those who were not at the cross. And, still, the relationship between Jesus and God understood.
Sing out My graces, says God.
Raise your fist against Me and revile, says God,
Sing out graces or revile,
Reviling is also a kind of praise, says God.
Love one another as I have loved you…
Praise Me, says God, and I will know that you love me.
Curse Me, says God, and I will know that you love me.
Praise Me or Curse Me.
And I will know that you love me.
Love one another as I have loved you…
Email that to others…and hold on for the ride!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
There is no compromise…
These comments were offered today at our Easter service at Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House.
The article referred to by Bob Herbert is from The New York Times, April 2, 2010 and can be found here:
Earlier this week in the New York Times, Bob Herbert wrote about a speech The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave on this day, April 4, 1967.
As Herbert describes it:
The great man was moving with what seemed like great reluctance. He knew as he climbed from the car in Upper Manhattan that he was stepping into the maelstrom, that there were powerful people who would not react kindly to what he had to say.
“I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight,” said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “because my conscience leaves me no other choice.”
King entered the Riverside Church and addressed more than 3,000 people gathered, telling them that silence in the face of the horror that was taking place in Vietnam amounted to a betrayal.
He warned: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Perhaps, in fact I think it is mostly true, that this is a silence of two places that are likely one: a fear of doing the wrong thing and the fear of being accused of doing the wrong thing.
So, we sometimes look elsewhere to more comfortable place, finding ourselves suspended in silence or engaged in protracted processes that postpone any chance for courage and change. We look back too far, too much. We look forward too far, too often. And we end up between the two – making distinctions that make no difference. Frozen, dismayed, discouraged; turning more and more toward isolation, observation, and inaction. In a word: fear.
I do believe Jesus must have had fear, but it did not drive him. He was guided by something more powerful.
In this morning’s gospel, when the women, the faithful women came to the tomb, the angel, the heart, the one who stood there said,
“I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here…”
In all the readings and worship that will take place around the world today, among the many messages one I think is clear: “Jesus is not in the tomb. Not then, not today. Don’t waste your time looking for him in such a place.”
As the women ran toward Galilee to tell the others what they had been told, suddenly Jesus was among them, “there in their path.”
The horror of silence that The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed has been long shattered by this risen Jesus. The question is, do we believe that? And, if so what risks are we willing to take? How are we willing to speak out and act for others.
What drives us?
All week long, I have been meditating on a comment in Michale Lindvall’s book The Christian Life: A Geography of God in which he says that Jesus faced the choice of compromise or crucifix.
That lay heavily upon me all week, through Maundy Thursday and into Good Friday. On Friday, I had a chance to sit here in meditation from 12 – 3. I pretty much sat still all the time. I kept thinking that if Jesus could hang on the cross for those hours, it’s not such a big deal to sit here.
I let the thoughts come and go…and the “compromise or crucifix” came to mind. I knew Jesus didn’t compromise, but I am also not ready to be crucified. I kept thinking that in a world of negotiation are we supposed to compromise, when folks are hungry, out of work, marginalized, oppressed, and dehumanized.
Then the thought occurred to me that maybe it’s not we who are supposed to compromise.
If love is unconditional, and we come from the Love that we believe is God and Jesus in God and Spirit – that is enough to take this all to a new level, out of a place of negotiation to love.
It also occurs to me that love is a resurrection from a places of divisiveness and oppression – and is not compromisable. I may not always do it right – but that doesn’t change the truth – love can never be a compromise.
It is a path we follow. It is the one that Jesus led us to and promises to be beside us as this morning’s gospel reminds us.
There can be no place for silence when such joy is in our lives. “For were we silent, even the stones would call out!”
Love is a joy that surpasses the easy and the hard times, rooted in the Good News. It is the well of courage and action and, yes, God. But then, you know all that!
Mr. Herbert says later in his article on Dr. King, which by the way is titled, “We Still Don’t Hear Him…”
[Dr. King’s] bold stand seems all the more striking in today’s atmosphere, in which moral courage among the very prominent — the kind of courage that carries real risk — seems mostly to have disappeared.
Be that as it may, moral courage is not for the prominent. It is for us all. It is the balm that heals the horror of silence and leads us to the Risen Path of unconditional love.
May you find such Jesus, such God, in all the ways you know God – now!
Yes, he is risen indeed.
The article referred to by Bob Herbert is from The New York Times, April 2, 2010 and can be found here:
Earlier this week in the New York Times, Bob Herbert wrote about a speech The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave on this day, April 4, 1967.
As Herbert describes it:
The great man was moving with what seemed like great reluctance. He knew as he climbed from the car in Upper Manhattan that he was stepping into the maelstrom, that there were powerful people who would not react kindly to what he had to say.
“I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight,” said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “because my conscience leaves me no other choice.”
King entered the Riverside Church and addressed more than 3,000 people gathered, telling them that silence in the face of the horror that was taking place in Vietnam amounted to a betrayal.
He warned: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Perhaps, in fact I think it is mostly true, that this is a silence of two places that are likely one: a fear of doing the wrong thing and the fear of being accused of doing the wrong thing.
So, we sometimes look elsewhere to more comfortable place, finding ourselves suspended in silence or engaged in protracted processes that postpone any chance for courage and change. We look back too far, too much. We look forward too far, too often. And we end up between the two – making distinctions that make no difference. Frozen, dismayed, discouraged; turning more and more toward isolation, observation, and inaction. In a word: fear.
I do believe Jesus must have had fear, but it did not drive him. He was guided by something more powerful.
In this morning’s gospel, when the women, the faithful women came to the tomb, the angel, the heart, the one who stood there said,
“I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here…”
In all the readings and worship that will take place around the world today, among the many messages one I think is clear: “Jesus is not in the tomb. Not then, not today. Don’t waste your time looking for him in such a place.”
As the women ran toward Galilee to tell the others what they had been told, suddenly Jesus was among them, “there in their path.”
The horror of silence that The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed has been long shattered by this risen Jesus. The question is, do we believe that? And, if so what risks are we willing to take? How are we willing to speak out and act for others.
What drives us?
All week long, I have been meditating on a comment in Michale Lindvall’s book The Christian Life: A Geography of God in which he says that Jesus faced the choice of compromise or crucifix.
That lay heavily upon me all week, through Maundy Thursday and into Good Friday. On Friday, I had a chance to sit here in meditation from 12 – 3. I pretty much sat still all the time. I kept thinking that if Jesus could hang on the cross for those hours, it’s not such a big deal to sit here.
I let the thoughts come and go…and the “compromise or crucifix” came to mind. I knew Jesus didn’t compromise, but I am also not ready to be crucified. I kept thinking that in a world of negotiation are we supposed to compromise, when folks are hungry, out of work, marginalized, oppressed, and dehumanized.
Then the thought occurred to me that maybe it’s not we who are supposed to compromise.
If love is unconditional, and we come from the Love that we believe is God and Jesus in God and Spirit – that is enough to take this all to a new level, out of a place of negotiation to love.
It also occurs to me that love is a resurrection from a places of divisiveness and oppression – and is not compromisable. I may not always do it right – but that doesn’t change the truth – love can never be a compromise.
It is a path we follow. It is the one that Jesus led us to and promises to be beside us as this morning’s gospel reminds us.
There can be no place for silence when such joy is in our lives. “For were we silent, even the stones would call out!”
Love is a joy that surpasses the easy and the hard times, rooted in the Good News. It is the well of courage and action and, yes, God. But then, you know all that!
Mr. Herbert says later in his article on Dr. King, which by the way is titled, “We Still Don’t Hear Him…”
[Dr. King’s] bold stand seems all the more striking in today’s atmosphere, in which moral courage among the very prominent — the kind of courage that carries real risk — seems mostly to have disappeared.
Be that as it may, moral courage is not for the prominent. It is for us all. It is the balm that heals the horror of silence and leads us to the Risen Path of unconditional love.
May you find such Jesus, such God, in all the ways you know God – now!
Yes, he is risen indeed.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
A Reponse to Scott Anderson's interview...
The following is a response to a recent interview of Scott Anderson by Janet Edwards on her blog A Time to Embrace:
Dear Janet,
Thanks for this interview and thanks to Scott for his dedication to the radical message of the gospel, made even more radical because we have moved so far from it in so many ways. I couldn't agree more about fighting, especially over Scripture. Still...
... if Jesus could flip the tables of the moneychangers on end...how much more might he respond in the face of our sisters and brothers paying the price of exclusion and bearing the brunt of the complicity of a church in its teachings? Teachings that impact the broad society, and in this instance, foster marginalization and violence toward our sisters and brothers who are LGBT, all done in his name? I think the tables, at least, would fly again.
As I see it, for a church to be relevant, it must take the same risks that Jesus did, risks which ended up having him executed. We're not there, maybe never will be in taking such risks. But the path to such steadfast love is too often littered with the selfish needs of others. In this case, the needs seem to include a requisite comfortability with the LGBT community before we are fully embraced. So, the church accepts, as a matter of course, the destruction of others' lives until enough people are comfortable for a church, this church, to finally say, "Welcome."
I believe that it must be the church that leads the way, and not for the benefit of you, Scott, or me, really, but for all those who see this church as unwelcoming. For those we are turning away. How can we be who we say we are and continue such practices? How can our leadership from the local congregations to the moderator's office do anything other than publicly and unequivocally call for change now, letting others hear the voice we follow in so many ways? What on earth or in the heavens are we afraid of? Maybe, better question, what are we afraid of losing for speaking out with such conviction and risk?
This is not just about polity. It is about witness and about execution: an execution now being done by some in the name of Jesus.
That's got to be enough to turn some tables over...
Ray Bagnuolo, Minister Word and Sacrament
Ordained and openly gay in 2005
Serving Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House
New York City
Board Member of More Light Presbyterians, speaking only for myself.
Dear Janet,
Thanks for this interview and thanks to Scott for his dedication to the radical message of the gospel, made even more radical because we have moved so far from it in so many ways. I couldn't agree more about fighting, especially over Scripture. Still...
... if Jesus could flip the tables of the moneychangers on end...how much more might he respond in the face of our sisters and brothers paying the price of exclusion and bearing the brunt of the complicity of a church in its teachings? Teachings that impact the broad society, and in this instance, foster marginalization and violence toward our sisters and brothers who are LGBT, all done in his name? I think the tables, at least, would fly again.
As I see it, for a church to be relevant, it must take the same risks that Jesus did, risks which ended up having him executed. We're not there, maybe never will be in taking such risks. But the path to such steadfast love is too often littered with the selfish needs of others. In this case, the needs seem to include a requisite comfortability with the LGBT community before we are fully embraced. So, the church accepts, as a matter of course, the destruction of others' lives until enough people are comfortable for a church, this church, to finally say, "Welcome."
I believe that it must be the church that leads the way, and not for the benefit of you, Scott, or me, really, but for all those who see this church as unwelcoming. For those we are turning away. How can we be who we say we are and continue such practices? How can our leadership from the local congregations to the moderator's office do anything other than publicly and unequivocally call for change now, letting others hear the voice we follow in so many ways? What on earth or in the heavens are we afraid of? Maybe, better question, what are we afraid of losing for speaking out with such conviction and risk?
This is not just about polity. It is about witness and about execution: an execution now being done by some in the name of Jesus.
That's got to be enough to turn some tables over...
Ray Bagnuolo, Minister Word and Sacrament
Ordained and openly gay in 2005
Serving Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House
New York City
Board Member of More Light Presbyterians, speaking only for myself.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Lie Away and Awake at Night
"Don't Ask Don't Tell" may soon very well be gone. Happily so. Still, again, we have followed the accepted path of huge and irreversible tragedy in the lives of others to get there - waiting for the time when the marginalizers and others are comfortable enough to be willing to change.
I wonder often about the people we sacrifice as a society, later referring to them as ahead of their time, bold, prophetic, pioneers, and such. Euphemisms to cover up our own guilt, if even recognized. I think about how these leaders were harassed, imprisoned, marginalized, oppressed, separated from families, friends, and equal opportunities for work and worship.
I don't understand the appetite for such human sacrifice, however well the plodding and unwinding road toward justice might be. I keep thinking about the people of color, the women, the LGBT community and other marginalized groups and their allies who fought for justice and suffered the consequences. Who are those people now, in the eyes of society, church, or state? Are they still criminals or are they now considered heroes or heroines? What have we learned from them? Is it simply to continue to follow their tried and tragic paths to justice?
Do we need to put our hands upon the oven doors at Auschwitz to know we don't need to ever go so far again?
Whether you think there is such a thing as lies of omission or not, it may very well be that deceit at its core, is something more damaging than any lie. When deceit is institutionalized and encouraged, we quickly slide into the nearly irreversible soul-sickness of fear and distance - from ourselves and others.
Whether it is the violation of the first oath of honesty that a seviceperson who is LGBT takes when they deny themselves to satisfy the state; whether it is the crafted avoidance of honestly identifying oneself as LGBT at the time of ordination in service to the church; whether it is the lie that tears apart the relationships formed for appearances - each moves us further away from any chance of change by honesty, before the sacrifices and tragedies reach numbing proportions on their way to being heralded as future brave hearts.
I believe it is true that the laws of state and church do in fact follow the same path: by the time the law is written and passed the changes have occurred for the majority of people. That's what is happening in "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and in the church, as well.
While I have always expected the church, especially the Christian church, to live more closely to the right and radical teachings of Jesus, I would accept the boldness of the state to take the lead, knowing that faithful hearts live in all places. What is it that keeps us so locked in our ways?
I think it's fear. It's all about fear and what people are willing to do to get what they want. There's a good chance that if fear is driving us on toward a goal...it's the wrong goal. It may be that losing what we believe we're supposed to have in favor of being who we are - is the difference between lying away and awake at night - or a just and peaceful sleep.
I wonder often about the people we sacrifice as a society, later referring to them as ahead of their time, bold, prophetic, pioneers, and such. Euphemisms to cover up our own guilt, if even recognized. I think about how these leaders were harassed, imprisoned, marginalized, oppressed, separated from families, friends, and equal opportunities for work and worship.
I don't understand the appetite for such human sacrifice, however well the plodding and unwinding road toward justice might be. I keep thinking about the people of color, the women, the LGBT community and other marginalized groups and their allies who fought for justice and suffered the consequences. Who are those people now, in the eyes of society, church, or state? Are they still criminals or are they now considered heroes or heroines? What have we learned from them? Is it simply to continue to follow their tried and tragic paths to justice?
Do we need to put our hands upon the oven doors at Auschwitz to know we don't need to ever go so far again?
Whether you think there is such a thing as lies of omission or not, it may very well be that deceit at its core, is something more damaging than any lie. When deceit is institutionalized and encouraged, we quickly slide into the nearly irreversible soul-sickness of fear and distance - from ourselves and others.
Whether it is the violation of the first oath of honesty that a seviceperson who is LGBT takes when they deny themselves to satisfy the state; whether it is the crafted avoidance of honestly identifying oneself as LGBT at the time of ordination in service to the church; whether it is the lie that tears apart the relationships formed for appearances - each moves us further away from any chance of change by honesty, before the sacrifices and tragedies reach numbing proportions on their way to being heralded as future brave hearts.
I believe it is true that the laws of state and church do in fact follow the same path: by the time the law is written and passed the changes have occurred for the majority of people. That's what is happening in "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and in the church, as well.
While I have always expected the church, especially the Christian church, to live more closely to the right and radical teachings of Jesus, I would accept the boldness of the state to take the lead, knowing that faithful hearts live in all places. What is it that keeps us so locked in our ways?
I think it's fear. It's all about fear and what people are willing to do to get what they want. There's a good chance that if fear is driving us on toward a goal...it's the wrong goal. It may be that losing what we believe we're supposed to have in favor of being who we are - is the difference between lying away and awake at night - or a just and peaceful sleep.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
A Reply....
Hi Rev. Tolbert,
Thanks for your note. I, too, seek a peaceful way - but to stay together - not to go our separate ways. I think that in a world of brokenness that we have more to offer others as part of our Gospel message by figuring out how to work together, live, pray, worship, and lead together - than to go our own ways. I think this struggle is the gift we have been given to resolve. For me, it is the new thing God is doing in this world. Simply, I just don't see gender identity as a good enough reason for us to split. It's the opposite.
And the truth is that I would love to see people change, but I don't get up each day praying for that. I'm not smart enough for that. My prayers are simple when everything is said and done, it's asking God for the knowledge of God's will and then asking for the strength to carry that out.
I serve a congregation in the heart of NYC where our primary mission is outreach to the poor and those with limited or no housing. We collect mail for 500 people, offer daily and weekly food pantry, clothing and toiletries, some counseling and referral services, and a weekly dinner for a hundred folk. Our sanctuary is filled with clothing and worship. I spend my day constantly reminded, humbly reminded, of my role as servant.
It just so happens that I am gay and all my life people have come at me, challenging me, without knowing who I am. I stood at GA217 and listened to people offering con statements during witnessing that were some of the most hurtful and mean things I've ever heard - all in the name of Jesus Christ. I listened to a young man who had chosen to marry a woman instead of continuing to live as a person who was gay. He held up a picture of his wife and two kids and he attributed it all to Jesus Christ.
OK, the first group - maybe I would like to help them to change because of the hardness of heart that I felt in them, and how wrong I knew they were, and the hurt I know such words cause and the actions that can follow. But, I know I can't can't change them; I can just pray for them; serve others faithfully and as best as I can, use my voice, and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit.
The second group, like the gentleman with the family, how could I ever criticize where he believes God has led him? Why would I want to? To prove my point? No. Not ever. His choice is his and God's and I wish him and his family the very best and would stand by 100%. The truth is, I have stood by such individuals.
This is not about changing people, Rev. Tolbert, This is about stopping the oppression and marginalization and attacks on people who are LGBT - promoted and supported all too often by this, our, insitutional church and some of its members.
Neither group should be out to condemn the other or insist that their way is the right or only way. At that same GA, we were all there, worshipping, praying, and working for a united church. The roof did not collapse. In fact we ministered to one another. I was struck by the reality that we already have made the choice to be together - we're just conflicted about making it official.
Are some of us so conflicted and hate so much that we would give that up for another division? Rev. Tolbert, in all honesty, I have heard very few of the advocates or allies that I associate with suggest that all we need to do to solve this problem is for our opponents to leave the church. I have heard many, many voices suggest such things and worse about me and my sisters and brothers who are LGBT.
The ex-gay movement is a dangerous one in my opinion. I will speak out against it because I believe it is theologically unsound and terribly damaging. And, yes, there are voices that can only be defined as homophobic in that movement, in my opinion. I am sure you have read some of the pieces by the authors I note and others; there is some pretty harsh stuff there.
As for overtures, one of the responses I got to my piece was that the person who responded would fight to the death to keep G-6.0106b in and the queers out. He, too, was a minister. And that is not the strongest of comments. The constant work toward overtures is the constant widow at the door, knocking for justice. That's how I see this work. And what I believe with all my heart and have based my life upon is that when G-6.0106b is gone, what we will discover are the gifts we have to offer one another - and more, the God in one another that we have been missing.
And, we will heal, all of us hard hearts and all. We have too much to to do to keep this struggle going.
Thanks again for your note,
Ray
Rev. Ray Bagnuolo
Thanks for your note. I, too, seek a peaceful way - but to stay together - not to go our separate ways. I think that in a world of brokenness that we have more to offer others as part of our Gospel message by figuring out how to work together, live, pray, worship, and lead together - than to go our own ways. I think this struggle is the gift we have been given to resolve. For me, it is the new thing God is doing in this world. Simply, I just don't see gender identity as a good enough reason for us to split. It's the opposite.
And the truth is that I would love to see people change, but I don't get up each day praying for that. I'm not smart enough for that. My prayers are simple when everything is said and done, it's asking God for the knowledge of God's will and then asking for the strength to carry that out.
I serve a congregation in the heart of NYC where our primary mission is outreach to the poor and those with limited or no housing. We collect mail for 500 people, offer daily and weekly food pantry, clothing and toiletries, some counseling and referral services, and a weekly dinner for a hundred folk. Our sanctuary is filled with clothing and worship. I spend my day constantly reminded, humbly reminded, of my role as servant.
It just so happens that I am gay and all my life people have come at me, challenging me, without knowing who I am. I stood at GA217 and listened to people offering con statements during witnessing that were some of the most hurtful and mean things I've ever heard - all in the name of Jesus Christ. I listened to a young man who had chosen to marry a woman instead of continuing to live as a person who was gay. He held up a picture of his wife and two kids and he attributed it all to Jesus Christ.
OK, the first group - maybe I would like to help them to change because of the hardness of heart that I felt in them, and how wrong I knew they were, and the hurt I know such words cause and the actions that can follow. But, I know I can't can't change them; I can just pray for them; serve others faithfully and as best as I can, use my voice, and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit.
The second group, like the gentleman with the family, how could I ever criticize where he believes God has led him? Why would I want to? To prove my point? No. Not ever. His choice is his and God's and I wish him and his family the very best and would stand by 100%. The truth is, I have stood by such individuals.
This is not about changing people, Rev. Tolbert, This is about stopping the oppression and marginalization and attacks on people who are LGBT - promoted and supported all too often by this, our, insitutional church and some of its members.
Neither group should be out to condemn the other or insist that their way is the right or only way. At that same GA, we were all there, worshipping, praying, and working for a united church. The roof did not collapse. In fact we ministered to one another. I was struck by the reality that we already have made the choice to be together - we're just conflicted about making it official.
Are some of us so conflicted and hate so much that we would give that up for another division? Rev. Tolbert, in all honesty, I have heard very few of the advocates or allies that I associate with suggest that all we need to do to solve this problem is for our opponents to leave the church. I have heard many, many voices suggest such things and worse about me and my sisters and brothers who are LGBT.
The ex-gay movement is a dangerous one in my opinion. I will speak out against it because I believe it is theologically unsound and terribly damaging. And, yes, there are voices that can only be defined as homophobic in that movement, in my opinion. I am sure you have read some of the pieces by the authors I note and others; there is some pretty harsh stuff there.
As for overtures, one of the responses I got to my piece was that the person who responded would fight to the death to keep G-6.0106b in and the queers out. He, too, was a minister. And that is not the strongest of comments. The constant work toward overtures is the constant widow at the door, knocking for justice. That's how I see this work. And what I believe with all my heart and have based my life upon is that when G-6.0106b is gone, what we will discover are the gifts we have to offer one another - and more, the God in one another that we have been missing.
And, we will heal, all of us hard hearts and all. We have too much to to do to keep this struggle going.
Thanks again for your note,
Ray
Rev. Ray Bagnuolo
Friday, January 8, 2010
Ex-gay? Ex-loving.
Chances are that if you are a person who is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender - and you have struggled within the church - chances are, somewhere along the way you heard these words: "We love you but hate your sin." Nothing directed toward people who identify as LGBT could be more disingenuous, more filled with hubris than combining love for another with hatred of some part of their being.
Hamartia or ἁμαρτία, the Greek word for sin frequently used in the Second or New Testament has the meaning of "missing the mark." The idea that distance from God is what needs to be shortened in our faith and personal journeys removes the dialectical premise that Love either replaces sin or leaves one in the throes of sin, pitied and "loved" from a distance.
It is this play of the fear of sin on people and their faith that funds those out to eliminate homosexuality from the face of the earth, or to simply, sadly, leave the "sinners" behind.
The ex-gay and reparative therapy movement is smart and subtle enough not to alienate most people, since more and more we all know someone who is family and gay. So rather than take on families and love within families, these groups rally together in huge megalithic collaborations and create just enough doubt, enough fear, and enough compassion to justify peoples’ oppression of anyone who is LGBT that does not abide by or follow their path. And, are you surprised that the oppression is all couched in the shameful use of the love of Jesus Christ to achieve such goals?
Quoting from Kristin J. Temba's response to Professor Mark Achtemeier's "And Grace Will Lead Me Home," in which he tells his story of transition to supporting folk who are LGBT, Kristin outlines the somewhat frightening association and collaboration of well-funded groups out to turn Christian America straight. “One by One,” the group of which Kristin is a part, was founded in 1994. Since that time, it has found partnership with, among other anti-gay groups, “Love Won Out” (Focus on Family) and NARTH (National Association for Research of Therapy of Homosexuality). What none of these groups acknowledges is that the success rate for reparative therapy, according to the APA, is in the 1-2% range. What none of these groups acknowledge is that their primary therapeutic models, however they are designed, are about suppressing feelings. What none of these groups acknowledge is that public leaders of the ex-gay groups have themselves been unable to maintain their ex-gay status, often resigning in disgrace and then being replaced the next day, as if nothing had happened. (I won't name folk here, that's not my intention. A simple search will find the information, if you are interested.)
Also what none of these groups will acknowledge is what any person who is LGBT already knows, that there are people trapped in heterosexual relations because of pressure to conform. This is what the ex-gay movement is willing to accept and misrepresent so that they can create enough doubt in the public's mind to stop our church from being fully welcoming, without special caveats, to our sisters and brothers who are LGBT.
If we wait to be convinced of what we should do, change will not occur. That is the strategy of any group seeking to maintain the status quo - "Keep the debate going, have more studies, approach justice - but don't quite embrace it, and above all keep the church free of LGBT folks by whatever means, to whatever degree you can, especially from ordination, especially from marriage. Be willing to scare people into condescension without any guilt or consequences. Surround yourself in God to hold your assailants quiet.”
It is interesting that in the discussions taking place around the country about overtures to delete or change G-6.0106b that the ex-gay groups, well-funded, well-practiced, and so smooth...are in the mix of the discussion. To me, it's like bringing creationism and evolution into this critical reformation. And if you don't think that's an effective strategy, how many of you 100% believe in evolution? I would bet that there is some hedging of that for many that comes out as, "Well, you know, God can do whatever God wants to do. So, I'm pretty sure, but who knows." Just a little doubt, the smallest of doubt - the least of fear - has always been used to oppress others. This is no different.
I believe we have been given the wonderful ambiguity of God’s great creation, not to parse or compartmentalize it. It has been given to us to embrace. All the rhetoric, all the papers, all the Gagnons and Tembens and others who create the doubt - are only able to do so because we allow them. And, I am certainly not out to try and change any of these folk. But why are they so intent on changing me and others like me? Homophobia comes to mind.
It has all gotten so complicated that the answer is simple, really. What do we believe and where are we willing to stand in finally making this church a welcoming church and model for the Good News and others to follow. Are we so afraid of risk, that we are unable to see that our membership, relevance, and yes - treasuries, are all in decline because of our fears toward our sisters and brothers and tenacious embrace of the status quo? Are we so blind that we don’t see how these actions of exclusion make us complicit in the violence they engender? Is it any wonder people flee us...
You know, when Jesus set his face to Jerusalem, I am one of those who believe that he didn't know exactly what was going to happen. However, I do believe he knew it was going to be serious and dangerous. Yet, he went. He stayed on the path because of his love for us -- all of us -- and the attempt to shorten the distance, the hamartia, between all of us and God.
It's my belief, that any vote against the deletion of G-6.0106b is the opposite of Jesus' path that we profess to follow.
When did we come to be so fearful of one another? How did we forget that being Christian was not about "ex-ing" anyone, but about risking it all to love one another, in the name of Jesus Christ?
Ray Bagnuolo
January 8, 2010
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