None, but, of course, us*

Gay people need to get over their fear of St. Paul. You know, he was not homophobic, that is a stance that has been put on him (schol.: attributed to) by the right wing. Look at this lesson from the letter to the Romans, but first look at the whole of the letter to the Romans, in which his circular argument is that a) some people are homosexual; b) it scares us because we are uninformed; and c) sexuality is irrelevant, the true law is Christ’s law of loving one another.

So let’s look at this Romans 8:26-39.

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray … but the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

Sighs, too deep for words. How many times have you had sighs too deep for words? Many times, of course; we all have. This is how we know that we are part of God; our God has sighs too deep for words, they are the wings of the prayers of our souls borne to heaven by the Spirit. On the other hand, God hears also those sighs of ours that are too deep for words. It means it is okay, words are not necessary. God hears. God knows.

“God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit.” Well, what more explanation do you need? God searches your heart. God knows how to match what is in your heart, with what is in the mind of the Spirit. Does that seem fantastical to you? Try to think of it in concrete terms. God, who is the energy and spirit of everything, knows exactly where you plug into the everything, just like a circuit map knows where every synapse in a network lies. And, God, who is the Spirit of everything, knows how what is in your heart is the flow along the circuit of the Spirit.

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” Paul does not answer this question with a list of “whoms” but rather with a series of rhetorical questions. His conclusion is that “no, in all these things we are more than conquerors.”

And here is the entire sum of the Gospel of Paul, the founder of Christianity, the interpreter of the mind of God who became Man so that we might understand the mind of God:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. “

So, what does that mean? It means that you and me, gay and lesbian people, need to stop keeping ourselves from the love of God. It means that nothing on earth can separate you from the love of God in Christ. Nothing. Nothing, but, of course, us. It is only we ourselves who can prevent us from knowing the love God stretches out for us.

In Matthew’s Gospel this week we have the famous parable of the mustard seed. It is like last week’s parables, in that on the surface the reader easily thinks that the meaning is about good and evil. But I want you to think back on what I said last week. The meaning is, that everything is all mixed up. Look at it. A tiny seed, planted in a huge field, still grows into a tree. A tiny yeast, mixed in with a huge measure of flour, still makes bread. A treasure buried in a field still comes to fruition. A single pearl is enough. A net thrown into the sea captures a huge mess, but the good fish are there too. The key is that the good lways overcomes even the mess that surrounds it.

Of course, we are this tiny treasure. We are a few gay and lesbian people in a vast see of over-confident people who think that they are “normal.” My heart sank to see Saturday’s column from “Dear Abby” featuring a letter from a man who in his teens was beaten by his father for being gay, who married and pretended to be straight for 25 years until his wife died. And now in his fifties he wonders whether gay people will accept him? But of course, the question is, can he accept himself? And what of the sexless marriage his deceased wife had to endure for 25 years? Talk about burying your treasure.

God wants you to bring out your treasure, your gayness, your lesbianness, your natural nurturing love. God wants you to bring that out into the open and use it to nurture all of the mustard seeds of the world.

*Proper 12 (Genesis 29: 15-28; Psalm 105:1-11, 45b; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52)

Let anyone with ears listen*

What a week just past. Sometimes we should just stick with the scripture. To wit:

In Genesis 28 Jacob leaves. It says he left and went. It sounds rather like one of those critical moments in life, one of those things that presses on your soul, and then in the telling of the story it becomes simply “he left … and went.” But in leaving and going he found a place where God is and was. Of course, it was in his vulnerability, sleeping on the ground, exhausted on his journey, that he discovered God always is at hand. It was in his vulnerability that he discovered the very gate of heaven.

It is a metaphor, of course, for every life lived. For we who are lgbt people, it is a metaphor about how our lives are led in a constant state of coming out; we always are having to leave and go. And it is in the leaving and going and coming out that we find in our moment of vulnerability that God has opened the very gate of heaven to us, right where we are.

In Psalm 139 we are reminded by the psalmist that we are in relationship with God and that the relationship is mutual. God searches us out, God knows us, God discerns our thoughts, God traces our going out and lying down, God is everywhere, and the very gate of heaven is right where we are in every moment, God opens it to us. God knows our prayers, our needs, our very essence. Did you think free will meant your thoughts had no consequences? You may think what you will, but bear in mind your thoughts are universal and are always part of God’s very consciousness.

Our very being as lgbt children of God is embraced as part of God’s universal omniscient omnipotent consciousness. Open your hearts and thoughts to God with gladness; God rejoices in the searching out and knowing of you.

In Romans 8 we are reminded that in our adoption as children of God we are the first fruits of the Spirit, of the whole of creation that has been groaning in labor pains that we might be born as children of God, and in the realization of our childhood, in that moment in which we cry out “Abba! Father!” full in the knowledge of our salvation in the arms of our loving God—it is in that moment that we know truly that it is in hope that we are saved. “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?”

Paul focuses on the split between flesh and Spirit—he means that we must be aware that God is searching us out and knowing us, that God is with us on our journeys, that the gate of heaven always is opened to us, if we can get past our own selfishness. Lgbt people hold their breath when these passages come up because, as we know, so often we are falsely held out as “flesh” for our sexualities; but the thing to remember is that all of humanity is sexual, even heterosexuals[!]. For every human the question is how to remain constantly in awareness of our relationship with God so that we can find our salvation, in the hope known in God’s embrace. Yes, as we know, even lgbt people are children of God finding hope in God’s embrace.

In Matthew’s gospel chapter 13 Jesus tells a parable about sowing good seed in a field where an enemy later sows weeds. Of course Jesus is telling this parable to his followers to give them an example to internalize about good and evil. But the story is much richer than that after all. It says first and foremost that everything is always all mixed up. There is good seed among the weeds (which is the rather more optimistic version of the interpretation; but if you need a concrete example you should see my garden). The righteous, the good seeds, grow up and shine even among the weeds. Not even the enemy’s weeds can so choke out the righteous that God and God’s angels cannot find the children of God.

Certainly lgbt people know all about being mixed up in fields full of weeds, and other distractions from the fullness of life we yearn for. All of the scripture here tells us that God has, in fact, guaranteed our very salvation, our very hope, our very destiny as God’s own. Do not be obsessed about the weeds, instead leave and go, keep coming out, unto that place where you find the gate of heaven.

What a week just past—we began with a world obsessed with the World Cup, we end with a world in mourning at the tragic loss of life in an airliner shot down, and in the latest round of apparently constant war in Gaza. Everything is always all mixed up, indeed.

“But the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!” [Matt. 13:43]

*Proper 11 (Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23; Romans 8: 12-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43)

Free at last*

There is no more powerful scripture in the Christian canon than this: [Romans 8:1=2] “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”

You and I know that we are faced constantly with condemnation by our peers. And you and I who are gay know that we are constantly, even now more than 2000 years since these words were preached by the apostle Paul, constantly still condemned for who we are. Now, some of us think we should explain our way out of this, by reminding people that Jesus set us free. Some of us think we should shame our way out of this by shaming people for wearing clothes that mix fiber and leather, or shaming people who eat meat and vegetables together. In secular society, thank goodness (and maybe God, we’ll see) we are able to argue rationally that two people standing next to each other ought to have the same rights under the law. This seems to be working. Just because we are gay does not mean we should not have equality under the law. And people who think that homosexuality is condemned by God are just wrong. Go never has condemned people for loving each other. In Leviticus, those rules are for worship in the Temple; to worship a god other than our God in God’s temple is idolatry, clear and simple. But this is over the head of most followers of simpleton religiosity. This also is why all of those other Levitican laws are no longer relevant, indeed, have not been since Christ told us His commandments replace all of the law and the prophets.

Love one another, that’s it. That means respect one another. It means do not judge one another. It means help one another.

The court arguments about marriage equality are frightening for us because each argument means begging the heterosexist majority please to stop harming us. But, we cannot expect them to listen to reason if in two thousand years they still have not done so. Why is that? Because it is in their interest to keep us oppressed. We have to stand up. We have to say “no more.” We have to stop apologizing for being gay as God made us.

The answer, as usual, is in Christ my friends, whenever we live in the Spirit of Christ we walk in the light of God. And whenever we live in the spirit of self we walk in the path of what Paul calls “the flesh.” Did you think he meant sex? You were wrong. He meant self and self-ishness. Try that out tomorrow when you get cut off on 94. You have a choice. Love the other driver and let him have his way, evil as it might be. Or, judge yourself equal with God and run him into the ditch—after all, he deserves it, right?

See?

To those who despair of marriage equality in the United States I say “good for you, keep despairing.” I know of no reason to think the courts will find in our favor if we insist on pushing this to the highest level. To those who think “oh, they have to find for us” I say, you are fooling yourselves. They are in charge, and if in 2000 years they have not listened to Christ why do you think they will bother to do so now? On the other hand, those of us who are married have to insist on our rights. Every time I turn around my university has changed my marital status on some document from “married” to “single.” I have to call them each time. I have proof that I am married. They have to acknowledge that. Unfortunately, I have to constantly remind them. Just as we need constantly to stand up and be who we are in the light of Christ.

Hopeless? No, not quite. For their is no condemnation in Christ. That is the good news. After all, Christ is God, and Christ who is God is all that matters. We, in Christ, are free.

 

[To my regular readers (all both of you) I apologize for the hiatus; I lost my muse when I discovered my students were reading this instead of the academic blog I write for them. Maybe it will come back. We’ll see. God loves you. Don’t forget that.]

*Proper 10 (Genesis 25:19-34; Psalm 119:105-112; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9,18-23)