The love between David and Jonathan is the most powerful love story in the Hebrew Bible. You don’t hear much about it because it is suppressed by the heterosexist majority who are embarrassed. They say it was about bonding. They like to point out that both David and Jonathan had wives.
When we were working toward marriage equality at the William Way Community Center in Phialdelphia, it came to us to sponsor an annual prayer breakfast for marriage equality, even though it meant getting up very early in the morning. We invited leaders of the gay faith community, gay leaders of the faith community, and leaders of the faith community who were allies of the LGBT community. And we had exciting guest speakers.
I apologize that I do not remember the name of the woman whose impact was perhaps the most powerful. But her point was, the lives of millions of women had been affected, mostly negatively, by marrying gay men.
How different it might have been, had so-called biblical literati actually read the text?
Mournfully, David sang (2 Samuel 1:26): “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”
In 2 Corinthians (8:8) Paul writes that he is “testing the genuineness of [their] love.” He is trying to help the members of his church understand that giving is about the love involved, that the gift itself is almost irrelevant, when love is the purpose. It matters more that we give from the love in our hearts than the shape of what we give. Of course, this applies even more to the love shared between people. It is the love that matters more than the shape of the relationship. It is this law of love that is at the core of all LGBTQ love, it is this God-given law of love that defines us.
In Mark’s Gospel (5:34) Jesus says: “Go in peace … and be healed.” There passage contains two healing stories, but the point is that healing is in the community of love. That to be healed indeed is to go in peace. And that to go in peace is to be genuine in love.
It is “Pride” today in many cities in the us, timed traditionally to coincide with the anniversary of the liberating June 28, 1969 Stonewall Rebellion. The pride we celebrate as people created to love is the pride we have in the genuineness of the love we share. When we celebrate Pride, we go in peace … and we are healed.
Proper 8 Year B 2021 RCL (2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27; Psalm 130 De profundis; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43)
Life is full of “surprises.” It is what makes life “interesting.” I’ve been having a string of these “interesting times” lately.
And yet, love keeps pulling me through.
And that is God’s message to us through Christ, that love is always the answer.
Today I look out my window at lush greenery under gentle almost-summer sunshine. My little family is slowly coming back together. My husband smiles; he is so filled with love it is at once a surprise and a comfort. But it clearly is his clue to resilience and longevity.
God tells us that as a church of believers God is our sure foundation. We have to translate that language a little bit. We have to understand that the “church” is a community designed for the building up of love. After all, that is what “worship” is all about, that we should all give as much love as we can in community. Think about how your heart melts during worship and how much love is built up in you before the end. Now, think about how that is true of every person in the worship. Now do you get it? It is for the “us” that we gather to worship, because when we do we build up that sure foundation of love.
When I first began evangelism (in the Episcopal way, I mean) in the LGBTQ community, I think the most striking reality for me was the sheer number of faithful LGBTQ people in the pews. It was a sign of the love in the hearts of our LGBTQ friends, that our love was helping to build up the community. And in the Episcopal Church, where we experienced not only tolerance, not only acceptance, but full communion and full community in the ordination of LGBTQ clergy and the support of adoption for LGBTQ families and the equalization of the marriage rite to apply to all humans—these all were signs of the active shared love of God. The second striking reality, then, was my discovery that everywhere I went in the Philadelphia gayborhood I encountered faithful LGBTQ people who were not members of any faith community but who were committed to walk in God’s love. I discovered walking those brick sidewalks and cobblestone streets, dropping by the William Way LGBT Community Center, tending a booth at PrideFest and OutFest, that there was a large community of LGBTQ people walking in love. Evangelism in this community was a joy. It was primarily the action of being lovingly present together.
Time is that inexorable human creation that we use to sequence events in God’s space that all always exist. Last Sunday I was unable to post here but I was able to celebrate on Facebook the 23rd anniversary of my ordination as a priest. In the secular world today is Father’s Day. June is LGBTQ Pride month in the USA so many cities (like Portland, Oregon) are having pride festivals today (the traditional celebrations likely still virtual in places such as San Francisco and New York will take place next week, to coincide with the anniversary of the June 28, 1969 Stonewall Rebellion). In the church calendar it is the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost. The lessons include the stories of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49) and Jesus’ stilling of the storm (Mark 4:35-41). Both are fine examples of faith in the salvation of walking in love. David, facing the challenge of his life with love in his heart is confident that God’s love will prevail. David knows that God’s love is salvation in every aspect of life and that giving love is the deliverance God promises to all of us. Jesus is sleeping in the boat being tossed about on a stormy sea while the disciples tremble in panic. When their panic reaches a fever pitch they wake Jesus who rebukes them for forgetting to love, for letting their focus settle on fear instead of faith. The fact that Jesus is asleep shows us the power of the love of God that is full within him. The sea is stilled because love demands it.
In celebration of the anniversary of my ordination I posted this photo of me blessing folks immediately after the ordination.
As I look at that smile on my face I remember the feeling I had at the time that was not unlike the metaphor of the calm after the stilling of the storm that had been my decade-long walk toward that moment. The love in that moment was what set me out on those brick and cobblestones to bring the Good News to those in the LGBTQ community who so eagerly walked already in love.
In 2 Corinthians (6:1-13) Paul reminds us that “now” always is “the acceptable time … the day of salvation.” It is his way of reminding us that it is always the time for walking in love. The inexorability of space-time in the dimension of love means that now is always the culmination of all time and thus the culmination of our calling to walk in love. And now is always the potential moment of salvation because now is always the potential moment of love.
Our job as Christians is to keep God’s love uppermost always and never to give into fear. Our job as LGBTQ Christians is to continue always to walk in the love that is the God-given trait that defines our very creation. The potential moment of love is now.
Proper 7 Year B RCL 2021 (1 Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49; Psalm 9:9-20 Confitebor tibi; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41)
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 