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Leaping Unashamed Before God
Leaping Unashamed Before
God
by Bishop V. Gene Robinson
On July 10,
Pride Day, openly gay NH Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson preached to
a diverse congregation that packed at St. Paul's Cathedral in Burlington.
Following is the text of his remarks.
For many people, you and I are their worst
nightmare. Earlier today, you and I walked the streets and celebrated
together, proud and unafraid. Gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered
and God knows who else, not begging for – but claiming equality,
recognition and freedom, and celebrating the people we were created to
be. Black / white / Latino and Asian, male and female, rich and poor,
fat and thin, buff and flabby, closeted and in-your-face, out and not-so-out,
rural naive and urban cool, timid and bold, celebrating what many people
think we ought to be ashamed of. Gathering strength from one another,
singing our songs, making our campy jokes, acting as if "who we are"
is the most normal thing on earth. Today, the love that only a few years
ago dared not speak its name, will refuse to shut up. And for lots of
folks across Vermont, and across this nation, it's their worst nightmare.
We come here to celebrate! And to remember
how far we've come. Oh, I know we've got a long way to go; there is still
much to do. There's still too much violence and prejudice and disease;
too little justice and too much hatred. But oh how far we've come! And
in our impatience to claim our full and rightful place as citizens of
this land, we need to stop and celebrate how much has been accomplished.
There is hardly a line of work in America
that doesn't now have a gay professional association working for equal
rights and treatment in the workplace. Many of us who are partnered now
enjoy the same employment benefits and privileges that our married co-workers
do. Many of us have shared with our families
the truth about who we are and have found love to be stronger than shame,
and we enjoy an honest relationship with our families that we never dreamed
possible. The State of Vermont, as you well
know, passed into law the most sweeping civil acknowledgment that our
families ARE families in every sense of the word, due in no small part
to the fact that a lot of straight, small town, middle-America, state
legislators got to experience the abusive tactics and corrosive hatred
that have so long been used against us, and then did what was right rather
than what was expedient.
And now, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court has declared there to be no impediment – indeed for there
to be a civil right – to marriage for ALL citizens of the Commonwealth,
not just its heterosexual citizens. Could any of us, a few years ago,
dreamt that we would see this in our lifetimes?! Oh, we've come a long
way! And there is much to celebrate.
But still, we are a real nightmare for
many of our brothers and sisters in various faith traditions. And what
we celebrate and proclaim here today is far more unnerving to our religious
establishments than our marching in the streets of downtown Burlington:
That we are worthy to hold our heads high as gay folk – NOT because
we've merely decided we are worthy, but because God has proclaimed it
so. That we are loved beyond our wildest imagining by a God who made us
the way we are and proclaimed it good. We proclaim today that we too read
our Torah, Koran, Bibles, and other holy scriptures, and through the voices
of their many witnesses, we hear God's voice – NOT saying "You
are an abomination," but rather, "You are my beloved."
We lay an equal claim to a God who loves us as we are and who redeems
us from our sins – sins, which do NOT, by the way, include our being
gay. And we come here today, laying claim to our full membership –
our FULL membership – in the family of God. What a blessing to us
– and what a nightmare to some!
Permit me to read one of the most astounding
stories from the early church, one of those magnificent moments in the
early days of the Church. [Acts 3: 1-10] Peter and John and the "man
lame from birth" were the religious establishment's worst nightmare.
In the early days of the Church, soon after Jesus' resurrection, the disciples
are amazed to find that they were able to do marvelous things in his name.
On this day, Peter and John have stopped to notice a beggar at the gate
going into the Temple. The beggar asked for alms, but Peter says "I
have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the Name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk." He not only walks, the scriptures
say that he jumped up and entered the Temple with Peter and John, literally
"leaping and praising God." Healed from his crippled state,
this nameless beggar points to and praises the God and His resurrected
Christ, who through Peter's touch, has granted him a whole new life.
Why was this a nightmare for the religious
leaders? Not just because this healing was done in the name of this Jesus
whom they had tried to do away with, and who seemed to be more powerful
and dangerous dead than he was alive. But because this man's healing turns
their world upside down. Let's face it: This beggar knew his place in
the universe. He had been assured by the priestly powers-that-be that
he was paying a price for his sins – or if not his, then the sins
of his father. Here was a man who had become so accustomed to begging,
and to the shame he felt, he hardly remembered how to hold his head up
anymore. And then along comes Peter, and in one moment, the beggar is
healed – not only from his lameness, but from the oppression he'd
so completely bought into. This man, rendered unclean by his infirmity,
and who knows that his place is only at the gate of the temple, suddenly
realizes that his place is IN the temple, inside not outside, leaping
and dancing and praising God for his healing. And in that same moment,
the Jewish authorities see the demise of their power over him. This man
would NEVER go back to begging, never settle for sitting at the periphery
of religious life, never see himself as anything less than a child of
God. What a nightmare!
And the Jewish Council, knows that "it
is obvious to all who live in Jerusalem that a notable sign has been done
through them," and horrified that this cripple-made-whole has become
an irrefutable witness to the power of the risen Christ. And they foolishly
warn Peter and John to speak no further of this Jesus – to which
Peter and John utter some first century equivalent of "HEL-LO!"
A nightmare for these religious leaders, whose neat and tidy grip on life
was crumbling before their eyes.
Not all of us subscribe to the stories of
the Christian New Testament, but you and I know this story. You and I
have been that lame beggar, believing what the church, synagogue or mosque
told us: that our infirmity made us unacceptable to God; that we were
responsible for our own shame; and that we dared not come any closer than
the gate of the Temple. And then, for you and me and other religious gay
folk, someone comes along and touches us in the Name of God, and we are
no longer crippled, no longer victims of our own oppression, no longer
estranged from the God who made us. And so we come here today –
Inside the "temple" – to shout and leap and dance and
praise the God who has saved us and made us whole. And though we too are
warned to stop our shouting and to go back to our place outside the gates,
like Peter and like the lame man, how can we NOT tell the story of our
own salvation at the hands of a loving God?! We have tasted God's liberation
of us – and that toothpaste is never going to go back into the tube!
It would be nice to be able to stop right
there – but there's one more thing. Good news like this always has
a price. We have been given the gift of "new and unending life in
Him," but it comes with a responsibility. You and I have spent the
better part of today with lots of folks who don't know God, who don't
know that there is an eternal source for their self-affirmation, who don't
know that real happiness and peace comes from the wholeness that only
God can give. They have been so hurt by their communities of faith, it
is the last place on earth they'd look for healing and wholeness. To these,
our lesbian sisters and gay brothers, you and I need to come out –
about God. If we don't tell them, who will?
And many of us will be returning to our
places of worship tomorrow with people who still want us to be begging
at the gate, still ashamed of our infirmity, still on the periphery of
the Faith. But the people of first century Jerusalem, even the Jewish
leaders, could not deny that the beggar's healing was "of God,"
a notable sign of God's saving grace in his life. You and I are called
to live OUR lives in ways that make God's saving grace undeniable. And
you and I need to come out to them as well – about God. You and
I need to tell the story of our salvation at the hands of a loving God
in such a way that they can recognize that the God WE know is the God
THEY know. Don't simply talk about being gay. Talk about how God has come
into your life and touched you and healed you and loved you so much it
makes you want to leap and dance. Only then will their hearts be warmed.
Only then will God have a chance to heal THEIR infirmity.
We've got a lot to celebrate today. We are
loved by God beyond our wildest imagining. It is time to walk and run
and leap and dance and praise God – gay and straight, young and
old, male and female, people of every color of the rainbow. This is no
nightmare. This is God's dream coming true!