Scripture: John 11:38-44
I want to reflect this morning both on the scripture and on the short poem that was presented to us both orally and visually.
Let me begin though with just a word about this Sunday that we’ve been referring to as Pride Sunday. Dian has already given a little background on where “pride” celebrations come from, why they take place at this time of year, and so forth. Pride celebrations are taking place in many communities this month, and especially this weekend, and have become important times for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender to make themselves visible, to have their presence in our life together recognized, to have their humanity recognized in a way that is both grounded in self-respect and asks for respect from others. It is about pride in that sense, respect and self-respect, not of course pride in the puffed up sense.
But why in the church, especially a church like Sojourners where we make an honest effort every Sunday to be inclusive, where we try to make clear that you do not have to hide who you are to come here, that the face of God is to be seen in the faces of all people, where we write it in our mission statement, print it in the bulletin every Sunday, and sing with a loud voice that “All Are Welcome”. Why a special pride Sunday at Sojourners?
The answer to the question from where I sit is a simple one. There is work to be done. There is a lot of unfinished business with regard to making the world out there a safe and fair and loving place for all of us to live, including our gay and lesbian friends. There is a lot of unfinished business in the church, the church meaning the whole of the Christian church, as well as other faith traditions, and the church meaning Sojourners. And there is a lot of unfinished business for all of us individually, for each of us, always, personally, a lot of unfinished business.
We have issues, unsettled issues, large public issues, also private and personal issues. A “pride” Sunday is a time to confess those issues, acknowledge them, explore them in relation to our faith. Like any such Sunday—a Sunday in honor of Black History month, for instance—the concerns we lift up are not one Sunday concerns, but every Sunday concerns, every day concerns. But on one Sunday we focus on those issues—a few of them anyway—as a kind of reminder and a witness to what should be an ongoing part of our congregational life.
I had been intending—from early on when we started talking about this service—I had been intending to talk about same sex marriage this morning. It’s the topic of the hour, isn’t it, garnering all sorts of attention from here and there and everywhere. Courts, congress, media, referenda, polls, churches. I had intended to weigh in on the subject. Our congregation has already weighed in, offering its official support to a resolution that will be voted on at our national assembly, General Synod, week after next. (Archie will be bringing us a report after he returns from there.) The conference of churches to which we belong has weighed in by voting its support for the same resolution, with only a little murmuring of dissent. I had intended to weigh in myself this morning. Given the fact that there are so many voices saying that the Christian thing is to be opposed to same sex marriage, and the fact that so many more moderate voices are not to be heard, it never hurts to have another voice to say that he or she is, because of her faith, in favor of same sex marriage. I was prepared to be such a voice.
But I have found myself recently moving in a different direction—not as far as my position on same sex marriage, but as far as what I wanted to speak about this morning. For one thing it does seem rather much like preaching to the choir. There’s a big difference between a so-called speaking out that takes place inside these walls where I am surrounded by friends and feel pretty safe to say what I believe, versus speaking out in other settings where it may not feel so safe to speak, and where it may not be clear either what is the wisest, most effective, or most loving way to speak. For that matter there is a big difference for Sojourners between having statements in our bulletin and providing what we hope will be a safe and affirming and loving space to be on Sunday mornings, all of which is a good thing to do, but there is a big difference between that and, let’s say, putting rainbow stickers on our doors, or a sign on the lawn. Where and when and in what way to speak are real issues for me and for us, and I have found myself wrestling with those sorts of issues much more than what I might have to say in support of same sex marriage this morning.
Then I came across the short poem that Ava read earlier, that begins, “When I say I’m a lesbian, you say it’s not an issue. Well it’s an issue for me…” Which is a sentiment that I think many of us can at least understand, and perhaps identify with. We can certainly understand and be grateful when someone says sincerely, “it’s not an issue for me”, meaning that a person’s sexual orientation…or race, or gender, or ethnicity or religious background does not, for that person, get in the way of recognizing the other person’s humanity or their holiness as a person made lovingly by God’s hand. We can certainly understand and be grateful for that sentiment that allows us to relate to each other, whoever we are, just as human beings.
But we can also understand that when “whoever we are” affects the way the world sees and treats us, when “whoever we are” changes for better or worse the way we see the world, when “whoever we are” results in prejudice and discrimination and forces us to change the way we live, or how we feel about ourselves, or how safe we feel, when “whoever we are” is not just a matter of some casual, incidental characteristics, but is a matter of who we are way on the inside, then of course it is an issue, whatever the “it” is, because we don’t wake up in the morning forgetting who we are and we don’t move about in a world where it makes no difference. And because we know people, love people, share the world with people whose “its” are different from our own, what is necessarily an issue for them may also become an issue for us.
Thinking along these lines, I found myself dealing with concerns that directly included issues related to sexual orientation but that were not limited to them. Listening to gay friends over the years tell their stories about coming out has given me new insights into myself and new ways of thinking about things.
For instance, the experience I’ve had as a white person of being in a group of white folks when a bigoted racial remark is made or a racial joke is told—a common experience that I’m sure many of us have had. In a few seconds we have to decide whether to say something, or let it pass. All too often, way too often in my life, I have failed that test. When the time came, usually in a kind of sudden way, I didn’t have the right words to say, or I didn’t have the guts, or I hadn’t answered all the questions, which might be excuses or might not, about whether this was the right time or place to raise the issue, and so for lots of reasons maybe I ended up being silent far too many times when I should have spoken.
For a long time I looked on these various incidents as just sort of isolated occasions where I would have an opportunity to do the right thing, and where as I say, I very often failed the test, and I felt a lot of shame and guilt about such things. I had done the wrong thing—which was to keep quiet—and it was a sin. I don’t know as I want to stop thinking of it that way because it is partly a question of doing the right thing.
But it is also a question, I have learned from listening the stories of my gay friends, an issue of coming out. It is not just a question of whether or not on this occasion or that I will do the right thing. It is a question of who I am, and who I know myself to be, and a question of how much of myself I am willing to reveal to whom and when. It is a decision about coming out. When the remark is made or the joke told, I must decide if I am willing to reveal myself as someone who doesn’t find the remark acceptable or the joke funny and who is not going to let it pass. It is a question of whether our response in such situations is a matter of a split-second decision or whether it is rooted more deeply in who we are.
I have found that I have done better, not well enough but better, in such situations as anti-racism has become for me less a bunch of things to do and more a part of who I am. It also helps me deal with my failures, because I have learned from coming out stories that coming out is not something you do once and it’s done, it’s an ongoing process, and it’s not always easy, and there will always be a next time, and it’s not just a matter of doing right by someone else but at the same time doing right by yourself. And of course everything I’ve said about this example involving racial remarks and jokes could be said in exactly the same way if the remarks and jokes we were dealing with involved sexual orientation instead.
It is of course just an accident that in the translation of the scripture we read this morning the words Jesus used to speak to Lazarus to bring Lazarus back to life were, “Lazarus, come out.” This is not a story about coming out in any of the modern senses that I have been speaking about it this morning. I didn’t choose the story because it contains that phrase. I chose it because it is a story about death and coming back to life.
I know, again from listening to sisters and brothers of different sexual orientations and identities, I know that it is not always easy to come out, not always safe to come out, that people make judgments about when to come out, in what way, to what degree and to whom. I know it is an ongoing process and that it never stops being an issue, and that it’s an issue in which there is not always a clear right and wrong. I also know that coming out is an issue for me too, as someone who hopes to be and continue becoming anti-racist at the very core of my being, who hopes that anti-racism will be part of my identity as a person and as a Christian, and that coming out is an issue for me too as someone who hopes in the center of my being and as a part of my identity as a person and as a Christian to be an ally to my sexual minority friends in their struggle for justice. And I know from my own coming out experiences in these areas and others that not coming out, not being able to reveal who you are and be who you are, is a kind of death.
That’s why I chose the Lazarus scripture reading. I believe that the more we are unable to come out to one another, in all sorts of ways, the more we remain hidden from one another in who we really are, the more like death life becomes, or at least the more lonely life becomes. I imagine Jesus as he is portrayed in this scripture, not as he has sometimes been portrayed as one stands ready to pronounce judgment upon us for who we are, but as one who summons us out of our isolation, who does say to us, “come out”, who invites us to reveal ourselves to each other, to open ourselves to others and be open to others, to find words to speak to each other of who we are and who we want to be, and of what we want the world to be, and of our faith and our visions of God, our disappointments and broken dreams and resilient hope.
And knowing how much I need to be encouraged and strengthened and supported in all of this, know how far I have to go in my own process of coming out, I read what Jesus said to the people who were tending Lazarus as they brought him out of his tomb all wrapped up tightly in his burial cloths, I read what Jesus said at that point and I forget that he was talking to Lazarus’ friends and family and hear him as though he were talking directly to me when he says, “Unbind him. Set him free.” Amen.
Jim Bundy
June 26, 2005