Do we sometimes use what privilege we have against others with less power?  How can we always be aware of our own tendency to leave someone out and, instead, trust God to provide what is needed for the good of all? 

In what ways have we settled for mere survival — for tolerance and pity — rather than demanding that we be celebrated for who and what we are?  In what ways have we confined others to mere survival as well?

What truths have we been holding in that need to be proclaimed?  Are there truths in our pews that we have neglected to see?

How have LGBT people of faith and their allies faced division and rejection when they decide to follow their call to be faithfully out of the closet?  When have LGBT people and our allies — as well as people of color, women and members of other oppressed groups — seen friends, family members or members of our faith communities turn against us when we openly claim God’s promise that we are fully welcome to God’s table and that our gifts for service and leadership are equally valid?

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Proper 8)

June 29, 2008

    From Violence to Peace, Exclusion to
    Hospitality

This week we encounter terrifying commands and prophesy from patriarchs, prophets and apostles. Abraham is asked to sacrifice Isaac, the very embodiment of God’s promise of a great lineage. Jeremiah recalls those who prophesied war, famine and pestilence. Paul notes that we move from slavery to sin to slavery to righteousness. In each instance, hard words give way to promise: Isaac is spared, the true prophet speaks peace, discipleship is recast as freedom.

This week's lectionary Bible passages:

Genesis 22:1-14 & Psalm 13 or Jeremiah 28:5-9 & Psalm 89: 1-4; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:40-42

“Will I worship a God who demands hu-
man sacrifice? Decidedly not! But this story of Isaac and Abraham seems to me to say that God continues to communicate and calls us to keep our ears and hearts open to new understandings of God's will in our lives. I can embrace that!"

Julienne Buenting

“If obedience to God can only be proven through one’s willing-
ness to sacrifice one’s child, then faithful disobedience is required."

Scott Haldeman

“As we listen for God's word amid all that we hear — as we try to discern what comes from the Spirit and what is false prophesy — these texts guide us.  They call us to listen for the word which saves, which challenges us with its truth-telling, which calls us to be instruments of God's goodness and grace, and which invites us to welcome all in God's name.” 

Nate Metrick

“Faithful discipleship sometimes requires engaging a world of conflict. Our desire for peace and our longing to raise the ‘festal shout’ ought not to be satisfied with vain hopes and cheap imitations of shalom, but only with the real thing, which requires, as Jeremiah knew, a truth-telling about our vulnerability and our failings.”

Timothy J. San-
doval

    What's Out in the Conversation
    A conversation about this week's lectionary Bible passages

This week we discover that the Word of God, words that nourish and empower, is not always the same as the word-by-word text read from the Bible. Where is the Word of God in the midst of so many words in the Bible? 

Paul, in Romans 6:12-23, with no hint of hesitation, relies on the metaphor of slavery to communicate the dynamic between obedient disciple and divine Master. Of course, slavery is not remarkable in his day. Slavery was simply one of the institutions that “was” and so serves well his purpose of describing the conversion of the heart in those who find themselves turning to God as known in and through the Crucified One: “You, having been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and … you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness” (verse 17-18).  

Yet, even as he proceeds, Paul lets us know that such an analogy is not necessarily the last word: “I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations” (verse 19). And so, are we not free to shift the metaphor, to find more fitting words to describe our relationship with the One whose very name is Love? While slavery still exists, the ownership of one human being by another can no longer be justified. Faith that is reduced to obedience to tyrannical power is similarly unsuitable as a description of the Gospel’s good news.

	We have discarded both the institution of slavery and its usefulness as a metaphor to describe the life of faith. Can we not also leave behind the stories that have been used to condemn same-sex love, listening instead for a word of freedom?

In Genesis 22:1-14, Abraham hears a voice that stays his hand, halts the arc of the knife: “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to harm him!” (verse 12). Does God repent of the command? Did Abraham pass the test or did he fail it? Might the words that are placed in the mouth of a male angel actually be the cry of Sarah, Isaac’s mother, who laughed at the news that she would bear a son in her old age, this son now bound upon an altar? 

Many LGBT daughters and sons have been sacrificed on the altar of so-called obedience to God, to church authority, to the idol of “family values.” Whether told directly that this is the best way to deal with a child who has come out or simply having absorbed the deadly message that to be queer is to be condemned, many parents subject their children to harmful reparative therapies or reject them altogether. Even when rooted in sincere concern for both happiness in this life and salvation in the next, such obedience is not faithfulness. Abraham and Sarah are, after all, on a risky yet rewarding sojourn into unknown territory – a promised land towards which God is leading them. They leave everything behind to risk that God’s promises are true. This is not a story of keeping things the way they have always been, but of striking out towards an ill-defined but exhilarating future. “Do not harm the child” (verse 12), the angel says still.  And, we might add, “Come with me to a land where God provides, where the vulnerable are protected, where the knife of sacrifice is laid aside.”

An additional image of God’s promised future may be contained within Psalm 13. Is it Isaac who cries out? Is it the one bound on an altar of narrowly construed propriety or morality (even so-called faithful obedience) who feels as if God is hiding the divine face and yet who continues to trust? Is not this one the one who is saved, who rejoices as God’s love embraces, who sings of God’s bountiful gifts of life and love?

	What or whom are you sacrificing — whether by condemning, killing or abandoning — in the name of obedience as the angel cries out “do not harm this one”?

Jeremiah 28:5-9 challenges us to discern the welcome-but-false prophesy from the harder-but-true divine word. The prophet Hananiah predicts peace and return — yet conflict, alienation and exile define reality for those to whom he speaks. In our own day, disease ravages, famine sweeps across the globe, and war and rumors of war are heard at every turn. As in Jeremiah’s time so in ours, we must listen closely for the word that is from God. In this passage, Jeremiah is criticizing Hananiah for prophesying wrongly, for promoting peace and restoration of the people.  Jeremiah is convinced that such promises are false. Hananiah, one might say, preaches an easier word, a word that people in the ruler Zedekiah’s court no doubt longed to hear, a nationalist word, a word in his and his own people’s self-interest. But according to Jeremiah, this word is deceptive — a term he uses not here, but in other places to great effect (for example in 7:4)). The word of peace must wait.

For Jeremiah, and so perhaps for us, this is a moment in which we are called not to shrink from or turn a blind eye to conflict, but instead to enter and diagnose the signs of the times so that the word of peace, the word of shalom, that we long to hear, long to proclaim, might come to pass.

Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18 offers the deeper truth, assuring us of God’s abiding covenantal faithfulness and peace. God’s love is steadfast. God’s faithfulness need not be doubted. Whether or not, as it seems for Jeremiah, we will only know that the promise of peace is sure when it comes to pass. With the psalmist we can walk in the light of God’s promise and join in the festal shout that God is leading us home!

	Where do you hear a word of hope that can sustain faith when you feel far from home? What word of hope do you have to sustain others who may find themselves on the verge of despair?

Matthew 10:40-42 places the responsibility for hospitality back in our own hands. We are to welcome the prophet in the name of a prophet, the righteous one in the name of righteousness, the little ones who are thirsty in the name of the disciples. Of course, we are also to allow ourselves to receive hospitality — to be welcomed and, thereby, to represent Christ to those who offer us a place at the table and a cup of refreshment. God is not pushing us away but waiting to be welcomed. The word of exclusion gives way to the word of welcome – the word of violence to the word of peace and the word of bondage to the word of freedom.

	What water, what word of welcome, do you have to offer those who remain thirsty for love and hope and embrace?

       
    Holy One, in whom alone we trust,
    You who do not delight in the blood of children sacrificed,
    You who do not take pleasure when parents reject or
         try to “fix” their LGBT daughters and sons,
    You who require that we never say, “I have no need of you”
         to another member of the One Body,
    You whom we welcome when we ignore the thirst of those parched in the
    deserts of alienation,
    You who entrust us with your work of reconciliation, hospitality and
    healing,
    Provide for us this day grace, freedom, power and hope,
         that we might communicate your welcome to all,
    In the name of the One who said “Come unto me and I will give you rest,”
    Amen.

Bible passages are selected based on the Revised Common Lectionary, copyright © 1992 by Consultation on Common Text (CCT). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Proper 9)

July 6, 2008

    God - Confounding Expectations

Over and over again, God uses the unconventional to speak truth, to bring peace, to shape the life of faith in new and surprising ways. On a donkey, the one who brings peace to the nations confronts mighty armies who bear down upon the nation in their intimidating chariots. Here is our Ruler — not looking or acting the way we expected, not following the way of common sense or conventional wisdom. So, too, even Jesus does not appear as he “should.”

This week's lectionary Bible passages:

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67 & Psalm 45:10-17 or Song of Solomon 2:8-13 or Zechariah 9:9-12 &Psalm 145:8-14; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

“Will I worship a God who demands human sacrifice? Decidedly not! But this story of Isaac and Abraham seems to me to say that God continues to communicate and calls us to keep our ears and hearts open to new understandings of God's will in our lives. I can embrace that!"

Nate Metrick

“If obedience to God can only be proven through one’s willingness to sacrifice one’s child, then faithful disobedience is required."

Julienne Buenting

“As we listen for God's word amid all that we hear — as we try to discern what comes from the Spirit and what is false prophesy — these texts guide us.  They call us to listen for the word which saves, which challenges us with its truth-telling, which calls us to be instruments of God's goodness and grace, and which invites us to welcome all in God's name.” 

Timothy J. Sandoval

“Faithful discipleship sometimes requires engaging a world of conflict. Our desire for peace and our longing to raise the ‘festal shout’ ought not to be satisfied with vain hopes and cheap imitations of shalom, but only with the real thing, which requires, as Jeremiah knew, a truth-telling about our vulnerability and our failings.”

Scott Haldeman

    What's Out in the Conversation
    A conversation about this week's lectionary Bible passages

In Zechariah 9:9-12, we see a description of life that is not wholly unfamiliar.  Mired in a war without end, we remain vulnerable and afraid. Terrorism is a tactic, not a discrete group of people. It cannot be defeated; it can only be proven ineffective. We need a peace-maker. But will we recognize our “king”  (verse 9b), our new leader, if she appears?  We may expect a general. We may wish for a “decider.” We may even get one — and regret it! But, entrapped by the wisdom of the world and notions of a leader as one who is strong, authoritative, charismatic, mighty — we may miss the arrival of the one who is meek, self-effacing, vulnerable. Yet it is precisely the “weak” sort of leader that may be the one sent by God to interrupt business as usual, to “command peace” (verse 10).

The prophet may also make us wonder if we misrecognize ourselves. Are we the blessed of God under threat from invaders, terrorists and radical clerics? Are we those confined in the waterless pit (verse 11) , who have forgotten our need, lost our way, become entrapped by our own self-concern? Are we the ones who are vulnerable outside of our stronghold or those who build the walls to bar the way of the stranger and alien? It seems we may be all of these at the same time — at once understandably fearful of the many dangers that may harm us and regretfully preoccupied only with our own fate, reluctant to dismantle barriers and build bridges to those whom we see as enemies.  May we yet become “prisoners of hope”(verse 12)  rather than of cynical self-interest.

	Are you willing to be a “prisoner of hope,” one who risks humiliation and scorn to bring a word of peace, to declare that the conflict is over and a new day is dawning?

While our bodies have often been labeled as the occasion of sin, as Paul writes in Romans 7, we have nonetheless been promised rescue.  That Paul was at war with his body can be some comfort to those of us who feel at war with our body — especially if that body does not reflect our sense of our own gender in a society that strongly enforces that one is either “man” or “woman” (and that the body is the determiner of that identification).  For any of us who identify along the trans and gender-queer spectrum, for any of us who have come to resent or even hate our bodies (the ways they’re shaped, the particular fluids they produce, the various ranges of sound they make, the sort of barrier they can be to other people seeing us as we want to be seen), Paul can offer both company in that frustration, and a deeply felt faith in the rescue of Christ.  It is not clear how Christ is rescuing us — and has already rescued us — but it is easy to imagine that this rescue might take many forms.  These forms include, but not limited to: reconciling us to our bodies, helping us through the process of transforming them, guiding the transformation of our communities and the ways they perceive and perform gender.  What Romans makes absolutely clear, however, is that we are meant to “delight in the law of God in [our] inmost [selves]” (verse 22), whether or not our bodies feel like a sin against us, whether or not our flesh feels like something in which nothing good can dwell.  And it gestures towards the knowledge that God comes into the frustration and the wrestling and confusion to be with us and to free us, and to support that truest law of love and alignment in us.

	Are you willing to allow yourself to be rescued from dualistic notions that in the flesh there is nothing good, from the war so many of us wage against our bodies, from the condemnations of the churches who cannot see us as anything but sinners?  What are the things you need to be rescued from in your relationship with your body?  What role does God play in that relationship, or rescue?

As they are juxtaposed by the lectionary, our selected verses from Genesis 24 and the Song of Songs seem to define faithful forms of erotic relationship in rather stereotypical forms. Isaac needs a wife, it seems. The wife must be of respectable lineage — not a Canaanite but a relative of his leading servant, the one who “had charge of all that [Abraham] had” (verse 2). And so the unnamed servant is dispatched to his home country to procure a maiden. All pretty familiar stuff and pretty awful —ethnocentrism, sexism, the arbitrary exercise of patriarchal authority, the epitome of an arranged marriage, the wife as comforter of a beloved son who recently lost his mother.

Still, the story is far from simple. Rebekah consents without coercion to leave her family and set out on an adventure. She brings both her nurse and her maids. As soon as she sees Isaac, she “slips from the camel … took her veil and covered herself” (verse 64) — this covering may reflect conventions in which the public exposure of a woman’s shape is suspect, but given that she apparently rode her camel without the veil, Rebekah may also be feeling the stirring of attraction at the sight of a new love. It is, at least, made clear that Isaac “loved her” (verse 67). While few today would agree that this is the best way to find a spouse and begin a marriage, in the end, it seems, Isaac and Rebekah establish a relationship built on love and consent.

For the lovers in the Song of Solomon, sex is not confined within marriage. But the scandalous nature of the book is well-hid from our eyes by the lectionary. Here, especially in relation to the romance of Isaac and Rebekah, we are almost stifled by gauze and lace hearts as the handsome young stag calls the beautiful maiden out of the garden and into fields of wildflowers where they will make passionate love (verses 8-10). For the LGBT community, it may be crucial to emphasize the unconventional descant above the familiar melody of heterosexual coupling. Loving partnership, mutual care in the context of uncoerced consent provide some pleasant, if rather safe, harmonics — but the unfettered passion of lovers embracing beyond the confines of institutional bounds, gender complementarity, and vanilla sex in other portions of the Song (to which the lectionary does not point us) are indulgences that we should also savor.

	Are you willing to risk sharing the depths and complexities of your erotic life as witness to the liberating power of the transforming love of our promiscuous God?

In Matthew 11:16-30, Jesus expresses his frustration that so many signs have been revealed to so many and yet misrecognition continues. His outburst that constitutes our passage is prompted by a question from John the Baptist, who is in prison but wants to know more about what Jesus is up to. “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he,” says Jesus (verse 11). But the crowds do not understand. They did not understand John. They do not understand Jesus. They do not enter the kingdom, the new age that is “at hand” and offers the opportunity to live differently, to know forgiveness, to practice justice. John, an ascetic, was ridiculed as one possessed by demons. Jesus, who loves a good meal, appears to many as a glutton and a drunk. The promise of liberation, healing and embrace is fulfilled before us — but we do not allow ourselves to see it, to join in the party.

Such misrecognition has consequences. On the one hand, we could be “greater” than John the Baptist, but we refuse the honor. On the other hand, in verses the lectionary unfortunately leaves out, ignoring the signs provokes Jesus’ wrath: “Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done, because they did not repent. ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you” (verses 20-24).  Hmmm.

Let those who have ears hear! The punishment comes not because of anything we do, but because we don’t join in the celebration. The King is in the camp! Wisdom is vindicated! The Spirit moves among us!  Get on board, little children! Open your eyes. Open your hearts. The New Age is now. The promised land is wherever you are. Turn, grasp, embrace, serve — live differently — and the Holy Party Boy named Jesus of Nazareth will meet you on the dance floor, at the banquet table, at the peace protest, in the AIDS ward, in the leather bar, in the board room, in the halls of Congress — anywhere that justice is being done, bonds are being loosed, strangers are being embraced and the hungry are being fed. And, when we acquiesce to take on this yoke, the yoke of this gentle Savior, where we expect a burden, we find an easy load. Thanks be to God!

	Are you willing to leave behind your expectations of who God is, of what it means to be a disciple, of what it means to be church and to allow your eyes to be opened again and glimpse the promises that are already coming true?

Home >>July 13, 2008	Print entire season   |  Print this unit only (new window opens)
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Proper 10), Year A	July 13, 2008

Queer Belonging The desire to belong is so foundational to us. Yet at what cost? For what benefits? How would this "belonging" function in one's life? Boundary-drawing or boundary-transgressing? This week's lectionary Bible passages: Genesis 25:19-34& Psalm 119:105-12 or Isaiah 55:10-13 & Psalm 65 (1-8) 9-13; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23

Who's Out in the Conversation What's Out in the Conversation Prayerfully Out in Scripture

Who's in the Conversation     A conversation among the following scholars and pastors
“ Believing in God for me is to cherish the down-to-earth affirmation of the dignity of the human being, regardless of who or what one is." Namsoon Kang	“Loving the Queer God is about being unafraid to be exactly who we are.  It is about learning to trust the worth of our own experiences of the divine.” Steve Sprinkle	“Participating in God’s good and gracious and life-giving purposes for all people involves belonging to and living out of a welcoming and inclusive community.” Warren Carter

What's Out in the Conversation     A conversation about this week's lectionary Bible passages Genesis 25:19-34 continues the soap opera involving the tension-filled and divided “normal” household of Isaac and Rebekah. Their sons Esau and Jacob fight with each other even in Rebekah’s womb. They are incredibly different. Esau is his Daddy’s boy; Jacob is his Mommy’s boy. Esau, red and hairy, is a macho outdoors man, a skilled hunter.  Jacob, the quiet one, hangs around the household tents, and cooks. He is also an opportunist who knows how to survive. Esau has the birthright of inheritance as the first-born, but doesn’t care. Jacob doesn’t have it but wants it, and gets it – for a bowl of stew! In the midst of this so very typical household beset by alienation, dysfunction,and disenfranchisement, is there any good news?  As queer as it sounds, Jacob challenges and overturns all expectations in the patriarchal household. Not only does he gain the birthright, the alienated, estranged and anti-macho Jacob is God’s means of reaching out to the nations. And eventually he and Esau will reconcile (Genesis 33). The incredibly surprising – and hopeful - message is that there are no permanent enemies. No permanent enemies?  Is this true in your own situation?  What does it mean to “love our enemies”? Isaiah 55:10-13 engages the experience of Israel’s exile under Babylonian imperial power. Like Jacob’s situation, issues of belonging, identity and struggle pervade the scene. God, previously seen as oppressive in allowing the exile, is now presented as the one who liberates from it. Here God’s purposes expressed through God’s word center on life and hope. The exiles are challenged to hold on. They are promised return to their land and the abundant, extravagant, flourishing of all creation. There are no boundaries to God’s goodness, including LGBT communities.  No matter what, all belong in God’s life-giving purposes. The affirmation of God’s faithfulness emerges from their lived experience. Is the Bible a source of hope and help for you? If so, how so? Romans 8:1-11 contains some potentially misleading vocabulary, notably Paul’s language of “spirit” and “flesh.” Paul does not use the language of “spirit” to refer to disembodied existence where human “souls” are separated from bodies. Nor does the language of “flesh” refer to “bodies” and condemn physicality. Rather, “spirit” refers to the Spirit of God and of Christ who indwells communities of believers and the bodies of believers – affirming the significance of relationships and daily life (8:4-11).  “Flesh,” as Paul defines it in verses 7-8, is not physicality but refers to a way of life hostile to God. Life in God’s Spirit means belonging to God who frees people from all condemnations, and affirms the significance of embodied life. Life in the Spirit means belonging to God’s purposes and people. Such belonging mandates that others not be excluded from that life.    Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23 urges readers to have “understanding” or discerning “ears.” Crucial to the parable is hearing or discerning what God is like and how God acts. The parable describes God’s indiscriminate sowing or reaching out to all people, as well as the abundant, extravagant, fruitful life that follows for those who continue in relationship with God. Often distorted hearing or “closed ears” hatefully try to restrict God’s sowing by declaring exclusions from God’s work. But the parable’s reference to “hundredfold” yield offers a much bigger and more beautiful vision. For LGBT communities, the parable points not just to “coming out” but to an abundant and fruitful life marked by, among other things, a radical inclusivity that transcends all boundaries, as well as by joy and celebration. Seeds need to be resilient to grow. But they have to move beyond survival to fruitfulness or flourishing. Discerning ears participate with wonder and awe in the goodness of God’s abundant ways.     How might LGBT communities live in the midst of often difficult circumstances seekang not just to survive, but to flourish and to celebrate God’s goodness with wonder and awe?     Prayerfully Out in Scripture     Gracious God, the Power of all be-ings,     Help us believe that     you are the One who shields our heart           against despair,           against hopelessness,           against turning cold,           against indifference.      Grant us the two beautiful companions of Hope:           the sacred Anger that things are the way they are, and           the Courage to make them the way they ought to be.      In the name of the One who shows us           the spirit of deep compassion and justice.           Amen. Bible passages are selected based on the Revised Common Lectionary, copyright © 1992 by Consultation on Common Text (CCT). All rights reserved. Used by permission. Home >>July 20, 2008 Print entire season   |  Print this unit only (new window opens)   16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Proper 11) July 20, 2008     Divine Lover How do you encounter God – in fear and flight, or in faithfulness and freedom? This week's lectionary Bible passages: Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24; Psalm 86:11-17; Romans 8:12-25; Matt 13:24-30, 36-43. Who's Out in the Conversation What's Out in the Conversation Prayerfully Out in Scripture     Who's in the Conversation     A conversation among the following scholars and pastors “For lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folk, trust is often hard to come by.  Yet the struggle is worth it, because trusting in God’s love heals us and sets us free to love in return.” Steve Sprinkle “The ground of our hope is not the guarantee of victory but the struggle itself for a more just world – where every living being is regarded as the image of God. We may encounter the Di