15-for-15 IV: Gaining My Religion

"God hasn't brought you this far just to let you go now."
                                               --Loretta Hernton

I.

Somehow, I got dragged back into church after foreswearing it for Aristotle.

It was going to be so neat and tidy:  Let God be whatever God was supposed to be, which I supposed wasn't much, pray when I really needed something somehow expecting that would work, and stay in my rational mind as well as I possibly could.  That was my "lifestyle choice" for a good long time.  Looking back now, I mouthed the words of atheism, but my heart wasn't in it.  It was like me trying to be heterosexual.

This is not to say that atheists, agnostics, humanists, and persons of dozens, if not hundreds, of world religions do not have a heart, and, indeed more of a heart than I.  But I could never have come to the religious belief I have without being openly gay.  Indeed, some of the most "Christian" people I know, and some of the better theologians, are atheists, and some of the beastliest things I've seen and heard have been done in the name of Jesus.

I've always been a doubter and a sceptic when it comes to faith.  Indeed, faith without doubt is like pig iron; it is brittle, and breaks at the least trial.  Doubt to faith is like the carbon that turns iron into steel, making it strong and pliable enough to shift without easily falling down.

II,

In college, I never felt like the church was any place for me to be.  After I left home, I left the church as well, as many young people do, except to earn some money playing organ or piano for services here and there.

My family attended a Methodist church quite faithfully, each Sunday, so it was a part of my upbringing.  In fact, I've not lived a day without being baptized, as I was baptized the very day I was born.  It was a lifestyle choice, yes, first made by my parents, and then myself.  But I never wanted to be a part of the "Christians" that I saw at college, because I knew that their company was no place for the likes of me.  But "my religion" has become far more than a casual choice or accident of birth.

Strangely enough, in coming to understand the part of myself that had to come out of the closet, especially in the context of what really mattered in my life and in the universe from my vantage point, I couldn't escape the many elements that had affected my life through religion.  Yet, even though I am certain I never went to a church service in which the pastor or priest said that homosexuals were going to hell, somehow I got that message through the air, or the airwaves, because enough other people were saying it:  God condemns gays.  I know that to be a lie, in some cases very carefully manufactured for maximal political effect, but it was a lie that helped keep me in the closet.

My first summer in New York, where I have lived 5 years of my adult life, I recall a subway evangelist (there were many) approach me on the uptown platform of the A train at 42nd Street.  He said to me, "Do you have Jesus?"  I answered, and can still clearly see and feel what I felt when I said it, "I already know I'm going to hell."

That frame of mind, however, is not where I would stay.

III.

As someone who went through seminary, I learned how to tell my "faith journey" while standing on one leg, like Ayn Rand claimed she could do and recite her whole philosophy (which I'm sure she could).  And not only did I go to one seminary,  but two:  Yale Divinity School/Institute of Sacred Music for my "Masters of Divinity," a title to this day that makes me laugh with images of donning leather and picking up a whip to recite the Word of the Lord, and Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, which granted me a CATS, a Certificate of Advanced Theological Studies, which sounds like something between a pet and a medical procedure.   Altogether, I became a Master of Divine Cats who could whip out a faith journey narrative like last-minute pancakes for unannounced company.

My path was somewhat untraditional, lacking a particular influential mentor, but common as well to others who went to seminary.  I was raised in the church, left the church, left God, found out that I hadn't left God, got peppered with dreams and "coincidences" that forced me to think about God, as well as felt an increasing desire to know more about religion, to experience more, to become a pastor, at which I would have laughed when I was in college, and, after a time, to go to seminary.

I first came back to the church in Harlem, at the Convent Avenue Baptist Church on the corner of 145th and Convent Avenue.  There was a big pink cross up in front, and a fiery preacher, Minister Grant, who along with the choirs made the Word of God come vibrantly to life.  They let me use their piano to practice as I hadn't one of my own at the time, and it helped get me in the door on a Sunday morning when I wasn't doing anything else in particular.  Piano of God #1.

Later, after I moved north of Harlem, I found the Lutheran church down the street from where I lived while looking for a piano to play.  Piano of God #2.   Something seemed to be at work to unite the place where my heart resided during my teenage years, in music, and where it was starting to find itself more and more, in a wider place within my being.

My interest in Greek, my undergraduate major, led me to pick up a Bible for the first time in years when I was shopping at the Chelsea Salvation Army in New York one Saturday afternoon.  The teller gave it to me, saying, "We don't sell Bibles; just take it."  The beautiful Greek characters brought the Scriptures to my mind fresh and alive, and made me want to know and experience more.

When I picked up that volume and looked at the title page, I saw the name of Bruce Metzger, who had led the committee that edited that Bible from the Greek manuscripts. Since he was still living in Princeton, where he taught for many years, I resolved to go and meet him.  This desire led me to my first experience at a seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary.  Before that visit, I hadn't even much of an idea what seminary was.

A dream during my visit to that seminary convinced me that I must go to seminary, but not yet, so soon after coming back to the church.  I later learned that I dreamt a verse from the Book of Jonah (also found in Psalm 42):

and the flood was round about me;
all thy waves and thy billows
passed over me.  (Jonah 2:3; RSV)


I passed through the overwhelming flood in that dream, which I had seen Fantasia-style, in the 3rd person, encapsulated safely in a gleaming crystal case.  The waves rolled a mile over my head, but I was safe, as the waves all went over me.  I woke feeling as though I had been washed deeply, like in a steam bath but without the sweat.  It was as though I had been baptized again.  It was if I had been Jonah, running from God, and right into the belly of a whale.

In these formative years, I learned to appreciate the energy and deep commitment of those in the National Baptist tradition at Convent Avenue.  I also spent time with extremely conservative Mennonites; formed a small Bible study in which I translated the Greek version of the week's Gospel passage, complete with long footnotes describing theological concepts; took several courses at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian's Center for Christian Studies; discovered writing poetry there through a course on Modern Poetry and the Book of Hours; celebrated communion every day at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church on my lunch breaks; and hung out at Union Theological Seminary, all while starting to worship at a Lutheran Church.

Perhaps most powerfully, every morning in New York, I would also shut my eyes and pray on the A train on the way to work, envisioning myself encapsulated in a ball of light.  Everyone in the train was part of that prayer, wishing them peace, healing, and love.  It was the only time in my life I can say my prayers were regular and absolutely transformative.  Not so after seminary.

IV.

Religion in America seems often to chase LGBT people away with dreadful visions of a tortured afterlife based on our particular "sin" in this life.  I believe instead that these religious voices are simply making for a tortured life for us here on earth, and have nothing to do with the possible afterlife.

Shortly after my denomination, the ELCA, voted to allow open and partnered LGBT people to serve as ordained clergy in 2009, a series of articles popped up on the LGBT news-blog Queerty.com written by Lutherans about the changes voted in, which many in the church had been working hard to get enacted for many years.

Given the voices of hatred towards LGBT people from people calling themselves "Christian," it is no wonder to me why many would be forced away from the church, indeed run screamin.  Personally, after the last several years of waiting for a church and wondering if this vocation to the ministry will ever pan out, or if I will just look like I was aimlessly drifting for 10 years, I can genuinely empathize with the feeling that churches can seem at best irrelevant and at worst actively, vocally, and indeed politically harmful, even deadly in their narrow and rigid messages of wide sin and narrow salvation.

So why go back to a religion that has spent so much energy on actively opposing me and millions of LGBT people?

Because God bewitched me, "jokester that she is," as one of my clergy acquaintances says.

V.

The brain in me that worked so hard to keep me in the closet for my first 10 years of knowing I was attracted to my same sex, which worked so hard on problems of philosophy, music theory, and politics, which reached out to the farthest reaches of the universe and tried to reach beyond, to the other side of the universe into whatever might be beyond, and that dismissed the possible reality of God, ended up taking a back seat to my gut and to my heart after I came out.

Why do we do what we do, think what we think, and feel what we feel?  When I was younger, I thought that we human beings functioned best when we did not let our emotions get involved, but used as pure of reason as we could, unclouded by the irrational heart. But when my heart and mind connected, which I strongly feel was not until after I came out for the first time to other people, I dropped my insistence on pure reason, and learned I was a gut sort of person.

The heart has its own knowledge, the brain its own, the gut as well, the soul another, close to the spirit.  If all lie in separate containers all the time, and do not converse, they can grow lonely, proud, and dictatorial, as each of us becomes without the benefit of kind and challenging human interaction, hearing various points of view, and feeling closely how our opinions affect the lives of others.

God works through our minds, but surpasses the bounds of reason.  Sexuality, as well, cannot be the sole concern of one organ over another.

In coming out, I set myself on a path to connect with God in a way that never would have happened if I'd attempted to make sense of life with whatever share of reason I was given between my ears and behind my eyes.

And that path is not over yet.  God hasn't brought me this far just to let me go now.

A Repost Riff on "Bless Me Anyway"

Recently, I had the chance to watch the HBO production of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” for the first time. It made me recall our Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus experience with some of Kushner’s most powerful words. This is a reposting from 2009, which also seems apt in these days that are hopefully gathering steam to overrule all of the divisive marriage laws, after Judge Vaughn Walker's masterly decision overturning Prop 8. Here it is:

So we in the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus have been singing a wonderful new setting by Michael Shaieb of some words by Tony Kushner from his play "Angels in America," centered around the phrase "bless me anyway." This phrase has affected me since we began singing it. It makes me think about those plucky figures in the Bible, Jacob and the Syrophoenecian woman, one in the Old Testament and one in the New, one going up against Godself, and the other against Jesus himself, who demand blessing in their beings from the deity who in some way created them, yet who have been told that they do not deserve such a blessing, or must fight to get it.

My life has been one in which I have both been the grateful and lucky recipient of unconditional love, from family and friends, as well as the need for years and years and years to defend my own being, sensitive, gay, or otherwise, against various people and institutions who have told me that I am deeply and existentially wrong. But, you know, bless me anyway, right?

The following are some words that came out after thinking about this phrase, "bless me anyway." This is yet a work in progress.

To the totality of the world's rejections:

The minor rejections of saying 'no' to liver and eggs;

the major rejections, hearing you say 'no' to me.

To the 'yous' who have told me who I am,

rather than letting me figure me out for myself.

Bless me anyway.

Even if you don't consider me worth it.

Even if my skin says "liar" to you.

Even if you think my dick should not go there.

Even if the folds of my skin obliterate

the smooth straight line

that you suppose would make me beautiful.

Bless me anyway.

What does a blessing cost you?

Does a blessing cost you your life?

Your job?

Your wife?

Does a blessing cost you your country?

Your place in the world?

Bless me anyway.

For I will have worth without it,

but with it,

we can love those we were meant to love,

in the open.

We can bless the skin that contains

our bones

our life

our blood,

if not our souls.

Bless me anyway.

It costs less than a tower,

less than a bomb,

less than a college education,

less even than an egg

from which life can come.

Bless me anyway.

But blessing is powerful.

Yes, blessing costs more than money,

more than position, power,

and all the water in the world.

Bless me anyway.

Bless the water that makes me more

than a pile of dust, more

than a pile of crap, more

than a pile of me that makes you weary,

that you wish would go away

sometimes.

Bless that shit machine

that embarrasses you.

Bless that $22.95 in basic elements,

not quite enough to buy Manhattan

four hundred and fifty years ago,

but enough to pay off the sum total

of a pile of humanity.

Bless me anyway.

More than the sum total,

more than the blue of my eyes,

more than the gnarled toenails,

the middling nipples,

the less-than-perfect hairline,

the zit on my left temple.

Bless me anyway.

The Jewish part of my heritage,

obscured by name-changes.

The happy sodomite that would do me, maybe.

The D-student wannabe.

Bless me anyway,

and I will bless you too.

I will bless your assumptions,

your experiences,

your attempts to reach out,

that get caught in your throat.

I will bless your struggle to live

in a world that kills us all,

that resolves as we do,

into a pile of minerals.

However it turns out,

Anyway,

I will bless you.

Reflections on the Word: From Lectionary readings for 3/21

“Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” –John 12:3

The beautiful smell that pervaded Lazarus’ home was that of Jesus’ death to come. The sense of smell is perhaps our strongest and most meaningful; it goes to our deepest places and memories. What about your faith life engages your sense of smell? For some, incense powerfully symbolizes God’s presence. But for many of us, this sense goes unused in spiritual practice. Why is that? What prevents multi-sensory worship?

Creating God, you have given us our several senses with which to engage the world around us. May they help us to appreciate the splendor of your creation, more and more each day. Amen.

Reflections on the Word for 3.7.10

“Jesus asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” --Luke 13: 2-3

Reflection: “Repent or perish” frankly scares me. Lent is about reflection and change, but my unease persists around these words, because as soon as I repent, I sin again. This is the human condition. Jesus says here “their sins were no worse than yours, but you all must change.” We are often aware of the need to change, but the means can still elude us. “Lord, have mercy” remains our refrain each day.

Prayer: Lord, you love your entire creation, and hate not that which you have made. When we stray, gently correct us, that we may live into the promises you have made, which remain faithful even when we are not. Amen.

© 2010 CW

A Sinful Man

“But seeing this [great haul of fish], Simon Peter fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, because I am a sinful man, Lord.” --Luke 5: 7b-8

I.

This line has struck a chord with me this week, after using it in the devotional you may find below this entry. It comes only once in the Gospels, here in Luke Chapter 5, and is yet one of those compelling, heartbreaking, transient moments that shows us how one of the disciples really felt about himself in relation to Jesus.

We ask so often, what would Jesus have thought of this? What would Jesus have done? What would God want me to do? Here we find out.

To Peter’s statement, Jesus says, as he so often does, “Do not be afraid.” He follows it up with the famous line from this passage, “ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ἀνθρώπους ἔσῃ ζωγρῶν.” Now things are different, Peter. Now, from this point on, you will be catching people.

What was the fear that Jesus was responding to in Peter’s reaction? His fear of the fish? His fear of what he would do with his life? Or of being sinful?

I have a great fear of being sinful. I am afraid of driving people away if they get to know me too well and don’t like what they see when they look too close. Is this not a pretty common fear, the same one that Peter confesses to Jesus? It is a rather silly and condescending fear. Of course I am sinful. Duh! Like anyone isn’t? simul iustus et peccator, simultaneously saint and sinner. This is the human condition.

There is no intimacy without honesty. And yet, I think a great block to an intimate relationship with Jesus is a fear of confessing who we really are in all of our glory and shame, to our very creator, who already knows these things about us. As though being honest with God will somehow scare God away?

Yet this is just how people have been taught to be before God: clean, upright, upstanding, and stultifyingly nice.

The next reformation of the church will be one of honesty.

“Go away from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord.” I am a man who is, by his nature, a sinner. Unclean. Unworthy. Unjustified. Nasty. Dirty. Out of the norm. Out of bounds. Out of control. Out of luck. Dingy. Ditchy. Switchy, and itchy. I am shady and skanky. Ridiculous, rank, and somehow *less* than holy.

Christian self-abnegation is no more attractive, nor particularly any more effective, than any other variety, just because it is in relation to Jesus. Peter begged Jesus to leave him because of his sinfulness. But Jesus said, “No, Peter, you have some work to do.”

II.

I have often felt like this sinful man during my process of feeling called to the Lutheran ministry. I have been this sinful man. And those along the way have at various times assuaged my sense of sinfulness, and ratcheted it up at others.

I have been waiting for three years for my first call as a minister in the ELCA. In that time, I have received not one interview. My training is the same as my colleagues who have been ordained and in churches for years. My vocation has been tested according to the same standards, and certified according to the same standards. It has not, however, been affirmed by the same standards.

“Go away from us, Chris, for you are a sinful man.” You are an open homosexual. You are defiant in the way you present your sexuality, the way you lead with it. We think our churches will just conclude that you are a sinful man.

This is the reality of what I have felt and at times heard from this process since I was assigned for first call. Not from each of those involved in it, because there have been some wonderfully supportive people, who have affirmed what Jesus said, “There is work yet to do.”

It is easy to get self-righteous, to let the chip on my shoulder, more embarrassing than any other kind of sin, lead, as it were.

Go away from me, Lord, for I have been a proud man, whose pride has not been in you but in my own accomplishments. Go away from me, Lord, for I cannot pray consistently, but I can tell people what I think is wrong with what they are doing. Go away from me, Lord, for my heart wanders far from you.

These are things that should make Jesus go away from us? That would make God cast us off?

III.

Sin is not the definer of who is in or not in relationship with Jesus. And Jesus is not going to depart just because we ask nicely, ashamedly, or any other way.

Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” Luther puts it another way—“sin boldly! But pray more boldly still.” Pray as if you expect Jesus to stay, rather than to run away.

I’m about as inconsistent of a pray-er as it gets. I do much better when in monastic community, which I have had the pleasure to be on a few occasions for weeks or months. But I don’t know that this is my calling.

I get pretty raunchy at times with Jesus. I just let it all hang out with the Lord, because let’s face it: Jesus knows us already. We ain’t got jack to hide from Jesus, particularly the sinful sides of ourselves that we hide from each other.

“Come close to me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Come closer to me, let me speak my truth to you, which you have given me to live. Give me the words to speak it to others, and to give them the space to speak their truth to me. Speak your truth to me, which is above all others. For however we understand things, your understanding is greater. You are the source of our love, hope, and reconciliation.

Pat Robertson's "pact with the devil"

Note: I'm by no means an expert on the history or folklore of Haiti. This seems to me where at least one element of this "devil's pact" thing is coming from, but I'm open to being educated if I'm astray.

"The god who created the earth; who created the sun that gives us light. The god who holds up the ocean; who makes the thunder roar. Our God who has ears to hear. You who are hidden in the clouds; who watch us from where you are. You see all that the white has made us suffer. The white man's god asks him to commit crimes. But the god within us wants to do good. Our god, who is so good, so just, He orders us to revenge our wrongs. It's He who will direct our arms and bring us the victory. It's He who will assist us. We all should throw away the image of the white men's god who is so pitiless. Listen to the voice for liberty that speaks in all our hearts."

--attributed to Boukman Dutty, at the ceremony of August 14 (or 21), 1791, at Bois Caïman, Haiti

I.

The words of the prayer above were interpreted yesterday by television commentator Pat Robertson as being a “pact with the devil.” Robertson said, on the show The 700 Club, “And you know, Christy, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, ahh, you know, Napoleon the 3rd or whatever, and, they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True Story. And so the devil said "ok, it's a deal." And ahh they kicked the French out of you know the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resources, et cetera; Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. Ahh, they need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God, and out of this tragedy, I'm optimistic that something good may come, but right now we're helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.”

His voice was one of a grandfather telling family secrets that, though painful, were true, because he was there when they happened. Robertson pretends to have knowledge of something horrible, yet unquestionable. Yet Robertson's comments are very questionable.

In the words of a spokesman from the Christian Broadcasting Network, “[Pat Robertson’s] comments were based on the widely-discussed 1791 slave rebellion led by Boukman Dutty at Bois Caiman, where the slaves allegedly made a famous pact with the devil in exchange for victory over the French. This history, combined with the horrible state of the country, has led countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed.”

The above prayer is the only text that Robertson might be able to point to in order to make his case, aside from the ceremony in which a pig was apparently sacrificed.

Fine. So we’ve got a dead pig, some fiery words that incite the overthrow of a horribly violent culture of slavery, and that’s supposed to be a “pact with the devil” that accounted for all of Haiti’s problems for the last 200 years, and underlies the death of thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of human beings in the recent earthquakes?

Some will say that Pat Robertson is not worth spending time and energy refuting. I believe he must be challenged, because some people actually see him as the face of Christianity, a serious Christianity that must be respected, in which Haitians are indeed historically devil worshipers who deserve a horrible earthquake to turn them to God. Others will see this Christianity that Robertson claims to represent as a silly religion of the weak-minded, who, God love them, prove that God doesn’t exist, because Robertson’s version of God is just too stupid to survive serious scrutiny. To be clear: my concern is that some will look at Pat Robertson, and listen to his words, and say that on account of his words, God does not exist, and that Christianity is bankrupt of truth. This is why he must be challenged.

Pat Robertson apparently expresses something that “countless scholars and religious figures” also believe. He does not cite one credible source. Nor does his company defender cite a scholar who can point to a pact with the devil. Not one bit of actual evidence to back up such incendiary comments as appear above. Not one. Yet he claims to command the truth of God.

II.

Let’s take a look at this prayer, and do a little basic, good old-fashioned exegesis, and see if we can find the devil's pact here.

Here is a fairly lengthy invocation: “The god who created the earth; who created the sun that gives us light. The god who holds up the ocean; who makes the thunder roar. Our God who has ears to hear. You who are hidden in the clouds; who watch us from where you are. You see all that the white has made us suffer.” This is the creator God, who made the heavens and the earth, the oceans and the thunder. This is the God in heaven, who sees and hears the mistreatment of God’s creation: “you see all that the white has made us suffer.” And anyone who would dispute that slavery is interminable, inhuman suffering, cannot know that of which he or she is speaking.

The prayer continues: “The white man's god asks him to commit crimes. But the god within us wants to do good. Our god, who is so good, so just, He orders us to revenge our wrongs. It's He who will direct our arms and bring us the victory. It's He who will assist us. We all should throw away the image of the white men's god who is so pitiless.” One might point to two gods, one “within us” and one “hidden in the clouds,” neither of whom is “the white man’s god.” Is there, however, any realistic doubt that white men did indeed justify their enslavement of black men, women, and children by calling to their God to justify their actions, and seeking to justify ungodly enslavement through use of certain Scriptures, from the curse of Ham to the call of Paul (or pseudo-Paul) for slaves to be obedient to their masters? I will look up some contemporary citations for this if need be.

No doubt God has been used to justify any number of destructive social views and arrangements, particularly by the white race and in the name of converting "godless" individuals and peoples into "Christians." Would it be any wonder that people who have been oppressed in the name of such a god would repudiate that god? That does not mean that they are repudiating the actual God, but what has been put forth as that God--a force that sanctions slavery and all that comes with it: abuse, torture, killing, separating families, enforced labor, enforced sex and rape, and any number of other activities that any of us who claims to believe in God and worship God would never seek to justify in the name of God.

III.

The final line of the prayer encourages the voice for liberty, a liberty that those who uphold “God n country” raise up high as a golgatha cross: “Listen to the voice for liberty that speaks in all our hearts.” Where is the devil here? In the liberty from slavery, or in the hearts of those who are calling for their own (and others’) freedom?

What is plain is that Pat Robertson commands a cable broadcasting network, and is able to say whatever comes into his head while he is on the air, without any fear of being challenged from within his own network, of losing his sponsors, or of being taken off the air. He is fully able to repeat shaded truths and outright lies just as though they are truths right out of the Bible he professes to love so much.

And in so doing, Pat Robertson signs his own, admittedly metaphoric, pact with the Devil: he trades his own integrity for ratings, the truth of an admittedly fuzzy historical situation for fame, and a loving God of grace for whatever gets his name in the news, the Haitian people be damned, the Christian religion be damned, and yes, God be damned: For Pat Robertson would call God the devil in order to perpetuate a racist tradition that started with the overthrow of a colonialist oppressor and continues through to this day with a natural disaster on an unprecedentedly horrible scale. God love him, as our Vice President would say, but Pat Robertson needs to get some of that God that he suggested the Haitians might now get, whom they have, in his opinion, not gotten thus far.

God love you and bless you, Pat Robertson, and turn your heart to the true knowledge of a God who is familiar with the statement and meaning of “who sinned, he or his parents?” and what goes behind it. We each have our cross to bear, and we each have the railroad tie in our own eye. But please, for the sake of the God you hold dear, think about the words that come out of your mouth.