Sarx

Preached on 24 June 2001 at St Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco… sorry for the repost: I’m in Toronto at the Pride Festival.

t’s my sense that both these readings that we’ve heard today talk about healing of one sort or another. The Gospel speaks of an internal healing, and the Epistle talks about an external healing in the community.

In October of 1986 Rolling Stone Magazine published an article called “AIDS on Campus.” The idea was to discuss how the sexual culture on college campuses had changed in the three or four years that AIDS had been part of public discourse, at that time. At the end of the article was a section called “Strange Bedfellows,” where the writer was talking about how AIDS had created very odd friendships. And in that section was a paragraph about a gay man who was a member of a college fraternity. And the gay man shared the story of his straight roommate, who was concerned that he might “catch AIDS” as they shared a joint, back and forth.

Since my mother’s here, I’ll state categorically that I did not inhale!

Rolling Stone interviewed me because they couldn’t figure out what a gay man was doing in a fraternity. I had a coming out story that was, truthfully, very odd. I had almost no negatives to report. I had a loving family and a caring and supportive church community. And when you consider how bad it could have been – with a group of 20, post-adolescent, sexually frustrated males, living in a house with a common shower, and beer on tap 24/7 – I had an amazing fraternity to come out in!

The semester I came out, I was elected Secretary of my fraternity, and also Chairperson of the Gay and Lesbian Union and New York University. As a result, my fraternity went from being what ad copy called “the nation’s oldest continually active fraternity” – which I know Tim Smith has trouble with – to being poster children for multi-cultural diversity! That year we got $20,000 in funding from the university, which was quite a leap over the $3,000 we got the year before.

Actually, my fraternity loved me.

My fraternity and my gayness were only two parts of a contradictory picture. I was in the Protestant Campus Ministry, where I was the Episcopal Peer Minister. But I was also known on campus as a person you could call and ask questions about paganism. In fact, two dorm counselors paid me real money to go sit in the dorms and talk to their students about why that pagan roommate wasn’t a Satanist who was going to kill you when the sun went down.

I was known for going to church every Sunday, and yet during the two years when I was the only gentile studying Hebrew at NYU, worshiping on Friday nights at the Congregation Bet Simchat Torah, practicing my Hebrew and worshipping, right along with everybody else. When I went to church they wondered what I was doing with those pagans. And when I went to pagan groups – or gay groups – they wondered, “what is he doing with those Christians?”

Oh, and that fraternity! Oh my goodness!

For their part, my fraternity was okay with my religious backgrounds, but they really wanted to keep the gay stuff in the bedroom and not in the living room.

That’s one part of my patchwork quilt, sewn together at one point in my life, in 1985, 86, 87 – when I was in NYU. It’s not a “legion” inside, but it’s close. It seems at times all we can do is take out one facet of ourselves, one part of our legion, and show it to the people around us, in the hopes that they will like that. But the “legion” inside, even a small one: it’s as if we are filled, filled with a thousand points of very disparate light. And each light accents only one fragment of the whole. And sometimes one fragment of the whole, Christ pretended is “the whole.”

I’ve spent an inordinate part of my life – most of the last 20 years – being GAY! Big rainbow flags, big triangles, gay parades! I think I was all every bit gay. Gay owned and operated businesses and gay stores and gay jobs and gay employees and gay roommates and gay media and gay news. When I came to San Francisco I even worked for a time at gay.com!

It all seems very oddly imbalanced now, when I think about it, but I moved to San Francisco to be a gay pagan. (Indicating his vestments, the president’s chair in which he is seated, and the entire congregation) Evidently this is what gay pagans do in San Francisco on Gay Pride Day!

When Paul was writing Galatians he was writing to a community that was made up at the time – as were most Christian communities – of Jews who had come to believe that Jesus was the messiah, and of Gentiles who had reached that decision as well. And they were debating, arguing, fighting and praying about the question, “How can a Gentile enter into relationship with the Jewish God through the Jewish Messiah, if he doesn’t first become Jewish?” And Paul’s answer to them was very important.

It was a division in their society that was visceral. It was even felt in the prayers. In the Jewish tradition then – and still today, in Conservative and Orthodox tradition – the morning prayers include the lines, ” “Blessed are you Adonai our God, King of the Universe, for having not made me a Gentile.” “Blessed are you Adonai our God, King of the Universe, for having not made me a Slave.” “Blessed are you Adonai our God, King of the Universe, for having not made me a Woman.”

The prayers are phrased in that negative way: “thank you, God, that I’m NOT that.” A woman, by the way, does something I like. She gets to affirm: “Thank you, God, for having made me according to your will.”

So Paul’s answer: “As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” There is neither Jew nor Gentile; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female. Paul’s answer was direct, to the point: divisions don’t count now. All are one in Christ.

The most heretical thing I ever heard preached in my entire life was in this very chair, by our Rector, Rick Fabian – and I don’t mean his questions about the Resurrection! He said Fred Phelps was a child of God and I had to love him. Fred Phelps – the pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church. “God Hates Fags” Fred Phelps – is a child of God and I have to love him.

And the second most heretical thing I ever heard is on our liturgy video (that you can buy at that table by the door!) And Dave Hurlbert says, “I have found a church where it didn’t matter if I was gay or straight – where I did not feel gay.”

The first thing the demoniac says is, “let me stay with you.” And Jesus’ reply is “No – go home. Reconnect with your family. Reconnect with your community. Reconnect with your life.”

I can’t tell you my story without telling you about the pain and the division. It’s not a valid story without that. But it’s not a valid story either, if I leave the rest off.

Jesus’ Gospel doesn’t seem to be just about one person’s “holistic self-integration” but rather, it’s about a community of different and disparate voices, healing, coming together. Because in Messiah God reached out to us when we could not reach out to Him. It is, however, only one small step to go from “here’s my pain” to “you were never a demoniac; you can’t understand!” “You were never a gay man; you can’t understand!” “You didn’t have trouble coming out – they said to me – you can’t understand!”

All are one in Christ. As many as have been immersed in Christ have put on Christ. Alleluia! We sing it in our baptism, but there are many ways to be immersed in Christ.

When I first started coming back to church I wondered “how could I give my life back to this person I had rejected? There must be something I could do in public. And then came Holy Week last year, and the Maundy Tuesday Service, and the foot washing.

And after dinner Michael Barger got up from our table and went to the kitchen to get one of those huge bowls and the towels, and he came back to our table. He came to me, and I saw Christ kneel down and wash my feet. And then Christ got up out of my chair and turned around, and knelt down, and washed the feet of Christ who was sitting right next to me. All are one in Christ. I ran from the room, crying. I couldn’t cope.

The divisions are real. The pain of our division and our sense of separation is real. But all are one in Christ. What changes? Our divisions, our pain become our gifts. And we are gathered together
like so many grains on so many hillsides into one loaf that’s placed on the altar, and we feed each other, and when it comes back to us, it is Christ. And every hand has a nail print.