Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Proper 7 Year B
A Sermon for Gay Pride Day
Deacon Richard Buhrer

“The next time he woke, his daughter was conducting a Rambo-style maneuver on his exposed left leg, propelling a green plastic tank up his exposed thigh in an apparent effort to gain supremacy of the hillocks that lay beyond…. He reached under himself for the offending war machinery. ‘It’s Jeremy’s isn’t it? You’ve been trading again.’

“’What did you trade for it?’ he asked. Her answer was unintelligible. ‘What?’ ‘My Cabbage Patch Preemie,’ she said.

“He felt a vague responsibility to be angry, but he couldn‘t help smiling at the inevitable scene in the condo across the hallway: Cap Sorenson, the ultimate Reaganite, returning home after a hard day of software and racketball, only to come upon Daddy’s little soldier playing mommy to a premature Cabbage Patch doll.”[1]

Now, we read in today’s first reading that Saul started becoming suspicious and angry with David, actually trying to kill him with his spear twice. One of the things that must have upset him was his son Jonathon’s extravagant gift of his robe and his armor and his sword and his bow to young David, fresh from the victory of killing Goliath with a sling and a stone. “When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father’s house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that he was wearing, and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt.”[2]

I went to the Internet sources to find out what other ministers were saying about this passage about David and Jonathon. I was surprised to find that none of my usual sources had been willing to take on this passage. The alternative for the day is the story of David and Goliath; and everyone opted for that. It strikes me as noteworthy that ministers in our time are more comfortable talking about David killing the Philistine rather than talking about Jonathon loving David.

There were two references to scholarly articles written in German, no less, where scholars discussed the argument that the love between Jonathon and David was homosexual. The simple truth is that the modern concept of homosexuality is simply that, a modern concept. It played no part in the thinking of the writers of the Old Testament. One writer conceded that the story did contain “homoerotic” elements, but did not indicate which was the passive partner (as if that were an important issue in gay relationships).

So today is Gay Pride Day, and around us, in our neighborhood, the festivities are beginning. I remember one Gay Pride Day twenty-six years ago that changed my life. It was 1980 and I was still a Jesuit. That year there were threats of counterdemonstrations by what we have come to call the Religious Right. There were fears of violence and the Lesbian and Gay community was gearing up security for the march and rally to try to maintain the peace. I volunteered to be part of the security staff for the march and rally. I arrived late because I had had to do a wedding mass that morning. I was there in my clerical clothes. The way that security operated was that the marshals were to position themselves between the Lesbian and Gay folks and the right wing Christians with our backs to the Christians. We were encouraged to reach out and touch and sooth and hold our brothers and sisters to help them to keep their anger in control. At first the Gay people were not sure which side I was on, or rather, presumed that I was the enemy until I found a small pink card with the word “fairy” on it. I pinned that to the pocket of my black shirt. I remember vividly that later one of the “Christians” looked at me, his face twisted with such hatred and disgust. He told me that I made God want to vomit.

Soon enough, the Christians left and the party continued into the afternoon. The minister of the local Metropolitan Community Church (a church for Gay men and lesbians) asked me to dance with him, so two clerics were dancing in broad daylight together.

Though I confess that the next morning, I rushed to the paper to see if the misfortune of having my picture on the front page had occurred, the experience really deeply changed my life. I had finally had the experience of being fully myself, open and unconcealed in the broad light of day. Unless you have had the experience of learning from a very young age to keep your deepest self concealed and protected from the hatred of the world, I don’t know if you can appreciate the wonder, the exhilaration, the expansiveness of finally being yourself, unconcealed, unprotected, simply revealed. It was breathtaking. Because of that experience, I knew that it was time for me to leave the Jesuits, to escape the concealment of the priesthood and vows of celibacy, to start to learn to be fully myself as God had created me, openly, out of the closet, alive in the world without regard to the consequences.

So as Episcopalians, I think I can say we find ourselves stunned at the end of the recent General Convention. I (like many of you) was amazed and exhilarated at the election of Katharine Jefferts-Shori as presiding bishop. But at the end, I find myself feeling wounded and saddened that on the last day of the convention at the urging of both the current and future presiding bishops, the convention passed a resolution prohibiting the election of bishops who would be offensive to the rest of the Anglican Communion. Since the same convention had elected a woman as presiding bishop and affirmed the election of a twice divorced and thrice married priest as bishop of Northern California (both of which are offensive to the conservative elements in the Anglican Communion, the convention only meant partnered gay and lesbian people.

I find myself sad and angry with this. I am sad that the Episcopal Church values conservatives more than queers. I am sad that hatred continues to masquerade as fidelity to tradition. I am sad that bigotry is allowed to baptize itself in Scripture.

But I for one am not leaving; God gives me no choice in that. But in the midst of these storms of hated and controversy, I feel myself called to crawl into the bow of the boat and lay down next to Jesus on the pillow there; to ignore the storm and the waves swamping the boat; to ride out the wind with the warmth of the living Christ at my back; to know that I am not alone, that I am loved and cherished by the Lord Christ and by the Father who made me.

This is, of course, not only true for me (and for the people who think like me); it is true for us; it is true for all. Jesus said: “Peace, be still. Why do you still have so little faith?”