RevFred

God is at home, it is we who have gone out for a walk. 

“When did you come out?” he asked. The question was asked of me at the end of a two-hour conversation I enjoyed yesterday afternoon. The young man who asked the question had recently reached out to me for help. Yesterday’s FaceTime was our first meeting. His mother and sister joined us for a portion of the time; it seemed to be productive and encouraging for all of us. As we were saying our goodbyes and just about to end our call, the question came, “Stan, when did you come out?” Rest assured, I wasn’t surprised by the question; it’s one I’ve been asked more than a few times. And, pretty sure I knew where it was coming from, I clarified, “You mean when did I come out as queer?” To which he matter-of-factly answered, “Yeah. How long ago was it when you came out and how did that go?” When I told him I wasn’t queer, that I was cis-gender and heterosexual, he looked dumbstruck. And I get it. I’ve seen that look in this very setting not infrequently. After stammering out an unplanned mix of explanation, assumption, and unnecessary apology, the young man paused and then said, “Then why? I mean, what caused you to change your mind?”

 Good question. Important question. Telling question. And although I know I don’t have to take the time to tease out the intricacies within and reasons beneath his question or his assumptions or his resulting bewilderment; I answered his question with a heart full of gratitude and a mind full of regret. I told him about a bunch of middle-aged, straight, privileged, white, male preachers like me — men like Fred Harrell, Ken Wilson, Jonathan Williams, Josh Scott, Ray D. Waters, Mark Tidd, Jeff Helpman, Jonathan Bow, Dan Collison, Aaron Van Voorhis, Adam Phillips, Tray Pruet, Jason Ashley Morriss, Colby B Martin, and many more. I explained that with all our imperfections of character and mix of motives in tow, on this matter we found something we could actually get right, something that could reasonably afford us at least a pittance of penance for all our gross blindnesses to date…blindnesses we can see, blindnesses we can’t see, and those we may never see. 

I am asked again and again, how I came to change my position on LGBTQ+inclusion, specifically regarding the biblical text.  Here is the outline of my process: (HT: Stan Mitchell who gave these words) 

1. Through the years, both professionally and personally, I met and was acquainted with a large number of LGBTQ+ people.

2. I started listening to them instead of just talking at them or outright dismissing them.

3. I began to actually know them.

4. My experience of them and the fruit of their lives stood in direct contradiction with what I thought I knew.

5. The accumulation of these incarnational/human/personal experiences was not congruent with my received doctrine or understanding of scripture.

6. I did not choose to reject scripture and what I had been taught because of this dissonance.

7. Also, I did not choose to dismiss these experiences.

8. I realized this tension between experience and doctrine was not a new tension but one that has always been a part of Christian history.

9. I remembered that Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, said multiple times, "You have HEARD it was said BUT I say unto you." So, I followed the Christian hermeneutic or interpretive tradition of allowing new experiences and information to drive me back to the text asking the faithful question, "Have I read and interpreted this text properly?"

10. After a significant period of studying scripture, reading more books than I can recall (from both sides) and a lot of prayerful soul-searching, I came to believe that my understanding on this matter had been wrong.

11. I changed my position and treatment of LGBTQ+ people, first personally and then professionally.

12. Because I think the traditional position is deeply hurting people, I now feel called to advocate on behalf of those who are being hurt in an effort to end the religiously produced wounds they are experiencing.

13. In good conscience, I can't not do 12.

14. I am still open and learning.

15. I am admittedly and obviously a flawed human who wrestles with the frailty of mixed motives, pride, fear and insecurity. And yet on this matter and these dear people, to the best of my ability, my heart is clean and conscience clear.

I re-read The Brothers Karamozov last summer. On my Kindle. It can be done. I read the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.  The first time I could hardly get through it years ago. This time was seemingly easy. Because I read Pevear’s excellent introduction to the book. The context in which Dostoevsky wrote it, the style, the way in which names are used, the characters, etc.  The book came alive. I devoured it.

In this book, the gospel of John, we have a similar opportunity. John tells us the purpose of his book at the end of John, in chapter 20:30-31:

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”  Noice.

Signs: something unique to John. There are 7 of them..doesn’t call them miracles but signs. Signs point. You don’t see a sign that says “San Francisco, 30 miles” and say, ‘well it’s good to be in the City by the Bay!’  Although I learned when I moved here that people in Livermore, for instance, tell their friends that they lived in the ‘San Francisco area”.  Sorry Livermore. You live in Livermore!  But I digress into my San Francisco snobbiness.

The point John is making is to have you asking this question when you see these ‘signs’: What do they tell you about Jesus and the Reign of God he brings. And John do so artistically and intentionally.

So… when John says, “On the third day…” this is both practical and theological. Practical, because the 3rd day is Tuesday, and this IS the day (sort of like our Saturday) when people in Ancient and Present day Israel get married! This is also theological.  The 3rd day in the creation story of Genesis is a day where God blesses and calls it good 2 times. A doubly blessed day.  Something else happened on the 3rd day as well… the resurrection of Jesus.  John wants you to connect this ‘sign’ with the resurrection of Jesus.

So let’s talk about the wedding. First, it’s in Cana. About 9 or so miles northwest of Nazareth. Jesus was invited because simply Jesus was known. Which is it’s own lesson if we’ll see it. Jesus shows up where he is invited. Invite him into your mess, marriage, life, business, party...whatever. He tends to show if invited.  Disciples were also invited. 6 attend… Nathaneal who just a day earlier had joined them, and was told he would see amazing things. Isn’t that the truth.  Jewish weddings were a feast that would last for days. Vows, ceremony, bride and groom disappear to consummate the marriage… and the feast begins!

I’ve done, I don’t know, 250 weddings?  More or less?  It’s close. Nothing like it.  Brings out the absolute best and (sometimes) the absolute worst in people! For some, it’s a high stakes game of saving face. There is usually, not always, a powder keg person who is obsessed with every detail going perfectly. But life happens. At outdoor weddings, I’ve seen flash torrential downpours where everyone had to just sit in the rain in a field. I’ve seen ring bearer meltdowns of epic proportions. And fainting. LOTS of fainting.

The wine however has never run out. But it does here. In a culture where wine is seen as ‘the joy of the feast’ this is a horrific reality for the hosts of this wedding. Shame will come to the family. This is a social catastrophe, a catering disaster.

And here’s where the fun begins.  In this first ‘sign’.

So first, a lesson from the mother of Jesus.  (Seen here, and not again in John’s gospel until chapter 19 when Jesus is hanging on a cross.)

The first exchange here goes like this:

Mother: “They have no wine.”  Jesus: “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”

So on one hand, Jesus’ ‘hour’ which in John always means his crucifixion and death, hasn’t come, it’s not time for this kind of miracle yet.  Fair enough.

On the other hand… does this strike you as scandalous? The scandal of ‘divine reluctance’ as Princeton theologian Carol Lakey Hess puts it? If Jesus is God, why is God holding out? And of course, that leads to further questions. In a world where there is no clean water, much less wine, where is the extravagance of God? As Hess puts it, “In a world where children play in bomb craters the size of thirty-gallon wine jugs, why the divine reluctance? In a world where desperate mothers must say to their small children, “We have no food,” why has the hour not yet come? No matter how we rationalize divine activity, we still want to tug at Jesus’ sleeve and say: “they have no wine.”

In a world of need, does God continue to have what seems like an attitude of “what is that to me?”  I want to suggest that the provision of wine here, which is always portrayed in the prophets as a symbol of God’s grace, generosity, and abundance, should nudge us to say the very same thing to God if our prayers are honest.  “They have no wine.  They have no food. They have no home. They have no security. They have no country. They have no money. They have no citizenship…”  

Fitting for MLK day tomorrow. We are called to be like Mary, voicing the concerns of the people with confidence that God will make it right. And in particular that God would provide enough!  And we must do what is in our power to make it so. And you must insist on it!  You must march for it! (See you next Saturday at City Hall).  We must be what MLK called “The Beloved Community”.

From a Commentary I read this week:

Martin Luther King Jr. often spoke of his vision of a “Beloved Community.” For King, the Beloved Community is “...a realistic, achievable goal . . . [it] is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth.”* King grounded his vision in the belief that “...it was God’s intention that everyone should have the physical and spiritual necessities of life. He could not envision the Beloved Community apart from the alleviation of economic inequity and the achievement of economic justice.”** For King, members of what he called “The Beloved Community” would know how to equitably share God’s abundance and, with a delight that mirrors God’s own, they would stop at nothing to do so. Members would know the reality proclaimed in the Psalm: “O LORD. ...All people*** feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights” (emphasis added). For the sake of the Beloved Community, its prophets would “not keep silent” and “will not rest” (Isa. 62:1) in the face of a status quo that was content with unjust hoarding of God’s abundant gifts of life. The Beloved Community’s prophets, like King, would name this hoarding of God’s abundant gifts of life  in all of its malignant forms: segregation (one race hoarding the physical and spiritual necessities of life from another), violence (one powerful entity forcefully denying the Imago Dei – the image of God – within another), economic injustice (“the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society”****), and countless others.

The prophet, God’s mouthpiece, would settle for neither soul-crushing captivity nor soul-numbing complacency from the rebuilding community. This renewed, beloved community – God’s “bride” – would be so much more: the opposite of a “forsaken” and “desolate” community, it would be a community that radiantly reflected God’s own abundance.

Mary nudges Jesus based on what she knows of God’s intentions for this world, that everyone has enough. She lives out of a theology of abundance, not scarcity. Mary is not content with the status quo, nor should we ever be.  We must live with a vision for living into God’s intended future right now.  Why do we risk greatly as a community?  Why do we make room for everyone? Why do we start City Hope Community Center in the Tenderloin, Counseling Center? Why do we entrepreneur new ministries? Because God’s intended future is for everyone to have enough, to be known and loved, to know God loves everyone extravagantly, and that we are designed to be conduits of that love and mercy to the world around us. Mary.  Nevertheless, she persisted.

Secondly, a  lesson from the water pots.

John 2: 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.”

These water pots had a purpose, “Jewish rites of purification”.  It was for filling up the mikvahs.  These were stone pools with steps that led down into them, and several times a week the observant Jew would go down into the water that was blessed by the Rabbis and repeat the prayer and dunk themselves 7 times so they could be ceremoniously pure. Filling up the mikvahs was a lot of work… 6 pots would hold some 150 gallons of water.

After filling them, Jesus tells the servants to draw some out and take it to the chief steward. Turns out Jesus makes good wine yall.

But they nor anyone else yet could know the massive shift going on with Jesus choosing the ritual water pots as the vehicles through which he would give us this first sign.  It’s more than a miracle of water to wine. Though, that in itself is not to be overlooked.  Sometimes the church has forgotten Jesus once attended a wedding feast and said yes to gladness and joy, revealing to us a God who loves to hear the laughter of people celebrating people and to see our job as toasting the world with the amazing good news of grace.

What else do the water pots teach us? There is about to be a huge shift in how we understand our relationship with God. Instead of always washing and never really feeling clean… now the reign of God  is going to be like eating and drinking with close friends with nothing to prove...because you know you belong.  You know you are welcome. To be involved with God will not be like always bathing and never clean. It’s going to be like eating and drinking with friends with nothing to prove...sitting at table with your best friends. From obsession with purity rites to shared table delight.  

Jesus doesn’t ask you if you are you clean enough, holy enough, pure enough, kosher enough?  He simply asks “will you come to the table and feast? Will you know that you are welcomed here, loved here, invited here… and come just as you are!”  

Next week Pastor Julie will be preaching on what John places next in his gospel. It’s something from the end of Jesus ministry, because John is not concerned with chronology, but theology.  

Jesus will protest the temple in Jerusalem, with all of its ritual sacrifice, purity codes, and carefully guarded borders with Temple Police telling everyone where their place is… “women over here… Gentiles?  You are in parking lot double Z WAY over there!  

Jesus is announcing with the water pots and the temple cleansing: We will now do the God thing family style.  Everybody… men, women, gentiles, sex workers, good people, bad people, tax collectors, everybody!  Come sit at the table! It's the difference between performing purity rites under the judgmental gaze of religious gatekeepers… and sitting at a table with nothing to prove and enjoying a meal together. Where you don’t have to be someone you are not, where you bring your whole self to the meal, pull up a chair, sit down, and eat with friends.  Jesus says “THAT’S what the Reign of God is like!”

Our welcome statement: “As a community of Jesus followers, we welcome all persons, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age, physical or mental capacity, education, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and socioeconomic or marital status”  - we are not trying to be au courant… we are trying to set a table the way Jesus would set it!   Will you come to the table Jesus sets? Will you believe the good news is this good? However you have seen or understood God up to this point in your life, let this ‘sign’ begin to adjust the narrative in your head about God. God is like Jesus. Who makes hundreds of gallons of apparently great wine for a party… who when the joy runs out, and it always does, provides the joy of the feast.

Third, a lesson from the servants.  I do love verse 9 so much. The chief steward is amazed and clueless as to where this wine came from.  And then, “though the servants who had drawn the water knew”.   The servants always know. The little people. The forgotten. The struggling. The worker. The ones who make it all happen. The ones who work in hotels, restaurants, and a thousand other places that no one else wants. The ones this country is supposed to be famous for welcoming.

As they did my own mother in law who worked the night shift at glass bottling plant after coming here as a Cuban refugee. Who had (and still has)  to bite her tongue many times as the powerful and wealthy and mostly white people around her see dimly through their privilege, as she sees so clearly through her position of lowliness. The servants knew. They always know.  The wisdom from the bottom is always overlooked.

But something else here I want you to notice. How Jesus did this miracle. Not by making a grand show.  “Step right up and watch what I’ll do for you!”  Or just dipping his hand in the water to make it wine. Making sure he made a show of it.  None of that. Jesus “said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it.”  So. They. Took. It.  They did what Jesus told them to do.  They became the vessels through which God’s abundance flows. They get to know who did this before anyone else does.  As Lesslie Newbigin writes, “Only the servants who obeyed the strange command get to know the secret, they and Jesus’ disciples. Those who have put themselves under Jesus’ orders know the secret.”

So here are our marching orders for 2018.  I get to say that throughout January. 

From Mary - learn to cry out on behalf of people in need with confidence God will make it right. And so we must cry out together. We must use any power and privilege we have to give voice to those who don’t have enough. We must live into God’s intended future now and insist with our lives, our pocketbooks, and our prayers, that in a world of plenty, there is no reason for anyone to go without.

From the Water Pots - learn that God is about inviting everyone to the table and give yourselves to making that welcome a reality here.  Jesus today invites you into this new reality where through his death and resurrection he begins a new creation in the midst of the old where we can finally know we are loved, where the wine never runs out, where the joy of the feast is found in union with God. Who will on another day take wine, and say “ this is my blood, which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins” and lay down his life of his own accord for you and this world, so that instead of spending our lives desperately and anxiously trying to meet God’s approval, we might know and  live now under the loving gaze of God who simply invites us, each day, to sit at the table and feast.

From the Servants - learn that you are designed and called by God to be vessels of God’s abundance in this world and it starts with simple obedience to the way of Jesus.  

“So they took it” it says of the servants- what does that mean for you today?  Get serious about answering your questions as you explore faith? Step out and begin to trust Jesus with your life? Follow Jesus with your life choices? An exhausted world needs the wine of God’s joy.   Let’s spread the word that God, who is perfectly revealed in Jesus, is the kind of God that makes sure the party continues, because God is doing a beautiful thing in the world. And God aims to do this beautiful thing through you. Through us.

Let’s together toast the world with the good news of God’s abundant grace.