Timothy B. Tutt
Pastor, United Christian Church
Sunday, June 3, 2012
8:30, 9:30 and 10:45 AM Worship
2nd Sunday of Pentecost
Ordinary/Common Time
(Lectionary Year B)
“Bleach for the Soul”
Romans 12:1-2 and James 1:26-27
.
Last Sunday, my
sermon was about a minister in North
Carolina who made some terrible anti-gay statements
in a sermon. He said, among other
things, that we should round up gay and lesbian people in this country, put
them in an electric fence, and wait for them to die.
My sermon is posted
on my blog and on our church’s Facebook page.
And I think we uploaded it to the church web page as well.
In
that sermon, I talked about the wrong that people sometimes do. I talked about
how the church has sometimes blessed that wrong over the years. I talked about our need to speak out against
evil. And I talked about the hard, hard
work of praying for those who do wrong.
I
must say, I was overwhelmed by the response to that sermon—the conversations we
had at the doorway after worship, the emails, the Facebook posts. I was reminded once again of how thoughtful
you are as a church, how gracious you are as individuals, how sensitive you are
to problems in the world.
As
I said, I posted that sermon on my blog.
Remember, the sermon was about a minister who preached a horribly,
horribly anti-gay sermon. So, on my blog
I got a post from a woman name Magen. I
do not know Magen. I don’t know where
she lives. I don’t know much about
her. But I feel terribly, terribly sad
for her. [If you are reading this
blog again, Magen, I would appreciate you contacting me.]
So,
she read my sermon on my blog, and here is what she wrote:
I followed a link to this sermon
from your comment on HRC's Facebook post, and I'm glad I did. I was raised in a
church founded by my grandfather, currently pastored by my uncle with my father
as the associate pastor. After my divorce I realized I'm homosexual. I have sat
through many hurtful sermons preached by my family as well as guest speakers. I
eventually stopped going to church, but still sent my son. After the
president's support of gay marriage went public, people from the congregation
began to take a more active stand against the gay lifestyle. They said this is
a bigger issue than other sins in the Bible because people are making a
lifestyle of it. I decided I could no longer send my son to church with my
father, who has picked him up for services twice a week. I planned to have a
serious talk with my father explaining my decision, as it would not be taken
lightly. I planned to find a new church to attend that is more in line with
what I believe Jesus wants from us. As it turned out I didn't have to have that
talk. My father simply stopped calling and stopped showing up to pick up his
grandson. We are cast aside, cast aside by Christians in the name of God. These
are the people who taught me about Jesus as a little girl. What do I make of
this? I've pondered this question for many years. Is God a concept that was
invented to control, to provide comfort to conformists? As a homosexual I know
that I didn't choose this, I didn't, I truly, from the bottom of my heart, did
not choose this. But I can't convince anyone. They don't believe me. God must
know that. What do I do with this?
I’ve written back
to Magen. I haven’t heard back from her
yet.
Last Sunday I
asked you to pray for Reverend Worley, the pastor in North Carolina who preached the hateful
sermon. Several of you talked about
how difficult that is, to pray for someone who seems so hateful. It is hard to see that person as a child of
God. I know that.
This week, I will
ask you to do something that should be easier.
Please pray for Magen, this woman who emailed me. Obviously, her faith is important to
her. And her family seems important to
her. And she has been kicked out of
both, “cast aside” is the phrase she used.
She feels cast aside by her family and her church.
It’s interesting
how all of this has come together in this sermon this morning.
Several weeks ago,
maybe several months ago now, Ken, Nikki and I selected the scriptures for this
service. The verse from the Book of
James: “Religion that is pure and
undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress,
and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
And here is a family, a Christian family, a family of leaders in their
church, who have kicked their daughter out of their family. They have essentially orphaned her and her
son. And yet, this scripture says,
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for
orphans and widows…”
Our Centering
Words, the words that used to begin the 9:30 and 10:45 services this morning
were written by Tim Colvin. Tim wrote
that we want to trust the rulers of this earth, we want to trust our bodies, we
want to trust our families, but our governments, our bodies and our families
sometimes fail us. Tim didn’t know
anything about this woman when she wrote these words. I hadn’t even read this blog post when Tim
prepared the bulletin. But here we have a family who has failed their
child. They have cast her aside.
This scripture
passage from James says, “Keep yourself unstained by the world.” The scripture passage from Romans has some
similar ideas, “Present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to
God.”
Both of those
scriptures have passages have been used to develop moral codes, purity
codes. Keep your body pure, keep your
body unstained. Maybe you learned it
this way, “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t chew, and don’t you go with girls
that do.”
Fair enough, to
that old saying. But that old saying is not
nearly enough, not enough at all.
Jesus said, “You
can clean the outside of the cup, but the inside may still be full of
greed and self-indulgence.” (Matthew 23:
25)
The Apostle Paul
said, “You can speak like an angel and do all kinds of amazing things, but if
you don’t have love you’re a resounding or a clanging cymbal.” (I Corinthians 13: 1)
As I said, I don’t
know this woman, Magen, and I don’t know her family. But it seems to me that the family may be
like cups, clean on the outside, messy on the inside. Aren’t we all, sometimes? They’ve got lots of words to say about rules,
but she feels they left love by the wayside of their journey. Don’t
we all, sometimes?
I ache for
them. I really do.
And I wonder what
it must be like for her uncle and her father.
They’re the pastors of a church.
How do they preach the story of the Prodigal Son without having their
hearts break? Isn’t that the point of the story: That we wait with hope and grace to throw a
party for the people we love? I guess
they would focus on the “sin” aspect of the Prodigal story, though Jesus didn’t
focus on the sin when he told it. They
probably say that she’s a “sinner” and needs to repent. Based on what I’ve read in this email, I can’t
say this woman is a sinner. I’m tempted
to say that it’s her family who’s becomes “stained,” by excluding her. That’s
the problem with sin: It’s really easy to spot the “stain” in other people’s lives
and really hard to see in ourselves.
So, what do we make
of this, to ask Magen’s question. How do
we discern the will of God? What do we
do with this family that has “cast aside” their daughter? What do we do with these scripture passages
about pure religion? Is there bleach for
our souls?
First, I think, we
pray. I asked you to pray for Magen this week. I asked you last week to pray
for the pastor and hateful electric fence idea.
So, keeping praying. Listen for
the Spirit to speak in your lives.
Also, listen for
these stories, stories such as Magen’s.
Stories like that are hard to hear. “My father simply stopped
calling,” she wrote… “My father
simply stopped calling, and stopped showing up to pick up his grandson. We are
cast aside, cast aside by Christians in the name of God.”
We pray, we hear
those stories, and then we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice. That is, we offer ourselves to be used as
instruments of God. We offer ourselves
to people who are broken and battered and bruised. Can we fix all of their problems? Maybe not, but we can try.
We can care. We can act.
It is not enough
for us to simply sit sympathetically in church, but do nothing. It is not enough to think, “Oh, that preacher
in North Carolina
is bad. I’m so glad my preacher is
good.” It’s not enough to think, “How
said for that woman to be kicked out of her church. I’m so glad to have my
church.” That is not enough.
Instead, here is
what I think we are called to do. When
that father stopped calling his daughter, we start calling. Maybe
not her, we don’t know where she lives, we don’t have her phone number. But we know someone who is cast out, shunned,
lonely. Care for that person. When that grandfather stopped showing
up to pick up his grandson for church, we start showing up to bring them
here or to some place where they make connections of the soul.
Over and over,
people say to me, “This church is so great.
I feel so loved here.” Or, “My
kids or grandkids are getting such grounding here.” Or, “The youth mission trip is so
important.” Or, “I feel accepted
here.” I am grateful for those comments
and feelings. But it is never enough to
be soothed in our own religious satisfaction.
We must also share that Good News with others.
If you find your
soul warmed here, invite others to join you in God’s embrace.
If you find
yourself loved here, invite others to experience that love with you.
If you find
yourself accepted here, invite others into that grace as well.
From time to time
I hear people say – well-meaning people – “I really don’t want too many more
people here, because we might lose some of what makes us special.” Yes, we
will. We will lose something
special. And we will gain more of
it. Because there are a million Magens
out there with those aches and grief. A
million Magens, saying, We are cast aside, cast aside by Christians in the
name of God. These are the people who taught me about Jesus as a little girl.
What do I make of this? …. What do I do with this?
There are a
million Magens, who need this place, who need your compassion, you
kindness. There are a million Magens
out there who need to hear the words that Tim Colvin wrote: “Rulers may betray, bodies may fail, and
families sometimes disappoint. But God
guides us, the Spirit sustains us, Christ welcomes us home.”
Do not be
afraid. You are loved. Share the Good News.
Do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the mercies of God. Amen.
