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Sunday, February 10, 2002
Rev. William R. Johnson

A sermon by the Rev. William R. Johnson, Ed.D., preached at Christ Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, in Silver Spring, Maryland, on February 10, 2002. Dr. Johnson serves as Executive Associate to the Executive Minister of Wider Church Ministries of the United Church of Christ.

Grant, O God, wisdom and courage for the
interpretation and hearing of your Holy Word. Amen.

It must have been quite a day for Jesus. He’d been baptized, and, after spending time in the desert struggling with his call to ministry, he’d returned to Nazareth, where he stood in his home synagogue, reading from the prophet Isaiah:

And the eyes of everyone were fixed upon him. But the story goes on to say that the whole audience in the synagogue was filled with indignation. They dragged Jesus out into the streets with the intention of hurling him from the top of the hill on which the city was built.

I’ve heard some preachers, mostly on T.V., who, given the violence their preaching inspires, probably should have had their microphones unplugged, but this reaction to Jesus reading from a revered prophet seems, well, overwrought. There’s more going on here than "small town boy gets uppity."

Those with religious or political power in Nazareth surely felt threatened by Jesus declaring now is the day for the poor to get hopeful good news, for those held captive to know they are free, for the blind to see and the imprisoned released. But I suspect most threatening, to the whole congregation, was our Savior’s bold proclamation that now is the time of God’s favor.

Some preachers invoke guilt and shame to encourage a change of heart because, frankly they don’t know any better. But, although he risked stirring up the enmity of his home synagogue, Jesus knew that proclaiming liberating good news would open hearts, not merely change them.

So he dared to proclaim to people who had never before heard such a thing: Now, this day, God’s favor is a living reality!

This is what our Open and Affirming United Church of Christ congregations, that take seriously their commitment, do every week.. We say, "God loves you!" to people who haven’t heard such an affirmation for a long time. You are justified not by any thing you can say or do. You are sanctified by the fact of your creation as a child of God. You are set free by your faith in the redemptive grace of God personified in Jesus Christ! This is startling good news! Dangerous, radical stuff. Powerful witness! Transforming ministry!

About a year ago, I had a conversation with a 19 year old gay man who is now a member of the United Church of Christ. When Mark was 10 years old, he was riding in the car with his Dad. The radio was tuned to a Christian talk show. Out of the blue, a caller suggested that all "homos" ought to be rounded up and shot. The host and the caller laughed in agreement. And so did Mark’s Dad.

Suddenly Mark felt unsafe. He already felt his attraction to other males and, in that moment, he instinctively knew he had to keep his gayness secret. He was terrified that if his Dad — his idol, his protector, his buddy — learned his secret, he would be thrown out of the house or, worse, that he would be killed by his own father.

Fear entered Mark’s life that day — fear in response to social and religious prejudice — fear that entombed his life in a closet. Fear that became central to the conflict he felt about Christianity and to his distrust in God’s love for him.

For eight years, Mark lived in fear, experienced growing isolation from his peers, and tried to commit suicide twice. On the second attempt, at age 15, he told his parents he is gay. They gave him $100.00, wished him luck, and threw him out of their Pentecostal home. Mark hitchhiked to Seattle, hoping to stay with an Aunt, but his Dad had warned his Aunt, who turned him away. Mark began living on the streets, panhandling and sometimes selling his body for food.

Then, by the grace of God, one of his friends told him about a weird church. It was an Open and Affirming United Church of Christ congregation. They had an outreach ministry to street youth. But more startling, the word on the street was that they welcomed gay people!

The next Sunday, Mark cleaned up as best he could and went to that UCC church to worship. A lady who looked to be about 70 years old said, "Good Morning!" to Mark as he walked in. Then, to his amazement, as the service began, she sat down next to him. That day, Mark not only heard an affirming word, he experienced genuine hospitality. That morning, in that Open and Affirming UCC congregation, the healing began that has transformed Mark’s life.

I grew up in Texas in the 1950s. I was six years old when I first became aware of my attraction to other boys. I already knew the anti-social gospel that "God hates queers." Like Mark, I instinctively knew to keep my secret. Safety became paramount. It is hard for a six year old gay child to grasp the illogic of someone claiming that our loving Creator God hates any part of creation. Still, there are those – even as adults – who cling to that strange view of God to justify their anti-gay prejudice.

Anti-gay prejudice, and apprehension about transgender people, are not really about a "difference of opinion" about biblical interpretation or fears about an end to procreation. Or about irrational fears about the safety of children or fear of God’s wrath. Resistence to affirming God’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender children is, in fact, about an inability to accept the amazing diversity of God’s good creation. It’s about an inability to accept the varied, natural ways that human beings experience and express love. I’m convinced that when people claim that "God hates queers" or that they "hate the sin but love the sinner" or claim to be an "ex-gay," what they’re really saying is "I’m having a hard time believing that God loves me." "I’m having a hard time accepting you because I’m having a hard time accepting myself as loveable."

In Brideshead Revisited, Mrs. Marchmain, reflecting on the persecution of her gay son, puts it this way: "When someone hates with that much passion, I think it is something inside themselves that they truly hate." Such people desperately need to hear the radical Gospel that God’s favor is a living reality for all people. They need help appropriating that Good News to t heir own lives. The irony, of course, is that an Open and Affirming congregation is the best place they can be if their hardened hearts are ever to open. But, too often they flee in fear, not trusting God’s inviting admonition: "Fear not!"

We ought not to put our trust in those who scapegoat others to make themselves feel superior. They’re into repression. People – all kinds of people – claiming their freedom to be fully, openly who they are, scares them.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has written this about the church’s response to its same-gender oriented members:

...we spurn them, we shun them, because we are all caught up in an acknowledged or a tacit homophobia and heterosexism. We reject them, treat them as pariahs, and push them outside the confines of our church communities, and thereby we negate the consequences of their baptism and ours. We make them doubt that they are the children of God, and this must be nearly the ultimate blasphemy. ¹

I cannot read that without thinking about Mark and the transforming power of congregations, like this one, that dare to proclaim God’s favor to all the children of God.

I know that God calls us to freedom, not to repression. The biblical witness is a commentary on God’s aching for humanity to live in the freedom for which God created us. That is why the church must be that place where each of us can affirm our identity as a person of sacred worth, beloved of God. Our churches must be communities in which we can sing together the truth of God’s favor:

(Sung) I am a child of God.
Nothing can shake my confidence.
I am a child of God.
No one can take my inheritance.
Never alone I’ll stand.
Strengthened by God’s own hand.
I am a child. I am a child. Child of God.

Do you truly understand that what you did in adopting and acting upon your Open and Affirming Statement has had a profound effect? Do you know that lives have been saved? Do you know that people whom you may never meet benefit from your witness? Do you know that your valuing of each person has changed the way people, especially children and youth, experience the world? Do you know how much fear has been conquered? Do you understand the transforming power of your proclamation that here, in this place among these people, God’s favor is a living reality?

You have begun to do for others what Mark’s Open and Affirming UCC congregation has done for him. Here at Christ Church, people who feel cut off from Christian community – people who may not have worshiped in many years – can find a true sanctuary, a place of healing for their lives.

In our United Church of Christ Statement of Faith, we proclaim that Jesus came to us "to share our common lot." It is vital for this, and any, congregation to discover and explore the common ground of our human experience.

I don’t care who you are. I don’t care if you are rich or poor; if your skin color is different from mine; if you are married, single, divorced or coupled. I don’t care if you are educated or illiterate; if you are heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual or transgender. As human beings we have common ground. Really, it is the holy ground of our common lot.

We all need love – to receive and to give love.
We all have shame, and need forgiveness and grace.
We all struggled to attain a healthy self esteem and some of us still struggle.
We all have doubts and fears.
We all have pain.
We all have hopes and dreams for our lives.
We all need the liberating word proclaimed by Christ: Now, this day, God’s favor is a living reality!

Friends, when God makes human beings, there is more creativity expressed then we’ve been willing or able to acknowledge, appreciate or affirm. When God loves, that love surpasses our human understanding. We cannot ever fully grasp, nor limit with our prejudice, its unconditional generosity. The holy ground of our common lot as human beings – as children of God – is the raw stuff that God can use to bind us together. In Christian community, God invites us to make known our need for love and to come out of shame. God offers us forgiveness and grace so that we might fully share our stories with one another, without pretense or fear. Just as we are, we live in God’s favor – each one of us. This is the good news of Christ, our liberator!

There are still hate mongers on the radio and on television. Their message has little to do with the liberating Gospel of Christ....but it sells. Never mind that. In a few months, Christ Church will be back in your building – a building expanded and renewed for new adventures in ministry. It will be God’s gift of new opportunities to grow. For Christ’s sake, now is the time to reflect and rediscover your commitment to being an Open and Affirming Church as integral to all that you do.

Now is a good time to ask, with serious intentionality: How inclusive is our commitment to inclusion? How open are we to affirming our common lot and to hearing the life stories of those whose difference is a gift from God? How open are we to having our lives enriched, perhaps even transformed, by the simple act of genuinely welcoming the gifts of those who are different from ourselves? Not because it is the liberal thing to do but because it is what God expects of us.

I’m sure you are all getting excited about returning to your church building. But it would be sad if you returned without some new visions for ministry. There are so many people in Silver Spring, and in this geographical area, who need your Open and Affirming witness.

Now is the time to ask: How shall we expand our witness and our ministries? Is there some good you can do to meet the special needs of gay and lesbian elders? Of same gender parents or the children of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender parents? How effective will your witness be on behalf of equal marital rights for same gender couples so that "equality under the law" becomes more than a slogan? What more can you do to nurture a generation of open and affirming children and youth? What might you do to help end the high suicide rates among gay teens or the harassment, bullying and bashing that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth experience at school? The Holy One is eager for you to proclaim, in word and deed: Now, this day, God’s favor is a living reality! There is still much more ministry to be done.

I have a dear friend who is living with AIDS. He has a heartfelt response whenever someone asks him, "how are you?" Regardless of how he feels or what is going on in his life, ask Ted "how are you?" and he will respond: "I am truly blessed and highly favored!"

This is the powerful affirmation of a person who knows that God loves him, that God created him for freedom, that God will never abandon him, and that the promises of God will be fulfilled in his life. This is the powerful affirmation of a person who is liberated by his visceral knowledge that he is a beloved child of God. It is knowledge that Ted first received as an adult in an Open and Affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ where God’s favor is a living reality.

Thanks be to God that there are now more than 400 Open and Affirming United Church of Christ congregations. May God grant you the determined faith to continue to fulfill the promise of your Open and Affirming commitment. And may all who are touched by the life and ministry of this congregation say with thanksgiving, I am truly blessed and highly favored in the love of God shared with me by the people of Christ Church in Silver Spring.

In the grace of God, may it be so. Amen.

¹ We were Baptized too: Claiming God’s Grace for Lesbians and Gays, by Marilyn Bennett Alexander and James Preston (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), Foreword by Bishop Desmond M. Tutu.

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