It's Advent, still. Two weeks down, two to go. 'Tis the season of waiting, of preparing, of being perhaps a little more busy than usual. Advent is a time we hear our scripture exclaim to us, WAKE UP! Buddha means, to be awake. Numerous religions and spiritualities embrace paying attention. Pay attention to your heart, your soul, your world, your priorities, your God. Pay attention to dreams, whether you are asleep or awake. Advent is a season for visions - not of sugar plums but of swords being turned into plowshares and dry deserts that blossom. Advent heralds a coming time of fruit basket upset. The weak become strong, the haughty are made low, the peasant becomes a land owner, and all that fairness logic gives way to God's justice.

James writes, "Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient." James goes on, wisely linking patience with suffering and calling on endurance. "As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance."

Is Advent a season of endurance? Could be. It could be a church season that helps teach us why and how to wait. God knows, there are plenty of situations in our complicated lives and relationships that call for patience and endurance. And then, there are situations where suffering has gone on long enough, endurance ceases to be a badge of honor; endurance is how we survive.

How many times have I heard well intentioned church people say, "Be patient. The timing isn't right,"? It's a standard response to something that requires change. The refrain resonates with me in the context of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender issues.

Good people, friends at Luther Seminary, would listen to our struggle, anger, and faith witness. They felt our pain, sort of, and being pragmatists would counsel, "Be patient. The timing isn't right." I served 14 months as an interim pastor within a Presbyterian congregation before coming to CCC. PC/USA is hotly divided over the issue of g/l/b/t ordinations. I could breathe easier as an ordained UCC minister but the conflict was chilling. We all know the trials, literal and emotional, our brothers and sisters within the Episcopal and Methodist folds are experiencing. The United Church of Christ is not immune. Plenty of search committees will outright reject a Profile, (candidate resume), if the person identifies themselves as gay or lesbian.

My first congregation called me, knowing I was lesbian. However, it was not common knowledge and a year later when it became so, the stuff hit the fan, so to speak. It was a small, vocal minority that made life very difficult. I was the gossip at the grocery store. I was an embarrassment to the church - for those few persons horrified to see me in the pulpit. I was the youth pastor, no less! The local ministerium of male ministers would not speak with me at our gatherings. I lived on an island of acceptance. I didn't want to live on an island. When my advocates asked me to no longer talk about the part of me that is lesbian, that it would be better for all concerned, I put my head down on my colleague's dining room table and painfully sighed. I knew at that moment I was leaving. Being patient with discrimination is wrong.

There is a theme stirring in this church, Montgomery County, and across the United States. God is still speaking. That may become the rallying cry of Christians coming to terms with the perils of silence. The religious right is not only speaking for themselves, they are increasingly identified as speaking for all Christians. WAKE UP, people! In this Advent season, be awake to the voices of fear and hate. Be awake and hear too, the extravagant welcome of Jesus, the one who comes from and hangs out with, outcasts.

A week ago tomorrow, a few of us attended an "Emergency Meeting" of clergy and faith leaders from our area to discuss strategies to defend marriage in Maryland. This summer, nine couples and one widower with the assistance of the ACLU and Equality Maryland filed a lawsuit seeking marriage equality for same gender couples in Maryland. Julia Jarvis, Jim Todhunter, Jackie Walters and I went to this meeting to perhaps be a part of the dialogue. Whatever strategies were discussed, we wanted to weigh in as Christians with a different point of view. There were alarmist statements in the letter of invitation that should not be perpetuated as fact. We entered mega Immanuel's Church on New Hampshire cognizant that we were not in Kansas anymore.

While I don't appreciate my sometimes caricature of being a Pollyanna, the daughter everyone wishes they had, I do confess that I am naive in certain matters. Some of that, I think, comes from my deep seated belief that good can prevail. I understand that life isn't fair or even kind, yet I hold that we do not labor in vain for justice and compassion. I am less naive than I was last Sunday.

For nearly two hours we sat among maybe thirty people, (thank God the turnout was poor). The expectation of dialogue was quickly dashed as one primary spokesman preached to the choir...and a few very uncomfortable visitors. Delegate Don Dwyer from Annapolis is on a crusade. He is furthering the cause of Moving Together, a conservative Christian fellowship seeking to win the Capital region to Christ.

What we experienced was gay bashing at its worst. A thirty minute video made in 1993 captured extreme cases of glbt folk being outrageous and depicting that as the norm. It perpetuated and fueled myths about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons as sex-aholics, pedophiles, and persons that will stop at nothing to become the dominant culture of our society. The graphics and music pumped themes of hate and revulsion. There was commentary by such authorities as Trent Lott, William Bennett and Ralph Reed. It directly linked the Clinton administration as accomplices in this war, a war the gay community started. While the movie was disgusting and disturbing for the same and different reasons as it was intended, my gut burned from the reality of intolerance in the room.

In Christ's name, so much judgment, damnation, justification for torture. What fueled these responses? Fear.

Fear of God's wrath if one does not follow the true way and, fear of the "other."

Before our leaving the assembly, Jim made a brave and eloquent request for dialogue. He confronted the hate that was pervasive in the video, reminding people that this was not the way to build bridges. He outed our row of four as members of the United Church of Christ, a denomination and church that embraces glbt people. He invited genuine conversation about this issue as Christians. He spoke so I didn't have to. And as Jackie noted, the challenge was probably tolerated more coming from a male clergy person than had it been me. Some people hopefully noted the invitation to be genuine. Most folk outwardly and I suspect inwardly, shuddered. No doubt prayers were said for our salvation. People pray for me frequently. I say, hey, go ahead! God discerns prayer. I can always use prayer.

Exiting through the big doors, I spoke to the woman seeing us out. "I'm sorry we are perceived as the enemy. We are all Christians. There must be some common ground." In a Rodney King kind of way I wondered, why can't we all just get along?

I operate out of a paradigm that understands the church to be an extended dysfunctional family that periodically attempts to gather around the same table - or more realistically, tries to gather in the home of the relative least inclined to leave their personal turf or venture into the "unclean" homes of their relation. We Christians are family. We share ancestors and history. We share the Bible, albeit the chosen translations and the interpreted message and meanings lead to very different beliefs and attitudes. As different as best oven hash and a five star restaurant entree of meat, potatoes and fresh vegetable. The basic ingredients are the same.

As I encounter my brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and distant cousins, that like me, are Christian, I wonder - why can't we all just get along? My own extended family's Thanksgiving table included conservative Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Methodists and unknowns. We managed. Grandpa's long winded prayers were to the same God and Jesus.

We Christians share the Lord's Prayer, a few words added, deleted or changed, but it's essentially the same prayer. We all pray for God's will to be done. We pray to be forgiven and to be able to forgive. Our hymnbooks are rich in songs of praise and spiritual introspection. We all speak of wanting to love one another. Jesus is the one we follow...Jesus the healer, the disrupter and martyr. Doesn't Jesus challenge us to find ways to get along?

In my tears, sadness, and hurt, something began to shift. In a dysfunctional family system model, there are some family members one can't be near. They are toxic, abusive, and dangerous. Our relatives and community associates are on a continuum. Some folk are less good for us than others. Most need and should be some part of our circle. Keep that diversity flowing! But others... a dimension of evil can permeate their person. They can be life threatening - emotionally, spiritually, or even physically. Be aware. Someone else needs to confront or interact with these kin. I can't.

The right wing religion fundamentalists are our neighbors. They are active in this county and state. Churches are places of recruitment and strategizing. This is no different than what the Civil Rights Movement did. There are however, some serious distinctions.

Right-wing religion with its punitive God, shares with terrorism the use of fear to motivate. Terrorism thrives on prompting rash actions based in fear. This is true of any fundamentalist strain of religion. Fear produces reactions for survival, not lasting positive solutions to difficult problems. Fear heightens our sense of "us vs. them." It can aggravate conflict and escalate violence. War, not non-violence is the mantra.

For the Christian right, Jesus Christ is a wedge driven between the saved and the damned, between Christians and everyone else. Suspicion and harassment of strangers and others deemed different is done in the vein of practicing one's faith. Intolerance, not tolerance is preached.

The Christian right espouses belief in a God who inflicts punishment on all those outside the community of the elect. Jesus becomes a weapon in the hands of those who believe themselves to be the elect. Fundamentalism considers diversity the enemy.

John Thomas, the President of the UCC writes in his State of the United Church of Christ address: There is a yearning for the claiming of an identity that can provide a clear alternative to the gospel of exclusion, prosperity, domination, and fear that pervades so much of American religion. There is an emerging recognition that the wounded, alienated, and lonely persons in our community who wonder if there is a church or a God who cares for them are in fact an evangelical mandate for us. There is readiness to make the noble heritage of this church and all its "firsts" more than a nostalgic and pleasant dream, but a living reality in the morning of this new day. There is a growing sense that there is a distinctive vocation for the United Church of Christ in our time and that we must claim it and give generously to it in order not only for our witness, but for the whole witness of the Christian faith to be vital and clear in our time.

Advent's patience is not for sitting still. Christ Congregational Church will not sit still. We will be a Christian voice for justice, compassion, and moral values. As written in James chapter 5 verse 12: Above all, my beloved, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your Yes be yes and your No be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.