What Now?

What Now?

First delivered at UUCB on April 29, 2007

Over this church year, our congregation has been engaged in the process that culminates in a congregational vote on whether or not to seek the Welcoming Congregation designation from the Unitarian Universalist Association. Today is our third worship service within the process, we have hosted three movie and discussion nights screening, Torch Song Trilogy, Longtime Companion and Transamerica. Eleven of our Sunday morning forums have been devoted to such topics as Homophobia, Heterosexism, Gender Identification,          Bisexuality, Experiences of the GLBT Community, Homosexuality and Religion, Transgender Issues.

Although we have discussed this at length throughout the year, some points deserve repetition. First of all, what exactly is a Welcoming Congregation? If you Google “Welcoming Congregation” the top result is a page on the UUA website that says:

Unitarian Universalism is very supportive of Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender (BGLT) people and their families, and has officially welcomed this community since 1970.  We believe that our first principle, respecting “the inherent worth and dignity of every person,” applies equally to people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.  

Since 1987, more than half of our congregations have completed a program to become especially welcoming to the BGLT community.  These congregations are known as Welcoming Congregations, and are indicated on the congregation list with a rainbow chalice icon.

Unitarian Universalism is one of the few religions that ordains openly Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender people. We encourage our BGLT clergy to participate as fully in our faith as our heterosexual clergy.

In addition to welcoming BGLT people into our religious community, we also work to protect the civil and legal rights of BGLT people and families across the country. Unitarian Universalists have been at the forefront of the same-sex marriage debates, advocating for the right for each person to marry the partner of his or her choice. [1]

Why become a Welcoming Congregation by designation when we already affirm the worth and dignity of every person and are entirely open to enjoying the benefits of a diverse religious community? Aren’t we a welcoming congregation already? Why focus on the GLBT community when other minorities and women still face inequity and discrimination in our society? They “why” questions are always the toughest, but I’d like to point out one thing that has bothered me tremendously whenever I engage in topical discussions these days. For some reason, we have become a nation of the “mutually exclusive.”

I’ll give you an example. When the case of Andrea Yates became public news, I expressed a feeling of compassion for Ms. Yates. I was immediately jumped on and taken to task for not caring about the children she had murdered. I have never been able to adequately figure out why compassion for Ms. Yates equated to a lack of compassion for her children. Here is another recent example I saw in a public debate recently. A young man was sharing some figures about greenhouse gas emissions and how they relate to climate change. He was then accused of not being a proper environmentalist because he was not fighting a corporation involved in the polluting of a local river. As it turns out, his law firm was indeed involved in a court battle with the company in question. But because he was focused on another topic at the moment the assumption was made that he excluded everything else. I’ll warn you now, I have very little patience for exclusionary thinking.

The “Welcoming Congregation” designation does not mean the congregation is solely focused on the issues of the GLBT community and does not care about African Americans, women, the elderly, the destitute, etc. There is something very important about the GLBT community that makes this designation worthwhile however. In contemporary circumstances, I can think of no other group of people so completely vilified in the name of religion…and politics for that matter, but these days it is sometimes difficult to separate the two.

Religious communities are where people go for sanctuary and solace. What is the fate of those who are soundly shunned by the vast majority of religious communities? Religion is one of the ways in which we make sense of our orientation to the world, explore the core of our being and relate to that which transcends our nature and fills us with awe. How devastating to be told that our very selves are unworthy of such communion. If I may risk using an emotionally laden word, Unitarian Universalism recognizes the evil inherent in this position and seeks to remedy it by not only proclaiming, but living a tradition that affirms the natural state of sexual orientation in every human being

In a previous sermon I have addressed the resounding silence in the Bible regarding homosexuality. This sacred library never mentions it and in fact, it was a concept unrecognized in the ancient world. The word homosexuality was not coined until the very late nineteenth century. But in my opinion, I think the Bible does give us some guidance on how God would want our homosexual brothers and sisters treated, and its not in the admonition to love our neighbors as ourselves or even in the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of my brethren, you did it to me.[2] Rather it is a message conveyed by an entire book, my favorite book in this particular library as a matter of fact. This book of the Bible is one of the funniest things ever written. How many of you know the Bible contains a satirical farce? How many of you are familiar with the story of Jonah? Most of us know that Jonah was the guy in the whale and not much else about him. The Book of Jonah[3] is an excellent example of how modern readers completely misunderstand a Biblical text due to failure to recognize and appreciate the genre.

Two comments about genre need to be made here. First, historiography in ancient times did not remotely have the same standards of scholarship, nor the same purpose as historiography does today. Second, biblical prophesy is not foretelling the future as we use the word today. Prophets provided a mouthpiece for God by functioning as commentators on their times. Any future predictions of doom and gloom were vague promises of divine retribution rather than threats that detailed specifics. Prophesy was an effort to persuade people to return to compassion and righteousness. 

Anyone who reads Jonah as an actual historical prophet is missing out on some really great inspirational literature. He was neither historical, nor a prophet. Details in the story are anachronistic—there is no way this figure is meant to be the prophet Jonah referred to elsewhere in previous centuries—and Jonah’s actions are distinctly un-prophet-like. The first clue is that the book is a story about Jonah rather than a collection of his writings. The story is filled with exaggerations with the word “great” being used repeatedly. Nineveh is a great city (in fact, it is indicated to be perhaps approximately 60 miles across!), Jonah is in the belly of a great fish, Yahweh responds to Jonah’s flight by sending a great wind and a great storm. Additionally, Jonah is being sent to a non-Israelite city which makes one wonder how they could have turned their backs on a God they never worshipped in the first place.

Behavior in the story is completely contradictory to what one would expect. Jonah responds to God’s call by running away as if setting sail to distant lands could hide someone from the Creator of the Universe! When Jonah is in the belly of the great fish he utters a prayer of Thanksgiving rather than one of lament. When Jonah acquiesces and goes to Nineveh, his proclamation omits the call to righteousness and does not include any repetition. Jonah utters five terse words that translate “Forty days from now Nineveh will be overturned,” and then he just leaves. Not only do the king and inhabitants of Nineveh repetent and turn to Yaweh, the king’s proclamation includes the order, “…but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God…”[4] Yes, I can just see all the sheep and cattle beating their breasts in shame. The height of the satire comes when Jonah goes into a sulk because they repented and God spared the inhabitants of Nineveh. How dare these foreigners do as he asked!

As Steven McKenzie, in his wonderful book, How to Read the Bible, points out, “Recognition that the story is satirical allows the reader to perceive truth in its message about prejudice apart from the question of historical accuracy.”[5] While Unitarian Universalism does not grant supreme authority to revelation as found in scripture, our religion does acknowledge the value of universal truths that are often present in scripture. The book of Jonah is a clear indication that some of our Jewish ancestors were keenly aware of the universality of God’s love. At least one chose the genre of satire to highlight the absurdity of self-righteousness and bigotry.

I chose to include a Biblical story today to hopefully illustrate that it is not necessarily religion itself that creates a hostile environment for the GLBT community, but how religious communities interpret their revelations and choose to relate to their homosexual brethren. Sadly, this segment of our community is not only religiously shunned but being politically exploited

It’s not enough just to become a Welcoming Congregation for the sake of a pretty little chalice on our website and pamphlets, a little bit of PR or the opportunity to grow numerically. The question, “What Now?” takes us beyond this afternoon’s congregational vote. How do we realize the designation and be a Welcoming Congregation? We recognize that the Welcoming Congregation process is not a journey with an end. It does not conclude with our vote today, but continues throughout the life of this church.

One thing we have already scheduled is a continuation of the GLBT film series. We are showing Tipping the Velvet in June and Big Eden: A Small Miracle in July. I would like to challenge our congregation to organize and host a Brevard chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), a resource sorely lacking and much in need. Listen to their Mission statement:

PFLAG promotes the health and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, their families and friends through: support, to cope with an adverse society; education, to enlighten an ill-informed public; and advocacy, to end discrimination and to secure equal civil rights. Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays provides opportunity for dialogue about sexual orientation and gender identity, and acts to create a society that is healthy and respectful of human diversity.[6]

This is clearly an organization that fits nicely with the mission of a Unitarian Universalist church.

I hope we have all used these previous months to explore our own feelings about what it means to become and to be a Welcoming Congregation. May we continue to confront our society and our selves in an effort to recognize the pervasiveness of heterosexism and the harm of homophobia. May we be the voice of prophecy providing the social commentary on our times that calls all people to compassion and righteousness founded in the respect of human diversity. Peace be with you.