"Letters from a Birmingham Assembly" highlights MLP Dinner

"Letters from a Birmingham Assembly," keynote address

The celebrated author of Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen, wrote that, "It is in the telling of our stories that we find our way."

Birmingham, Alabama is a place of many stories. This is the place where Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The Civil Rights Institute & Museum that houses his jail cell is just a few blocks from this hotel. You can see that very jail cell where he wrote his letter that challenged the Church and changed our nation.

Presbyterians are story-telling people. We are part of an ancient stream of people of faith, the Hebrew people who told their faith stories through midrash.

As Presbyterians there are stories of us taking on tough issues - with our heads, hearts and minds - stories that illustrate our individual consciences and collective conscience as a Church - consider our taking on tough issues in our past -

Slavery, segregation, the ordination of women, divorce and remarriage, trusting women to be their own moral agents with reproductive rights and choices, economic justice and peace-making...

I am reading the William Sloane Coffin's last book, Letters to a Young Doubter. He borrows the rhetorical format of Ranier Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. The advice that Rilke gave the young poet, Coffin offers to a hypothetical university student named Tom: "Love the questions themselves and you will live into the answers."

Thirty-two years ago, David Sindt stood before the Presbyterian General Assembly and asked this question as he held up a sign like this one, "Is anyone else out there gay?" David was a newly ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church from Chicago attending his national professional assembly. I cannot imagine the courage it took for him to hold up that sign, to ask that question, at a time with few persons were out, and relatively no one was out in the church. I never had the chance to meet David, he died with HIV-AIDS before I became part of the More Light Movement in 1991. I met his parents, Char and Gus, they become parents to all of us.

"Is anyone else out there gay? I have often wondered what David was asking for - surely it was to find others like him - same-gender loving people. Maybe it was a seeking for community. Solidarity, others to stand with him against a church not willing to break the silence, to ask the questions.

As we are surrounded by a "cloud of witnesses" which is, of course, the theme of this General Assembly strangely enough.... we are also surrounded by a display of the "Shower of Stoles Project." This project was called into being as a witness to the fact that Martha Juillerat and Tammy Lindahl, and Merrill Proudfoot were not the only lesbian or gay persons in the entire states of Missouri and Kansas as some people thought during those first "dialogue" years back in 1993 - 1995.

Somehow I have the sense that David is here with us at this gathering of the More Light Movement here in Birmingham. I think he would have loved a gathering, a rainbow community, just like this one.

So, in the spirit of the asking of questions, living into the answers, and the writing of letters, at the end of this General Assembly, I wonder what kinds of "Letters" will come from this Birmingham Assembly? How will our Church speak to matters of peacemaking, torture and war with over 2,500 American soldiers killed in Iraq so far?

How will the Church address issues of economic justice and homelessness, when 1 out of 5 children in the U.S. lives in poverty? What will our Church say about divestment, and peace in Palestine and Israel? What will our Church say about immigration? What will our Church say to LGBT persons, our parents, families and friends? At the end of this Assembly, what will our Church be saying about these life and death, faith issues?

Whatever this Assembly says about us, about those of us who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, I encourage you to reflect upon and remember what Bill Coffin asks the college student, Tom, in Letters to a Young Doubter: "Who tells you who you are?" Who tells you who you are? Is it family, your experiences growing up? God's Spirit? Jesus and his teachings, and the Gospel? The Bible. Church. Life experiences? So, who tells you who you are?

Bill Coffin reminds Tom: "Love the questions and live into the answers. You have a lifetime. But start now."

My family, my home and my church growing up told me who I am. I was adopted.... chosen....by Doris and Larry Adee in 1955. My parents and older brother Steve, four at the time of my adoption, were part of First Presbyterian Church, Billings, Montana. My father was an Elder, and Clerk of Session. He was an engineer, and engineers make good Clerks of Session. My parents led the Mariners' group for young married couples. When they presented me for baptism, and promises.... covenants were made between my parents and their church to raise me and nurture me in faith in Jesus Christ, no one asked, "Is this a heterosexual baby or a homosexual baby. It was a baby."

Our family moved to south Louisiana and I grew up in the care of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Sulphur, a church of about 70 people. My buddy Keith and I would be the youth group of 2 unless Janice and John were there and we were four. I loved the Sunday evening all-church potluck suppers. Keith and I would scan the long church tables to see the feast set before us. Remember those flakey bake and serve rolls that had individual sections? I would put a pat of butter between each one - it was heaven. It is amazing that I am alive today.

My Dad was Clerk of Session again, and my Mom was in charge of pastoral care. We did not have deacons. My Mom had lost her vision because of diabetes when I was in fifth grade, so she was blind from my fifth grade year until she died when I was in seminary. Mom had a braille list of church members. I remember watching her read that braille list of names and calling church members if there was an illness or death within the congregation. Imagine the moral authority when the blind lady calls your home to ask you to make a casserole for the Jones' family. Within a few hours, 30 casseroles could arrive in a 50 mile radius - just like magic.

It was from my family, and growing up in that little Presbyterian church in south Louisiana, that I learned love and hospitality. I was loved unconditionally by my parents and in that church.

One of my spiritual teachers these days in Kathleen Norris. From her book, Amazing Grace, A Vocabulary of Faith: "Over time, I have learned two things about my religious quest. First of all, it is God who is seeking me, and who has myriad ways of finding me. Second, that my most substantial changes, in terms of religious conversion, came through other people. Even when I become convinced that God is absent from my life, others have a way of suddenly revealing God's presence."

Having the benefit and foundation of growing up in a loving home and church, when I bumped into the larger religious landscape in high school and college, I began to question what I had been taught as I found myself sorting out my faith and sexuality.

The religious culture outside of my home and church offered the following messages:

And the language in the judicial case filed against Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio and my ordination after I was ordained and installed as an Elder: self-avowed, unrepentant, practicing homosexual.

As Adrienne Rich has helped us understand that this is a "compulsory heterosexuality" and an imposition of celibacy. From what I understand of and from Scripture, celibacy is a gift, and not something one can impose on others.

Imagine such language being applied to you and your life. Everything seemed to change. What about those promises made to my parents and me at baptism? at confirmation?

Two of my favorite literary characters offer some insight and understanding, Shug Avery and Celie, in Alice Walker's prize-winning book made into an extraordinary film by Stephen Spielberg, The ColorPurple.

Preacher's daughter, Shug Avery says to Celie: "Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for God to show up. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God. It is fatal to love a God who does not love you."

I live at 7,000 feet now, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We have little to no humidity there so cars and trucks last a long time. I believe the original Toyota truck is on the street where I live in Santa Fe. Every time I pass it I notice the bumper sticker with the orange flower. It says, "Jesus is coming, look busy." Jesus is coming, look busy? That is such bad theology. I do not think that Jesus wants us to look busy, or that Jesus cares what we look like in the first place.

In 1926, the Presbyterian Church debated whether or not people using tobacco could be ordained into ministry. Well....

This is the first official day of this Assembly, with the election of the Moderator this evening after this dinner. Already there has been much talk about sin, and that all of us are sinners. I am a sinner, I will be the first to admit it. I have to live with myself. The sinful part of me is not the person God created me to be as a gay man, or who I fall in love with, or how I make love. The sinful part of me might rather be how I spend my money, or when I withhold mercy and kindness. We Presbyterians take sin seriously, but we need to pay close attention to the messages we send about sin.

What is sin? It is an important question. Hal Porter, then pastor of Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, that loved me back into faith, that loved me back into church, that created space for me to risk coming back to church taught us that: "Sin is the failure to become all that God would have us become - as individuals and the church."

I was in Little Rock, Arkansas a couple weeks ago on an MLP Tour, field outreach trip there. At a luncheon after church, three women were sitting to my right on a sofa. I had asked people gathered there to introduce themselves and share why they came to a "more light" gathering such as this one. The first woman said declaratively: "I am prejudiced against those who are prejudiced." And the second woman seated next to her said, "So, you exclude those who exclude?"

Peter Gomes, Chaplain at Harvard and author of The Good Book, reminds us that: "It is an important thing to remember that to be a follower of Jesus is to be so – not on the basis of the merits of the follower – but on the basis of the One who calls. And, who are we mortals to question the calling that our Lord has made to his gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender children."

Kathleen Norris' take on the Great Commandment texts from the Gospels as found in her book, Cloister Walk: "The great commandment, to love God with all your heart and soul, and your neighbor as yourself, seemed more subtle than ever. I began to see the three elements as a kind of trinity, always in motion, and the three loves as interdependent. It would be impossible to love God without loving others; impossible to love others unless one were grounded in a healthy self-respect, and maybe impossible to truly love at all without participating in the holy."

"Maybe impossible to truly love at all without participating in the holy."

It was a hot July Sunday morning. A dozen or so of us were gathered in an upper Sunday School room at Bethany Presbyterian Church, Dallas, in the buckle of the Bible belt. Jean and John Martin were teaching the class on the Bible and texts that may or may not have anything to do with homosexuality. Jean and John are parents of two sons: one is a Presbyterian pastor in Oregon and heterosexual, and one is a college teacher in Tennessee and gay. Jean and John love both of their sons.

As they were marching through the lesson, and the Biblical texts, one young man finally raised his hand and said this: "I do not know if I care what the Bible says about homosexuality, I just want to know, does God love me? That upper room was quiet. I looked at Jean, then John, no one spoke. We are polite, we are Presbyterians. Then, finally, I broke the silence and said: "Oh, Randy, of course God loves you just the way you are, just like God loves everyone. And, if you have been with us and do not know this, that is not your fault, it is our fault."

Judy Shepherd, mother of Matthew Shepherd, the gay college student beaten in Wyoming and left to hang on a fence to die says that: "The worse kind of hurt is church hurt."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has said that "the Gospel is at stake in how we treat gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people."

Homophobia is the last socially-acceptable, religiously-sanctioned prejudice and discrimination in our country. The church is the problem and the church is the solution. As I travel our church and work for the full embrace of LGBT persons in our church and in civil society, homophobia is still present, of course. And, the larger problem and barrier to understanding and equality is heterosexism.

Unchecked privilege becomes entitlement. I know this well as a white male. Of course, when I tell the truth, when I come out, something else happens. Heterosexual privilege.

How long will the Presbyterian Church continue to be a church for heterosexuals only? People tell me that they do not like it when I say that. When it's no longer true, I'll stop saying it.

The church's hands are not clean when it comes to contributing to harm done to LGBT persons and our families. Consider the facts that:

1 out of 3 youth/young adult suicides are directly related to sexual and gender identity; 1/3 of youth at risk on the street and homeless are LGBT youth, many of whom are throw out of their homes when found to be gay; 95% of LGBT high school students report verbal or physical harassment; 50% of hate crimes resulting in death of LGBT persons or persons perceived to be gay report that there was a religious sanction to the crime, persons on death row report that it was the Bible, the church, their pastor that led them to kill; 1,047 rights and privleges granted in civil marriage to heterosexuals and denied to LGBT persons.

And, because of the anti-gay language and policies of our Church, our being studied, "task-forced" again and again, how many younger and/or older LGBT persons wonder if they are children of God, loved by God, safe and welcome in our churches? They have every reason to doubt, not trust the church. We have every reason to doubt, not trust the church.

Rabbi Leo Baeck asked: "Which is worse, the intolerance that commits outrages or the indifference that observes outrages with an undisturbed conscience?"

Last month I was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana working at University Presbyterian Church. A longtime friend who is a lesbian with a wonderful partner and 3 children. She is now teaching at LSU and told me this: "The church is the only place in my life where I feel discrimination."

When are we going to get it right? When are we going to stop the prejudice, the pre-judging, and the discrimination?

Loving the questions, living into the answers.

William Sloan Coffin, Letters to a Young Doubter: "Over the years I have been convinced that the more important question is not who believes in God, but in who does God believe. Rather than claim God for our side, it's better to wonder whether we are on God's side."

What letters will we write from this Birmingham Assembly? It is up to us.

A wonderful story about a kindergarten teacher has come my way. It was her habit to walk around the classroom observing her children as they drew. She stopped at one little girl's desk and asked what she was drawing. The little girl replied, "I'm drawing God." The teacher said, "But no one knows what God looks like." Without looking up or skipping a beat, the little girl said, "They will in a minute."

And may that be so of us.

Blessed be.