What brings us to this place on Sunday morning? Each one might have different reasons for coming to church. Somebody invited you. You read about the church in the newspaper. You've been coming here for 50, 60, 70 years. A common answer which bonds all of us together is that we gather to worship God in a community of faith. It is what Christ taught us to do.
Christ has called us to be members of a community built on God's love as we find that love expressed in Jesus Christ. Over and over again in the biblical texts that we having been reading during this Easter season, the point has been driven home so that it's hard for us to miss it. "God is love, and those that abide in God abide in love. This commandment I give you: that you love one another." The community built upon the presence of our risen Lord is a community where Christ is our peace, "and he has made us both one and broken down the dividing wall of hostility." (Ephesians 2:14)
Easter is the celebration of the victory of God's love over the powers
that abuse and misshape that love for the world. In Jesus Christ, God has
cleansed us in the waters of baptism and at the table of our Lord we are
continually nourished by Christ's risen presence. This is central to our
life together. We belong to God and we belong to each other. This is the
good news of the gospel which brings us together.
The church often forgets this central truth. Maybe that is why we are being
told it over and over again. We particularly forget this central truth when
we get into a quarrel. We in the Presbyterian Church are having a quarrel
over who can be ordained. Our denomination has just passed an amendment
called Amendment B which speaks about the qualifications for ordination.
The Amendment was in a letter that came from the Office of the General Assembly
contained in your newsletter this week.
When this amendment came before our Presbytery after it passed the General Assembly last summer, I opposed the amendment. I joined with a group of ministers, seminary presidents and professors in writing a letter in which I outlined my opposition on what I felt were biblical and theological grounds. The Session of this church sent a letter to the Presbytery of New Hope in opposition to Amendment B. Several months ago our Presbytery voted against Amendment B. But the amendment passed in our denomination. Some of you may not even have been aware all of this was going on. It has been in the newspapers. Presbyterians have made front page news because of this Amendment.
The Presbyterian Church is divided on this issue. When the voting was
over in all the presbyteries the Amendment had passed the majority of the
presbyteries. However, the vote among commissioners, that is the ministers
and elders who were sent to presbytery meetings across the country, was
50.3% in favor of the amendment and 49.7% in opposition to it. That's pretty
close. The house is divided. I am aware that many of you may favor the amendment.
Let me say what I hope is evident. If the theology of the church which I
articulated at the beginning of this sermon is true, that we are a community
bound together by God's love, then we as Christians can disagree. We can
talk about our differences in the spirit of Christ.
Let me make a confession. I don't like to lose. I don't like to lose at
anything. Maybe this comes from the competitive spirit I developed playing
basketball as a kid in my back yard. I hope there is more going on here
than my competitive spirit when I say that I still believe this amendment
is bad law for the church. I am not going to take my basketball and go home.
I am a Presbyterian, and I am committed to the Presbyterian Church as the
way in which God has spoken to me. I will continue to work to see if we
can change Amendment B. There are meetings going on among ministers and
lay people talking about how we will work together because we still feel
that this is not the right thing for the church at this time. I will continue
to express my opposition to Amendment B, but I will not go away. I will
continue to talk with brothers and sisters with whom I disagree. I look
forward to my conversations with those of you who do not share my beliefs
about this amendment.
The conversation is important because at the heart of this discussion is the question of people being welcome in the community of faith which is the church. It is the same conversation that was going on in Acts. The question before the house on that occasion was whether or not Gentiles could be Christians without being circumcised. Must they become Jews first? That sounds far removed from our lives, but we had alot at stake in that argument. Most of us would not be here today if Gentiles had not been admitted without having to first become Jews.
My pain over this vote is related to this issue of who has a place in the church. Let me share an experience with you that I had this week. I attended a preaching conference in Chicago at the Fourth Presbyterian Church. There were several hundred preachers there from all over the country. Every denomination that you could imagine was represented and people were there from every region of the country, even Canada. What do you think we did? We listened to sermons! I heard alot of sermons this week. There was some rich preaching, excellent sermons, and I came home energized.
I was at the airport in Chicago on Wednesday to catch my flight home. I was there early. You might not believe that but I was sitting there patiently waiting for my flight to be called. I was reading the newspaper and I heard this message: "Everyone holding tickets on American Flight 742 to Raleigh-Durham check in at the counter. We have had a change in machinery. Some of your seats no longer exist." I am not kidding! That was the announcement. Not just once but two or three times. A voice came over the loud speaker: "Some of your seats no longer exist." I looked at people around me. They were smiling - and I had this image of sitting on some cloud flying back to Raleigh Durham.
Then I reflected on the vote in the Presbyterian Church. Some people as a result of the vote on Amendment B, particularly gays and lesbians, have heard that their seats no longer exist. It is not what the amendment says, but it is what has been heard. Our views on homosexuality differ in this congregation. I in no way claim to have the final or the authentic word on this issue. I must tell you that I find sexuality to be a mystery. I do not know why I am the way I am. It is part of my humanity, a gift from God. I also, like many of you, grew up believing that sex was one of those things you didn't talk about in public - and certainly not in church. I am aware that we live in a culture that is obsessed with sexuality that you cannot turn on the television without hearing some reference to sexuality.
I believe very strongly that our sexuality, sexual preference, sexual orientation, does not define us. We as people of faith are defined by our baptism. It is our baptism that tells us who we are and whose we are. When I listen to gay and lesbian friends, I am made aware of a reality that is essential and important for us to understand: they did not choose to be gay. It is something they discovered about themselves. It was a painful discovery for most of them. No one gave them a cake to celebrate this reality about themselves. Who can they talk to about it?
This reality has been driven home to Carlisle and me. Two couples who have been close friends over 30 years and who were very active church members in two of the churches we have served before have shared with us this struggle. Both couples have had one of their children come home to tell them they were gay. We have helped these people raise these children and in some ways they are like our children. They were baptized too.(2) How do they continue to know they have a place, a seat, as children of God? The Apostle Paul tells us that we no longer see each other from a human point of view. We are seen in Christ. God looks at each of us as these parents look at their children.
The struggle that Ellen Degeneres presented on TV this week is real. In the middle of all the media hype, what I heard was a genuine struggle, often masked with uncomfortable humor. The question was: "With whom can I share this scary secret with about myself?" You know that there is a high rate of suicide among teenagers who discover that they are gay.
Can we talk about this as people of faith who share a common baptism?
I hope so. I hope that we will not rush to judgment but listen to each other
and be sensitive to our differences and seek together the mind Christ which
is what holds the church together. Think about the children who are baptized
here in this congregation. Think about the prayers we pray for them, the
hopes we have for them, the promises we make to them. Inevitably some of
them are going to discover that their sexual orientation is different. Will
they have a supportive community with whom they can talk?
I heard Billy Graham being interviewed this week on 20/20. He has just written
an autobiography, Just As I Am. The interviewer, Hugh Downs, asked
Dr.. Graham what he would do if one of his children came home and told him
that they were gay. The interviewer asked, "Would you stop loving that
child?" Without a hesitation, Billy Graham replied, "No, I would
love them even more. I would love them even more!"
The relationship that I have shared over thirty-four years with Carlisle has been a very important part of my life. To deny people that kind of companionship? I'm not sure what that says about us as a community of faith. Will these children being baptized have a place where they can talk about who they are and not have to contemplate drastic measures because they are not like everybody else? Will there be role models for them of people who have lived in long, lasting, faithful, loving relationships? Can we be supportive of their gifts that they too can have a meaningful life as children of God? (3)
I hope the sermon will help us talk about these matters as we seek to work together on how we respond to Amendment B. I would look forward to talking with any of you about this issue. I will be in the Adult Bible Class after the service if anyone wants to come and share your own concerns or feelings with me.
Let me end this sermon with two stories that have spoken very deeply to me about this issue.
One comes from my dear friend and colleague, Haywood Holderness, who is the pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church.(4) Haywood is a member of a large family from Tarboro, North Carolina. There are five children in the family. They go the beach each summer. Carlisle and I have visited them when they were together at the beach. It is a crowd!
One afternoon as the sun was setting, Haywood and his four other siblings and his mother (his father is deceased) were on the porch watching the sun change the clouds in front of them. They were talking together and the subject of homosexuality came up. These people are all lifelong Presbyterians. Two of them are ministers, two of them are elders, two teach Sunday School. They have a lifelong devotion to the Christian church and particularly to the Presbyterian Church.
As they talked about this issue they realized they were split right down the middle. They quoted scripture passages back and forth to each other. They talked about their convictions and their experience. They had about an hour and a half debate over the issue of homosexuality in the church. Haywood says, "When it was over, we got up and went inside and sat down around the table and broke bread together." There is a seat at the table for all of us. Gays, lesbians, straight, heterosexual, homosexual, liberal, conservative - your seat still exists at the table of our Lord.
One day the Rabbi called to his followers: "I have a question for you. When does the light come? At what hour is it dawn? One student replied, "Rabbi, the dawn comes when you can look into the distance and tell the difference between a dog and a sheep." "No," said the Rabbi, "that's not the answer." Another student said, "I know when it is, Rabbi. It's when you can look into the distance and tell the difference between a fig tree and a grape vine." "No," said the Rabbi, "that's not the answer." "Well then we give up," said the students. The Rabbi said, "The dawn has come when there is enough light in you to see in every human being you meet a child of God."
Friends, it is Eastertide. The dawn has come. At our baptism and at this table there is enough light despite our differences for us to see each other as children of God and to know that we all have a seat. Let us not ever forget whose we are and what our purpose is in the world: To be God's light and to express God's love. Yes, we can talk about it. We can talk about anything in the light of God's love in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Notes
(1) I borrowed this title from a video on homosexuality and the church which
was produced by Professor Ben Johnson of Columbia Theological Seminary.
(2) There is a helpful book on this subject by this title.
(3) I was helped by Dr. Bruce Rigdon, pastor of Grosse Point Memorial Church
in Grosse Point, Michigan who addressed some of these questions in a sermon
on April 13, 1997.
(4) Haywood Holderness told the story in an excellent sermon preached on
August 13, 1995 at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Durham.