Everyone Can Call On God. No Exceptions.

If there is one thing every individual, culture, religion and nation struggles with, keeping boundaries is probably at the top of the list.   In the time of Jesus when the Bible stories took place the idea of the Jewish Religion going beyond the boundary of the Jewish people was something that just was not tolerated.  Yet as hard as they tried there were many countries that made their way into Jerusalem that had plundered the culture, families and the temple.  Keeping what essentially belonged to them was very difficult.  In some ways as we read through the Gospels and are reminded that they were under Roman oppression at the time these stories are told, we can understand why there were those who were hostile to the idea of Jesus changing the culture around them.  Yet the more Jesus preached, healed and included the outcasts of his time, the more it became known that Jesus came for not only the Jewish people, but all humankind.

The Lectionary readings for this weekend are an invitation to see beyond our personal comfort zones a bit, and see both ourselves and others in the Light of Jesus Christ. God's perfect revelation came to set us free from our sins.  Not only to redeem us from sin did Jesus come, die and rise again, but to help us all to shine a bit of that Light into ourselves and see how much God loves us and desires to be our companion in the difficulties of our lives. 

As we read through today's Gospel of Luke 8: 26-39 the story of the man who is full of the evils of his day could represent all of us in 2010.  He was a man without clothes, a home other than the tombs and he was crying out to be delivered. He might as well have been a man who is dead. Yet the "legions" that are part of his life in the time of Jesus represent for each of us all the multiple issues of our day.  Many of us are struggling with unemployment, low or no income, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, discrimination because of our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression.  We live in a Country and a time when both the Republican and Democratic party are so worried about the good of their party, and who is paying their re-election bid that their dependence on oil and our addiction to oil is making it nearly impossible to rescue the poor people who are suffering in the Gulf of Mexico.  We can blame the spill on BP as much as we wish, or we can accuse the Government of not doing enough, quickly enough.  But how does our own dependence upon petroleum, oil and the need for all that they produce add to the catastrophe that has cost many in the Gulf their jobs, homes, and the environment that is part of their life?  The problems of one group of people, ultimately affects the over all health of all within society.

As lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people we continue the work of full equality through the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the passage of an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and the passage of the American Families Act.  As Congress and the President continue to drag their feet and the bills fail to get discussed and passed the Soldiers still get kicked out under DADT.  People in over 28 States can still be fired just for being LGB, with 39 States allowed to terminate people who are transgendered from jobs, public assistance, or financial help.  Lesbian and gay families who still cannot get married are forced to accept that they cannot file joint taxes to save the same money as straight families can.  Lesbian and Gay families cannot provide health insurance or other benefits for their domestic partners.  Gay domestic partners with one member of the family living with HIV/AIDS is not able to provide health care benefits because State and Federal legislators have either taken away previous passed laws, or fail to pass new ones that are so desperately needed.

This man who comes to Jesus who is full of the evils of his day, represents everyone of us who comes to Jesus with the evils of our time keeping us from being full, participating members of our society. We come to Jesus seeking life where there is death.  Many people cannot be full functioning members of their church communities, such as LGBT people who are told that they must change in order to find happiness.  Many fundamentalist or evangelical churches tell LGBT people that their sexual orientation and/or the practice of it within loving, committed, same sex relationships is responsible for the demons of their lives.  As such, rather than reach out and help LGBT people understand that God loves us as LGBT people and seeks to work with us and help us just as God helps and loves any person, many church communities place extra burdens on LGBT people, rather than lift them.  In so doing, church communities fail to recognize who Jesus Christ is, and what Jesus Christ came to do.  If the crucifixion and death of Jesus was not enough to keep God from raising Jesus from the dead, what makes our being LGBT place such a restriction upon God that God cannot do wonderful and miraculous things in and through our lives?

In Paul's letter to the Galatians today, Paul is dealing with a group of people that are saying that if you want to become a Christian, you must also keep to the Jewish ritual Law.  Apparently, they felt that Jesus did not change the face of human society to the point that the Old Law was still enforced.  Paul, while not saying that the law is no longer completely valid, also makes the case that Jesus Christ has brought a new understanding of things.  And therefore: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3: 28).  As Jesus is the "way, truth and life" so he is also the one who makes all things new in himself.  Therefore, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people are included as God's saved people. And we do not have to surrender our sexual orientation including our romantic and physical love for our partners to receive God's help in times of distress.  Transgendered individuals do not have to give up being male to female or female to male to receive God's loving graces when life stinks. 

All Christians including LGBT are welcomed to call upon God without exception and receive God's help when our lives are a mess.  All of us whether we are LGBT or straight, female or male, any other race, ethnicity, color, culture, ability, challenge or religion are facing difficult challenges.  These challenges have not come because Christians who still worship according to an Old Testament thinking, believe that God punishes the whole country through disastrous weather and oil spills because God is angry over marriage equality or even abortion.  All kinds of problems will happen when humankind is irresponsibly addicted to things like oil, power, control, money, and selfishness.  It is interesting how Christian fundamentalists will blame the nation's miseries whether natural or human made on homosexuality or abortion, but fail to call out corporate or capital greed for what it is.  The destruction of the family has nothing to do with legalizing gay marriage.  Families are destroyed by falsehood when a gay man has married a heterosexual woman because he lives in complete fear over his sexual orientation.  Yet the answer to correct the problems of society by the Catholic church is to create an ex-gay ministry like the Courage Apostolate by the late Cardinal Cook to force gay and bisexual men to suppress their same-sex feelings and God help their souls if they ever slip without going to confession.  They are told (I was in fact told while I was there) that there is only hell if they so much as masturbate to relieve their sexual tensions.  If the Catholic church and other fundamentalist churches are so "pro-family" why this push to keep families from being honest and encourage a loveless life for LGBT people?

Jesus Christ came among us to heal and deliver us from our sins and evils.  Yet the Church and much of society seems hell bent on keeping more evils on the backs of people everywhere.  At what point do LGBT Christians recognize that they can approach God either through a welcoming and affirming church community, or through their own faith, so that they can seek the healing mercy of God? God extends that welcome to everyone without exception.  At what point do we recognize that Jesus Christ who is the Son of God, with the power of the resurrection can do "infinitely more than we can ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20, 21) can and will deliver us from evil if only we put our trust in him? 

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving ­kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 7, Book of Common Prayer, Page 230).

Look with pity, O heavenly Father, upon the people in this land who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant companions. Have mercy upon us. Help us to eliminate our cruelty to these our neighbors. Strengthen those who spend their lives establishing equal protection of the law and equal opportunities for all. And grant that every one of us may enjoy a fair portion of the riches of this land; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for the Oppressed, Book of Common Prayer, Page 826).