This weekend there is a group of people participating in Washington, DC for the National Equality March. Among the individuals who chairs this event is Cleve Jones who was an activist along slain Gay Civil Rights leader: Harvey Milk who was City Supervisor in San Francisco in the late 1970's early 80's. This past week Cleve Jones appeared on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 to talk about why he and others are marching in Washington tomorrow. The march is taking place because people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered want people to know that they are concerned with where the country is going. LGBT individuals, families and couples have experienced one law being passed, while three more are revoked. In many states across the country States have passed adoption laws for same-sex parents only to see them revoked some years later. Parents and families are brought together and torn apart. Last year, we saw the Supreme Court of the State of California pass laws allowing same sex couples to legally marry. In less than a year, anti-gay activists took up the cause of Proposition 8 and with a vote of the State, the gay marriage laws were removed. This is why the National Equality March is such an important activity this weekend.
Tomorrow is what is called: "National Coming Out Day." It is a day in the lives of LGBT individuals that we recognize and celebrate our sexuality and our identity as vital and equal individual members of society. We come out, because to stay in our closets is to deny the very essence of ourselves by wearing a mask, saying we are one kind of person when in fact we are another. Coming out of our shells and saying that we are lesbian women, gay men, bisexual women or men, or men who have become women, or women who have become men, we stand before God, before each other and before our family, friends, churches, work places, politicians and even our enemies as real people. Some of us come out to find that people knew we were gay all along, but wondered why we waited so long to be ourselves. Others come out only to find that those we thought or hoped would love us, suddenly show their true colors of prejudice and hate.
As I have read through the Scripture readings for this weekends Liturgy, I am struck with how much they speak to the experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people. Almost all of us have suffered in one capacity or another because of our sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. As with the Psalmist who cries out in agony in Psalm 22 we wonder where is God in the midst of what we are experiencing. In both Psalm 22 and the Old Testament Reading Job and the Psalmist are searching for God in the midst of pain and suffering only to feel as if God is totally absent. LGBT individuals know this experience all too well. We come out of our closets happy and looking for love. If we don't experience some Christian right winger trying to tell us that we are going to hell for the "choices" we make, someone else ignorant about the issues of LGBT people asks the question: "Well, why do you have to be out, how is what you do in your bed anyone else's business?" How many of us turn to God in prayer, looking for the right wing to leave us alone? How many individuals such as a Lesbian woman who's partner died in the intensive care unit in the hospital and was not allowed to see here before she died, and a Supreme Court judge won't even hear the case, feel like God has just abandoned them? How about a gay couple that has a wonderful young girl who they've been loving and raising, spending all kinds of money on in a custody battle, only to have the little girl ripped out of their lives by some discriminatory judge and legal system? I am sure such individuals feel sometimes that God is against them, or just not interested. Where is God in the midst of our suffering?
We must remember that the Bible is not only full of stories of Salvation through joys and victories, but that the people of ancient Israel often cried in lament to God. The Psalms are Israels Liturgical hymnal. In the Psalms are songs of Israel praising God, but also crying out in absolute agony and abandonment to God. A broken Psalmist in Psalm 22 wants to know where is God while their bodies are being broken and their spirits crushed? When LGBT individuals experience bigotry and hatred and it appears to win, we have every reason to cry out to God and say: Where are you? And believe that even when we don't know where God is, the Lord is closer to us than we are to ourselves.
The writer of the Hebrews gives us a look at the word of God. It tells us that the word of God pierces our thoughts and emotions. The word is "living and active". The word of God interacts with us where we are, as we are, not as others would have us be. The word of God is not interested in making us into what other members of the Christian community wants us to be. Jesus did not experience what we know all too well, just so that we can be made someone different than who we are. Jesus is the high Priest who knows that we experience temptations and disappointments and even death, because of who we are. And God in Jesus loves us as we are, and identifies with our human experience. That is why when we experience discrimination and pain because of family members, the church, political agendas and even our place of work, we should "turn boldly to the throne of grace" and seek God's will for our lives. God longs to love us and affirm who we are, by participating and interacting with us. What we might find is that God wants us to gain a healthier and happier picture of ourselves, and through God's redemptive graces in Jesus, God wants to set us free, and work for the freedom of others.
In our Gospel lesson today, we are faced with following the Commandments, those who are privileged whether LGBT or not. All of us have riches that are placed in our hands. And for many young men and women who are faced with the decision to come out or not, they are faced with what they can keep or loose. If they stay in their closets and pretend to be someone they are not, they can keep the family business, or the big will that is left to their name when their parents pass on and even their parents paying their college tuition. If they only look like they are straight and pretend to be happy, they can keep all their treasures. Yet in all that they keep, they loose so much. They loose their identity, their self esteem. They give up their hope for happiness and love for a future filled with lies, confusion and for many constant despair. All in the name of protecting themselves and their families from the truth of who they are.
Yet, if they give it all up and be who they are, they could loose their inheritance to their parent's business. Some have even been kicked out of the family home, church, school or even their own country. In giving up their closets, they have often given up treasures for a whole lot of hell. Others who have accepted what they've lost, have found someone to love them, cherish them, a church home where they are accepted and affirmed. Many who have given up their families by coming out, have started very successful businesses of their own. Others have become counselors to LGBT youth and individuals, others have become ministers. Others have become activists who have helped their communities fight for equality on any number of levels.
Submission to God's will is essential to finding salvation. While we might find some minimal comfort in the closets where no one knows our true identity, what we are in fact doing is stifling God's will. Yet, when we truly give up those things that hinder us, no matter how much we treasure them, and surrender to God's will, we find so much more to be thankful for. We can find a true path to following God in our lives when we let go of those things that weigh us down, and follow God as God has created us. We can find true happiness in God's happiness with who and how we have been created.
In closing, I want to share a story from my coming out. I was a Catholic for many years and spent a significant amount of time in my own closet. During that time, I was privileged to know a great and wonderful Priest. As I started to come out, I was so afraid of what that Priest would tell me when I told him I was gay. His response to me was one of love and affirmation. He told me: "You have to love people the way God created you to love them." In giving up our closets, we gain being able to love people in the way God created us to love them. Our closets may seem like a treasure chest, but they hold us down and keep us from going forward. Only when we open up and come out, do we gain a sense of who we really are and why our rights are so important to us.
To that end, though I am not able to join the National Equality March in person, you can bet I am there in spirit and in prayer. Because it is past time to cut the hate speech and wait rhetoric. It is time for all people including LGBT individuals to be recognized by political leaders, churches, families, social groups, schools, and many more people and places as individuals and couples seeking to love as God created us to. Amen.
Scripture References: Job 23: 1-9, 16-17. Psalm 22: 1-15. Hebrews 4: 12-16. Mark 10: 17 -31.
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