"those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
As much as I love the Episcopal Church and even the Anglican Communion, I am finding myself "Sainted Out" if you will. I am excited that today the Episcopal Church commemorates Jeremy Taylor, but that is not where I want to go with my blog today. So, I will include the collect for his commemoration and say thank you, Lord for his inspiration. But for today, I want to focus on some events that have happened in light of this Gospel verse that I have just taken, even if it is from Jeremy Taylor's commemoration.
I was woken with some awesome news this morning. One of my favorite progressive radio hosts Stephanie Miller came out as a lesbian on her show this morning. The outpouring support that came in from her listeners was amazing. That coupled with yesterday's decision by Judge Walker to allow gay marriages to resume next Wednesday, pending of course whether or not the appeals court grants Prop 8 supporters a stay, has just been putting me on a new cloud 9. We are seeing that time is working on the side of the LGBTQ communities. We are far from the finish line, but the steps forward we are making are just incredible. And we should be rejoicing and thanking God.
As I was really struggling with what to write, I looked into the Gospel for today's commemoration and found this verse. "Those who do what is true come to the light." Closets are a place of falsehood and death. They may store things, but after a while dust mites get in and kill whatever we are wanting to preserve. There are many people who are LGBT who live in a closet that may keep others from knowing who they really are, but after a time the closet becomes a place of loneliness, and the dust mites of time creep in until finally the individual just can't take it anymore. People who are in those situations find themselves limited in their personal potential, because they can only be who they are to a point, and then they have to try to be someone they are not. It is a personal sense of telling a huge lie. Ex-gay ministries only seek to put someone back into that world of self falsehood. When ex-gay ministries tell a lesbian or gay individual that all they are is a political name, but not really a person, what they are in fact doing is trying to convince someone to keep lying to oneself. Ex-gay ministries work to suppress who a lesbian or gay person really is. It is far from doing "what is true" so as to "come to the light:" that is God.
Once an LGBTQ person comes to a full realization and acceptance of who she or he is, they are at a place where they can embrace the "truth" about who they are, and finally "come to the light" because they are no longer trying to hide it in the darkness or tomb of their closets. And when they finally find someone to love in a committed relationship where love is mutual, then who they are becomes mature and holy.
Among the many points I try to make through this blog is that LGBTQ people are holy people, just by who we are and how we love. Our sexual orientation and/or gender expression/identity is part of God's gifts to us, the Church and the world when God formed us in our mother's womb. When fundamentalist Christians try to shame LGBTQ people about who we are and about who or how we love other people, they are not doing God's work as they think. What they are doing is committing spiritual and religious violence.
At one point in time, while I was in the ex-gay ministry Courage that was started by Fr. John Harvey of New York back in the early 1980's, I would have shunned all mainline Christian church groups for their acceptance of LGBTQ people. Thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit in and through the work of good therapists and my partner Jason, and the good folks at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, and the writings of Bishop Gene Robinson, I now have a healthier view of myself and the LGBTQ communities. I am a guy that at one point in time was a staunch Republican, who is now a progressive and proud to be there. I am an Episcopalian and a progressive because I believe that people are more important than corporations or even Religious institutions. Providing people with the means and opportunity to get up off of ground zero is why God gave us our government and the Church. When both of those institutions fail to do what they were placed here to do, they ruin people's lives and they ultimately spit in God's face. When our government and the Church promotes and condones violence against members of society and even other religions, we do not honor God or Jesus or what the whole purpose of forming the Christian Church is or was all about.
When we do what is right, then the truth is known and it is also known that what we do is done in God. That is really what the Gospel verse I chose to use today says. Why does our government and the Church choose to promote what is false? What can we do to promote truth and deeds done for God in our government and the Church?
Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 14, Book of Common Prayer, Page 232).
O God, whose days are without end, and whose mercies cannot be numbered: Make us, like your servant Jeremy Taylor, deeply aware of the shortness and uncertainty of human life; and let your Holy Spirit lead us in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for Jeremy Taylor, Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, Page 525).
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