Trinity Metropolitan Community Church of Gainesville (Trinity MCC) - Conversations from the Heart: Coming Out Through the Eye of a Needle

Rev. Jim Merritt

Trinity MCC

October 11, 2009

National Coming Out Day

Conversations from the Heart: Coming Out Through the Eye of a Needle

Introduction:

            Today we are presented with rich texts in our lectionary readings and we are offered an opportunity to talk about an important topic for members of our community; coming out.

            When I was 8 years old I walked down the aisle of Eastside Baptist Church in Auburndale, Florida and gave my heart to Jesus. It was a decision that I have carried with me throughout my life and never regretted. When I was 16 years old I walked down the aisle of the First Baptist Church in Auburndale, Florida and committed my life to Christian Ministry. That decision has caused me a significant degree of grief throughout my life and is one for which I have absolutely no regrets. I earned the Bachelor of Church Music degree from Stetson University and began serving as Minister of Music and Youth and in 1981. In 1986, while on the staff of a fairly large United Methodist Church not too far from here, I got in a tub full of water, called my parents and told them I was gay. Exodus International was next and I’d be happy to talk with you about that later, but time does not permit detail here. Let me just say that I don’t need to be straight in the name of Jesus, and that I stand before you open and out the way God created me to be in spite of the emotional damage that program did to me and many others during the 2 years that I was involved in it. Then it was off to the Baptist Seminary in New Orleans. And wouldn’t you know it; I joined the staff of the church where the son-in-law of the seminary president was Pastor. After two years my beloved psychology professor called me into his office and suggested that I strongly consider leaving that seminary, “before you have a crisis” to deal with. I heard him clearly and I drove out of the gate saying, Oh God, I’ve spent my whole life preparing to do this, I have no idea what to do now. You know the rest. I came out, I met Troy Perry and here I am. I tell you that story, knowing that Professors of Preaching would say it’s too much personal information and still believing there’s a purpose in it as it relates to our gospel reading for today. I want to make one point clear before I go any further. I know coming out has risks. Coming out with one’s sexual orientation is a personal decision that needs to be made carefully. I am not encouraging anyone to come out before it is appropriate to do so given each person’s individual life situation. And, I have experienced in my own life that the closet is the least safe place that I can be, that being out brings an element of peace and safety to my life that I never hoped for while I was holding on to my own closet door with both hands.

Gospel

            The most familiar part of our gospel for today is the part about how difficult it is for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle, and how following Jesus can be even more difficult than that. I want us to think about a few ideas.

            First let’s understand that the word, “man” does not just mean males, it means all of us. Once again, I insist on adding that because the gospel writer had no concern for women, viewed them as property, without any concern for their personhood and for their equality and I just refuse to do that even in one sentence. It is also important for us to get past this idea of the “rich” person featured in this gospel. Rich by whose standards? What does it really mean to be rich? I want to suggest that in this context the gospel is not referring to the kind of houses WE live in, the balances in OUR bank accounts, the kinds of food WE eat, or the kind of clothes WE wear. Let’s face it, my sisters and brothers, by the rest of the world’s standards all of us gathered here are amongst the riches people in the world. We eat well, we dress well, we sleep inside on comfortable beds, we drive most places rather than walk, and we go to the grocery store and get mostly what we want. That list could go on for hours. We ARE the rich in the world, so let us be very careful about excluding ourselves when we hear Jesus address a “rich” person. Jesus is talking to US.

            Coming out has a price. It is not free. So why do we do it?   I have some ideas. Would you agree with me that in many parts of our community coming out as people of faith is at least as difficult if not more so than coming than coming out about our sexual orientation. We were at an event here in Gainesville recently where we saw an old friend of ours, one that we’ve worked with for many years. During the conversation she said, “I really like you guys, it’s just too bad you’re Christians.” That sounds harsh and at the same time I understand what my friend was saying. Christians, among other religious people, have done a lot of evil in the world. Particularly this right wing practice of beating people over the head with the Bible and insisting that ours is the only way and that everybody else is going down the slippery slope to Hell. We know better than that, and I don’t know about you, but I’m determined to come out as a person of faith in ways that will win people over with kindness and love rather than driving them away with anger. We know what it is to struggle under all kinds of attacks and false expectations and it is in that struggling that we learn the value of what we receive on the other side. We know how our struggle can be used to benefit others. Rev. Eun-Sang Lee, a straight Asian-American man serving Warren United Methodist Church in Denver says, “As the biblical words of God were born out of an oppressed community, today’s LGBT community is pregnant with words of truth out of our liberation struggle.” We know, don’t we, that coming out as Christian can be as hard as going through the eye of a needle and that it is worth it.

            Coming out in our daily practice of life can be challenging, too. This involves both our Christianity and our sexuality. All you have to do is drive down I-75 or around Gainesville, and I promise you, challenges will present themselves in the form of crazy drivers. It’s also known to us that in all our relationships we have opportunities to act out our own anger, or to really practice living in the ways to which we’ve committed. It is challenging to be out as a Christian member of a minority sexual identity group and remain positive. We know what it’s like to deal with other vulnerable people who have sometimes been victimized by our culture based on the power of the “us” over the “them.” And perhaps we can embrace the idea together that it is time for us to get over the perspective of victimization. Perhaps we can let go of our own internalized homophobia that holds us back and binds us to systems of the past. Maybe we can really embrace our true identity as people of faith called for a purpose and in so doing begin to practice our faith by coming out in the daily practice, in the daily living of our lives. In his book, Coming Out as Sacrament, Rev. Chris Glaser writes, “Our celebration of coming out is incomplete until we serve as Christ to others victimized by the religious, political and economic systems and structures of our world. Our celebration of coming out must become inclusive of all scapegoats. This is the message of Christ. That is the lesson learned by the Body of Christ in various movements of the Spirit that opened the church’s doors yet wider, from the inclusion of strangers at Pentecost and of Gentiles in Acts to the later Reformation and reformations of the church.[1] It’s important in a world that sometimes condemns all kinds of people, for us embrace our faith in our daily living, to love like the people of God, to put out positive energy no matter what happens. We are called to live out as people of faith and to build peaceful relationships in our daily practice, even when it’s as hard as going through the eye of a needle.

            Finally, we come out for the sake of the Good News. Hear it again, this is the good news of the Gospel, that God loved the entire world, everybody, with no exceptions, so much that God gave God’s beloved child that whoever, whoever, all, no exceptions, believed in Jesus, followed Jesus, loved like Jesus, would have eternal life. I come out all over again this morning for the sake of the gospel. This news is so good I cannot keep silent about it.

Conclusion

I’m so excited about what God is doing here; I can’t get enough of it. MCC was going to pay for me to be at the March on Washington this weekend and I said, “No, I’m going to stay in Gainesville.” Why, you might ask. Well, I do believe in big movements, and marches and demonstrations. I’ve worked my entire adult life for equality and justice for all of God’s people and I’m tired of waiting. And more than that I believe in grass roots activism and there’s nothing that I could do in Washington this weekend that is more important to me than standing here at home coming out as a gay man and coming out as a person of faith. Will you join me today in coming out? Will you join me in coming out as the people of God? Will you join me today in coming out throughout our daily practice of living? And will you join me today in coming out for the sake of the good news of the gospel? Let me do it clearly; I am a gay man, created in God’s image, giving all I have to give for the sake of the Gospel that teaches me to love in the name of Jesus. Coming out through the eye of a needle; a conversation from the heart. God bless you this morning. AMEN.

Lectionary Readings for the day:

Amos 5: 6 – 15

Seek the Lord and live, or God will break out against the house of Joseph like fire, and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it. ⁷Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground! ⁸The one who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning, and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, is names the Lord, ⁹who makes destruction flash out against the strong, so that destruction comes upon the fortress. ¹⁰They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth. ¹¹Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. ¹²For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins— you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate. ¹³Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an evil time. ¹⁴Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said. ¹⁵Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Mark 10: 17 – 31

¹⁷As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ¹⁸Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. ¹⁹You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” ²⁰He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” ²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” ²²When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. ²³Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” ²⁴And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁶They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” ²⁷Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” ²⁸Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” ²⁹Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, ³⁰who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

[1] Chris Glaser. Coming Out as Sacrament. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.

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