No Longer Gay nor Straight

 

photos by Vicki Kane Risner

Last Sunday I had the honor of preaching at the rite of reception/re-installation of 7 GLBTQ Lutheran clergy in San Francisco.  My denomination changed its policy in August, now allowing GLBTQ clergy to be in life-long, monogamous, publicly accountable same-sex relationships.   We've taken the closets out of the church.  6 of these pastors were ordained through the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries - an ordination process  which exactly paralleled the ELCA, waiting for that day last August when the ELM pastors could be received onto the the ELCA clergy roster.  The 7th, Ross Merkel, was re-instated onto our roster, having been removed 20 years ago for being gay.  Ross Merkel is also the guy who made me a Lutheran to begin with.  His congregation, St Paul Lutheran in Oakland is where it all began for me. Here's the sermon which starts with that story.

The Gospel:

Matthew 20

20“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. ³When he went out about nine o”clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; ⁴and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. ⁵When he went out again about noon and about three o”clock, he did the same. ⁶And about five o”clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ ⁷They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ ⁸When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ ⁹When those hired about five o”clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. ¹⁰Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. ¹¹And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹²saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ¹³But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? ¹⁴Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Here's the manuscript:

Grace peace and mercy to you from the crucified and risen Christ. Amen. To say that it is an honor to be your preacher today would be an embarrassing understatement. So I will just say thank you.

I bring you greetings on this festive occasion from the people of God at House for all Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado a mission church of the ELCA. House for All is a liturgical, Christo-centric, social justice oriented, queer inclusive, incarnational, contemplative, irreverent, ancient - future church with a progressive but deeply rooted theological imagination. At least that’s what our website says.

You may not realize this, but this little mission church is kind of the spiritual granddaughter of many churches represented here today. Churches like St Pauls and St Francis. So I’d like to thank you and the ELM 7 for your faithfulness to the Gospel despite countless obstacles and say that you almost certainly have no idea how your witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ has rippled out into this hurt and broken and beautiful world.

Let me explain - many of the folks at House for All have been hurt by the church in one way or the other. Several have been victims of so-called ex-gay reparative therapy at the hands of Christians, some have been told they are not up to snuff in the eyes of God and needless to say, the vast majority of the folks at House were not regularly attending a church when they joined us.

In other words they were just like me in the Spring of 1996. It was 14 years ago that I walked into a Lutheran church for the very first time. I had not entered a Christian church for 10 years and when I finally did, it was St Paul Lutheran Church in Oakland. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Well, here’s the thing: I had no desire to be Christian. I don’t like Christians and they don’t like me. See, I was raised in a sectarian and fundamentalist tradition called the Church of Christ. Not the gay-friendly liberal United Church of Christ. Nope. The Church of Christ - which can only be described as, like, “Baptist-Plus”. Women in this tradition were not permitted to pray out loud in front of men much less be pastors. I left that kind of exclusion in the name of God behind me and was perfectly happy about it.

And yet, despite my mis-givings about the church, that Sunday in 1996 I found myself with tears in my eyes. When I walked into St Paul’s Lutheran church it somehow felt like I was walking into the kingdom of heaven - there were young people and old, gay and straight, black folks and white folks and folks who used wheelchairs. And the worship was so beautiful. I had never experienced liturgy. I had never heard that kind of language used to speak of God. I had never heard… the Gospel.

After that first Sunday I unexplainably found myself thinking “I want to come back next week and hear those things and do those things and say those things again” And before I even knew what was happening I started going to Pastor Ross Merkel’s adult confirmation class. I could not believe I was choosing to spend my Wednesday nights in the basement of a church of all places…yet there I was.

I had at this point been clean and sober for 4 years following just the tiniest little drug and alcohol problem. God had literally interrupted my life and plucked me off one path and put me on another bringing life out of the death of this Sinner/Saint. So when Pastor Merkel taught me that God brings life out of death, that we are all simultaneously sinner and saint; when he said that no one is climbing the spiritual ladder up to God but that God always comes down to us; when he said that God’s grace is a gift freely given which we don’t earn but merely attempt to live in response to…well, when he said all of this, I already knew it was true.

I had undeniably encountered God’s grace when I got sober and now I was hearing a historically rooted beautiful articulation of what I had already experienced to be true. It’s what we like to call Lutheran Theology. And It changed everything.

Those classes… and Ross Merkel’s gracious acceptance of me… and my hearing the gospel …and receiving the Eucharist at St Paul’s was how God again simply came and got me. It felt like the Kingdom of Heaven and I fell in Love with this whole Lutheran thing. It was like that 5 minutes of a movie where the couple is gloriously ignorant of each other’s short comings and are vapidly skipping hand-in-hand through a field of wildflowers ….because you know as the viewer that as soon as the montage ends some kind of awful is gonna happen. The Lutheran church was so different from the conservative Christianity of my youth and I was so happy to have discovered something so beautiful – and so different from the church of my upbringing.

So when I was soon told that Ross Merkel had actually been removed from the clergy roster because of a policy in the ELCA prohibiting partnered gay folks from serving as pastors I was devastated. It felt like the rug of hope that the church might actually be something beautiful and redemptive was pulled out from under me. This Lutheran thing isn’t what I hoped after all. Because these Lutherans are just as bad as everyone else. Yet in his humble wisdom Pastor Merkle reminded me that God is still at work redeeming us and making all things new even in the midst of broken people and broken systems.

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. You already know how the rest of the parable goes. The landowner goes about hiring whoever happens to be hanging out at the marketplace all day. And when everyone is paid the same wage, when the landowner makes the slept-till-noon new hires equal to the upstanding early risers who worked all day in the scorching heat, well…things get ugly.

You gotta love a kingdom of God parable in which the citizens who make up the kingdom of heaven are completely unlikable and entitled and whiney. Don’t you picture the Kingdom of Heaven as more like a thing where everyone wears sandals and flowing white linen? Wouldn’t people in the kingdom of God appear more, I don’t know, spiritual? Wouldn’t people in the kingdom of God have that sheen of serenity and calm which is not unlike having taken a couple doses of Xanex? Nope. Apparently the Kingdom of God is like a cruddy work place filled with type A personalities whose sense of entitlement would rival that of Paris Hilton working alongside slackers who take smoke breaks and earn what money they have through scratch tickets.

What kind of off-brand kingdom is made up of this kind of people?

God’s kind. Because here’s the thing: what makes this the kingdom of God is not the quality of the people in it. The kingdom of God is like a glorious mess of a kingdom where Paris Hilton and Hilton Perez and Fred Phelps and Fredrick Beuchner and ELM pastors and Core Lutherans all receive the same mercy we never saw coming because we were too busy worrying about what everyone else is doing.

What makes Lutherans blessed is not, as I thought, that they’re somehow different from the people in the Church of Christ where I was raised. What makes us all blessed is that God comes and gets us, dumb as we are; smart and faithful as we are; just as we are. Because the kingdom of God, is founded not on the quality of the people in it but on the unrestrained and lavish mercy of the God who came and got us.

Our gospel text for today is not the parable of the workers. It’s the parable of the landowner. Because what makes it the kingdom of God is not the worthiness or piety or social justice-yness or hard work of the laborers…it’s the fact that the trampy landowner couldn’t manage to keep out of the market place. He goes back and back and back interrupting lives…coming to get his people.

Like a parent throwing a wedding feast God goes out into the street and just grabs up any old wretch. Like a sower who just wantonly, wastefully casts handfuls of seed, God just CAN’T seem to be discerning. Like a father who runs out into the street to embrace his wasted betrayer of a son, God simply insists on coming to get us. Insists on making all things new, insists on ripping out our old hearts and replacing them with God’s own.

And anytime we think that this kingdom of God is just for the nice people, or the ones who are ethnically Minnesotan or the ones who really really believe it; anytime we think this thing is just for the liberals who are open and affirming or the ones who protect the Confessions, we become blind to God’s making all things new work. Work like the unexplainable fact that I am now in a clergy small group with a Church of Christ preacher who is my brother in Christ and friend and colleague.

This is the kingdom of heaven breaking in on us. A kingdom where yes, the people are somewhat questionable, but which is defined by the mercy of a God who is revealed in the cradle and the cross.

And so, Paul, Jeff, Craig, Dawn, Megan, Sharon and Ross… know this: The Kingdom of God is also like right here right now. The kingdom of God is like this very moment in which sinners are reconciled to God and to one another. The kingdom of God is like this very moment where God is making all things new…even this off brand denomination of the ELCA. Because in the end, your calling, and your value in the Kingdom of God comes not from the approval of the other workers but in your having been come-and-gotten by God. It is the pure and unfathomable mercy of God which defines this thing. And nothing. nothing else gets to tell you who you are.

Comments

[JTB]

Oh my God. I have got to know your story. Email me please?

[Tim Fisher]

Pr. Nadia:

I heard the sermon from Minneapolis via the live feed. What a great event! Thanks for your wonderful words. And I like that the pic you posted shows your sneakers.

Tim Fisher

[A Sister on the Sojourn]

In those moments when I am weary of being a Christian or weary of being a pastor . . . in those moments when I say, "Even so, Lord Jesus, Come" and don't even know what it means anymore . . . in those moments I will remember this sermon. Thank you.

[Indie]

I also grew up in Churches of Christ. I'm now an Episcopalian. I enjoyed the sermon.

[Steve K.]

Beautiful words, Nadia. Thank you for sharing this here.

[L. DeAne Lagerquist]

Dear one,
Way too often I find myself acting as the elder brother or the ones hired early. When I do that, I miss the clear, potent, gracious announcement of divine grace that comes from sisters like you. Thank you for speaking so clearly, so powerfully the words that witness to the fullness of life of God--in this sermon, but also reliably, again and again. I'm thinking that this sermon may be the starting place for my "Lutheran Heritage" course next January.
in gratitude,
DeAne

[Cammie Novara]

"My denomination changed its policy in August, now allowing GLBTQ clergy to be in life-long, monogamous, publicly accountable same-sex relationships." I have to remember that one!

[The Financial Power]

Thanks for sharing your story.

"Because the kingdom of God, is founded not on the quality of the people in it but on the unrestrained and lavish mercy of the God who came and got us."

So thankful that it's not about us, it's ALL about HIM.

[emily]

Beautiful as always!

I nearly cry (and sometimes actually do) everytime I read one of your sermons.

It has been a few years since I was last in church, and I think I may finally be ready to give it another chance.

I only pray that I can find a church that is as beautiful, open and grace-centered as your own.

[Nadia]

Emily,
You can email me from my church's website. If you let me know what town you live in I may be able to guide you to a community if I know of one there.
Hope and peace on your journey.
N

[eliza getman]

nadia, you make my heart sing. the anglican church in south africa has a long way to go yet - but your church journey gives me hope. x eliza

[Heather]

Nadia, I am just now reading this, but the sermon was beautiful, and the entire worship experience sounds so meaningful and chilling. I've said that if I ever move to Denver, I am attending your church. In the meantime, I am in the far northern suburbs of Chicago, and inclusive, progressive Lutheran communities are hard to come by up here. Yet, I continue to hope.

[Arianna]

Thank you for so clearly, gracefully and humorously articulating the Gospel. Our membership, our belonging has nothing to do with us but with Christ alone.

[Chris]

I've read this sermon numerous times since it was posted, and have shared it with a number of friends. I too was raised in a fundamentalist chuch and became a Lutheran as an adult (after nearly 20 years of being de-churched). Thank you for expressing the Gospel so eloquently!

[Nanette Sawyer]

Nadia, how beautiful and wonderful. What an honor to preach at such an auspicious moment. Keep sharing the good news of God's love. Yay!

[Carol Morris]

I found Jesus growing up in the ALC as it was called then. I left when in the 70's a pastor dumbed down the story of the loaves and fishes by stating in so many words that Jesus most likely did not operate in the miraculous. There were many other reasons, but this was the proverbial straw. Since then I have worshiped in different churches. My love of the grace preached in the Lutheran church has always been a base I ran back to in my mind. Nevertheless, I have to say that sin is destructive and sin that is not labeled as sin is a treacherous poison. It is truly wonderful to know that all manner of sin can be confessed and forgiven. As Paul says "And such were some of you". Notice the "were". If grace doesn't make a transforming difference, then I question whether it is the grace of God.

[Dr. Jack Kilcrease]

"So when I was soon told that Ross Merkel had actually been removed from the clergy roster because of a policy in the ELCA prohibiting partnered gay folks from serving as pastors I was devastated. It felt like the rug of hope that the church might actually be something beautiful and redemptive was pulled out from under me. This Lutheran thing isn’t what I hoped after all. Because these Lutherans are just as bad as everyone else. Yet in his humble wisdom Pastor Merkle reminded me that God is still at work redeeming us and making all things new even in the midst of broken people and broken systems."

I find this a very odd comment. The law is as much a part of the the Lutheran project as the gospel. The law is regulative of the external person, whereas the gospel is only regulative for the inner person's conscience before God. The church's insistence on removing homosexual clergy (no unfortunately abrogated by August 2009 convention) is a proper move in that it has to do with the regulative principle of the law regarding the external person. This is in keeping with the criterion for active ministry set down in the Pastoral Epistles. The external person lives within the law and also the orders of creations (Family, Church, State). I would strongly encourage you to look at "Two Kinds of Righteousness" as well as Luther's Genesis commentary where he deals with the orders of creation.

Secondly, I'm curious- where was Jesus in this sermon? You seem to have much talk about a God who is so loving he will apparently not enforce the law (which is of not really what Luther or the Bible mean by grace)- but there is no discussion of Jesus here. Perhaps it is because you make the typical ELCA move and assume that Jesus merely reveals the love of God, he does no avert the wrath of God. God cannot very well forgive sins that he does not impute in them in first place now can he? At the end of the day, much of your preaching suggests to me a God who is merely nice and not one who is actually gracious.

Most ELCA preaching tends to go in this direction. Because God is already nice and Jesus merely reveals said niceness, then preaching does not change anything. It doesn't change our relationship with God from wrath to grace. Rather it just reveals an already existing graciousness. Hence as Werner Elert puts it, faith becomes a kind of enlightenment. At the end of the day, recognition of this "niceness" means getting us to do nice things, like work for "peace and justice" or some other political program. This is, as you might discern, simply more law.

Alas. Where is the gospel?

[Jennifer Harris Dault]

Nadia, I am totally missing your blog posts. Just sayin' -- you are missed on the interwebs.

[Ken Silva]

"Nadia, how beautiful and wonderful. What an honor to preach at such an auspicious moment. Keep sharing the good news of God's love. Yay!"

Let me fix Nanette's mythology for you Nadia.

How tragic and shameful. What a disgrace to preach at such an egregious moment. Stop perverting the good news of God's Gospel. Repent!

You may think I don't love you; but Jesus knows, you'd be wrong.