Highlights from the Queer Epistle of Paul to the ex-queers and "side b" gay Christians

What follows is a queered reading of highlights from Galatians.  It is written as if by Paul, who is, in this queer reading, ex-antigay crusader.  It is written to those being seduced and persuaded by the "ex-gay" and "side b" (queer, but celibate because to act on it would be sinful) Christian communities.  It stands on its own, but might be read alongside Paul's Epistle to the Galatians to see the parallels.  It is also important to note that I believe the Spirit of Scripture is still speaking and moving in us today.  Because of that, scripture needs more than to be queered.  It needs to be retold from a womanist perspective, reclaimed as the book of oppressed people of color, told again as the narrative of immigrants and the poor.  My rendering will fail to do all of that, so I encourage you to edit, in the comments if you wish!

CHAPTER 1

Paul, an evangelist-not sent by some political organization or by human authorities in religion, but through Jesus Christ and God the Mother, who vindicated Christ and did not leave Christ dead-and all of the members of God's family who are with me, 

To Christians in the "ex-gay" and "side b" communities:

Grace to you and peace from God and from Jesus Christ, who gave himself over to this broken world to set us free from the present oppressive age, according to the will of our God and Mother, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the queer-affirming grace of Christ and are turning to a different "gospel"-not that any of what they are telling you is good news of any sort, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the good news of Christ.  

You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in anti-queer crusading. I was violently persecuting queer children of God and was trying to destroy their self-worth. I advanced in that movement beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more radical in my views of homosexuality and gender roles. But when God was pleased to reveal real Incarnate Love in Christ to me, so that I might proclaim it to the queer community, I did not need the approval of any "respected" church leaders, nor did I wait for churches and denominations to finish their long drawn out "holy conversations" about human sexuality, but I went away at once into gay bars and to pride parades and eventually returned to the churches to preach this.

Later I visited gay bars in some smaller cities, but the queer community in larger cities, all they knew of me was "The guy who was leading the anti-gay wing of a huge Christian organization is now out there promoting queer-affirming Christianity that he once tried to destroy."  And they knew God was up to something.

Chapter 2

Then, fourteen years later, I went to a major denominational meeting with Barnabas, and Titus came along.  I went up because I knew that's where God wanted me to go and speak.  Then I told them (though it was only in a private meeting with the appropriate committee leaders) the gospel message I had proclaimed to the queer community, because I wanted to know that I had not been doing all of this work just to have the church ignore it or table the discussion!  But there were still plenty of the ex-gay/anti-gay/"confront them in love"/"love the sinner hate the sin" people, who slipped in to try to find out how we were living in love and freedom in Christ Jesus, so that they could enslave us again in the church-we did not flinch in the face of this or back down, because we knew the truth of this message was too important for you!

It should have been quite clear that the same God who had called us to openly affirm women in ministry and emphatically denounce racism and sexism and all the other oppresive isms, had called me to preach this gospel to the queer community.  

But when Cephas came to San Fransisco, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly out of line; for until certain people came from the "love won out" group, he was happy to hang out with queer members and same-sex couples.  But after those people showed up, he started avoiding queer friends because he was afraid of what the "ex gay" and "gays should be celibate to be holy" crowd would say. And the other straight church members joined him in the hypocrisy. I said to Cephas in front of all of them, "If you, as a straight cisgender man and a Christian, live your life being comfortable with who you are, loving who you love and marrying and having sex and raising a family with your wife, how are you going to tell gays, lesbians, bisexual, transgender and queer believers that in order for them to be a good Christian they have to NOT do all of that?!"  

I used to be in one of those narrow "us four and no more" churches and it killed me, so that I could finally live in the expansive and inclusive community of God. The same oppressive religion that crucified Jesus, crucified me with Christ.  Anti-gay Paul is dead.  Now it is the inclusive Love of Christ that lives in me.  And the life I am living now is that kind of inclusive, expansive, affirming love that God gave me.  How could I ever go back to the way I was?  If God's love that included me cannot include my queer sisters and brothers, then Jesus' message and death is meaningless.

CHAPTER 3

You foolish Christians! Who has bewitched you? You have seen before your very eyes how that kind of religion killed Jesus!  The only thing I want to know is this: if God wants gay people to be straight so much, why does God keep calling and using queer people?  Starting with that understanding of the love and call of God, are you now going to end by trying to be straight or rejecting your feelings and identity?  Were all of those moments with God just an elaborate joke God was playing on you from birth?

Do you think God was not present until you decided to work really hard to be straight? Those who are relying on being straight-acting enough, masculine enough, feminine enough, are going to be disappointed; because those expectations are not even realistic to begin with.  So it is evident that no one is going to get right with God by being straight. 

Before we grew into living this life of Spirit writing on our hearts, words of ancient scriptures still hinted that this is what it was all really about.  And now that we understand the message Christ taught about God, the world, and ourselves, we are not subject to some ancient code that was just hinting at this reality.  Just like what God said at Jesus' baptism, YOU are all the beloved child of God in whom She is well-pleased. There is no straight or gay, there is no male or female, there is no "acting on it gay" or "being celibate gay"-for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you are marked as beloved, then you are Sarah's children, heirs of the promise that God was going to bring life where everyone said it could not be birthed.

CHAPTER 4

Now I hear you are back to doing all the same stuff the church that kicked you out did.  I am afraid that all my work for this message will be wasted on you if you just go back to that small god with rules that make no sense.  Friends, I beg you, listen to what God is saying through me, because I have listened to what God is saying through you.  Am I now your enemy for still telling the truth?  Those anti-queer people tell you how great and brave you are so long as you are obedient to their myopic view of following Jesus, but they have an agenda; they want you to get their approval and blessing so they can feel important.  

Friends, we are not the heirs of a faith that was meant to make the circle smaller, but of one that was meant to draw it wider.

CHAPTER 5

You have been set free to live free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let someone make you a slave again.  Listen to me!  I, Paul, am telling you that if you let them convince you that you need to be heteronormative or celibate, do not think there will be liberation or freedom in that.  If you accept what they say about you as a queer, then you will have to believe what they say about everyone else and God and the Bible too.  In the process of trying to be someone other than who you are, you will cut yourself off from Christ who loves the true you.  The Spirit is working in you, telling you that you are worthy of all of the fullness of life that others enjoy.  For in Christ Jesus, neither sexual or asexual or straight or queer counts for anything; the only thing that will bring real whole-iness is the love of God working in the authentic you.

You were doing so well; who stole your self-worth from you?  That kind of persuasion does not come from the One who calls you.  And, for those who believe it is ok to be queer as long as you do not "act on it," you have become a thief too-a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough.  Those who are trying to confuse you about your worth as a queer person living out your queer life, will have to answer for the carnage they are leaving behind.

Listen, you are free to live your life now.  Do not waste this opportunity to use your freedom to liberate others.  All of the various verses of the Bible everyone wants to throw around all come together to say one thing: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  But if you use your life-giving inclusion to turn around and find someone else to exclude, you will just end up abusing people the way you were abused.

If you are led by the Spirit, you do not have to try to live up to the expectations of a oppressive system.  The signs of that system are obvious: bigotry, white supremacy, misogyny, erasure, justifications, excuses, self-righteousness, inequality, repression, fear, closets and condemnation and the like.  I am warning you; if this dominant system is where you are building your house, you are not building in God's city.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, justice, equality, and upsetting the cisheteropatriarchy. These things are never wrong. If we are here because the Spirit brought us this far, then let the Spirit guide us all the way.

CHAPTER 6

My friends, if you see someone straying off the path of full inclusion and liberation, you who are led by the Spirit should guide that person back.  Be careful that you do not ignore your own privilege when you are doing it.  You will fulfill the law of Christ when you side with the marginalized and the poor and the excluded.

Those who receive the gospel of inclusion and liberation must work for the inclusion and liberation of all people.  God is not mocked, if it is not good news for everyone, then it is not good news.

Do not grow weary in talking about queer liberation and working for it, because it will make a difference if we do not give up.  Every chance we get, we ought to stand up for queer people, especially at church.

I am going to stop here and write by hand.  Listen, those people telling you that you are broken or sick or disobedient are just projecting.  They want you to be "exgay" or "side b" so they can show everyone how righteous they are, because they know they really aren't.  They want to parade you around as a proof that they are right.  I hope I never parade anyone around except for Jesus who died rather than to listen to the lies of religious leaders or the bigotry of society.  Being straight or queer does not mean a thing; but being authentic and WHOLE means everything.  And if that is what you are doing, gay-straight-trans-cis-bi-lesbian or anything else, you are the true representatives of what God wants for all people.

May the broad and expansive grace of Jesus Christ be with your spirit, my beloved family.

Learning how to be hungry...

This last Sunday, I spoke at church about the gospel reading from Matthew 14:13-21, where Jesus feeds 5000 men, not counting women and children.  Here is a good portion of my sermon and notes about it all.


When I read today's gospel, I notice a couple of important points that help us get started with this story.  First is that compassion draws hungry people...even as Jesus was in mourning over his cousin John's beheading and death, he has compassion on the crowd that follows.  He heals them...and they stay with him.  Second is that this was clearly a eucharist story for the early church...a story that would bring some meaning and memories to what they did very often; they shared communion...they made eucharist.


This story also raises a question.  Why did the disciples decide the crowd was hungry? Sure, there was scarcity everywhere but nothing in the text tells us why...I wonder if they were projecting? “I'm tired. I'm hungry. Can we please get rid of these people Jesus?”  After all, it seems like the crowd wasn't too concerned about dinner or sleep.  They would've stayed with Jesus all night.

 In John, Jesus bypasses them and feeds the crowd himself which resonates with the theology of the Johanine community from which the gospel comes...but in Matthew, Jesus says “no—you feed them.”


Our eucharistic theology is so screwed up that we have rules and regulations about who can bless the damn bread! We do the same thing the disciples did... “Lord, send these people to an ordained clergy person who can administer sacrament to them.” And I know we don't do that here at this church...but do we? Do we have our own rules about where and how and by whom God's bread is broken to share?


In the church world, we are so busy building up our baskets, the Lord has gone hoarse from telling us to give these people something to eat. I fear the church, like the disciples, doesn't really have any food to offer anymore. Certainly, with all churches in decline by traditional metrics, everyone else seems to have concluded the same thing.

But, then, maybe we as church aren't the disciples here...maybe we are the crowd...and Jesus is sending people to US to break bread among us. Unlike the crowd here, we are so worried about who made that food and whether or not it was kosher (“Who is the mother of that boy that gave his lunch?!” we would've asked in another gospel's telling of this story...), we would rather starve than be fed. And we encourage the rest of the hungry crowd to abstain. And the Lord who wants to feed us tries in vain as the church in God's name proclaims from pulpits “DON'T EAT THE BREAD!”


Instead of seeing yourself in the shoes of the disciples today, find yourself among the crowd and call that crowd “the church.” If the crowd is the church, then the question becomes who are the disciples who are breaking bread to us in this narrative?

I would like to think they are unchurched people who are learning what real compassion without strings attached looks like.  They are apostates who left the church long ago because of many reasons, but have found that they aren't different people except in ways that make them happier, and gentler, and yes, even godlier.

The disciples are messengers of peace from other world religions and even other Christian denominations we would so easily dismiss, because we think that truth is confined to one outlet...and if we would listen to Truth, in whatever costume it dresses itself up in, we would find that we are less hungry for it after we eat...even as most of us would continue to focus on Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith.


In my take, the disciples are atheists or agnostics who value faith only if it can be questioned and tried...and if we would accept the bread they are offering us, we would find our faith enlivened and relevant because of the questions we would ask of ourselves...or we might find ourselves abandoning our faith in pursuit of truth outside the religious answers we've always known.


Does that scare you? Am I too radical to preach this in a Christian church? I mean, if we all preach this, won't everyone leave the church because they don't need it? I'm suggesting exactly that to you—you don't NEED the church...but we do need each other. And church is as good a place as any to really find each other...but only so long as we tell the truth about ourselves and others. Church has no value simply because it's the church...the value church has is in what people bring to it.


And the story today teaches me that too. Yes, the bread will come from the hands of disciples we are so quick to dismiss and reject. But, more than that, it's important to remember that they aren't providing the food that will feed us all...we are. It's a little counterintuitive in this story isn't it? The disciples don't save the crowd...the crowd has the food it needs to survive. Jesus just gathers it and redistributes it. Now instead of one boy with a sack lunch, they all have plenty with leftovers.


Now, I tend to believe that this is a miracle story based on some historical event rather than a historical report about a miracle event...so the multiplication of the loaves and fishes isn't all that important to me except to teach us about how much we truly have when we only think it is a little. But many if not most of you will say “absolutely not...it's important that Jesus multiplied those loaves and fishes.” And maybe you're right...but even so, it's completely significant that Jesus doesn't turn stones into bread to feed the people. He uses what they have. The crowd has all it needs to be fed. But isn't that how the Divine that we see at work in the world goes about doing things? Doesn't the spirit take a little of what we have, sift it through the hands of some people who might have even tried to just be getting rid of us, pass it among our various crowds—churches, friends, families, dance clubs, supper clubs, schoolrooms, etc—until we are all amazed at how interconnected we are with one another?

I don't know what your idea of eucharist is, but if it is confined to this table at church, you'll always go hungry. God is feeding the world at many tables. Some of them in churches today, yes...but at many other times and in many other places.


What it comes down to for me is this—I do believe. Today, anyway. And I believe in the good news so much that I believe it can withstand any doubt or disbelief and that those who search for truth will find it...and I care very little if they find it in a church or in a bar or in a movie theatre or a synagogue or mosque or a temple or a country chapel or a orchestra concert, or a band rehearsal, or a music festival or any other place. Because I believe...in a God that is found in all of those places by many names and in many different forms.


Does this sound completely apostate and heretical?


That must have been how this story sounded to the first century listeners who heard it. God doesn't masquerade as a carpenter from Galilee. God doesn't call fishermen and publicans. God doesn't party with hookers and get drunk on the weekends like Jesus. That's not how God works, they say. But it is.


So, join the crowd. Seriously...the crowd in this story...and find eucharist outside these walls. You'll starve if you only look for it from the church. Because I fear the church has seen itself as the disciples in this story for so long instead of the crowd, that they've starved to death, rejecting the bread God is bringing through unlikely sources. But the bread is there. It is exactly where Jesus said the kingdom of God is. Among us.


I haven't lost hope. I believe food will come from somewhere...but not until we start asking the right questions of ourselves and others. Not until we start caring about people rather than personal utility or the groups we are trying to use people to build up. And I DO believe that the church of Jesus Christ can be disciples, distributing the bread of hope that the crowd had with them all along right back among them and feeding the hungry. But we'll never get there until we can begin to find our own hunger again and bring our own stories and struggles and questions to the table.

 Let us pray.



May the God who satisfies the hungry soul help us to see what we have need of in our own souls. May She bring out from among us the gifts that will feed not only our souls but the hearts of our neighbors and the stomachs of a physically hungry world. And may we never be satisfied with believing that God is confined by one sack lunch, or by our ideas of propriety, or by our concepts of what is “best” or “right.” In other words, Lord, thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And give us this day our daily bread...

Let the church die.

From a "letter" I wrote as a Facebook status:

Dear Southern Baptist leadership,

Your conviction to ban gay rites does not constitute an argument to deny gay rights. Your conviction against equality, dignity, and worth for gay people is no different than the conviction that birthed your convention: it was in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia that the SBC was formed to defend the practice of slavery as ordained of God. It took over a century then, and it may take over a century now for the SBC to repent and lament its bigotry and it's use of God's name in vain. This Holy Week is an opportunity for the people of God in the SBC and other denominational structures to allow the agendas of power and self righteousness and greed to die so that the church can become a place for life instead of whitewashed tombs.

I would Cc a copy of this to the local denominational leadership of my own church's denominations (Christian Church, Disciples of Christ-Southwest region, Northeast Area, Texas-and the United Church of Christ, South Central Conference) that often communicate a love for the "most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplace" than for advocating for the people for whom the gospel was intended (specifically: everyone). They say that the church in America is dying. Let it die--this week reminds me that sometimes that's what happens on the way to resurrection.