Fifth Sunday of Easter

Although I was raised in the church, and active in the youth group through high school, it was when I got to college that I began to take my faith more seriously. I was part of an evangelical college group called InterVarsity and I can easily and honestly say it was those years that set me on the trajectory of faith that landed me where I am now.

Right before the start of my junior year, we went on a retreat together to prepare our hearts and intentions for another year of ministry. And we were asked the question, “Who is it difficult for you to love?”

And for me, it was the gay community on campus.

This was the early 90’s, a time in society and the church, when we were far from being a welcoming or inclusive community. And although I was not at a point where I was ready to rethink my underlying theology of sexuality, I genuinely believed God’s love knew no boundaries, and as a follower of Jesus, my call was to seek a deepening love for everyone, especially those I was most inclined to avoid or dismiss.

And so, with what little maturity or understanding I had, I bluntly prayed, “God, help me to love gay people.”

And, honestly, I can think of no prayer I’ve ever prayed that God has answered so directly and persistently. All year long, God kept sending gay men my way. “Here’s another for you, Eric, and another. Don’t be afraid. Just love them.”

Over the course of that year, at least three guys chose me – this evangelical Christian – to be the one they come out to. I can’t say I did everything well that year. Especially with Adam. He was the guy I was probably closest too – a freshman who’d become a Christian through InterVarsity and though my relationship particularly. There were words exchanged between us at various points that I’ve since deeply regretted. We lost touch after I graduated, but later became Facebook friends, which gave me the opportunity to apologize. And, although he no longer identifies as a Christian, he did forgive me.

There’s much to be said about my experiences that year. But there was one lesson I learned loud and clear: none of those men chose to be gay. None of them chose an identity that would cause them to be abused and reviled by their families and communities. For each of them, coming out was terrifying, and they were doing the best they could to navigate an honest reckoning of who they were figuring themselves out to be in a world still unready to receive them.

It would be years before my own theology on homosexuality would shift. And I have to say, through it all, I felt an extraordinary graciousness from God for it to be a slow process. Society was in transition, as was the church, as was I, and these changes are slowly made. But along the way, I determined to reach no conclusions on faith and human sexuality without being in relationship with gay Christians. These conclusions cannot be exclusively academic matters, worked out by theologians alone in the sterility of seminary libraries. They are rooted in real lives, in real stories, where the full complexity of the human experience is brought together.

And today, one my closest clergy colleagues, the one I am most apt to be honest and vulnerable with, is a queer, feminist, activist priest who makes me totally uncomfortable every time we discuss theology and faith. She pushes every boundary I have. And I totally trust her. I totally respect her as a genuinely faithful, intelligent, committed follower of Christ, who is helping me to be the same.

We are living in an era that is asking complex questions about human sexuality and orientation, questions that – as a society – we’ve never asked before. For many, these discussions are threatening and confusing, and they feel like the stability of their culture is being shaken to its core. For others, these discussions have been far too long in coming. They have known, in their core, that they simply did not fit within the rigid norms of sexual identity permitted by society.

So, yes, it is an enormous change. But every generation asks fresh questions about what it means to be human. Every generation seeks to make meaning of the world in which we live.

And as stewards of the gospel we have inherited, it is our duty to ask these same questions of our faith. It is our duty, in obedience to God and in love of our neighbor, to ask of our gospel, “What is your good news for this generation and the legitimate questions they’re asking?”

After all, if God is real and God’s love is real, then our gospel must be able to respond in meaningful and soul-satisfying ways. And if our sincere intent is to know God and God’s will, there is no threat in asking the questions.

Because the unavoidable reality of creation as God made it, is that everything is in a constant state of change. Nothing is static. Nothing remains the same. We, and every other thing, is always in a process of transition and becoming. So to be people of faith means we must view our faith itself as a thing of ongoing development and change.

So how do we do that? As Christians in the Anglican tradition, we claim a “three-legged stool” of authority. That is, when working out answers to the questions of faith, we look to Scripture (What does the Bible say?), Tradition (How has the church understood this in the past?), and Reason (How do we now think this through from the unique vantage point of this new context in which we’re living?)

And our context of 21st western civilization is exploring questions of gender in new ways. And we can be at peace with this. Answers to such questions are necessarily slow in developing. It will take a couple generations for society to reach some collective wisdom on these matters. And during the process, we – as the church – have the privilege of contributing a distinct voice, a voice that is not afraid, but rooted instead in the assurance of God’s abiding presence in all things. That as Christ loved us, so we should love one another. And that by this, everyone will know that we are his disciples.

And we can take heart that, although we live in a world of constant change, there are godly principles that remain consistent, principles that help guide us in making sense of these transitions. And in terms of who constitutes the “people of God,” what we see in scripture and tradition is a pattern of enlargement, of greater and greater inclusion.

God’s redemption began some 4,000 years ago with just one human family – Abraham, Sarah, and their descendants. But from the beginning God’s intention was clear, that through this family, all the families of the world would be blessed. What began in Israel was meant to be a showcase of a faithful community – how their love and fidelity to God translated to their love for one another, creating a just society where none were overlooked, especially the poor and the vulnerable.

But by the era of Jesus and the early church, 2,000 years later, the faith of Abraham’s offspring was largely defined by the boundaries they kept, of preserving the purity of their religion and its practices, such as their dietary laws. It was, they believed, what God wanted of them. Until God made it explicit through a vision to Peter – the leader of the early church – that this era was over. “Those rigid rules you’ve faithfully kept for so long, have seen their fill. Eat whatever you want! I no longer need you to separate yourselves from the heathen as an example of purity. I now want you to go eat with them. I’ve sent them the Spirit, they’re baptized in me, and now I’m sending you.”

It had to have been totally confusing and unsettling for Peter. It reversed everything he believed of what it meant to the people of God. But to his credit, he changed. It wasn’t easy. The early church struggled for years to drop their purity standards and become fully accepting of the gentiles. But it was this new inclusiveness that prevailed, especially because of Paul, the most radically inclusive leader of that generation. And the church grew throughout the Roman empire, such that gentiles like you and me don’t even question our right to be included in the church.

But like Peter, it seems we’re being asked afresh to re-evaluate the purity standards the church has held for so many generations. Now, in regards to gender identity and sexual orientation.

St. John’s joined three other Gig Harbor churches this year in laying the groundwork for a joint youth group we hope to fund in the upcoming school year. One of the clearly stated objectives of this group is that it be open and safe for kids who identify as LGBTQ. ‘Cause here’s the thing: they’re in our churches (at least for the time being). Their generation is surging forward in exploring these issues. But the church at large is way behind, “keeping itself pure” and becoming increasingly irrelevant for this younger generation.

I’ve been leading the high school group. There’ve been about 15 kids in it, probably a third of whom identify somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum. For some, this group was the first time they’d been back to church in a few years, and it was because the invitation from their pastors made it clear they would be welcome. And I’ve got to tell you, it’s been fascinating! I really like these kids. I like listening to what they have to say. They’re helping me to understand what’s happening, so much better.

For many of us, we fear there’s some corrosive political agenda forcing kids to identify themselves in bazaar ways that will lock them into some false, queer box that will confuse them for the rest of their lives. But let me tell you, no one is locking these kids into any boxes. It’s the exact opposite. They feel an extraordinary freedom to keep exploring, which (after all) has always been what this age of development is about. Their exploring is simply happening in an era that’s broadening its understanding of the complexity of our humanness, including what it means to be gendered.

And like I say, as a society, we’re still a long way out from reaching any stable consensus on these matters. It’s still in progress. But guaranteed, our children will inherit a world quite different from the one we inherited at their age. And the question for us, as a church, is will we be part of that world, or not? Will we risk asking unsettling questions, with a genuine openness to God’s ongoing revelation?

I hope the answer is “yes.” For love of God, for love of this rising generation, and for love of this world that needs desperately to know the hope of God with us, in all things. Amen.