1st Sunday of Lent Out in Scripture

What's Out in the Conversation
A conversation about this week's lectionary Bible passages written for LGBTQIA+ people

When we live and love unconventionally, we‘re often accused of ignoring God‘s clear commands. Sometimes it‘s said that everything went wrong the moment Adam and Eve started asking questions. Because God‘s welcome, lived among us in Jesus, outweighs any fear of expulsion – God calls us to live open lives.
According to Matthew, when Jesus was baptized, the Spirit of God outed him as God‘s own beloved. This week‘s gospel reading, Matthew 4:1-11, shows Jesus struggling to discern how to live with that knowledge. Like Adam and Eve, says Charles Allen, Jesus considers whether it is enough to be the fragile creature that he is. Holly Hearon sees Jesus wrestling with whether he will let a hostile other (the tempter of verse 3) define his identity for him, or whether he will define for himself what it means to be a child of God. Likewise, Michael Miller wonders if Jesus is being tempted by the very idea that he should be expected to prove his ―belongingness‖ to anybody else. Who among any of God‘s creatures has the authority to question Jesus‘ standing with God — or yours or mine? Helene Russell focuses on issues of power. Jesus is tempted to see God‘s reign in terms of controlling everything — making the world and himself pain-free by taking all power to himself, and thus making a sham of any genuine love.
When has God called you ―Beloved?  How do others‘ doubts tempt you to question God‘s words of unconditional welcome? Who says you have to prove anything to anybody?
It is no surprise that stories of Jesus‘ temptation would be linked to the story of the first temptation in Genesis 2. A talking snake tells Eve the truth. She and Adam won‘t drop dead when they eat the forbidden fruit; instead they will become more God-like. Their eyes will be opened to know good and evil. And that, even God observes (Genesis 3:22), is more or less what happened.
Yet ironically, says Charles Allen, once Adam and Eve knew the difference between good and evil they misjudged their own nakedness as somehow ―not good.‖ They grew ashamed of their fragility as creatures and ―closeted themselves with fig leaves. They hid from God, and in so doing, expelled themselves from God‘s presence even before they were expelled from Eden.
Michael Miller cautions that we can‘t always tell the difference between disobedience to God and a legitimate questioning of established boundaries, though either way those who push at boundaries are going to feel exposed and vulnerable. Holly Hearon questions whether nakedness was the issue when the couple‘s eyes were opened. Maybe it was their awareness of how easily they could be tricked, their potential for sin. In that, they were still a far cry from being God-like.
How do you tell good from evil? To whom do you listen? When is it good to challenge established rules? When are you tempted to hide who you are?
In Romans 5: 12-19, Paul uses the Genesis story to set up a contrast with the story of Jesus. Eve drops out of the story, and Adam gets all the blame. Adam prefigures Jesus, in that both figures‘ actions have an effect on all of humanity. Both are universal, Helene Russell observes. But for Paul, Jesus‘ faithfulness (or God‘s faithfulness in Jesus) outweighs Adam‘s trespass.
God‘s unconditional welcome in the life, death and risen life of Jesus is the final truth about God, and about us. Indeed, says Holly Hearon, God in a sense ―transgresses‖ our sense of what is just and right because God‘s desire is that all might have life. This ever-increasing, ―transgressive‖ gift of grace provides a safe space, says Michael Miller, in which we can struggle honestly with all that is entailed by the explorations, adventures and discoveries of our lives, including our challenging of established boundaries. In fact, Charles Allen suggest, we‘re invited to bring even our most skeptical moments into God‘s very presence, without fear of expulsion. We don‘t have to closet any part of ourselves.
Do you feel welcomed by God, welcomed unconditionally? What do you allow to get in the way of God‘s welcome? What are you hiding?
Psalm 32 celebrates the joy of living without pretense. ―Happy are those … in whose spirit there is no deceit‖ (verse 2). Living without pretense does require confessing our wrongdoing. We need forgiveness, suggests Holly Hearon, not for our same-gender relationships, but for any failing to embody God‘s unconditional welcome even in our most life-giving relationships. We lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folk should never hesitate to admit that we are sinners just as much as anybody else, Charles Allen insists. We fail to love extravagantly, transgressively, the way God has loved us. And perhaps the gravest failure is hiding our failures. Confession is the moment when we realize that God is the true ―hiding place‖ (verse 8), the safe space wherewe can live in full openness.
How do you feel about naming yourself as a sinner? Does it feel demeaning, or can it feel liberating?

Prayerfully Out in Scripture Ever-welcoming God, you invite us to bring all that we are, our questions and our failures, into your life-giving presence; Give us courage to live before you without pretense, that we may know the joy of forgiveness and renewal without fear of expulsion. Amen.

Out in Scripture

A Journey of Inclusivity by Rev. Bill Chadwick

A Journey of Inclusivity       Oak Grove Presbyterian Church     Bloomington, MN

Written by Bill Chadwick, Pastor 2009-2019

Oak Grove in the mid-20th century was a thriving, typical middle-class Presbyterian congregation, neither overly conservative nor especially liberal in its theology and politics.

I am aware that each senior pastor, starting in the 1970s, preached at least one sermon sometime during his tenure, supporting the inclusion of homosexual people in the life of the church.  So that’s one sermon every seven to ten years. I am not aware that anyone left the church over those sermons.

This one sermon per pastorate did not exactly put Oak Grove on the cutting edge of this issue, even within the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area.  For example, Presbyterian Church of the Apostles in Burnsville, Cherokee Park United Church in St. Paul, and St. Luke Presbyterian in Minnetonka were all official “More Light” congregations by around 1990 or even earlier.  

During the 1990s at Oak Grove a few adult education sessions on the issue of LGBT inclusivity were offered.  Around the year 2000, the congregation elected an openly gay deacon. Most people were fine with that, but some were not and chose to leave the congregation.

In 2009 I was contacted by the Pastor Nominating Committee seeking a new head of staff for Oak Grove.  That PNC was very clear during the phone interview that they were only interested in candidates that fully supported the inclusion of LGBT folks.  I was also very clear that I was only going to consider a congregation that was fully inclusive. I was called as pastor in spring of 2009.

In 2010 I led another series of adult education programs regarding Homosexuality and the Church.  In late 2010 I brought to the session two proposals. The first was for Oak Grove to become an official “More Light” congregation.  This passed unanimously. The second was a motion to support full marriage equality. This passed with one abstention.

There were a few congregation members who were not supportive of either of these, but those who strongly opposed inclusion had already left the church and we did not lose any more members.  

I believe it was 2011 when the Rainbow Flag was placed on the church property.  It’s a very heavily trafficked corner. I expected that the flag would probably be stolen or defaced, and that our building would be vandalized.  Neither of those things happened. We received two or three emails about the flag over the years from neighbors.

We advertised our inclusiveness on our website and in other venues and we shared a tent with other More Light churches at the annual Gay Pride Festival in June each summer in Minneapolis.  We regularly had gay visitors join us for worship, but no one stuck around more than a few Sundays for the first few years. I presume this was because they didn’t see anyone else they could identify as gay.  This was very frustrating, because if they had all stayed for three years there would have been a critical mass.  

Finally, about 2015 a young gay man joined the church and the choir and was very open about who he was.  Soon other gay folks visited and stayed. A Rainbow Fellowship of LGBTQA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Allies, and anybody else) folks began meeting monthly to plan fellowship and educational events.  This continues.

After a bit we realized that the Rainbow Flag was perhaps our best church growth tool, in that when we asked people in the new member class what first attracted them to Oak Grove, about 40% or more said they saw the flag out front.  A typical comment was: “We’re not gay, nor do we have any gay family members, but we knew this was going to be the kind of church we would like to be a part of.”

In about 2017 an openly transgender man joined the congregation.  He presented several adult education events. In 2018 we added a Trans flag in addition to the Rainbow Flag out front.

On Easter Sunday, 2019, two young men with giant anti-gay banners picketed out front of our building.  They also shouted at some of our members, including children, that they were going to go to hell for going to this church.  I went out and tried calmly to engage the two in conversation, but they weren’t much for listening. One of our wiser and more loving members took rolls and coffee out to them.

Since much of the Christian Church has been and continues to be in the forefront of persecution of LGBT folks, to me it seems only right that nowadays the followers of Jesus do all in their power to be welcoming.

PCUSA LGBTQIA+ History

For everyone born, a place at the table. Praise God for the many people that sought to seek justice and compassion for LGBTQIA+Persons in the PCUSA.
https://www.sutori.com/story/timeline-of-lgbtqia-history-in-the-pc-usa--JiBbvQQSWSTGX8WQcgLG8SY7

Tilling hard packed soil

I can hardly wait for May when I will be back in my gardens enjoying beautiful flowers! There is quite a bit of preparation needed before seedlings and young plants go in the ground. The soil must be tilled up a bit and nutrients added to the soil.  Not much grows well in hard packed soil.

Many of us have been programmed since early childhood to believe certain things about certain groups of people.  I for one was raised in a padded Ziplock bag with climate control! I didn’t see a person of color until I went with Youth Group to visit a church in Akron. All of my life I had heard my grandparents make very disparaging comments about African Americans. In the last few years of her long life, my parents had to care for my grandmother at their home as she violently refused to have any person of color take care of her. That is some hard packed soil!

In my Ziplock bag during high school, I had no awareness of anything other than heterosexual people. I had heard derogatory names being used such as queer and faggot, but I never gave any thought to what they meant. I did have compassion for the recipients of the name calling just as I had compassion for anyone being picked upon.

In Nursing School there were a couple of men in my class. I had overheard some female classmates remark that they must be homosexuals.  It must have been hard for those men to choose a female dominated career. My first year out of Nursing School, I was working on the Postpartum floor at Akron City Hospital. One of my patients just happened to be my beloved high school softball coach. I had not seen her since graduation so I looked forward to catching up. I was taken aback when she asked me, “Are you a lesbian like all of your friends on the softball team?” She began to list the names of the infield - 1st base, 2nd base, shortstop.  (I played 3rd base and short center) These were my good friends that I had spent a lot of time with on and off the field. I had not been in touch with any of them since the summer after high school. There was quite a relief on my coach’s face when I told her that I was not a lesbian. Off to other patients I went, but my mind continued to try to make sense of the conversation.

Two of my softball girlfriends were sisters. I spent the night at their house on many occasions, and had first hand knowledge of their strict and often abusive parents. Did my friends become lesbians because of the abuse they suffered? Did they feel safer with women than with men? I eventually packed all of these thoughts away and went back to my Ziplock bag - that is until softball and lesbians became oddly connected by news media which then made my parents wonder if one of their granddaughters was a lesbian because she played softball throughout college and never married. Maybe those lesbians on the team converted her? That is some hard packed soil! Thank God for grace!

We likely all have some hard packed soil at one time or another in our lives. Maybe you have already spent a lot of time tilling your garden and are growing beautiful flowers. I think our hearts and souls need a regular tilling to be the people that God calls us to be.  Spend some time thinking about your hard packed soils and how you have tilled your soil and grown. And maybe even share with family and friends or here in the comments! Tomorrow we will look at the history of the PCUSA and the LGBTQIA+ Community.

Place at the Table

WELCOME to the Lenten Welcome Ministry Blog!

This blog is a space for members and friends of FPC to continue our journey to grow our welcome, and to expand our table.  Many home dining room tables have a couple of leaves to grow the table when guests are invited to dinner.  At FPC, are we prepared, open and eager to add more leaves to grow our table at FPC,  to expand our welcome, and to affirm and embrace ALL - especially LGBTIA+ persons?  Is our table set for EVERYONE born?

"All are Welcome" on a church sign is just not enough for most marginalized people to risk entering church doors. Historically, the message received is “All are Welcome" if you look like us, think like us, and act like us. Yet, Jesus prepared a place at His Table for ALL - for everyone born!

• “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28

As in any life journey, there are times such as this when we are called to intentionally step up the pace, to speak out, and answer the call to seek justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God just as  Esther did:

• “For if you keep silence at a time like this, relief and deliverance will rise from the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” Esther 4:14

It is  time for us to do the intentional work of digging up the hard packed soils of our lives that can keep our hearts closed to marginalized communities. Maya Angelou is quoted as saying, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”  Let’s do better to welcome ALL to enter our doors, and then welcome ALL to the place that we have already set for them at our table.

“And God will delight when we are creators of justice, and joy, compassion and peace.

Yes, God will delight when we are creators of justice, justice and joy.”

New resources and voices will be added frequently to this blog. ALL are welcome to share comments, resources and personal stories! Join in the journey!

With Great Joy!
Cheryl Klink