A sermon offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lafayette
June 10, 2001
By Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia

"When all the world is a hopeless jumble
And the raindrops tumble all around,
Heaven opens a magic lane
When all the clouds darken up the skyway
There’s a rainbow highway to be found
Leading from your window pane
To a place behind the sun
Just a step beyond the rain."

Alice Walker wrote:

Love is not concerned with
whom you pray to
or where you slept
the night you ran away from home.
Love is concerned
that the beating of your heart
should kill no one.

Modern readers scrutinize St Paul’s Epistles to the Romans in the Christian Scripture with its discussion of dishonorable passions and unnatural relations and shameless acts and we are conditioned by the largely negative characterization of homosexual behavior prevalent among us since the late nineteenth century. We are tempted to give a content to those words and a profile, largely negative, to those behaviors, and are persuaded by our own infallible opinions that Saint Paul is "obviously" talking about the same thing as we are." Just like a person from another culture might be confused when you might say – oh she’s in left field or he’s a carnivore or they slept together or it’s hell on the Dan Ryan at rush hour. Our world is different with new forms and realities. "All Paul knew of homosexuality was the expression of it in the temples of gods not his own—the pagan expression. He cannot be condemned for that ignorance – but neither should his ignorance be an excuse for our own."

For as many years as gay and lesbian people in this country or any part of the world
Remain the captives and victims of hate-filled societies
Let a day of each year hold an hour or a day of commemoration for the thousands who, in the missing pages of our history,
Died alone in fire,
Lived alone in terror,
Wept alone in horror,
Waited alone for each other,
Cried alone for validation:

Whether gay men and lesbians died in the inquisition, in nazi concentration camps, in prisons and mental hospitals across this country, in a fire-swept gay bar, tortured and abandoned, or as victims of our own isolation,
No one of us alone or together has enough tears to bring back to life the thousands of our sisters and brothers whose deaths have been denied by history and even by their own families.

All of our lives have already been numbered or distorted by a society that is too narrow for our love.

We must widen this world, by whatever means we know,
In the name of those dead, and for the sake of those living.
Let this day and one day each year
Remind us in anger
Remind us in love
That we have years to go
Before we sleep ...
In freedom.

We gather here in a church – a temple of religion and, while we may be a small and iconoclastic church in a modest and iconoclastic association and not the greatest cultural brokers, yet our power is great. Marianne Williamson wrote:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

Religion has power – power to speak to the heart as well as the mind, power to shape the deep stories that a society will believe, power to transform lives from the inside out. Our own religious tradition formed because we saw the positive power of religion but believed that there must be reasoned, ethical checks upon that power. This is our great insight and our gift to human thought. And, at a time when faith-based groups are being transformed everywhere in America into a visible and governmentally empowered force, as we have seen in the news this week, it will come to us to speak of religion that seeks a wiser power and more embracing faith.

In 1880 John Addington Symonds, scholar, poet, social critic, and homosexual wrote a hymn – we’ll be singing it later. His lyrics, which sang in hope of a time when peace would prevail on earth, justice would reign, and love between men might be accepted and celebrated, those lyrics were suppressed. Even in our own old blue hymnal the verse which sang of high friendship was expunged and, although the song was circulated, it was silent at its core. In our grey hymnal the verse has been restored. Religion can still into silence or liberate into song. The last century was the century when many silences were broken – not the least of which broke on the night of the Stonewall Riot.

More than twenty thousand people had gathered in New York on the evening of June 27th for a memorial service for Judy Garland – whose birthday was today. In the late summer evening after the service, hundreds of gay men and drag queens headed back to the village and places like the Stonewall Inn – a downscale drag bar run by the Mafia. Naturally the bars were run by the Mafia – it was illegal to sell alcoholic beverages to homosexuals in New York State – the Mafia paid the police for protection, the police allowed the bars to remain open but would raid them on a regular basis and arrest a few people. There were few places to meet and at the Stonewall that night was the usual crowd looking for one place to sit together, to dance together – to be honestly who they were. There was a nascent movement for lesbian and gay rights but it was small, divided, and largely underground. Just after midnight the police entered the bar for a routine raid. They roughed up the customers, asked the men if they were homosexual and this evening they seemed rougher than usual. But this evening the gay men and the drag queens were feeling strong – maybe it was something about getting together to grieve the cultural icon of Judy Garland a woman who suffered to play a role culture wanted from her – some theorists think so. Maybe they were still hankering after that place over the rainbow. Maybe the small movement was reaching a critical mass and just needed one gathering that could remind the community of how many of them there really were. Whatever it was -- the usually demur queens decided to fight back and there was a riot – now the other thing to understand is that gay bars had been docile targets for years – they were raided and burned and they were owned by people who hated the very people they served. In the early hours of June 28 – a community came together – most people say there was one drag queen who got shoved and shoved back – but suddenly the street erupted into breaking glass and small fires, and shouting. The skirmish lasted only a little while – and, as my friend Jay Deacon says, "The French Revolution it was not." It was a small fracas and the police showed up in force and broke it up. But it changed history. The next day a small demonstration formed in vigil outside the burned out bar and the next night it was larger and the protests grew and a movement blossomed into life in a matter of months. By the next summer the last Sunday in June would be known as Gay Pride Sunday and demonstrations would form around the country – and do to this day. It was a dramatic emergence into sight and sound.

It had been the love that dared not speak its name. The word homosexual didn’t even exist until the nineteenth century and then it had only been used to describe specific acts and not relationships. I will admit – this has been the toughest part of this sermon to write – I mean to stand in the pulpit talking about private acts is positively awkward. But, in fact, we sit here because of countless private acts, we express our love in these acts among others, we celebrate our embodiedness with them. Touch is sacred – when it is shared in a spirit of respect and love. and, yet, too often religion has been the agent of shame regarding the body.

This is a religious issue – for religion is concerned with that which is of highest value, of deepest meaning – and what is deeper than how we love and how we create justice in this world? It is a religious issue because all around us religion has taken up these critical issues and made comment and influenced legislation – just as it did three weeks ago when a well organized group of managed to obtain a religious exemption so that they would not have to conform to the non-discrimination ordinance in Tippecanoe County.

It is a great evil when religious leadership works to make itself exempt from love and justice and seeks to hide fear and bigotry behind a curtain of scripture. It calls us to understand the scope of the conflict and to engage on the side of love and justice. And it calls us to look behind that curtain of scripture…

So, I am going to take some time to look at the Bible, which we seldom treat of here – so that we, together, can know – we can be equipped with understanding and speak with authority. Yesterday in the Journal and Courier Rev. Jerry Andrews was quoted on the subject of gay clergy as saying: "There is a prohibition that is very straightforward, that we believe the scriptures teach… how else can the church honor the Lord of the church, if we neglect the word of the lord?" He spoke as though with authority – the authority of the Bible and of his Lord. But I can’t let him have this high ground because he is wrong and his wrongness has led so many people into shame and silence. You may already know that the word homosexual was not used in the Bible until a translator used it in English for the first time in 1946 in the Revised Standard Edition.

The Bible is a series of books that do speak to acts – but they speak to acts as those acts speak of the spirit behind them. In the Hebrew Bible the concern was for tribal purity – that the customs of the Hebrews not be confused with those of the worshippers of other Gods such as employed male temple prostitutes – the Hebrews wanted a practice that would set them apart as a covenanted people. And the pages are replete with proscriptions and prescriptions to do just that -- that we and all modern people choose to select out – labeling as abomination the eating of shellfish, the sin of wearing linen and cotton together, the killing of those who do not keep the Sabbath. The Hebrew Bible celebrates a number of same sex commitments – but it judges against acts without love, respect, or those acts that would have been committed in the temples of Other Gods – because -- that God was a jealous God. Nor does the Hebrew Bible speak of same sex relationships as we know them today and these relationships are no more about acts than are heterosexual relationships. Our acts connect us – but they are not the sum and substance of why and how we love – for that is a blend of spirit and act. This is a religious insight.

The Hebrew Bible, so often invoked to condemn homosexuality is unconcerned with it – it is silent on the matter at best and while silence can be dangerous – it is not a condemnation. The Christian Scripture is equally unconcerned. Paul – who said many things we might all disagree with, offered the most often cited passage – Romans 1:27 -- in which God gave up the people to dishonorable passions and shameless acts. Again Paul is speaking of two things: that the people had lost their sense of shame – not shame in the sense we usually mean it today – but that they were acting without scruple and spirit – blinded by passions and they had broken faith with their God. The next passage elaborates, "they were filled with every kind of wickedness, covetousness, malice, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, heartless, and ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die." This is the passage that bigots use to justify themselves when their hatred erupts into murder. When they blow up abortion clinics or hang college students to die on fences in Wyoming. But what the passage, in fact, condemns is the hatred and faithlessness of the people who commit those acts of violence.

John Boswell writes: Paul did not discuss Gay persons but only homosexual acts committed by heterosexual persons – unnatural to those persons. Boswell goes on to point out – the use of the word natural to Biblical people did not carry the moral force that we built into it in the nineteenth century – as in Natural Law – natural meant – customary and common. For Paul – and for Biblical persons – nature is not a moral force – quite the opposite.

There are only five scattered passages in the Bible which have any relevance when bigots cite it to justify their cause – and in no way do they speak to the same sex love we know today. In no way –

As Gomes wrote: "All Paul knew of homosexuality was the expression of it in the temples of gods not his own. He cannot be condemned for that ignorance – but neither should his ignorance be an excuse for our own."

Repeatedly the Bible speaks of acts and of acts in a certain context. It is possible to go through all of the passages are and, with a scholarly, and yet reverent eye – for the scholars I have read have done just that – and discern the context and come to understand a number of things: that there is no place in the Hebrew or the Christian Bible that speaks of the sort of same sex love that we have come to know, that there is no place in the Christian Bible where Jesus himself speaks in any way on it, and that the Bible read with simple modern eyes cannot read deep the messages in those ancient words.

The Bible has indeed been silent. But the voices of interpreters have been loud. We know that during slavery in our country the Bible was used to justify slavery. We know that the Bible has been used to justify the oppression of women. Those times and this time are times when the letter of the Bible was followed but the spirit was abandoned. A few weeks ago I pointed out – during RE Sunday that Unitarian Universalists listen to and respect the wisdoms of many traditions – and we endeavor to look at them with open eyes and clear minds. We hold sacred many books – including the Bible – but we hold them loosely as to the word. To be honest I think that when a thumper like the Rev. Jerry Andrews acts as though he owns the word of God we feel lessened. Even though the Bible is not our single source and some of us can do entirely without it – he looks down at us as though from a great height and we feel the weight of history over us and we feel lessened. Yet, from the Prophets to Jesus to the Buddha to Muhammad to Chief Seattle to the present the Spirit is of love and justice and liberation – not the micromanagement of life but the spirit in every act of living. Though we may hold the words loosely, truly, where it comes to the Spirit, Unitarian Universalism listens deep and holds firmly.

This congregation became a Welcoming Congregation in 1997 and our movement has been committed to the rights of Lesbian and Gay and now Bisexual and Transgendered persons – for a long time, including the right of ordination. Unitarian Universalist clergy have been performing same sex unions for more than twenty years. While the Presbyterian church is struggling to discern their position on this issue – and deeply divided -- we have faced our divisions – when the Welcoming Congregation material was created it was meant to help people move beyond prejudice toward acceptance and then beyond acceptance to true living in diversity. To help people to understand the struggles that other people face. We have made a good beginning and a commitment because it is inherent in our spirit of justice and our principles to do this. Most of us gather here in part because we like the company – and the company here is very special – but I would maintain that the thing that brings us back week after week is our first principle – the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Every person here knows that she or he is worthy and cherished -- is good and whole in the eyes of this church. Yes, we have struggles and we are broken in places. We err and loose our way. We are human. But we are each inherently worthy. We have gifts and visions which are unique and precious. We deserve our lives and our dreams. We deserve our corners of peace and our havens of love. We have beauty and spark and diversity. And when we gather here out of the noise and negative messages of the world we are reminded of our soul’s beauty – for a time. And perhaps this time also reminds us that we do have some power – not power over but power to embody our dreams and our visions our gifts and our love in the world. But that can be scary. The full quotation by Marianne Williamson goes like this…

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

She asks: who are we each not to know that we are brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Perhaps to some of us it is not the glory of god but the simple, amazing, and precious glory of being. There is that glory in each of us.

Back in my radically feminist days I would look at drag queens and think – I don’t even want to be that kind of woman – why do you? However, when I think about Stonewall – that dingy space and that restricted and oppressed life I think –what brilliance and beauty – what courage, to be so different -- to rebel. There are the times when our beauty must emerge from the smoke and the noise – and we take a turn on the dance floor, like Marie, in the arms of love.

But it is not true that it is automatic that our own liberation liberates others – it helps. But oftentimes we have emerge into the street, into the debate, take the microphone – as Edie Pierce Thomas – our new Board Chair did at the Commissioners meeting. Oftentimes we have to speak out our care for others, speak our insights of justice, and speak the truth to power – we have our own authority – the Good is not held in limited words in one volume nor is it interpreted truly by narrow minds. Our playing small does not serve the world – we have a light.

It comes to us now to be the voice of a loving and reasonable and justice serving religion. It comes to us now to take up on the commissions and in the halls of government, in our classrooms and our sanctuary the work of bringing more lives into that light of healthy pride and affirmation.

The Universalist Minister John Murray said: Go out into the highways and byways. Give the people something of your new vision. You may possess a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding into the hearts and minds of men and women. Given them not hell, but hope and courage…

It was hope and courage that came to the Gay community on the night of Judy Garland’s memorial service – hope and courage that made those gathered in the dark look up and imagine and begin to work toward that place behind the sun

Just a step beyond the rain
that place
somewhere over the rainbow.