Coming Out

The last time I preached, it was a painful, pitiful thing. I’d been asked to preach during a special prayer service to support a pastor who was being censured by his bishop for coming out. His congregation accepted him; wanted him to be himself. They felt blessed by his ministry.

It was all too close to home. Not a year prior, I had been ‘quietly set aside’ as a seminarian who would not support the official ELCA position on non-heterosexual clergy and laity. For the record, I could not stand before a congregation, confess God’s forgiveness, then carefully point out and exclude those queers in the back. Never mind having the courage to approach the pulpit if I actually believed I had been set aside to be an object of God’s contempt.

The last time I preached was the single worst sermon I have ever experienced. I couldn’t prepare it -- not for a lack of trying, and I couldn’t deliver it -- not for a lack of prayerful effort. Mid-stream, I just stopped, took a breath, and explained why it was so hard for me to speak.

Then I said that every morning when I wake up, I am reminded that God loves me and God is still at work in my life and in the world. Every morning when I wake up, I wake up with the woman who loves me.

After that, I mumbled something approximating closure and sat down, lost in the misery of having lost my voice. I just wanted to go home. Following the service, I stayed to greet the people who had assembled in prayer and tried to avoid wallowing. A woman I did not know and still do not know shook my hand and told me I had chosen the better part. I thanked her, but failed to understand.

Why, five years later, should this come to mind again? I don’t know, except that it had something to do with mourning the loss of a childhood friend. Maybe wishing I could help with the funeral -- as if.

What did she mean that I had chosen the better part? The text for the day didn’t have anything to do with Martha and Mary. What was Martha doing anyway that Jesus would sweep away her complaint with praise for Mary. Martha was serving Christ. Mary, for her part was sitting at his feet, hanging on every word.

What’s this? Loving God is more important than serving God?

Jacob took advantage of his brother when he was hungry, asking him to trade his inheritance for a bowl of stew. Esau is censured for selling his birthright and Jacob is praised for his faith. Weird. God is always turning things upside down.

Perhaps the things we do in the name of serving God are not near so important as being faithful and mindful of God’s love and forgiveness.