Breaking Down the Boundaries, Plenary lecture at the Fellowship's Leadership Conference

28th February, 2009 - Posted by nwilsonadmin - 4 Comments

Breaking Down the Boundaries

 

Leadership Conference on Whole Leaders:

The Fellowship, MCC and Unity Fellowship Movement

February 20, 2000

Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson

 

I am so grateful to be here today with you. It is an honor to have the privilege to speak and teach today.

 

I am awed by what is happening between MCC and The Fellowship, now also joined by Unity Fellowship Church Movement.

 

Recently I was at the NGLTF Creating Change Conference, with about 2,000 people, not always the easiest place to be a person of faith. When I arrived, and came into one of the large meeting rooms, a very tall transgendered, African American woman who I did not remember having met before, ran toward me in her high heels, threw her arms around me, and said, “Rev. Wilson, it is so good to see you! Have you seen Bishop yet?” It was so wonderful to be welcomed as family in an unfamiliar place. It is emblematic of what I experience here, and in our gatherings together.  

 

MCC is 40 years old, the Fellowship only 8 or 9, Unity Fellowship, 26 or so. Penny Nixon’s workshop on sexuality yesterday reminded me of many such discussions, open and passionate and frank, that we had in MCC in the 70’s and early 80’s. Those discussions got shut down with the advent of AIDS, it seems to me. The conversation was joyous and challenging, and reminds me that we need to do more of this again in MCC. Thank you, Fellowship, for your commitment to deep engagement.

 

The hymnist Isaac Watts wrote, “What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest Friend.” I don’t have words to say how I feel about being here. How welcomed and trusted we in MCC feel. I would trust MCC with Fellowship leaders, Bishops Flunder and Greenlee. Bishop Rawls, from Unity Fellowship, I would trust MCC to you.  I wish every MCC clergy person and lay leader could be here to feel this, to marinate in this generosity and sweetness.

 

This feels like a liminal moment, similar to the best kind of sex, that includes the blurring of  boundaries: where does my body end and yours begin? There is the blurring of our boundaries as we are caught up in worship and music and praise, and learning. You are right Bishop Flunder, music is its own, powerful force, a global language of the Spirit, that crosses boundaries. Thanks for reminding me, this week that learning and growing together is sexy!      

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There are good boundaries that need to be kept, and boundaries that need to be crossed. We need to honor professional boundaries, and affirm that good fences make good neighbors sometimes, except when there is a wall, or barbed wire.

 

 

 

I want to start with thinking about one definition of what is called Queer theory, in academic circles: being queer is all about being “transgressive,” resisting messages about a binary constructions of gender, sexuality, race, and class.

 

The Bible speaks a lot of crossing things like rivers, and seas, and  transgressing boundaries. Abraham crossed rivers and deserts to go where God had called him; Moses took his people across the Red Sea; and Joshua across the Jordan. We have been reading in the lectionary of Elijah and Elisha, wild men of the Hebrew scriptures, prophets and healers to came to the rescue of women, performed  miracles, helped widows, raised the dead, etc.

 

One of the ways to understand Jesus, is through the lens of transgressive behavior, crossing and challenging the boundaries of gender, race, class, religion.

 

I think of the woman at the well. Jesus took her seriously as a theologian. In one encounter in the 4^th chapter of John, he broke so many rules. As a single man, he was not supposed to speak, unchaperoned, to a women who was not kin to him; especially a woman who had a bad reputation. She was a Samaritan, of a different ethnicity and religion. It frightened the disciples so much when they came back from getting food, they didn’t dare asking him what he had been doing, talking to her. They couldn’t leave him alone for a minute!

 

The woman with the hemorrhage broke every rule by touching him, and he broke taboos by acknowledging her, stopping to notice her, and declare her healed. He risked being unclean. The same applied to his encounter with lepers — he was constantly putting himself at risk, socially, religiously..

 

I love the Sabbath stories. Jesus healed on the Sabbath, breaking Sabbath rules to stop suffering. But he also broke the Sabbath rules about work by simply eating the stalks of wheat as he and his disciples walked through the fields. People had died for the right to keep the Sabbath. This was no trivial thing! And so this was a matter of national and religious pride and honor. People had died for the right to keep Sabbath rules, and then some made themselves Sabbath police! He flaunted Sabbath rule violation. I think of the Leslie Gore song applied to this moment in Jesus’ ministry: “It’s My Sabbath, and I’ll Heal if I want to!” Sabbath was meant to be a gift of the Divine to the people of God, for rest, refreshment, connection to God and one another. It was not just about identity politics. Jesus’ point was that they had lost touch with the fundamentals of the meaning of Sabbath: they had, in fact, ruined it with their uptight policing of it.

 

I think, today, in the church, the sexuality debate is our Sabbath debate. Sexuality a gift from God, meant for joy, intimacy, connection to God and one another. But all our uptight policing, anxiety, has ruined it! Isn’t this what we are saying?

 

I was at the World Council of Churches Assembly in 2006, with about 11 MCCer’s and 5,000 people from Protestant and Orthodox Churches from around the world, over 300 denominations. We offered a handful of workshops, with other LGBT friendly groups, about “human sexuality.” The rooms were filled to overflowing, standing room only! People sitting on the floor and window sills, and pouring out the doors! People were begging to get in – that was not true of any other workshops, let me tell you! One would think this would be a clue to the WCC, about the hunger to talk about these issues in a safe space.

 

There was an invitation-only, structured “Holy Conversation” on human sexuality for 100 of us. People were trying to sneak into that room too! At that conversation, which included people from churches and cultures where they had literally never spoken aloud about sexuality, two things happened. An Egyptian man, who works in HIV/AIDS ministry, suggested that the WCC do research and publish something on “homosexuality and the Bible,” in a way that let me know he had never seen any of our books or material on the subject. I thought, “40 years of talking about homosexuality and the Bible, and still there are people who have no idea that anyone has done this work! On the other hand, it only took 40 years from Troy Perry’s living room and that first MCC service for this moment to happen, in a room of people from around the globe!

 

And, the other thing that happened, was that we were asked to put on sheets of paper around the walls, all the issues on sexuality that impacted the church. What I noticed was that all the issues were framed negatively, in terms of problems, I stood and said, “What about ‘joy,’ ‘intimacy?’ Am I the only romantic in the room?” People laughed, but got it. And, I said, what if we had a WCC global celebration of “the gift of sexuality day” in the churches – there was a lot of applause, until they stopped and thought about how they might implement that in the local church back home. But I know it had an impact – 40 years in MCC had taught me something about the gift of sexuality that I am not ashamed to speak about publically.   

 

Jesus healed the Syro-Phoenician woman’s daughter!  But, Mark’s gospel let’s us know that first she was rejected, and possibly even insulted in a way that would have been commonplace and “acceptable.” But, she did not give up, would not be deterred from her mission. She persisted, and more than that, she told him who he was! In essence, she said, “Young man, you are not just the Savior or your own nation – but of the world!”  He hears her, accepts correction from her, and is humbled, and heals her daughter, or lets her know that her faith has accomplished the healing. She helped Jesus step into his shoes.

 

The thief on the cross, to me, speaks of class. This poor thief, the lowest of the low, is a petty criminal, who probably started out life with three strikes against him. But that day, on the cross, he tries once more, takes his chance, looks to Jesus, and says,  “Jesus,  remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He too, like that foreign woman, reminded Jesus, on the cross, who he was. What a an amazing gift.  Jesus is being mocked and dissed in every way possible, but this poor man treats him like royalty, attaching himself to Jesus’ vision and destiny. Awakening to his true destiny, Jesus gathers himself in dignity and says to the thief, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”  Spoken like a true king. Not with irony, but with a calm, sure sense of confidence.

 

Jesus was transgressive all along in his ministry in his relationships, eating and drinking with tax collectors (our best equivalent might be drug dealers) and “sinners.” “Sinner” was a class coded term for “those people.”  It included women of dubious reputation who followed him into the homes of “nice” people, and scandalized them. It included the women who left their homes, husbands, followed Jesus, and paid for everything (Luke 8). What do you think people said about them?

 

I recently read a biography of Charles Wesley (I grew up a Methodist). We think of him as a famous hymn writer (“Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”), but he was also a preacher who started out in the prisons. In the very early days after his conversion, he visited death row, where he encountered ten men, to whom he preached and offered counsel. He found himself going back to the prison every day as they waited their execution. As the prisoners grew to trust him, some came to be able to ask, “And God loves even me?” Wesley rode with then, on a cart, to the gallows. At the execution, crowds of middle and upper class people went to jeer and taunt, as entertainment. They enjoyed riling up the men being executed. Wesley told the ten to ignore the crowd. “Just look at me,” he said, and they did. The crowds jeered but got no response, and then fell silent. One by one the men were prepared for hanging. Charles Wesley, the story goes, kissed each man tenderly, in turn, as he prayed for them. When the last one was hanged, he stood on the oxcart and preached to the silent crowd: that these were people for whom Christ died, no better or worse than any of them.

 

Those early Methodists were really Pentecostals! Did you know that when Charles Wesley preached, people fell out in the spirit, and danced at outdoor meetings, tens of thousands of mostly desperately poor people, who were unwelcome in any respectable church. They turned their hearts to God, and then, they wanted to show up in the local Anglican Church for communion. Rather than embrace them, the church turned its back, turned up its nose. We all know about that, don’t we, it is our story, too, isn’t it?

 

As people of faith, we have two distinct urges:  Bishop Flunder, you are right, people are seeking home, looking for that welcome at the table, seeking safety and belonging. And, at the very same time, many of us are seeking to cross boundaries of gender, race, class, and religious experience, seeing a spiritual adventure. Everything in our culture urges us to stay separate, to “keep to your own kind.” We must break down those rules, if we are really to see the realm of God manifest in our times.

 

Years ago, in a wonderful group women who taught me much, I learned that no one, as a child, seeks to be enculturated with sexism, racism, classism or homophobia. All of us resisted this enculturation in some way. When did you resist – racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism as a child? When did you ask a questions, cross a boundary, stand up for something? When did you make adults uncomfortable, angry or afraid by your resistance?

 

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I want to shift into this next section by sharing my social location. I grew up in a white, working class suburb on Long Island. My mother’s family were middle class, but impoverished during the Depression. My father’s family were poor New Englanders.

 

At age 6, growing up in our working to lower middle class Methodist church, I noticed

Evelyn. She was a gym teacher who accompanied her mother to church. She wore what looked like a man’s suit and a tie, and I was fascinated. My mother felt she had to tell me to stop staring. Evelyn was my first cross-dresser. I wanted to know how she got away with that!  My mother told me something that only in the last ten years have I realized was something she made up. She told me that Evelyn’s father had died, and they couldn’t afford new clothes, so Evelyn wore his. . . .but, don’t stare.

 

In sixth grade we were supposed to learn to dance with the opposite sex. Juan Alvarado was a very quiet, shy Puerto Rican boy in my class. I knew, even at age 12, that I was different, though I knew no words for it. But I knew something, in my spirit. And, I knew that Juan would be the last boy asked to dance, if at all, because of his race and ethnicity. So, in a transgressive act, I asked him to be my dance partner. We were both different, so many that would cancel things out. I remember that he looked terrorized, and was sweating, and I am not sure I did him a favor. But, the point is, without anyone saying anything, I knew just to ask him was transgressive.  

 

I was aided and abetted in my transgressive behavior by my 5^th grade teacher (who was not married, by the way). We were studying the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln. I was tall and very thin and knew the Gettysburg Address by heart, and my teacher asked me to play Lincoln in the class play. I was thrilled and beside myself. I borrowed by cousin Billy’s dark Sunday suit. I made my hat and my beard. I practiced endlessly at home for weeks.

 

But there was a problem. My best friend Gayle, with whom I had been role-rehearsing being a couple (I am not sure what she was doing), did not have a part in the play, and was upset. So, I wrote one for her – yes, as Mrs. Lincoln. Her mother made her a floor length green gown, and my teacher approved the addition to the play. It was a brief walk on part, but it saved my “marriage.”  That was a great day for me – I could cross-dress, I had the lead role in the class play, and my best friend was my wife. Perfect. Except that when my mother sat down, the woman next to her said, “Who is the little boy playing Lincoln?” to which my mother said, “I don’t know.” The worst part is that she told me that right after the play, and my perfect world came crashing down. How could I have enjoyed something so much that embarrassed my mother?

 

Of course, I must add, today my mother is wonderful support to me and to MCC, and I could not be more proud of her, and she is proud of me. Lots of healing. But that was the world we lived in 1960. Transgression of that magnitude was simply not allowed.

 

At age 13 I visited my Methodist pastor, with my father. I told him I felt called to the ministry, and he basically told me that theological education was wasted on women. I decided to bypass him at that moment, and asked him if he knew any women clergy, which he did, and I asked for her address.  

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Only nine years later, I had found MCC, as a very young adult. I think of how much MCC changed my life, as a young person looking for adventure, seeking to challenge boundaries, hooking up with a transgressive church!

 

MCC introduced me to the Pentecostal experience, which was so profound for the survivor of a frozen-chosen church background. I loved the music, the praying, and the preaching, the eclectic and rich experiences we had together. I learned about the gift of the spirit.

 

When I was the pastor of MCC Los Angeles, I had my first real experiences with pastoring people of color, especially people of color who had never been in church with white people, or had a white pastor.

 

It was a constant learning experience. Rev. Barbara Haynes, an African American MCC pastor from a Baptist background, was one of my wise teachers. When Rev. Thomas Walker died, I co-led the service with the pastor of Progress Baptist Church in Compton. We waited and waited at the funeral home, but neither Barbara nor the family showed up. Finally, Barbara came running into the funeral home, and both said to each other at the very same time, “Where were you?”   Barbara let me know that I was expected at the family’s home, to pray with them and accompany them to the service.  I had no idea, and she had no idea that in my white cultural experience, we would have been horrified if the pastors had come to our home prior to the funeral. . ..we laughed, and were amazed at how much we still don’t know about each other’s culture, customs and experience. Barbara said, “That’s OK, I covered for you.”

 

African Americans in the MCC I pastored were often reluctant to come into my office. They would talk in the doorway, in the sanctuary, or in their homes. But, the pastor’s office was not necessarily a comfortable place – they remembered it as a place of discipline, or even punishment. It was intimidating. And to have and trust a white pastor? That was tender, and I was always so aware of not wanting to fail or disappoint. And, that, of course, I did sometimes fail or disappoint, and we had to learn how to get through that, together.

 

At MCC LA, we have a Latin Ministry, which serves mostly LGBT Latino/a immigrants from over 14 countries.  This is a worshipping community at MCCLA that is under the umbrella of the church, with their own pastors. I attended the services, sometimes preached or served communion. But, there were always issues of inclusion and empowerment.  When we moved into a new building, members of the Latin Ministry made a big deal of coming to the board to ask permission to use the chapel for a service for the fest of the Lady of Guadalupe, as if they were an outside group wanting to use the church. I was horrified – they could have just penciled it in on the room use calendar, they did not need to get special permission! But is was my clue that many in the Latin Ministry did not feel that sense of entitlement in an organization they believed was run by white people. This was a combination of class and racial issues, aggravated by the hostility in the wider culture towards immigrants.

 

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I want to recommend to you two books that have been helpful to be about the intersections of issues. I have found to be very valuable Paul Fussell’s Class. (white cultural context, but very useful); and Angela Davis’ wonderful historical study, Women, Race and Class.

 

It is impossible to talk about race, gender or class, particularly, without an analysis of power and privilege. Racial prejudice is not the same as racism, for instance. Anyone can be racially prejudiced, but racism is more about a system of power and privilege. Racism requires the power to reinforce your prejudice, in other words.

 

I have prepared these TEN STATEMENTS that address:  what is required of us, as a consortium of LGBT friendly churches?

 

Spiritual leaders, communities, followers of Jesus: crossing boundaries, destroying barriers, is our heritage and our mission! As is building bridges towards one another, and towards whole communities who are still seeking an inclusive churches.

 

1.  We must be constant learners. Trust comes of respectful learning, paying attention with our bodies, minds and spirits; and being vulnerable, especially, around gender, race, class, homophobia, transphobia. Learning is sexy. If we are not learning, we cannot grow, we will not be ready when it starts raining (thanks, Bishop Rawls, as we recall your sermon the other evening.)

 

1. Building trust is costly and messy, but it is the only way to build a movement out of aligned organizations. The personal is political (a powerful feminist principle).  We must learn to live with ambiguity, which also requires risk and investment. We are powerful together. But this requires institutional transparency, requires transcending institutional selfishness.

 

After the meeting in September 2007 between MCC and Fellowship leadership, I was impressed to understand that everything I do I must ask the question, “how does it impact The Fellowship?” We felt bereft when the Fellowship leadership left our meetings, and we were clearly changed forever by our encounter. Our trust challenges include dealing with our class and race context, our false sense of competitiveness, our challenges on the local level to realize this.

 

1. Appreciate and understand racial, class, cultural, gender differences, do not obscure them. My partner Paula often talks about the process of falling in love: we fall in love with someone because, in part, they are different from us, but then we want them to become just like us! We are attracted to the differences as well as the similarities. Our differences and histories shape us, have helped make us who we are. Yet, we have the power and the responsibility not just to keep re-living that history, but to take a critical relationship to that history, and to re-shape the future based on a new vision.

 

1. We are a global movement, and we live in a world shaped by globalization, for better or for worse. We understand that our three movements come out of an American context. The American Empire will not be the only superpower in the 21^st century, and is on the decline. Sanctioned ignorance of the rest of the world is a serious obstacle for American-based movements.

 

LGBTQI Christian movements all over the world are contacting us, asking for help and support. MCC is being called the Human Rights Church by some. We are actually writing human rights legislation in some places in the world. We have to understand what time it is in the world, relative to the American Empire. Barack Obama’s election, and the promise of what that could mean for the globe is heartening. To be global will mean to deal with our interfaith world context. Religion, in our world, can be a force for violence, division, and hatred; or a force for justice, peace and hope.

 

1. The issue of class is perhaps the hardest to talk about. Paul Fussell’s categories are basically: out of sight poor (people in prison, mental hospitals, the homeless, etc.); poor; working poor; working class; middle class; upper middle class; upper class, upper out of sight (these are 200 richest families that are literally out of sight and intermarry. . .). Artists are sort of classless, in a way, often with no money, but supported by those with money. Class and money are not the same thing. Class is a matter of taste, culture, politics and identity.

 

Class identity is usually determined by your father’s (or whoever raised you) occupation. In the US, the role of education is key in class mobility. And class mobility is the hope of everyone (except the artists and the upper out of sight). We get tricked into identifying with the class just above us, so we often end up voting and acting against our own class self-interest. The middle class are the most dangerous and regressive, because they are terrified of being dragged down below the line. They are the “bourgeoisie” who are so easily manipulated.

 

The most important class line is between the working class and the middle class, politically, and most working class people in the US think they are middle class and vote that way (maybe until this past election. . .) My own experience is that I attract middle class people because of my education, but I am often most comfortable with people from a working class background, because that is familiar and “home.”   

 

Coming out, threatens and lowers class status. Having certain disabilities does that too. Changing your gender also causes a lowering of class status, which is hard for those who didn’t have far to fall in the first place. Times of economic downturn are also very dangerous, with so-called “class wars.” Poor people are asking, what recession? They are in a perpetual recession, and not really as affected as the upper classes this time. Each class group has certain skills.

 

To simplify: poor and working class people know how to survive. We can do with less, endure cut after cut without much complaining. We never burn out, because to burn out is to die!  Middle class and above have other skills that we also need in our movement: self –care is a middle or upper class invention, and we need it! Middle or upper class folks have what is called “access.” And, a sense of entitlement, that it would not hurt some of us to acquire.  

 

1. Denominations are class-coded, and we know this instinctively, though we never talk about us. We know that Pentecostalism is mostly the faith of poor and working class people. Episcopalian are rooted in upper middle and upper class of the U.S. There are parallels, and differences and nuances along race lines, but these are generally true. There is a Presbyterian class “pitch,” and one for Methodists, etc. 

 

In one interesting way, MCC, Fellowship, Unity Fellowship, have more in common around our class identity. When I think about our complex relationship as churches with the United Church of Christ, we know that class is a powerful factor. As Fellowship churches, or some of them, seek to affiliate with the UCC, they encounter a primarily white and middle class culture, religiously and organizationally, and that has its challenges. MCC has had a wonderful relationship with UCC as a movement. In the ecumenical world, the UCC has often been our only solid, consistent friend. UCC churches have offered hospitality and friendship to MCC churches.

 

And, more recently, there have been some awkward, uncomfortable issues on the local church/Conference level, and some MCC’s have chosen to leave and join the UCC. We cannot afford to ignore that some of this is class related, as former MCC churches look for cultural and even economic safety and security in the UCC. I honor the friendship with UCC, and acknowledge the stresses of some of these recent experiences. Twenty years ago it would have been unthinkable for an MCC to join the UCC – that is really, in an odd way, a sign of progress, but it probably has more of an impact on MCC than on the UCC as a denomination. Some MCC churches are seeking class upward mobility. Some have had shame about MCC’s Pentecostal, and evangelical working class origins.

 

Theology is class coded as well – what we say are theological differences are really class differences.  The way we sometimes talk about each other’s theology, in judgmental ways, may have more to do with class than theology. Just think about our language, such as “high church,” or “down-low.” Or take a look at Gene Robinson and Rick Warren’s and Joseph Lowery’s prayers at the inauguration of President Obama from a class perspective. It is fascinating! We need a class analysis as a component of the shaping our movement. Dorothy Day, one of my favorite saints of justice and peace, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, understood class. She joined the Catholic Church as a radicalized adult, because so many poor people are Catholic, and “they must know something.”

 

1. We are missing generation of men in our churches from AIDS and its consequences, including as Jim Mitulski reminds us, the men they would have mentored. Not that women can’t mentor men, we do, and have. I understand Penny Nixon’s point about her deep connection to gay men. I share that same, deep, heart connection. And, like many of us, agonize about that missing generation of men.

 

I also do not want to apologize for strong, emerging women leaders in our movement, and that often feels like a double-bind. If leadership is “feminized” the enterprise is devalued, historically. Women are followed when they nurture, but not as much when they challenge. And this ascendancy of women leaders in the wider church, are we ahead of the trend?  How do men feel, in our movements, with so many women in leadership? There are men who will not be part of a church lead by a women, or strong women. What does this mean? Where are they going to church? Is this sexism on a difference scale?  There are huge questions. And, even in churches led by women, there is still plenty of sexism to go around.

 

1. Transgender issues are also an enormous challenge for us. Has anyone noticed the explosion in the FTM population?  This is an explosion for which we are not quite prepared. Some of our churches are more welcoming of trans persons than others. There is discomfort in our churches. Trans folks, came out as lesbian or gay, now, have to do it all over again! It pushes the limits, and exposes the binary view of gender, and the misogyny underneath homophobia.

 

We are confronting the fluidity of gender – in the next 15 years, people will change gender more than once in a lifetime, the lines will blur more and more. People will describe themselves, experience, identities in ways that we won’t understand. What happened with ENDA, and must not happen again. Our religious values of justice, solidarity and transgressive view of community – cannot let expediency or gradualism win.

 

There is a whole world of “street tran-y girls,” unemployed, or prostituting, who are most vulnerable to addiction and violence and murder. These, along with homeless queer youth, are the throw-aways. Then, there is the group of trans folks who are making a more “successful,” transition, able to work, integrating. These two groups, all over the world are in desperate need of community, support and our solidarity as people of faith.

 

1. It is also clear that there is so much pain around sexuality among heterosexuals, so much more ambiguity, so many closeted, especially in the church.  When I used to frequent National Council of Churches meetings, this is one of the things I observed. And straight people sometimes project on to gay people that we are somehow just more knowledgeable about sexuality than anyone else, and can advise them. We are the objects, sometimes, of massive transference of sexual anxiety, which is projected on to us! But, I do think we can help! 

 

As the self esteem of our movement improves, our churches will find it more and more possible to welcome heterosexuals unconditionally. There are a lot of heterosexuals who have been de-churched or un-churched, who need to find the grace of radical inclusivity. Our churches have excellent cross-over potential. And, we have to live in the tension between providing safe space for LGBTQI folks, and opening our doors, in real way, to everyone.

 

1.  Young people live in a different world. And we have to be open to how they communicate, what technology means to them, how they are creating community. Privacy to them is a thing of the past. They care about the environment, about integrity in government, if they care about government at all. They care about peace, and ending poverty, which they believe is possible. They care about fairness and inclusivity, and they are very open about sexuality.

 

Thanks to Rev. Cindi Love I have been learning about the Barna study of Mosaics  (people 12 to 18 years old). These kids care about everything that we care about in our movements, and they want to change the world. They associate Christianity with the hatred of homosexuals, and it turns them off. We have to care about the Mosaics, and about homeless children and youth. We have to shelter them, parent them, and when necessary, rescue them. We must claim them.

 

We have to find the ways to truly put children, youth, more in the center of our concerns, take seriously our responsibility as community for parents and families. How we take care of the children and youth among us is yet another measure of our own healing and self-acceptance.  

 

To follow Jesus in the 21^st Century is to be willing to cross boundaries, to tear down walls as we build up hope. Just being together, meeting together, as aligned movements, forming a deep collaboration, is itself transgressive, queer, and powerful.

 

Let’s keep doing it.

 

Amen.