A
Better Light
Deuteronomy 5.16 and Mark 1.4-13
A Sermon Preached by
The
Baptism of Jesus, January 8,
2006
University Congregational United
Peter:
Dave: We have just come from a lovely dinner at the
McDonald’s on the corner of 45th and
Peter: You ask us good
questions. Much better questions than we
were asked the only other time we appeared before a congregation as the search
committee’s rather unorthodox candidates for the position of pastor. At that gathering, in January 1993, the first
question we were asked was, “What’s your HIV status?” But you are asking us great questions.
Dave: Then I get nervous. A stern-looking gray-haired woman approaches
the microphone that is standing right there.
She’s holding what looks like a partially-completed blanket of some
kind. She looks up at us. Not a trace of humor. Later we will meet this woman, Mary
Daugherty, whom some of you know as Mary Hooker. But at this point she is a nameless woman who
looks like she’s ready to level us. She
says, “I’ve just got one question for you.”
A pause for dramatic, anxiety-increasing effect. It works.
She speaks again. “What do you
think of people who quilt during worship?”
Peter: The room erupts with
laughter. We collapse in relief. Mary breaks into a smile wide enough to
embrace us both. Of course, after
putting us into a place of total relaxation, Mary proceeds to ask us a question
about feminist theology that leaves us scrambling.
Not many questions later, another
woman approaches the microphone. Later
we will know her as Eleanor Sundqvist. She’s smiling. And her question consists of just four
words. “How do you fight?”
Dave: It’s a great question. You don’t want us to bring our private
conflicts into our shared ministry here.
So how we handle conflict in our personal relationship is quite
relevant.
Peter: Dave answers first. In his typical way, Dave,
the licensed clinical social worker, launches into a theoretical discussion of
conflict, and the challenge and risk that arise when a couple tries to address
it honestly. He said something
unmemorable like, “We have been together long enough that most of the time
we’re able to bring up something that’s bothering us and try to work our way
through it without letting it fester and build up into something that becomes
so much bigger and harder to resolve than the original issue was.” Then Dave looks at me, hoping to see signs of
approval in my face. I don’t oblige.
Dave: Peter doesn’t oblige. Instead, he looks at me with an expression
that says, “You didn’t answer the question . . . .” And in his typical way, Peter launches into a
story: “It was Tuesday night. We were
driving our rental car from the airport to my friend’s house in Crown Hill. The directions I had said the road we wanted
was four blocks past the stop light. But
that wasn’t exactly right. And Dave lost
it.” And Peter went on from there.
Peter:
John
describes what happens next.
Dave: “I said to the man who stood at the gate,
‘Give me a light, that I may tread safely through the
unknown.’ The man said, ‘Step into the
darkness. And put your hand into the
hand of God. That will be a better
light, and safer than a known way.’”
Peter: You didn’t know how being the first
congregation in any denomination in this country to call a gay couple as
pastors would change this community. You
felt a lot of fears. There were a lot of
unknowns. But you stepped into the
darkness anyway. You put your hands into
the hand of God.
Dave: But at the time, some people certainly wished
you hadn’t done that. And they’re angry
still.
Peter:
On Friday evening, a friend in our neighborhood who recently moved to
Dave: Just this past week, your calling us was
criticized again. KUOW radio did a
profile of Peter and me as two of the plaintiffs in the Washington State
Supreme Court case about equal marriage rights.
A pastor in the area said we all were a bunch of heretics.
Peter: Your willingness to step into the darkness
and walk by a better light has had a greater impact than you will ever
know. When you called Dave and me become your pastors, there was one congregation in the
Washington/North Idaho Conference of the United Church of Christ being served
by an openly gay pastor. Jeff Spencer
had been called by Tolt Congregational Church in
Carnation the year before.
Dave: Your openness to calling Peter and me helped congregations all over this conference imagine
taking seriously the gifts gay and lesbian candidates might offer. After you called us as your pastors, many
congregations in this conference stepped into the darkness as well. Gay and lesbian people were hired as interim
pastors, and called as installed pastors.
Several UCC pastors already serving churches in this conference came out
to their congregations as gay or lesbian.
These are the churches served by openly gay and lesbian pastors since
you called us:
Peter:
Dave:
Prospect Congregational United
Peter:
Pilgrim United
Dave:
Peter:
Dave:
Peter:
Broadview United
Dave:
Alki Congregational United
Peter:
Eastgate Congregational United
Dave:
First Congregational
Peter:
Dave:
United Church in
Peter:
Pilgrim Congregational Church in Anacortes.
Dave:
Suquamish United
Peter:
The United
Dave: Shalom United
Peter:
And last but not least, University Congregational United Church of Christ in
the University district when we called
Dave:
What moves me as I hear this list of churches is not the fact that they called
sexual minorities as pastors. What moves
me is that these congregations didn’t do this just to prove they were good
politically-correct people. They called sexual minorities as pastors
because they evaluated these candidates on the basis of the gifts God had given
them and the dreams the congregations had.
You didn’t exclude us just because of this one aspect of who God created
us to be.
John
Thomas, the President and General Minister of the United Church of Christ, says
this kind of openness to God’s Spirit means we’re honoring the radical
inclusiveness of baptism. Back in 1997,
John Thomas wrote, “[The United Church of Christ] is not a church that ordains
gays and lesbians. We are, rather, a
church that takes the sacrament of baptism so seriously that we seek to honor
fully the gifts and callings of each person among the baptized regardless of
his or her sexual orientation.”
Peter: The radical inclusiveness of baptism is
celebrated in this morning’s gospel reading.
As soon as Jesus comes out of the baptismal waters, Mark’s gospel
proclaims that the sky is split open – torn apart. And God’s Spirit comes upon Jesus as a dove
lights on a branch. In the baptism of
Jesus, heaven and earth touch and are separated no
more.
Dave: And what is the first thing God does after
bringing heaven to earth? Like the first
day of creation in the story of Genesis, God speaks. “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my
love, pride of my life” (Mark 1.11, The Message translation). It is the joy God expresses in any
baptism. It is the word God longs for us
to trust but which most of us believe cannot be true. In baptism, God says to you, “You are my
child, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”
Peter: Jesus gave his life to gather a new home and
a new family who treat each other as those chosen and marked by God’s
love. Jesus gave his life to gather a
community that would build a new home and a new family that would honor the
forgotten and the hated and the unclean.
Dave: That is the invitation the baptism of Jesus
offers us. To take our place in this new
home Jesus is building. To feel enfolded in the presence of God, to hear God’s
word of love and pride. To trust God’s
word. And to live a life that shines
with that love because living in love casts a better light than living in fear
or resentment or feeling like you’re a victim.
Peter: There was a man in this congregation who
thought calling Dave and me as pastors was a horrible idea. And he made his opinions known. He thought a gay couple was totally unfit to
be clergy. But he was committed to this
church. So even after we were called, he
stayed. And he let us know his opinion
of us hadn’t changed.
Dave:
One Sunday, about a year into our ministry here, the organ chimes were softly
sounding the end of worship. I was
standing in the back of the sanctuary soaking in the quiet.
Peter:
I had seen this man leave worship early, so I went out into the narthex, to
greet him before the chimes even began.
Dave:
My reverie was shattered by a voice from the narthex that I was so loud I knew
the back half of the quiet sanctuary could hear: “You two haven’t done a damn
bit of good since you got here!”
Peter:
Some months later, as this man was dying, Dave and I both visited him. During my last visit before he died, he said
to me, “You know, before the two of you came I said some really horrible things
about you. I criticized you before I
even knew you. And that was
stupid.” He then proceeded to tell me
that a fraternity he wanted to join in college barred him from membership
because his grandfather was Jewish. And
he made the connection. He told me, “I
realized I was doing the same thing. And
I’m sorry.”
Dave: By calling us, you helped heal this lovely
man who came to see Peter and me as God’s children and thereby freed himself from
his bitterness over having been rejected before anyone even knew him. You helped heal Peter and me of our anger at
the capital
Peter:
Of course our 11-1/2 years together are about much more than your having called
a gay couple as your pastors. And yet
that has been a constant reality of Dave’s and my shared ministry with you. As Dave prepares to leave his ministry in two
weeks, our shared ministry enters the realm of the history of this
congregation. It becomes something that
lives in our common past.
And that invites us as a
congregation to open ourselves again to stepping into the darkness. As we look around this room, and pray for the
faithfulness to remain a congregation of the expanding banquet table, who is
not gathered around this table? Who in
this neighborhood and city needs the gift of the new home Jesus Christ is
gathering through us? Who do we need to
bless us with fresh signs of the expansive love of God? That is the marvelous invitation I believe
God is extending to us in the months and years ahead.
Dave: One gift you have consistently
given us over the past 11-1/2 years is the gift of tolerance. Above and beyond the call of duty, you have
tolerated our singing during our sermons.
We ask your indulgence just one more time. We want to express our deep gratitude and
love for you and all you’ve given us. We
can best do that with the song, “Walls and Windows.” We pray you will continue to follow the path
of Jesus. For Jesus is that better
Light. He has come into the world, and
calls us to imagine enemies becoming friends, and peace breaking out over this
world. Join us on the Chorus as you
learn it.
“Walls and Windows”
Words
and Music by Judy Small and Pat Humphries
Did you sing your children lullabies
to calm their fears at night?
Did you hold them gently ‘til they
went to sleep?
Did you plant in them the seeds of
hope for new and better lives?
Did you make them promises you
couldn’t keep?
Chorus:
And do you think of me
as enemy, and could you call me friend?
Or will we let our
differences destroy us in the end?
The wall that stands
between us could be a window, too.
When I look into the mirror,
I see you.
Do you have sons who fight for peace
the way I’m told mine do?
Do they send you photographs from
foreign lands?
Do you chill to see the missiles,
and do they haunt your dreams?
Do you wonder, ‘Whose
the power, whose the hands?’ Chorus
O, may we live to see the day when
walls of words and fear
No longer stand between the truth
and dreams,
When walls of windows rise into the
darkness and we dare
To look into the mirror and see
peace. Chorus