teeterpompson
22nd Sep 2007, 10:11 PM
I came out recently at a chapel service in my school and so far the reaction has been pretty positive. I'm curious about feedback from all of you...was it the right thing to do to come out to everyone? and in that setting? I know alot of people may not be religious but it was definitely a religious experience for me and that's how I wanted to talk about it.
A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew.
Jesus said, “Have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
The truth always comes out. As a society and as individuals, we have heard that statement so many times in so many forms from so many different sources. Yet, if the evening news is a fair judge at all, we continue to have trouble realizing it. We deny; we cover up; we bury; we lie. It’s human nature. Just think of the things you’re hiding as we sit here today, what secrets you’re keeping, what lies you’re telling. I bet that, for most of us, there are too many to count.
In some ways, it’s understandable. Disguising the truth can give us security and freedom, even if it’s only temporary. We can avoid dreadful consequences. We can pretend evil does not exist. In a way, this sort of behavior cleans up our life. When we lie or ignore the truth, everything’s perfect. In cheating, we pretend we are smarter than we really are. In denying, we pretend we are better than we really are. In forgetting, we pretend we are happier than we really are.
Life scares us sometimes and maybe we should be scared, but we can’t simply change it to better suit our situation. Society isn’t much help. We have strict definitions of good and bad, right and wrong, man and woman, child and adult, black and white, rich and poor, happy and sad, and the list goes on and on. When our experience doesn’t fit the label we’re stuck with or the label we desire, we often tidy it up to seem more normal, more secure.
And we tidy up God as well. Christianity has become for some a set of rigid rules to follow or a set of strict beliefs to adhere to. But when you read the Gospel thoroughly, you see that to be a Christian is really to embark on an amazing adventure, to partake in a never-ending transformation, to undergo a continual conversion. The Gospel is about mistakes made and lessons learned, a crucified Christ who rises from the dead.
Thus, being Christian is not about outcomes, about creating the right thing; it’s about doing the right thing no matter the consequence. God cares about who we are and what we intend to do. If we screw up along the way, it doesn’t really matter. That is what forgiveness is for. That is what resurrection is for. What we need to do is make the effort, “take up the cross,” give all of ourselves regardless of discomfort or danger or inconvenience. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “blessedness is less about perfectness than about willingness…what counts is to risk our own answers, to go ahead and try, to get up one more time than we fall.” The Gospel, then, is really another story of process over product, of the hard right over the easy wrong, of principle over practicality—a story in which our inner goodness does not need to be validated or proved, but instead is something we mature into.
And it’s important to remember that creation isn’t centered around us—around our own desires and expectations. Rather, God calls us to accept His plans—the plans He imprinted in our souls before we were even born. We need to listen to what God has to say to us, to become sensitive to the Holy Spirit working in us, around us and through us. The great things we have the potential to do, the great things God is calling us to do, mean little if we cannot connect with God; if we do not know reverence; if we do not know piety; if, as the Gospel says, we “deny” our “Father in heaven.” God is continually surprising, changing the climate, breaking down barriers, standing up to the establishment, flooding us with risk, failure and uncertainty. We’re not doing our job if we think we already know the answers, if we don’t question constantly, if we shut out God before he is done speaking. Sometimes what we hear initially seems strange or just plain impossible, but we need to go forward with it anyway. To be a Christian we have to reveal in the light what God has told us in the dark and proclaim from the housetops what God has whispered to us. To be a Christian we have to tell the truth: about ourselves, about the world, about God. Not what’s expected of us, not what we expect from ourselves, but the truth.
This sacred journey happens in different ways for all of us, but I can tell you the truth was a difficult lesson for me to learn. Over the past year, I realized I was disguising a huge truth from myself: that I was gay. It was not something that I had known for a while, except maybe deep inside. It just sort of happened. In order to become fully human, fully alive, fully myself, I could not rule anything out and needed to be willing to cede some control. I had to rediscover myself as if for the first time to better understand my identity and God’s purpose for me. And in the process of coming out—the tough times of self-acceptance and then the reassuring acceptance of others, I became aware of how essential honesty is to the Christian experience. By this honesty, I do not mean the technical, legalistic type of honesty encouraged by our honor code. Instead, I mean, raw, vigorous honesty that never holds back anything. Experiencing this honesty was the only way I could grow up, the only way I could claim my place. Borrowing Jesus’ words, I had to lose my life in order to find it. I had to shake my preconceptions in order to know who I really was.
We place too much importance on playing the game, doing what’s expected, doing what will make others happy. Recently, a friend admitted to me that [school] is all about “working the system,” and I’ve seen it myself, how we’re encouraged to make use of connections, act like diplomats, thirst for popularity and, above all, manipulate situations for our own personal gain. But the heavenly call is different. Wendell Barry writes in a poem, “Be like the fox. Take more steps than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.” God calls us to put passion over perfection, to take everything seriously, to dive into and embrace a life of faith and be willing to shamelessly make mistakes along the way. In other words, not only do we need to tell the truth, we need to live it.
And this awesome honesty, this resurrection way of thinking, is a difficult thing to live. Jesus, who in his act of crucifixion completed the most extreme form of self-disclosure, calls us to look deeply into ourselves and show all of it to the world. When we truly ask ourselves—and God—who we are and what we need to do, we find that the answers are not convenient and, certainly, not popular. They definitely haven’t been for me.
God asks us not to domesticate these truths for the sake of harmony and favorable consequences. Faith is a process, not a result. We cannot shy away from our conclusions because they are difficult to deal with. Instead we need to embrace them as something holy. I think when Jesus says, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” and when he says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” he means it. We need to think beyond the status quo, beyond our social structures. Transformation can happen anywhere at anytime to anything or anyone, no matter how established they are today. And we are called to be ready for and execute this transformation no matter how foolish it seems. Saint Paul tells us to become “fools” for Christ, saying, “the wisdom of this world”—whether that is an SAT score or an authority figure or the road to success—“is foolishness with God.” Frederick Buechner writes, “Noah looked like a fool in his faith, but he saved the world from drowning.”
Jesus himself said, “I am the Way; the Truth and the Life” and He told the hardest Truth of all—that salvation doesn’t come easily, it requires enormous sacrifice and dedication. But He told other Truths too—that despite our desire to be special and chosen, God’s grace is given to all, without exception and that, in the end, what matters is what we have experienced, not what we have achieved. And He calls to us in the form of Truth all the time, saying, just as he said to his very first disciples, “Come follow, follow me.” He calls even amidst all the other confusing voices we hear—the hopes of others, the persistence of perfection, the temptation of ease. He calls, despite our indifference, ignorance and selfishness, speaking things we don’t want to hear, urging us to take risks we don’t want to take. Most of the time we can’t even see Him or know He is really even there. But still He calls, “Come follow, follow me,” and the only question is if we will hear Him and follow. Amen.
A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew.
Jesus said, “Have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
The truth always comes out. As a society and as individuals, we have heard that statement so many times in so many forms from so many different sources. Yet, if the evening news is a fair judge at all, we continue to have trouble realizing it. We deny; we cover up; we bury; we lie. It’s human nature. Just think of the things you’re hiding as we sit here today, what secrets you’re keeping, what lies you’re telling. I bet that, for most of us, there are too many to count.
In some ways, it’s understandable. Disguising the truth can give us security and freedom, even if it’s only temporary. We can avoid dreadful consequences. We can pretend evil does not exist. In a way, this sort of behavior cleans up our life. When we lie or ignore the truth, everything’s perfect. In cheating, we pretend we are smarter than we really are. In denying, we pretend we are better than we really are. In forgetting, we pretend we are happier than we really are.
Life scares us sometimes and maybe we should be scared, but we can’t simply change it to better suit our situation. Society isn’t much help. We have strict definitions of good and bad, right and wrong, man and woman, child and adult, black and white, rich and poor, happy and sad, and the list goes on and on. When our experience doesn’t fit the label we’re stuck with or the label we desire, we often tidy it up to seem more normal, more secure.
And we tidy up God as well. Christianity has become for some a set of rigid rules to follow or a set of strict beliefs to adhere to. But when you read the Gospel thoroughly, you see that to be a Christian is really to embark on an amazing adventure, to partake in a never-ending transformation, to undergo a continual conversion. The Gospel is about mistakes made and lessons learned, a crucified Christ who rises from the dead.
Thus, being Christian is not about outcomes, about creating the right thing; it’s about doing the right thing no matter the consequence. God cares about who we are and what we intend to do. If we screw up along the way, it doesn’t really matter. That is what forgiveness is for. That is what resurrection is for. What we need to do is make the effort, “take up the cross,” give all of ourselves regardless of discomfort or danger or inconvenience. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “blessedness is less about perfectness than about willingness…what counts is to risk our own answers, to go ahead and try, to get up one more time than we fall.” The Gospel, then, is really another story of process over product, of the hard right over the easy wrong, of principle over practicality—a story in which our inner goodness does not need to be validated or proved, but instead is something we mature into.
And it’s important to remember that creation isn’t centered around us—around our own desires and expectations. Rather, God calls us to accept His plans—the plans He imprinted in our souls before we were even born. We need to listen to what God has to say to us, to become sensitive to the Holy Spirit working in us, around us and through us. The great things we have the potential to do, the great things God is calling us to do, mean little if we cannot connect with God; if we do not know reverence; if we do not know piety; if, as the Gospel says, we “deny” our “Father in heaven.” God is continually surprising, changing the climate, breaking down barriers, standing up to the establishment, flooding us with risk, failure and uncertainty. We’re not doing our job if we think we already know the answers, if we don’t question constantly, if we shut out God before he is done speaking. Sometimes what we hear initially seems strange or just plain impossible, but we need to go forward with it anyway. To be a Christian we have to reveal in the light what God has told us in the dark and proclaim from the housetops what God has whispered to us. To be a Christian we have to tell the truth: about ourselves, about the world, about God. Not what’s expected of us, not what we expect from ourselves, but the truth.
This sacred journey happens in different ways for all of us, but I can tell you the truth was a difficult lesson for me to learn. Over the past year, I realized I was disguising a huge truth from myself: that I was gay. It was not something that I had known for a while, except maybe deep inside. It just sort of happened. In order to become fully human, fully alive, fully myself, I could not rule anything out and needed to be willing to cede some control. I had to rediscover myself as if for the first time to better understand my identity and God’s purpose for me. And in the process of coming out—the tough times of self-acceptance and then the reassuring acceptance of others, I became aware of how essential honesty is to the Christian experience. By this honesty, I do not mean the technical, legalistic type of honesty encouraged by our honor code. Instead, I mean, raw, vigorous honesty that never holds back anything. Experiencing this honesty was the only way I could grow up, the only way I could claim my place. Borrowing Jesus’ words, I had to lose my life in order to find it. I had to shake my preconceptions in order to know who I really was.
We place too much importance on playing the game, doing what’s expected, doing what will make others happy. Recently, a friend admitted to me that [school] is all about “working the system,” and I’ve seen it myself, how we’re encouraged to make use of connections, act like diplomats, thirst for popularity and, above all, manipulate situations for our own personal gain. But the heavenly call is different. Wendell Barry writes in a poem, “Be like the fox. Take more steps than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.” God calls us to put passion over perfection, to take everything seriously, to dive into and embrace a life of faith and be willing to shamelessly make mistakes along the way. In other words, not only do we need to tell the truth, we need to live it.
And this awesome honesty, this resurrection way of thinking, is a difficult thing to live. Jesus, who in his act of crucifixion completed the most extreme form of self-disclosure, calls us to look deeply into ourselves and show all of it to the world. When we truly ask ourselves—and God—who we are and what we need to do, we find that the answers are not convenient and, certainly, not popular. They definitely haven’t been for me.
God asks us not to domesticate these truths for the sake of harmony and favorable consequences. Faith is a process, not a result. We cannot shy away from our conclusions because they are difficult to deal with. Instead we need to embrace them as something holy. I think when Jesus says, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” and when he says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” he means it. We need to think beyond the status quo, beyond our social structures. Transformation can happen anywhere at anytime to anything or anyone, no matter how established they are today. And we are called to be ready for and execute this transformation no matter how foolish it seems. Saint Paul tells us to become “fools” for Christ, saying, “the wisdom of this world”—whether that is an SAT score or an authority figure or the road to success—“is foolishness with God.” Frederick Buechner writes, “Noah looked like a fool in his faith, but he saved the world from drowning.”
Jesus himself said, “I am the Way; the Truth and the Life” and He told the hardest Truth of all—that salvation doesn’t come easily, it requires enormous sacrifice and dedication. But He told other Truths too—that despite our desire to be special and chosen, God’s grace is given to all, without exception and that, in the end, what matters is what we have experienced, not what we have achieved. And He calls to us in the form of Truth all the time, saying, just as he said to his very first disciples, “Come follow, follow me.” He calls even amidst all the other confusing voices we hear—the hopes of others, the persistence of perfection, the temptation of ease. He calls, despite our indifference, ignorance and selfishness, speaking things we don’t want to hear, urging us to take risks we don’t want to take. Most of the time we can’t even see Him or know He is really even there. But still He calls, “Come follow, follow me,” and the only question is if we will hear Him and follow. Amen.