Andrew and I with my uncle Ray, September 2015.
In April 1991, four months from my 21st birthday, I came out as gay, first to a Lutheran pastor who counseled me, then to friends, then siblings, and then my parents. Finally I wrote a letter to my uncle Ray, my dad’s brother, letting him know.
Uncle Ray was an understanding person. He was a well-read newspaper editor in a small town (Worthington, Minnesota, my birthplace), and he was an accomplished historian. He also had a delightful sense of humor, and a way with writing. His letter back to me did not disappoint. “Damn discrimination,” he began. And he repeated it: “Damn discrimination.” Uncle Ray lamented the difficulty so many people had with sexual orientation in that era – an era all too similar to this one. He assured me that he was an ally.
Then he gave me some advice. He urged me not to tell Grandma, his mother. She was 83 years old and had lived her whole life in one place. Though I most likely wouldn’t suffer her judgment or rejection, it would just be difficult for her to make sense of the news. Grandma eventually met my husband Andrew, and for all I know, she drew correct conclusions about who I was, and just kept her own counsel about it. But it did seem to be good advice, all the same. She died in 2005, and we never had that conversation. But we parted in peace.
While I am still persuaded that my uncle advised me well, I also have a lingering worry about my own 80-something self, if I am fortunate enough to live that long. I have often told myself, “I don’t want to be one of those people who can’t be told things because people think I wouldn’t understand.” I want to be open to change, to new ideas. I want to be corrected, even confronted. This week someone posted on social media the idea that people over 50 should find 20-something mentors: note that the older person is the mentee. My friend Josh is under 30, and I made a comment tagging him, saying, “I want Josh to be my mentor.” The younger person can keep the older person informed, explain shifts in the culture, correct them when they fall behind on something important. I like that idea.
And all of this fits well in our faith as Christians. Ours is a faith of growth, learning, and development. Christians don’t do well when we stay safe with our long-held assumptions. We need to grow. And so today we hear Jesus say, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” This enigmatic saying has inspired the interpretation that faith is never about certitude, and always about learning something new.
Former Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold quoted Jesus saying this. He was being interviewed about the destructive schism that had torn the Episcopal Church apart on his watch, following the 2003 election and consecration of New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, the first out gay and partnered bishop in our Communion. Bishop Robinson was at the center of a traumatic upheaval that led to congregations and dioceses leaving the Episcopal Church, and many rancorous legal fights about property, and polity. Presiding Bishop Griswold, when asked about homosexuality and the Church, recalled Jesus’ words, that Jesus has many things to say to us, but we cannot bear them now. If some of us struggle with the full acceptance of LGBTQ persons in the Church – and if others of us struggle with the full acceptance of opponents of full inclusion – we would all do well to reflect on Jesus’s words. What might we not be able to bear right now? And what might Jesus still say to us, when we are ready to hear it?
In the summer of 2015, in Salt Lake City, I served as a deputy to General Convention, the year we elected Michael Curry to be our Presiding Bishop. That same year, new marriage blessing texts for all couples – including same-sex couples – were approved. I use these blessings now when I plan weddings with couples, and have appreciated that heterosexual couples like them, too: they set aside “male and female” language in a way that works well for all couples. And they were written well, with sound scholarship and vivid creativity.
But that summer, at General Convention, something happened that disturbed me. On the day the new texts were approved, at the evening Eucharist, many people were in a celebratory mood. This was understandable, and I shared their enthusiasm. The state of Washington had legalized marriage for all couples just two years before, and now my Church was following suit. Of course I was glad about this. But I found that I was not glad about the conga line that formed in the procession, everyone singing and dancing, exulting in the triumph of this new era in our Church.
Now, please hear me: I am a member of a gay couple, and in 2015 I was just beginning to discern the priesthood: in both the vocation of my marriage and the vocation of my work in the Church, I am deeply grateful that the Episcopal Church has taken this bold and good step. Andrew and I renewed our vows in an Episcopal church in 2016, and it’s lovely to be accepted as an equal. It’s lovely that people are mostly bored by the fact that I am a gay married priest.
But I didn’t like that conga line, all the same. It felt … smug. I thought to myself, we have paid for this victory with precious blood. Thousands of our siblings in the faith have left us. Now maybe we are inspired to say, “Good riddance,” and if so, I can empathize with that. I have felt that. Some of them said and did awful things. But others were more circumspect, and they truly struggled with this issue. They may have simply not been ready to bear this new teaching from Jesus. (And yes, I believe the full inclusion of all persons regardless of sexual identity and orientation is a teaching we receive from the Creator, through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.)
And I do want us to celebrate. But I don’t like it when we gloat. Holy Wisdom calls to us. She raises her voice at the crossroads where we part company with those who disagree with us. She cries out to all who live. She tells us that she was there at the beginning of creation, and she is the delight of the Creator. Wisdom is God’s master worker, God’s delight, God’s companion in rejoicing. Creator, Word, and Spirit rejoice in this world so flush with life, and they take particular delight in the human race. We are invited into this celebration. And for all I know, I was unduly concerned that day back in 2015, and was just being uptight. (I can be uptight, as you may have noticed by now.) Maybe the conga line was inspired by God’s delight in the whole created world, and in the human race.
I hope so. And I don’t want to be grumpy or discouraging. But I wonder what Holy WIsdom is saying to us. I hear her voice in the words of Jesus, who teaches us that there is always more that we do not know, and that we cannot bear some of the things we do not know.
Maybe the joyful deputies at that General Convention Eucharist were not yet ready to know that there was cause for concern, that their celebration was problematic. But maybe I was the problem – maybe I was not yet ready to know that all was well, and I was worrying about something for no good reason. As I reflect on all this, I come back to my grandmother: maybe she was ready to know the full story about her third grandson, and it was Uncle Ray who wasn’t ready to know that octogenarians can take in new information, and respond well to it. He turned 61 later that year: I remember him being profoundly intelligent, and so he was; but what, at 60, was he still too young to know?
Holy Wisdom cries out to us, revealing herself to us, inviting us into the celebrations of the Holy Three, who find so much to love in this wondrous world, particularly the sentient humans who inhabit it.
But her cry to us is not just an invitation to celebrate. It is also a lovely invitation into humility: we are invited to wonder what we do not know, and why we are not yet ready to know it. Holy Wisdom invites us to stop, and breathe, and listen.
We are about to learn something new.
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Preached on Holy Trinity Sunday (Year C), June 12, 2022, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15