It’Äôs a joy to be at Church of the Pilgrims today, because of my connection to you, across a few miles over to All Souls Unitarian. I have known Ashley since we both lived in New York City, Jeff since we met through IAF organizing years ago, and some of your congregation in our joint work with Washington Interfaith Network over the last three years. Thank you for the invitation to preach today, and the privilege of being in such a loving, justice-seeking community of the followers of Jesus. I also appreciate the way you organized preaching on Jeff’Äôs sabbatical by two interesting themes, and have chosen to focus on connection today and clarity on my next visit in July.

I want to ask a question this morning: what does it mean to connect for justice with compassion, to meet with the kind of empathy that creates real transformation in relationships? The word ’Äúcompassion’Äù literally is two words joined: with/heart. According to one dictionary, compassion means ’Äúsympathy for the suffering of others, often with a desire to help.’Äù My exploration of connection is focused on relationships and how they move us to spiritual practice and action, how they change us. We could choose many ways to look at that, as mother/daughter, teacher/student; friend to friend, middle-aged child/aging parent. However, because this is Pride Weekend--a time when we celebrate bisexual, transgender, gay, lesbian, queer identity’ÄîI want to choose the relationship between lgbtq folks and those who identify as heterosexual or straight. In this relationship, what does it mean to connect for justice with compassion, to meet with the kind of empathy that creates transformation?

Let me first applaud Church of the Pilgrims for being a More Light congregation within the Presbyterian USA. Just yesterday in the Post was the story of one more congregation in the Pittsburgh Presbytery who withdrew and joined an evangelical body of churches over the increasingly liberal view in the denomination on these issues. As a child of the Presbyterian church who chose another denomination despite generations of Presbyterian ancestry because of these issues, I find your position personally liberating. Your Statement of Welcome on the website begins by saying that ’ÄúThe Church of the Pilgrims is a congregation of people on a faith journey,’Äù and then affirms that all of us, as God’Äôs children, have an important role to play in the collective understanding of the role of Christian community today. No one is excluded, and no one is left off the hook either. For your statement ends by saying: All are welcomed into our congregation, and all are called and expected to serve the church as guided by God and consistent with their capabilities.

There is a quote from James Lawson that ’Äúthe lie at the root of injustice is that some are worth more than others.’Äù I thought of that when I looked at the picture under your More Light web page, one with a smiling parade marcher in robes holding a sign: Don’Äôt Believe the Lie. God Does Love You. You are a beacon in a world that consistently tells blgt folks that we are not equally loved by God. We hear we are not equally welcome, that our relationships deserve less recognition or rights, that our children are in danger of lgbt infection, that our churches are in peril because of our being, or perhaps most importantly, that the well-protected institution of heterosexual marriage is at risk because two men or women have a wedding. Your congregation stands against that view, and I for one am very grateful.

What does it mean to connect for justice with compassion, to meet with the kind of empathy that creates transformation? You have already shown you are a congregation with heart, that the suffering of tblgq folks has moved you to empathy, moved you to that desire to help. You offer refuge, you hang the rainbow flag, you affirm same-sex and mixed gender couples and families, and many gifts in Christian leadership. This matters in the work of justice, and you are standing up, gay and straight together. I believe that God is saying, well done, good and faithful servants.

I have been thinking lately about how we all go to the next stages of solidarity in social justice, to places of more risk. I attended several trainings on building multi-cultural and anti-racist congregations, and heard this quote from James Baldwin: Race and all of its categories have no significance outside systems of privilege. We cannot and should not separate out any social justice work from analysis around privilege. Today is a day to preach about connection in relationships and this is central. Clearly we don’Äôt just do lgbtq work over here, and race/ethnicity over there, and class/educational privilege over yonder, and gender back there. Try out this paraphrasing of Baldwin: Sexual orientation and all its categories have no significance outside systems of privilege. Gender and all its categories have no significance outside systems of privilege. Class and all its categories have no significance outside systems of privilege. Education and all its categories have no significance outside systems of privilege. The fact that I am bisexual, or she is lesbian, or he is gay, or someone is mixed gender and orientation---all those categories mean nothing if someone is not defined as straight, and therefore privileged. That someone might be you, and probably the majority in this room, even on Pride Sunday.

This observation is really being worked hard in the Unitarian Universalist Association right now as the denomination commits to explicit racial justice and anti-racism work. I want to give credit to Paula Cole Jones, a UU consultant who did the recent modeling I am going to invoke, as I bring a word from the UU gospel. The question being asked is this: What identity do you claim in order to be in solidarity with those on the margins? If we are always defined in the binary opposite of straight/not straight, we are continuing the categories of privilege. I appreciate the ’Äústraight, but not narrow’Äù pin or bumper sticker, but after awhile, I have to ask: what does it mean that you make sure people know you are hetero, while claiming affinity for folks who say they are queer? I have news for you: when you take a proactive, public, inclusive stance on lgbt issues in this day and time, you are seen as queer as I am by many of your fellow Christians. Within the lbgt community we have positions of privilege as well that play out regularly: for example, gay white men trump Latina lesbian or a transgender African-American any day. Gay and lesbian identity beats out bisexual. All three’Äîlgb--have tremendous privilege over persons who are intersex, transgender, or transsexual.

In the analysis of Paula Cole Jones, there is a realm out beyond the binary, past gay/not gay, or white/not white, or able-bodied/not able. She talks about a position forged through solidarity, a way that is accountable to the margins, without constantly invoking the privilege that the power categories hold. Paula cites her colleague David Slavin as he says, we must repudiate privilege for the sake of community. Repudiate privilege, for the sake of community. This will take you outside the comfort zone, out into an area that challenges the identity you claim. Accountability is how you allow live relationships, with people of different identities, to change you---to transform you personally, to transform your family or congregation, and to move each of us towards the spiritual practice of questioning identity and the privilege it carries.

Let me give you a concrete example from your own worship life that draws a parallel. Ashley was talking to me last week about the service today, and said simply, ’ÄúClergy don’Äôt wear robes and stoles at Pilgrims.’Äù When I asked why, she said ’ÄúUntil everyone can wear them, no one wears them.’Äù This is the repudiation of privilege. Preachers, liturgists, and congregants here wear the same clothes. I don’Äôt put on my robe, which signifies education of a particular sort, or my stole, which signifies the ordination for specialized paid ministry. At Pilgrims, I wear what everyone wears, preaching on the floor, in a worship setting in the round. I could put on my robe and stole, and say I affirm the priesthood of all believers, and it would not send the same message. Until I remove some privilege, for the sake of community, in the concrete work of accountability to lay ministers, I retain an emblem of the binary code. Ordained/not ordained means something different here because of that very visual action for social justice. Ordination and all its categories have no significance outside systems of privilege.

Let me move to the Gospel of Luke, before Ashley and all of you think this UCC preacher now living in the UU world has forgotten the scripture for the day! Listen again to the story of Jesus, in the light of connection with compassion and taking risk around privilege of place. Jesus is on his tour of Galilee, and is entering the town of Nain. He is on the way to the center of the village, but some other folks are on the way out. Jesus is moving to the middle of power on his journey, but notices a burial party on the road to the outskirts, moving to the margins in the opposite direction.

We hear that a widow is burying her only son. What does that signify in the systems of Israelite culture at the time? A widow is in a most precarious position, having lost her husband, and due to the fact that there were no laws of inheritance. The only respectable role is to depend on her male children, or in more rare cases, to be wed to a brother of her deceased spouse. Given the absence of either option, her sole avenue is to become a beggar and rely on the mercy of the community. A woman who is a widow burying her only son is about to be become a beggar.

The text says: ’ÄúWhen the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her, and said ’Äòdo not weep.’Äô’Äù The story doesn’Äôt state that Jesus saw a dead person lying on the bier and felt pity and moved to help him. We don’Äôt hear that Jesus grieved the passing of a young man and decided to raise him to life. No, we hear that Jesus saw the woman, the marginalized one, the person most at risk, and was moved. He had compassion for her, looked at her with heart, and took the action that caused remarkable transformation

Jesus touches the platform with the body, and stops the bearers. He speaks again, ’ÄúYoung man, I say to you, rise.’Äù And then, astonishingly, the young man sits up, starts talking, and is reunited with his mother. Not surprisingly, this causes great fear in the crowd, and a move to give praise to God, to glorify the power that we do not understand. The power of transformation is mysterious, in the raising of the dead literally or symbolically, or in the changing of a culture that brings life to only a privileged few.

For you see, when ’Äúheterosexual’Äù is privileged as a category over lesbian, or transgender, or queer, some folks diminish or die. Maybe it’Äôs the lesbian couple worn down by constantly being the only couple in the PTA with two mommies. Maybe it’Äôs the message sent to an African-American Howard University student who came into my office one night weeping, saying that he was ’Äúan abomination.’Äù Maybe it’Äôs the slow death of a thousand insults showered on the gay boy in junior high, perhaps even leading to suicide, so prevalent among queer youth that one in three give it a try. Maybe it’Äôs the accumulation of all the times we blgt people go outside the churches with the rainbow flags, when the parade on Pride Weekend is over, and find a dominant culture much less enthusiastic about our status as children of God.

When Jesus stops his journey in one direction, goes out of his way towards the marginalized widow, he sends a message about accountability. He sees her, really sees her, and has compassion. This leads him to a revolutionary act that transforms death to life. What are the things we do in solidarity with those on the margin that bring life to the dead? Do our actions remain safe or do they cost us our comfort and fixed identity? How will we be changed by the encounter with the widow, the woman who was not in our planned journey, the dead young man who was not our family, the mourners going on the road in the opposite direction? What does it mean to connect with another unexpectedly with compassion, to meet with the kind of empathy that creates transformation? The answer in this text is that something startling and dangerous, something frightening to the status quo could take place. Jesus shows us, once again, that anything can happen.

May we move outside the comfort zone of More Light, Open and Affirming, or Welcoming Congregations and into action in the wider world which brings risk. May we be willing to give life to the dead, comfort to the mourner, compassion to the afflicted. May it change us in return, so that our journey is truly disrupted for justice. Blessed Be and Amen.

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© 2007 Ashley Goff