Queer Eye and a call for reparations
Sermon on Romans 6,12-28 and Matthew 10,40-42
Happy Pride Sunday!
Today, I want to tell you the story of Noah. Not the old Noah who survived in a boat with animals. Another Noah who survived a big flood in his life.
Noah is the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran church of the Atonement in Fishtown, Philadelphia. A small congregation, trying to survive. Pastor Noah is a pastor how you imagine him from the books: middle-aged, practically dressed, smart, caring. A quiet leader loved by his congregation. And pastor Noah is gay.
Now, why is that important? I mean, hey, why should we care about people’s sexuality anyways. Isn’t that supposed to be private?
In Noah’s case it matters that he is gay. Because that’s how I met him. On Netflix. He is part of the Netflix series “Queer Eye” I just recently discovered because it featured three ELCA pastors in one show. Bishop Guy Erwin, the first openly gay bishop in our Church in America. Meghan Rohrer, a colleague of mine from San Francisco and the first ordained openly transgender pastor in America. And pastor Noah.
Queer Eye is kind of a makeover show for Gay people. Not in an evangelical sense where people are praying for queer people to be healed from that sin. The Fab Five, 5 gay men, come into a setting and try to help a fellow queer person to make their life better within a week.
Like in every Makeover show there is the practical aspect. Let’s go to the hairdresser, pick a new outfit, color some walls. What’s different about this show is, that it’s really invested in the mental and spiritual well-being of their candidates. It’s a show where Makeover means Truth-telling, telling one’s story.
In Noah’s case it matters that he is gay. Because that’s how the church treated him. That Noah is a pastor today is a miracle. Because church didn’t feel like a safe place when he grew up. He was raised in a Baptist tradition, very strictly.
As he puts it: “It did not focus on grace and love.” He learned not to listen to secular music, not to play cards, not to dance. And so, he knew early on, that what he felt in his heart, that he loved other men instead of women, was wrong. He was convinced that it was a temptation to lead him away from God.
And he fought it. It was a sin to be gay. “Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passion.”, he heard pastors preach. Meaning: Sin is every kind of sexual relationship outside of a straight marriage. He heard “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” But he still felt it, he still was who God had made him. He still loved men. Was he not under grace but under the law? Was he to be a slave of sin for the rest of his life?
Today’s reading from Romans 6 has hurt people deeply in our churches. People sitting in the pews, longing for a word of grace. And while everyone around them felt like “Oh yes, that’s grace, I am so righteous, I don’t set my mind on sinful things, hell not. I am a slave of righteousness.” And while everyone around them heard grace and love in Paul’s words, queer people heard the opposite: “You are a sinner, you are too weak to contain your bodily needs, you will never be righteous in the eyes of God. You will always be a slave of sin.”
Pastor Noah fought against his feelings; he married a girl he liked. Yet everything just felt wrong. When he finally came out as gay in 2006, he was over 30 years old and had to face the ruins of his life. People who felt betrayed by him, a divorce. He had hurt many people by his decision to come out and he had hurt even more people by his decision to come out so late in his life. The most he had hurt himself.
Also, in 2006 the ELCA wasn’t yet ready for people like him. Queer people were still supposed to live in celibacy at that time. Whoever refused to comply with the document “Vision and Expectations”, could not be an officially rostered pastor. That meant higher costs for seminary, no scholarships, no pension benefits. And even today these pastors get less salary because the years outside of the ELCA don’t count as pastoral experience. Talk about reparations right here, if you are willing to, dear church.
Within our synod people like Meghan Rohrer were extraordinarily ordained and weren’t accepted by the church body. Youth pastor of 20 years in Oakland, Craig Minich, received only letters to “Mr” instead of “Pastor” from the synod until 2010. Congregations like First United in San Francisco had to leave the ELCA to install an openly gay pastor who also was in a relationship.
It’s been only 10 years that the policies have changed. Although, churches can still refuse to call a queer pastor “bound by their conscience”. Discrimination is still real against LBTQ faith leaders in our very own denomination. Because many people still consider queer love a sin. Not seeing that they are taping into the trap of sin themselves. The sin of judgement over love. The sin of denial of how wonderfully diverse the people are God made. The sin which leads to social death instead of obedience to welcome everyone like Jesus did, which leads to righteousness.
So, here Noah is today. A wonderful, caring leader, an openly gay pastor in an ELCA church still hiding his true self and his stories, his trauma, his scares. In the episode on Netflix he admits being ashamed of 2 things: Having come out so late in his life and not having fought actively for the rights of queer people in our church.
This makes him feel small and unimportant. As one of the Fab Five puts it: “All the messages he received from the church early on are still with him. For me to get Noah to a place where he can accept his presence and start working on a better future, he has to resolve the trauma from his past.” Which starts by acknowledging and sharing his story.
There were two moments in the series when I teared up. Both are related to how we deal with our history as individuals and as a church.
At one point, Bishop Guy Erwin and pastor Meghan visit pastor Noah to support him as fellow openly queer clergy. They talk about how lonely it can be to be in this fight for acceptance. Noah admits that he is ashamed that he didn’t fight harder and came out so late in his life. That’s when pastor Meghan asks him: “Would you ever tell a parishioner that it was too late for his coming out?” Noah shakes his head. “Why do you keep telling it to yourself then?” Or with the words of Paul: 21So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.
Noah’s sin is not that he is gay. That’s not a sin. That’s a God given reality. The sin he had to be freed from was to hide who he is. Because the church, the community, the world, you name it, told him, that this was not ok. That’s what killed his self-esteem and his courage to stand up for his rights. 22But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Or, as pastor Craig put it: “I felt like I was hiding in a closet until I came out. But I couldn’t do ministry openly if I can’t be who I am openly.”
One member of the “Queer Eye crew”, Bobby Berk, also grew up in the church and also heard a lot of sexual connotated sin language. Until he left the church. So, at one point, Noah thanks the designer to invest so much in a place like his church that represents an institution that has caused him so much pain. “The church owes you an apology and as much as I can embody that I want to say I am sorry for your experience.” A gay pastor who was hurt by the institution himself apologizes for the institution he represents. He doesn’t talk himself out of it. He doesn’t say: Well, I know the church did bad things but I didn’t, it’s not my fault.” Noah knows what he stands for as a pastor and he owns it, modelling to all of us. And he makes a promise: “I don’t want our experience to ever happen to anyone else.”
In a townhall a couple of weeks later with some of my queer Bay Area colleagues he said: “Forgive and forget is the American way of church. The church changes policies instead of granting true reparations and atonement.” And I want to add: Not even that is true. Often, we as the church just cover up, deny and keep going. Because we are the place were sins are called sins and love and grace reign. So, we don’t make mistakes with the Holy Spirit by our side. We just grow. Right?
We are quick to fix things without owning the damage that was done. What we need to have instead are honest conversations and friendships with the community, we need real reconciliation.
Pastor Craig put it this way: “The church is so proud of their 2009 decision to finally fully accept queer people that they don’t see the harm they did before and still do.”
As members of this church we’ve got work to do. We need to own our history. If a gay pastor can offer an excuse to another gay man for the harm being done by his church, how much more will we have to do this.
Today is Pride Sunday. We are called to celebrate the diversity God created in humankind. We are called to say bye to the sin of exclusiveness and discrimination in the name of God or Paul or the Bible. We are called to openly welcome everyone who steps into our lives or dials in via Zoom. Not because we don’t care about their sexual orientation. But because we do care and are amazed by God’s diversity. Because “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” And watch Queer Eye on Netflix. Amen.
