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Immoral Acquiescence

Feb 1st, 2010
by Derrick McQueen.
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As the military speaks of how to dismantle the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Policy in regards to gays in the military, I am hit by the profundity of the policy itself. Basically, people willing to lay their lives on the line have been asked to lie about their true understanding of self. So now there is an effort to dismantle a policy so that people can speak the truth. How odd…

It goes beyond just asking people to lie. It’s what that lie actually says about the power structure of institutional authority, as well as the person who must submit to that institution. I’m feeling that way about these arguments about gays in the church. The parameters for the discussion of the issue has been set in such a passive aggressive tone. Of course, the primary foundation reduces people who are LGBTQ to nothing more than what they do in their practice of sex. And that is the fight: to be able to claim who is moral and who is immoral.

Much of the church’s argument seems to hinge on this idea of moral superiority. My personal belief is that the LGBTQ person is not immoral. Lying is immoral. Living a lie is immoral.  (Upon further thought, what I meant to say is that living as though it seems one must live a lie is immoral.  For the choice to be out or not is personal and should be respected as such.) Don’t get me wrong, I am a human being and know that I have human failings. But it seems that I am being asked to acquiesce to the idea that loving someone of the same gender is immoral before I can gain acceptance into the institution that is church.

I guess I’m just saying that I will not acquiesce to being immoral. When I am asked by the church to lie and agree that LGBTQ falls outside of the realm of who God wants to serve God’s church, then I am being immoral. Immoral acquiescence…can’t do that for any human. I have to answer to an even higher authority.

**use of the term “church” is specifically monolithic to express the ideas here and is based on experience in many denominations

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Posted in: LGBTQ, Preaching.
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RE: How did it get this way?

Nov 11th, 2009
by Gillian Murphy-Stephans.
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Derrick, I kept picturing you with your Bible, poring over commentaries, working hard to get it right, get a word out to reach someone in need. I kept thinking about the platform of preaching, especially for LGBT folks. Thinking about how, when we are permitted, we send out our words from a pulpit and then they are out there – out there to be received by bodies in whatever fashion they will be. What an honor, what an incredible responsibility.

And then I saw this:

Right there sitting on my counter next to my coffee, right there on the front of the New York Times the heading, “Foe of Gay Marriage Says Its Nothing Personal,” with a picture of Ruben Diaz Sr., a New York State Senator and Pentecostal minister in the Bronx. Right up in my face at 7:30 a.m. All that incredible hypocrisy right up in my face as I sit next to my 6-year-old daughter while she eats pancakes.

Another man with a platform, this one on the front page of the Times.  A man who tells the reporter that of the two brothers and a granddaughter and the various other folks in his life who are gay, “I love them. I love them…but I don’t believe in what they are doing.” “I love them. I love them,” he says as he actively tries to bar same sex marriage from getting to the floor of the Legislature.  And I think, no, no, that’s not love, honey, that’s greed. You want what you want from them. You want what they give to you and how they enhance your life, but you don’t want what makes them happy for themselves.

No, preacher, that’s not what we do – we don’t just get to take what we want from folks and ditch the rest. No, in love, we don’t decide that when we’re uncomfortable with what makes that person tick — what is their soul’s essence – we don’t  decide that we’re going to deny it. In love, we don’t pretend that sexuality, the very fiber of what makes us human, is superfluous to our relationship and that our efforts to limit that aren’t “personal.” No, no Mr. Senator, that is not love, that’s greed. That’s taking what’s not yours to have.

“I love them. I love them…but I don’t believe in what they are doing.” What are we doing?

This is what I’m doing: I’m sitting next to my daughter while she eats pancakes.

And I’m going to seminary. I’m sitting in classes and working at a church and trying my best to figure out what God has in store for me.

This is what I’m doing: I’m working hard at reading scripture, praying scripture, doing research in the library and then confronting the reality of the congregation seated in front of me. Folks of all different ethnicities, shades, and sexualities; some folks who are barely making ends meet, folks who have lost jobs and countless hours of sleep, others who are sitting in the lap of luxury; some riddled with health problems, others living in difficult, loveless marriages; folks whose lives are full and those whose are broken; folks who come to church to hear some good news, others to be in company; folks who need more time in their lives, more time and less to do. I’m standing periodically before folks from all different walks of life with all different reasons to both praise and curse God and I’m doing my best to minister to them. That’s what I’m doing.

Then I’m going home to a partner whom I’ve shared a bed with for 12 years and with whom I have two amazing children. I’m going home to love her. I’m going home to work out all the stuff of this difficult world, to find solace and relief and comfort and…did I mention the love part? I’m going home to her to refresh my spirit so that I can go back out into the world and do what God continues, despite myself, to call me to do.

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Posted in: LGBTQ, Preaching.
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How did I get this way?

Nov 6th, 2009
by Derrick McQueen.
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I guess it’s time.  As a member of the Queer community already, it is time to come out of the other closet: I am a preacher.  It wasn’t something I chose.  I was just born this way.  My partner, Preaching, and I have been in a committed relationship for quite some time now.  We live in full communion with others in our neighborhood–God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, a family of believers. Even if others will never accept who I am, Preaching and I hope that our relationship will speak for itself, that we can model how to be in relationship.  Now I know that many churches are putting the validity of our relationship to referendum and I don’t know what that vote will look like.  In the meantime, Preaching and I will just go on loving each other, gifting the world with our love and holding on to each other and the friends in our neighborhood for comfort.  Preaching and I would love to invite you into our lives.  Just bring yourselves, we’ll supply the bread and the wine.

Just wondering…..what would it be like if the people heard this as my testimony?

Once you have preached a sermon, exhaled the last amen, it seems as if that is the end of story.  It is now out into the atmosphere where it will either move through, past or deep into the hearer.  But what about the other end of the story?  Each time I start to prepare a sermon the same question comes to mind, “What could I possibly bring to preaching?”   And each time I start with the same two things, the Bible and myself.  That may be all I have, but between the two there is still so much to unearth.  I love looking at a verse, examining the words, thinking about the history that surrounds that text, as well as the nuances in the original languages and subsequent translations.  I get excited when I see the words on the page take the shape of a message of good news.  I am grateful when those words give comfort to a hurting soul and this hurting world.

A smile forms on my lips when I think about this, but then my heart sinks for just a moment.  I remember for a moment that there are many who would silence my voice, try to break up this relationship that I have with the Word and its proclamation.  I remember that there are many who believe that I should not have the honor of spreading the gospel because I am a member of the GLBTQ community.  I often think to myself, how queer this situation is.  It is like living in the time of the Markan Jesus.  I have been blessed, but asked not to tell anyone.  I experience healing, but am asked not to speak of it.  I have chosen to bear witness to Christ on the cross, and am asked not to share the story of God’s gift.  I have even looked into the empty tomb, and am asked not to shout, “Christ is no longer here!”  How queer that God would give me the most incredible thing to witness, and that some would tell me to go away and tell no one.

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Posted in: LGBTQ, Preaching.
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About hear now in the body

Oct 16th, 2009
by admin.
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“Hear now in the Body” presents an opportunity to hear two voices rarely linked together in one place.  Here the preacher and the Queer community use its collective voice to speak to ideas and issues in religion, the church, the LGBTQ community, and the very real concerns of living the call to preach.  The church universal is in debate as to the viability of these voices coming together.  Whether church bodies in particular can hear this joint voice or not, the fact that it exists cannot be ignored.

But this voice is not a disembodied voice.  It is contained in very real bodies, human bodies, sexual bodies, bodies with different existential realities.  Can this voice speak to a community at large in its diversity of issues and speak truth?  Or is the true question when this voice does speak will the community at large listen?  “Hear Now in the Body” will speak and respond.  Looking forward to your listening and speaking.

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Posted in: About.
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