Religion & Sexuality

a sermon by Rev. Alan Taylor

delivered March 25, 2001

Woodinville Unitarian Universalist Church

Call to Worship:

Human sexuality is not an easy issue for religious leaders steeped in traditions that have contempt for the human body. Religion far too often has denied the goodness, the blessing, and the diversity of human sexuality. Homosexuality, in particular, has become one of the most controversial topics in religion over the past 20 years. Other issues such as birth control, abortion, and women’s equality have also challenged the domination of a patriarchal establishment. Here, in this Unitarian Universalist house of worship, we affirm human sexuality as a life-giving and life-fulfilling gift. Recognizing that sexuality is central to our humanity and integral to our spirituality, we as a congregation have the opportunity to address some of the pain, brokenness, oppression, and loss of meaning that many experience about their sexuality as we consider becoming a Welcoming Congregation to all people, without regard to education, sex, gender, color, age, bodily condition, marital status, or sexual orientation. May we open our hearts, our minds, our souls, as we gather for worship on this glorious day.

Sermon:

There’s a lovely story about God sending an angel out to check on the development of the Christian religion. The angel studied the scriptures, listened to the counseling of the elders, and took a look at church doctrine. In full distress, the angel rushed back to God, exclaiming “Oh, God, so many parts of the church forgot the R. They forgot the R in the primary teaching. How terrible, they forgot the R. The word was supposed to be “CELEBRATE!”

In a male-dominated religious tradition, views on sexuality can certainly get warped. Audre Lorde, the late African American lesbian writer suggests that the heart of sexuality is what is ultimately life-giving. She refers to it as the erotic in Sister Outsider:” The erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative force to the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb to the belief that sensation is enough. The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic. But pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling.

The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self-respect we can require no less of ourselves.”

It is a sad story how so much of religion has developed a fear and loathing of the human body, its capacity for sexual relationships, and the diversity of human sexuality. There is no question that certain church traditions have provided justification for sexual oppression. From the writings of Paul to those of Augustine and Aquinas--and through the current work of the Christian Coalition—parts of the Christian church have attempted to control, define, and limit sexual expression. The mind/body dualism that characterizes so much of Christian thought has served as the lens through which both the Bible and church traditions are used to limit people’s experience of their sexuality, and indeed to promote systematic oppression of women and homosexuals, and anybody that falls outside the current norms.

“The crime against nature” is what theologians for millennia have labeled any sexual practice that isn’t intended for the conception of a fetus. According to one key theologian, if a married couple tried to prevent conception while making love, the wife was no better than “a harlot and the husband an adulterer with his own wife.” Seeking pleasure was outlawed not only by the church but also the state. In 1532, Charles V imposed the death penalty for the use of contraceptives.

For many centuries the Church refused to bless remarrying widow and widowers, especially if the woman was too old to bear children. This practice still periodically occurs today. When in the nineteenth century the Western world’s birth rate began to drop dramatically, pundits, priests, and politicians cried out against a world of “harlots and adulterers.”

It was not until 1965 the United States Supreme Court decided that married adults had a right to regulate their own sexual behavior. The crime against nature had finally become a Constitutional right—well except for one last non-reproductive group. People in same-sex relationships/partnerships do not enjoy that right. In several states today, you can be thrown in prison if caught making love with someone of the same sex.

What has fueled this unflagging fear of the erotic? As far as I can tell, a religious tradition that values sexual abstinence over sensual celebration. Somewhere in the first few centuries, Christianity got shaped by men with social status and big control issues. People with control issues have always distrusted the power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge. Apparently they feared the power of women, for between the earliest Christian communities and the council of Nicea, women went from sharing leadership to being expected to submit to a man's will and prevented them from holding full leadership positions. To this day, people with massive control issues want to control what other people are doing with their bodies. Gay people know this. Women with unwanted babies know this. And lovers under the contemptuous embrace of a pleasure-hating religious tradition know this. And even in this 21^st century, plenty of religious traditions spew hatred speech towards homosexuals and refuse to allow women leadership roles in their faith traditions.

How many of you have seen the movie Shine? The story is about a young boy who is a piano prodigy in Australia. He's extremely gifted, and developing his talents in beautiful ways. The counter theme is about the dominance of the father, not only over the boy but over the whole family. The father wants the boy to develop his talent but according to his, the father's timetable, direction and design. And that dominance becomes clearer as the film unfolds. When the boy tells the father that the London Conservatory of Music has offered him a scholarship, at that moment the father embraces the son, but it becomes clear that the embrace is not one of compassion, strength, tenderness and an invitation to freedom. It's an embrace that confines, and even hurts, physically hurts the boy. The father says, "I don't want you to go. Don't leave me. No one will ever love you like I love you."

This father who is abusive, controlling, and vengeful is not unlike the dynamic played out in much of religion today, especially toward sexuality. This embrace which is characteristic of “the church” often is hurtful and oppressive toward women and sexual minorities. Regarding sexuality with fear and loathing leads to a life distorted by fear and loathing. Contempt for sexuality cannot but lead to self-contempt, for we are all sexual creatures. If your religion desperately seeks to control what people do with their bodies, then you likely will also be preoccupied with what other people do with their bodies and seek to control them. And the result is people getting the life choked out of them by religious traditions that are focused more on fear and loathing than on love, compassion, and celebration. It’s as if their god is like the father in the movie Shine.

Given all the vicious religious language about sex, it may surprise you that the Bible is completely silent about masturbation, abortion, contraception, and most sexual practices which has been called the “crime against nature.” It is ironic that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality or any other sexual practice. His way of dealing with outcasts was reaching out a compassionate embrace, reaching out to them and offering hope, love, and faith. UUA President John Buehrens notes, “Jesus himself was notoriously softer on the warm sins of the flesh than on the colder sins of hypocrisy, moralizing, and spiritual pride. When it came to sexual failings, he didn’t even tell the woman he met at the well that she ought to marry the man she was living with. He saved the woman taken in adultery from being stoned to death. He had some sound warnings about lust becoming idolatrous, and did say of infidelity, “Go, and sin no more,” but he found the open-faced sensuality of mortals closer to loving God and one another than the thin-lipped pieties of the Pharisees in power. The fact that nothing is recorded of his own sexuality can be taken as an outward sign of a profound truth: it’s just not the most important thing about us.”

As a congregation committed to openness, truth, and justice, we must take a stand on issues of sexual justice and offer an embrace like Jesus’ and not like the Church Fathers that sought to shut out anyone who deviated from their narrowly defined and pleasure-hating norm. Further, we need to actively make our congregation welcoming to sexual minorities.

You may ask, why single out bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender people? Quoting a colleague from the Welcoming Congregation handbook “For centuries, the church has been a leading force against sexual minorities. It is not surprising that gay people are reluctant to reach out to the very institution that oppresses them. Yet, gay, lesbian, [transgender], and bisexual people have no less need for warmth, caring, and affirmation than anyone else who calls the liberal church their religious home. In fact, as a subculture in society gay, lesbian, [transgender], and bisexual people may need our support more than the general population.”

I applaud the efforts of so many people in this congregation to educate themselves and others about what its like being gay or lesbian. Becoming a Welcoming Congregation will act as a catalyst to learning more about ourselves and to ending exclusion. Only when we are truly open to the wealth of diversity in our world will the inherent worth and dignity of every person be affirmed with a large voice. Official recognition as a Welcoming Congregation allows us to open our church as safe space for bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender people; to take positions on oppression in our larger communities; and to accomplish outreach.

Over the last four years, this church has offered workshops based on the Unitarian Universalist Welcoming Congregation curriculum. One of the exercises asks participants to consider what we know about homosexuality and where we learned it. Of course, all of us have learned a lot of stuff that just isn't true, and we learned it from the playground, the streets, from our parents... and from the church.

Hatred of gay and lesbian people has followed us into the 21^st century. Less than two months ago, a disturbing incident occurred at the Unitarian Universalist church in Sudbury, Massachusetts, no more than ten miles from the congregation I served before coming here. Sometime before 5:30 PM on Saturday, January 27, sw*stikas were spray-painted on the rainbow symbols on the two street signs belonging to First Parish Unitarian. A passer-by noticed the defaced signs and called the police who alerted the church leadership. Several First Parish volunteers sought to remove the offensive symbols on Saturday evening. By Sunday morning, the signs had been defaced again and the rainbow flag that flies at the parking lot entrance to the Meetinghouse was missing. If this can happen in Sudbury, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, it certainly can happen in Woodinville, Washington, just outside of Seattle. Students at Woodinville High School have publicly expressed concern of the rampant homophobic comments and the virtual silence of school authorities. We have work to do in our community. Individually those of us who are heterosexual can be allies to gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered people.

What does it mean to be an ally? The Welcoming Congregation Handbook suggests the following:

"Assume that, wherever you go, there are closeted gay people who are wondering how safe the environment is for them. Provide safety by making it clear that you accept gayness."

"Challenge heterosexism whether or not gays are present; do not always leave it to gays to do it."

"When speaking of your lover or partner, point out that s/he is of the opposite sex, implying that s/he need not be. Or, in those situations where it is unclear whether you are loving a woman or a man, leave it that way."

"Do not assume that you know it all. Listen to gays. Read... and learn about the reality of gay oppression."

I close with a true story of a colleague [from the Welcoming Congregation Handbook]:
A young friend of mine came up to me . . . and asked if I would read something he had written. When I said, "Sure," he explained that he had been elected the leader of his Boy Scout patrol and had written up some rules for the behavior of the group. I wondered why he had chosen me - until I got to rule number five, which read something like this: "No one in this patrol is to call anyone else a faggot or queer because these words are insulting to gay men, and gay men are some of the best people in our society." He looked at me anxiously and asked, "Do you think that's firm enough?" Whew! I was blown away. And to think that all that time I had been worried about his response to my lesbianism! I told him the statement was great and asked why he had decided to write it. "Well," he explained, "I know that you're gay, and George and Bill are gay, and Rick is gay, and you're all really neat people, and I just didn't think it was fair."

May we be about the spreading of such attitudes.

Blessed be. Amen

Benediction:

We are called, in regard to homophobia as with all injustice, to make common cause with those who are oppressed. To affirm that when anyone is threatened, we all are threatened. To know that when anyone is attacked, we are all attacked. We are called to work for the day when all men shall be brothers, and all women shall be sisters, and all children shall be children of us all.