Fifteen years ago this month, Matthew Shepard was killed in
Laramie, Wyoming. Three years ago last
month, Tyler Clementi committed suicide in New York City. Matthew was 21 when he died, Tyler 18. Both
young men were gay. We here at the cathedral are taking this weekend both to
remember and honor Matthew and Tyler and to commit ourselves to standing with
and for LGBT youth.
In preparation for our
conversations both Friday night and this morning, I reread Moises Kaufman’s
play, The Laramie Project, an innovative
theater piece created and produced by the Tectonic Theater Project as a response
to Matthew Shepard’s death. Through a series of conversations with the
participants, the play sometimes graphically represents the events of October,
1998. As I reread The Laramie Project I was moved
and shocked all over again, but this time I was particularly taken by the
remarks of a catholic priest, Father Roger Schmidt, who talks about his
participation in a vigil held in Laramie for Matthew. When he was interviewed about his
participation in the vigil, Father Schmidt said this:
And I’m not gonna
sit here and say, “I was just this bold guy—no fear.” I was scared.
I was very vocal in this community when this happened—and I thought,
“You know, should we, uh, should we call the bishop and ask him permission to
do the vigil?” And I was like, “Hell,
no, I’m not going to do that.” His
permission doesn’t make it correct, you realize that? And I’m not knocking bishops, but what is
correct is correct. [The Laramie Project, p. 65]
And then he goes on to say
this:
You think
violence is what they did to Matthew—they did do violence to Matthew—but you
know, every time that you are called [and here he uses a couple of homophobic
epithets I’d rather not repeat in the pulpit] . . .Do you realize that is
violence. That is the seed of violence.
[p. 66]
That’s Father Schmidt, a Roman Catholic priest, speaking in
1998, not in the new, open days of Pope Francis but in the old, authoritarian
days of John Paul. So think about the courage of those words in their own
context. As a person of faith, he responded to a violent hate crime committed
against a young man viscerally and from the heart. He knew what was right, and he did it.
A lot has changed socially and culturally in the last 15
years in America with regard to attitudes toward sexual orientation and gender
identity. But still, as far as young people are concerned, the distance between
Laramie, Rutgers, and the rest of the country is not as far as we might think. Every day, all across America, countless
unnamed boys and girls suffer indignity, humiliation, bullying, and violence,
and they feel that they are in it all alone. And I’m sorry to say that much of
the blame belongs to our churches, which give religious cover to the last
cultural prejudice that we allow to persist in our society: the stigmatization
of a person because of sexual orientation or gender identity. And that cultural prejudice against lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgendered people persists even in a time when every third
television show features a gay protagonist or next-door neighbor. That prejudice persists because Christian
churches continue to promote it.
Today’s Gospel begins with a
very strange request to Jesus by his companions: “Increase our faith!” they
demand. Step back from that question and think about it. More faith: isn’t that
a weird thing to ask for?
But as odd as the “increase
our faith” question is, Jesus’ reply is even stranger: "If you had faith
the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted
and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.” [Luke 17: 6] Have you ever seen a mustard seed? A mustard seed is really tiny. It makes a
poppy seed look like a watermelon. Jesus
responds to his companions by means of a startling comparison. If you had even an atom of faith you could
work miracles. “You don’t need more faith,” he
seems to be saying. “You just need some faith. Right now you don’t seem to have any faith at
all.”
Now let’s go back to Father Schmidt’s words and think about
them in the context of this faith and mustard seed interchange. There were other Christian clergy in Laramie
who didn’t stand up for Matthew Shepard.
They didn’t want publicly to commit themselves to standing up for a gay
young man, and they most likely were Christians of the “Increase our faith!”
persuasion. “I’d stand with Matt if I
had more faith.” In contrast to
conflict-avoidant Christianity, Father Schmidt seems to understand what Jesus
is talking about this morning. “I’m not gonna sit here and say, ‘I was just this
bold guy—no fear.’ I was scared.” He didn’t
wait until he was fearless to act. He
acted and found that he didn’t have to be ruled by his fear.
I don’t know what I would
have done or said in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998 or in New Brunswick, New Jersey
in 2010, but I hope I would have had the courage of Father Schmidt. I do know
what today’s Gospel calls me (and I believe you) to be doing and saying this
morning. It’s tragic that we still live
in a nation and in a world where the last socially acceptable prejudice is
against LGBT people. It’s tragic that we still live in a nation and a world
where LGBT youth are vulnerable because of that prejudice and the way it
combines with the other stresses of adolescence and young adulthood. But it’s more than tragic—in fact it’s
shameful--that faith communities, especially Christian ones, continue to be
complicit in putting our children at risk and abetting the attitudes that
oppress them, thereby encouraging the aggressors who would subject our children
to pain, humiliation, and violence.
I’m old enough to remember a
time when Christian churches, including our own Episcopal Church, segregated
its churches and actively participated in racism. I’m old enough to remember the ordination of
women movement, when many in our church found ingenious theological arguments
to deny women leadership roles and so promoted sexism. In its wisdom, the church came to its senses and
labeled both racism and sexism as sinful.
And now we find ourselves at the last barrier—call that barrier
homophobia, call it heterosexism. We
must now have the courage to take the final step and call homophobia and
heterosexism what they are. They are
sin. Homophobia is a sin. Heterosexism
is a sin. Shaming people for whom they love is a sin. Shaming people because
their gender identity doesn’t fit neatly into your sense of what it should be
is a sin. Only when all our churches say that clearly and boldly and
courageously will our LGBT youth be free to grow up in a culture that totally
embraces them fully as they are.
Those of us who gather
around this table this morning believe that God has done a new thing in Jesus
and is continuing that new thing in us.
God is breaking down categories and barriers between people and creating
a new humanity in which all the particularities of how we identify
ourselves—racial, ethnic, gender, class—are accepted and blessed as they
contribute to the expanding wonder and diversity of a human race created in
God’s image. The new humanity that
gathers with Jesus at his table come together as we are, secure in the
knowledge that it is good and right to be who we are and to celebrate our
identity in its myriad fullness. It is
not only just OK to be gay, straight, bisexual, or transgendered. It is good to be that way, because that is
the way God has made you. And the
Christian community, the world community, needs you to bring the totality of
your being—including and maybe especially your sexual and gender identity—to
the table.
Young LGBT men and young
women will continue to be vulnerable to the sins of homophobia and
heterosexism, to the violence of hate and fear until we in the church can say
to homosexuals now what it has said to heterosexuals for 2,000 years. Your sexuality is good. The church not only
accepts it. The church celebrates it and
rejoices in it. God loves you as you
are, and the church can do no less.
Only when we find a way
fearlessly to speak just that clearly and boldly to LGBT kids, their families,
their schools, and their communities, will the world be a safe and nurturing
place for the Matthew Shepards and Tyler Clementis of our own day. We don’t need more faith. We just need some faith—faith in a God who is
bigger and deeper and more loving and compassionate than we are. It really is OK for you and me to be who we
are. Our job, as Christians, is not only to proclaim that Gospel. Our job is to live it. And if we are faithful in proclaiming and
living it, today’s generation of LGBT youth will thrive and grow and take their
places around this table, with Jesus, as we bless, forgive, heal, and love the
world. Amen.
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