WORSHIP

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More Light Sunday

By Fred O’Leary

June 14, 2009

More Light Sunday

Ezekiel 17: 22-24

Mark 4: 26-34

There’s a concept in several forms of Yoga called “Namaste”. It’s often used as a greeting or a way of saying good-bye, and it’s usually spoken reverently with one’s head bowed slightly and hands in a prayer position in front of the heart. It is most frequently translated as, “The Light that is in me bows to the Light in you”, and for many of us who practice yoga, that light is God. I was able to get away for a long weekend this April to a Yoga ashram in New York state, and was lucky enough to be there for their annual inter-faith workshop. On the ashram, they referred to us Yogis as “Spiritual Aspirants”, and it felt good to be considered as one who aspires to a higher spirituality. So many different ethnic groups and religious beliefs were represented, and I remember thinking that amid all of this broad diversity, the Light of God in each of the amazing people I met looked equally brilliant to me. I didn’t see too many people representing diversity as lesbians and gay men, but often these folks are harder to spot. That’s the kicker with people who are homosexual: compared with other minorities, we’re sometimes hard to spot …

Similarly, one of Peter’s messages in his meditation last week at the picnic was that we each become part of one another. That resonated with me and I thought immediately of the Yoga Namaste concept. I looked around at all of us enjoying our beautiful worship in the park: sprawled out on blankets and lawn chairs, kids blowing bubbles, folks staying cool under the shade of Sycamore trees, or feeling the warmth of the sun on their skin. I know as Peter spoke about how people we know in our lives stay within us, many of us couldn’t help but start to list them all in our heads: our parents, our teachers, our partners, our friends. I smiled as I thought of all of those I’ve been so blessed to have in my life. And I smiled thinking of the Light of God’s presence in all of us – a common thread of unity that brings us together and radiates from our faces as our voices join as One in a hymn of praise. The Light of our faith can sometimes make us as Christians a little easier to spot.

When I was young, the early images I had of lesbians and gay men were similar I think to those that a lot of folks from my generation growing up in the 70s and 80s had – there was a lot of media focus on the over-the-top images of cross-dressers, leather guys, and androgynous women and men testing the boundaries of gender identification. My concepts were also shaped by my religious upbringing in a Catholic family where the Pope’s words were never questioned. In those days, and to a certain extent still today, the teaching of the Vatican was that persons who were homosexual were unrepentant sinners and would never be able to be a part of the kingdom of God in Heaven. These images and teachings contributed to me being a little slower than a lot of folks typically are to figure out that I was gay, and then to feeling the need to push that part of myself far to the back of my being once I had figured it out. I had a hard time seeing how the person I imagined myself to be, fit with also being gay man. I didn’t feel much connection with the cross-dressers and leather guys. I like sports and don’t know anything about window treatments.  Where were the images of gay people who were like me?  They’re so hard to spot sometimes …

When I was in my early thirties, a friend told me about a group of volunteers that was forming to organize a project to work at Habitat for Humanity in Braddock. He called them do-gooders, and the group was made up entirely of lesbians and gay men who wanted to achieve two things: to help those less fortunate in our city, and to present an alternate image of persons who are homosexual to folks who, like me, had previously only known the skewed media images. The group became known as GLENDA – the gay and lesbian neighborhood development association, and I still volunteer with them today. At one point, I joined their board and helped to coordinate all kinds of projects at the food bank, volunteering for the Pittsburgh AIDS task force, raising funds for Leukemia and Lymphoma research at a race in North Park. Perhaps more importantly, I helped by being a part of the face of the gay and lesbian community that was not what folks see in newspapers and on TV – instead we are the everyday neighbors that people in Pittsburgh work with, see at Giant Eagle, and ride the bus with. I wanted to make us a little easier to spot.

Today’s Gospel reading from Mark has the very familiar image of the tiny mustard seed which grows to a huge shrub. Could it be that this small seed, (that also can be made into a condiment that’s so yummy on hamburgers and soft pretzels), is not just our faith, but also the Light of the Divine in each of us? Could it be that it’s also the small voice in each of us that we sometimes hear at moments when we are able to be quiet enough that we can listen to it? Can we hear the voice of the seed of faith in us as a call? A call to volunteer at Global Links with a group from Sixth? A call to listen closely to a friend’s concerns, and to say some extra prayers for her before you go to bed that night? A call to be a sort of quiet activist for the elimination of exclusionary language in our Book of Order that prevents lesbians and gay men from serving God in most Presbyterian churches as Deacons, Elders, and Ministers of Word and Sacrament?

As you can see from the signs around me today and from our photo slideshow, the theme for this year’s Sixth Church More Light Sunday is “Affirmations of Unity”. We are One. We are One because we all share the light of God. We are One because, as Peter said, all of us become part of each other. We are One because the mustard seed of faith is in each of us, growing in us and calling out to us with a sometimes small voice.

A poem I love from Maya Angelou is called “A Brave and Startling Truth.” It’s one she wrote for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, and it speaks to me about being called to be a catalyst for change. Called to bring a little More Light to the social justice issues that affect persons who are homosexual: in their will to serve God in the Presbyterian Church, in their desire to be able to Tie the Knot with the one they love, and in their efforts to one day have it be legal to get hitched in any state, in any country.

It starts out like this:

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet

Traveling through casual space

Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns

To a destination where all signs tell us it is possible and imperative that we learn a brave and startling truth

And when we come to it

To the day of peacemaking

When we release our fingers from fists of hostility and allow the pure air to cool our palms …

She goes on to paint a stunning mural of the natural beauty of our world, and how, in our amazement, we are transported into a quiet awe. From this awe we are given the courage and strength to change things, to bring about truth, and be the seeds of miracles. In Maya’s powerful words she concludes:

… We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it

We, this people, on this wayward, floating body

Created on this earth, of this earth

Have the power to fashion for this earth

A climate where every man and every woman can live freely without sanctimonious piety without crippling fear

When we come to it

We must confess that we are the possible

We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world

That is when, and only when

We come to it.

The next two hymns we’ll sing both have special meaning as well to the message of our More Light Sunday today:

One tells us to Sing a New Song Unto the Lord. For our More Light celebration today, I’d ask that we take a moment to think about singing our new songs to the God we see and feel in each other.

Our closing hymn is one we sing often here at Sixth – “We are Called”. For me, its message never gets tired though, and somehow still manages to choke me up a little bit in the verses about being a “Light for the Kingdom” and “Hope for the Hopeless”. We’ll sing of that Great Day when All will be One …

Thank you for letting me share our worship together with you today.

Namaste, and may the Peace of Christ and Grace of God be with each of us.