Pride 2021 Message, Sebring Florida

   Rev. George Miller

June 27, 2021

LGBTQIA PRIDE

 

It is an honor to speak today.

It is important that we start

By honoring 2 of our ancestors

who made PRIDE possible.

 

On June 28, 1969

When the powers that be thought they could raid a gay bar to bring shame

and humiliation upon the people,

It was a black drag queen,

and a trans woman of color

Who had the courage and audacity to say “Heck no!” and “I have my civil rights!”

 

Today, we give thanks and pay respect to Marsha P. Johnson & Zazu Nova

who literally started a revolution.

 

I also want to give thanks to my father, Herbert Allen Miller.

 

My Dad was an alpha male. A man’s man. An Eagle Scout, Vietnam Vet,

NYC Cop, and leader of Troop 100.

 

One day when I was 16, I went to a party. Got drunk for the 1^st time.

Came home. Told my parents every deep dark secret.

 

“I’m not gay, I’m not gay,” I told them, “Everyone thinks I’m gay but I’m not.”

 

The next day, my father came into my room to discuss the night before.

 

He said “And about you being gay.  It doesn’t matter to me if you are gay or straight.  I love you no matter what.”

 

With that, my Dad, alpha male NYC Cop, gave me a big hug and a kiss.

 

So, when I discovered, at 21 that I really was gay, I could tell my father without fear and live my life as an openly gay man and church pastor.

 

It has not always been easy, but I thank God for my father, who showed me what it means to be a man, and let me know that I was OK.

 

Not everyone has that.

Not everyone has been told by their Dad or their Mom or their Church or their Pastor that they are “OK.”

 

But I am here to tell you-

You are OK.

You are beautiful.

And you are beloved.

 

Before we start our March there’s 2 things to empower us with.  A way to change the dialogue and use our words.

 

Because words are powerful.

 

One, I do not believe homosexuality is a sin.  In the Bible, “sin” means to “miss the mark” or a “tragic mistake.”

 

Honey, we are nowhere near being a tragic mistake.

 

When people think they’re being nice and say “Well, I hate the sin, but love the sinner,” stop them right there and say “Being LBGTQIA is not a sin.”

 

“Bigotry, hatred, injustice, oppression- now those are sins.”

 

2^nd- when people say “I don’t care what you do in the bedroom,” stop them right there.

 

Our identity is not all about what’s done in the bedroom.

 

It’s about community.  It’s about attraction.  It’s about love. 

 

It’s about forming your own family.

 

It’s about being your authentic self, and it’s about being with someone who makes your authentic self’s heart sing.

 

When people try to reduce our identity to nothing more than a closed door activity, we should grieve for them.

 

If someone feels they have to reduce the LGBTQIA community to a behavior that must be hidden…you got to wonder “What are they hiding?”

 

And if that person can only define us in terms of sexual activity, how do they define their own relationships?

 

Do they only see their husband, their wife as someone they get to do things with behind closed doors and that’s it?

 

If that’s true, then it is truly sad.

Friends, allies- as we prepare to March, let us remember the Spirit of today.

Today is not a protest.

Today is not a demonstration.

 

Today is a Celebration.

 

A Celebration that we are Here.

And we are beautiful.

 

The lesbian and gay.

We are beautiful.

 

The bisexual and transexual.

We are beautiful.

 

The Queer, intersex, and non-binary.

We are beautiful.

 

Our Allies. Our friends.

Our Mothers & Fathers

Our Aunts and Uncles.

Our Sisters and Brothers.

Our Elders.

 

Anyone, who at any time spoke up

And spoke out.

 

We are beautiful.

 

And we are here.

 

We are your

Coffee barristers

Your teachers

Your care givers

 

We are your veterans

Your first responders

Your farmers

 

We are beautiful.

And we are here-

 

Your artists

Your musicians

Your preachers.

 

We are beautiful.

And we are here-

 

Your sister your brother

Your aunt your uncle

Your neighbor

Your coworker

 

We are beautiful.

And we are here.

 

We give thanks.  

And we shout “Happy PRIDE!”

Confronting A Challenging Scripture; Jude 1:5-7

 

Rev. George Miller

June 27, 2021

Jude 1:5-7

 

We know what you are thinking- here we are, acknowledging Stonewall, celebrating LGBTQA Pride, and lifting up the 64^th Anniversary of the UCC…

 

…and this is the scripture we’re using?

 

This rather obscure, confrontational letter written by a pastor to his congregation regarding a God who destroys, angels that supposedly had sex with humans, and the immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah.

 

Excuse me- where is the Good News?

 

What happened to grace?

 

How did we go from Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sins to a letter full of fire and brimstone?

 

How is it that something so shiny, so beautiful thanks to the Resurrection, becomes something so dark so judgmental just a few decades later?

 

The answer can be simple-

 

as our faith moved out of the living rooms of people’s homes and into the structure of churches that functioned as an organization, rules, hierarchy, and the Old Boy Club-ism crept in.

 

Issues emerged over who is in, who is out, what does it mean to be a member, what does it mean to be exclusive?

 

Jude is an interesting letter.  It’s not one usually preached upon or often discussed.  Yet there it is, in the pages of our Bible.

 

It is a letter from a pastor who is either very protective of his flock, or very territorial.

 

He is a pastor who literally believes they are living in the last days and that Christ will come back before he dies.

 

He wants people to stay on track, keep their faith, to pray and love the Lord.

 

For the author of Jude, his feelings are that the race is almost over so steer clear of anything that may trip you up.

 

He’s worried about false teachers leading people astray.

 

He’s worried about people acting greedy and abusing the goodness of others.

 

He’s obsessed with sin.  Sin weighs so heavy on his mind.

 

Now the concept of sin is nothing new. 

 

Paul obsessed over his own sense of sin, but from that worry came Paul’s understanding of grace.

 

Paul believes that in Christ we have already won the race, so we welcome grace, and in doing so we can become better Citizens of Heaven.

 

Whereas the author of Jude…he thinks that grace can be taken away.  He thinks that God’s favor is conditional, that if you slip up, poof!, away grace goes.

 

Jude sees God as an entity who will revoke your heavenly citizenship with a single act of anger.

 

Which begs the question- what good is grace if it can be taken away?

 

How amazing is grace if you constantly have to maneuver as if at any moment God is going to cast you out?

 

This leads to another question- why would such a letter exist in our Bible?

 

Why do we go through all 4 Gospels, study the travels of Paul and Barnabas, spend time in Galatians, and hang out with John and his love letters,

 

if at the end of the New Testament we have a pastor basically damn everyone to hell who he deems immoral, unfaithful, or unangelic?

 

Maybe it is because the only way we can really learn, discern, and come to an understanding of who God is, is to hear from all sides, and all viewpoints.

 

Or maybe when the New Testament was officially compiled in the 3^rd Century it was done by church leaders who only knew how to rule by creating exclusion or fear.

 

Or….is it possible this letter was included as a cautionary tale?  A look at to what can happen if we fail to remember the teachings of Christ and the message of the Gospel-

 

To Love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself.

 

Maybe there’s a multitude of reasons why it was felt that of all the letters written during the formation of the church, this one was important.

 

We will never truly know.

 

But today, as we continue the season of PRIDE, celebrate the anniversary of the UCC, remember the events of Stonewall, and enter into the 4^th of July,

 

we have a chance to hear about and think about a scripture that has shaped the church.

 

In doing so, we ask ourselves-

 

-Do we believe in a God who gets so angry that whole groups of people are punished?

Do we believe that this sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexuality?

 

Or was their sin the violation of hospitality in which a group of folk thought that an act of dominance and humiliation was the best response to strangers coming to town?

 

Do we believe that grace is something that can be taken away anytime we do a tragic mistake?

 

Do we believe that one person has the right to say who is in and who is out,

 

when we know that Christ ate with tax collectors and sex workers, healed foreigners and gentiles, cared about both our daughters and sons?

 

Today’s sermon is not one that gives an easy answer or says that I and I alone defiantly know the answer.

 

Today’s reading challenges us. 

It unsettles us.

It nudges us.

It asks us-

 

Who is the God we believe in?

 

What is the Holy Spirit calling us to be?

 

What does it mean to walk with Christ?

 

What does a Christian look like?

 

Thank be to God that we have all our life to ask these questions and to wrestle with their meaning.

 

In peace and grace,

Amen.

Walking Ethically, Humbly With Christ; 3 John 1:1-8

 

Rev. George Miller

June 20, 2021

3 John 1:1-8

 

It is such a joy every Sunday to come together and worship God.  No matter what we have been through during the week, no matter what we face in the days ahead,

 

to know we have this time, this space to offer our prayers, to give our praise, and to learn together what it means to live as a Citizen of Heaven.

 

One of the joys is the diversity in which we have here in rural Florida.

 

A gay Yankee from New York. A Spanish speaking fiddle player from Cuba.  A high heeled songstress from a sparkling island in the sea.

 

A Jersey Girl and a corn-fed Iowan in the sound booth. A female moderator when right down the street is a church that forbids women from teaching men.

 

Thanks to God, it works.  We continue to grow in Jesus, we are constantly surprised by the Spirit.

 

An example is our music program. 

 

We can’t tell you how often Ari and Carnide select a song that fits so perfectly into the service that you’d think we purposely planned it that way.

 

2 weeks ago, we started our sermon series with 1 John.  The inspiration came to use sweet potatoes and soil as a way to talk about faith.

 

Ari felt inspired to have “I Come To The Garden Alone” as the 1^st hymn we collectively sang in a post-COVID world. 

 

Ari had no idea I was going to preach about gardening.  I had no idea Ari would have us sing about walking in a garden. 

 

Yet, it worked out more perfectly than if we had planned it; music and message, scripture and song tying so perfectly together.

 

Add to this, something else so wonderful occurred it can only be Spirit-

 

the main image that’s used in 2 and 3^rd John is to walk.

 

The author of today’s and last week’s brief letters makes the spiritual claim that Jesus is the truth, and the author goes on to state that we walk in truth.

 

In other words- we walk with Christ.

 

So, when Ari and Carnide had us joyfully sing “And he walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own”,

 

they had no idea how musically prophetic they were,

 

and they were establishing a new vocabulary and theology to our expanding collection of words, like tope, Left Shark, and nahalah.

 

But Spirit knew.

 

To walk in truth.

To walk in Christ.

To walk in God.

 

Perhaps we should not be so surprised, after all, walking with God appears in the very beginning.

 

In Genesis 3 we have Eve and Adam hearing the sound of God walking in the Garden during the afternoon breeze, an indication that this was a routine that God had done from the start. 

 

To walk with.

 

In Genesis 17, God appears to Abraham and says “Walk with me.”

 

While on that walk God renews the covenant of land, children, and blessing.

 

Noah walked with God; Enoch walked with God.

 

As Elijah cowered with fear in a cave, he witnessed the majesty of the still-speaking God walking before him.

 

Then we have the prophet Micah.  In chapter 4, Micah says “For all the peoples walk…but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.”

 

Then in chapter 6, when wondering what God wants- burnt offerings, rivers of cologne, the answer is-

 

“To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

 

What does God want?

 

For us to walk humbly.

 

But what exactly does that mean?

 

As modern-day Americans forever shaped by people like Freud, we think to walk humbly means to walk without ego, to walk with a gentle way about ourselves.

 

But in the Old Testament, to walk humbly actually mean something else- it means to live ethically.

 

To walk humbly is to live an ethical existence.

 

To walk humbly with the Lord means to travel through life in a way that is most ethical and most beneficial for all.

 

Isn’t that fascinating?

 

That according to Micah, what God wants, what God really wants is to for us to be fair, to be nice, and to be ethical.

 

God could have said anything. 

 

God could have said “I want your 1^st born.” God could have said “I want all your money.” 

 

God could have said “I want you to go out into the world and beat everyone into submission, to shame them, exploit them, and force them to worship me.”

 

Instead, what God wants is to have us walk with God; to walk ethically; to live in a way that is fair for all.

 

So, it should be no surprise that in 1 and 2^nd John, the author composes these love letters in which he lifts up and celebrates how people walk in truth; how people walk in Christ; how people walk with God.

 

The author of 2^nd  and 3^rd John is literally going back to the basics, showing what a life lived post- resurrection is to look like.

 

That like Eve and Adam, like Sarah and Abraham, like Enoch and Elijah, we are to walk with God; we are to live in a way that is ethical and full of love.

 

Love for our neighbor.  Love for the vulnerable. 

 

And yes, as hard as it is to say and to hear, even love for our enemy.

 

No wonder when God came to us as Emmanuel, God did not come as a soldier in a chariot, God did not come to us as a royal with access to a horse-drawn carriage.

 

When God came to us, it was as a man who walked.

 

Jesus walked to John to be baptized.  He walked with women like Joanna and Susanna who supported his ministry.

 

He walked through crowds on his way to heal daughters, where women touched his cloak to be made whole.

 

He walked into graveyards where he restored sons into community, past pools where lame men were empowered to stand up on their own.

 

He walked on water; he walked to Jerusalem, even when he knew it would mean his own death.

 

When resurrected, Christ walked with the heartbroken and scared as they made their way to Emmaus.

 

Jesus walked, and through his walking, we witnessed what it means to walk in truth; what it means to walk with ethics.

 

To encounter the sick, to look upon the hungry, to reach out to the outcast, to be in the presence of diversity.

 

To walk as Jesus walked means to literally be present to everything and all who are around, and to live in such a way that one sees the God within you.

 

The song says “I come to the Garden alone.”  But the truth is, we are not alone.  We are never alone.

 

For Christ is always right beside us.

 

And with Christ beside us, we are empowered to be beside others in their own journey,

 

in their own valleys, in their own wildernesses, in their own gardens.

 

What a privilege to worship God together. 

 

What a joy to be on this journey with you all.

 

What a fellowship to walk in truth,

walk with Christ,

to walk in a way that celebrates life.

 

For that, let us say Amen.