There are many people dying for the lack of love, and in the strangest places. James Baldwin, one of our greatest American writers knew what it was like to feel like a stranger in a strange land, in the strange land of Harlem, the strange land of America, the strange land that said that happiness was a birthright. This month we celebrate the women, men, and gender non-conforming persons who have struggled not just for themselves alone, but for much more than themselves. They’ve struggled on behalf of an entire community that has continually challenged our narrow definitions of love, sex, marriage, and family. They’ve struggled to reconcile a whole country, all of us included to reconcile with the truth of identity and attraction. They’ve struggled to help us recognize through their life and deaths that we all want to be loved and feel full permission to love who our bodies are drawn to, who our hearts are drawn to.
When people in the community find out I’m the minister of this church, I often hear “Oh, you’re the minister of the gay church.” They know us because of our prominent rainbow flag out front. I don’t correct them.
I say, “Yes, you can say we’re the gay church. We welcome all kinds of people and backgrounds, and yes, those who identify as gay, as trans, as lesbian, as bisexual, as pansexual are a loved members of our community. But more than just the people in our pews, we aim to send a signal to all those who identify as gay in Youngstown, that we are with them, that they are loved and never truly alone.” It is a powerful statement our church has made, and I think it can be something easily taken for granted, especially in liberal circles. So I thought I would share a couple stories to help you realize the impact of this decision..
I was talking with the owners of Dorian Books on Elm Street near the university last Fall, and they noticed that we took the flag down. They asked me with fear in their eyes: Did your church change their mind? We noticed you took the rainbow flag down, and thought maybe you decided it wasn’t worth it.” I reassured them and told them we were just re-painting the exterior and we didn’t want to get paint on the flag. They looked like they were about to cry.
They said “We drive by your church every day. We’ve never been inside yet, but just seeing that flag gives us hope for this community.”
Another local story was that I was recently invited as a guest by Mt. Calvary Pentecostal Church. One of the members came here and approached me after service on Sunday and told me that they’ve never once had a Unitarian minister as a guest in their church, but that he planned an interfaith service to honor our church’s commitment to the community. He asked me if I would attend, and after I said yes, he looked mildly shocked. He said to me in the past they know they have had leadership that was not supportive of the LBBTQ community, and they were attempting to move beyond that. He told me that other faith leaders he invited knew this history, and they would only attend this interfaith event if I came – because we hung the flag. My presence on behalf of this church sent a signal to other faith communities that it was the right thing to do. I went to the service and it was warm, and we bonded over our love for Youngstown and its people.
It was an afternoon of pushing each other to love beyond ourselves, to love beyond our theology, our history, our backgrounds. It was one smalls step to risk loving beyond what we’ve known, and to include those of all orientations and gender expressions in that love.
When we leave this church, we represent more than ourselves. We represent entire communities of people who have historically been beaten, killed, and had their bodies and their rights trampled. That’s what it means to be a member of this church. We don’t do it just for ourselves – we do it for other people in the pews, and for all those outside of the church. All those in Youngstown, all those in Ohio, all those in Appalachia, and all those in urban areas like New York City and Chicago – we carry their legacy with us. We carry the fire of the Stonewall Riots, we carry the tragedy of the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, we carry with us the triumph of the legalization of gay marriage. We carry with us the daily fear and struggle of teens and grown adults across this country that wonder if they the courage to express their love, if they will be safe.
We hold space for that struggle in this church, and we sanctify that struggle with our ongoing commitment not just to flying a flag but being representatives in our community of a kind of love that is wider than ourselves.
I will be traveling to Transyslvania in about a week to see some of the oldest sites in our faith tradition – a place full of churches and those who stood up for freedom of religion in the 16th century, those who were killed for believing that we all had a right to freedom of conscience. Throughout Transylvania, they have Unitarian villages, meaning that the only place of worship in these villages is a Unitarian church. Due to the growing conservatism in Hungary, under the influence of the current prime minister, the Unitarian leaders in Transylania affirmed two months ago the decision of the state not to legalize gay marriage. The Unitarians were given a chance to denounce the state’s ruling, and due to large funding from the Hungarian government, they’ve sided with a growing sense of prejudice and bigotry in the region.
I was told this because when they find out I am an American minister, and if they google our church and see the rainbow flag, there may be conflict or avoidance. So even in Transylania, I carry with myself as an individual a message on behalf of an entire community. And I will do that proudly, and I welcome debate and conversation, because that is what my conscience leads me to do. I represent more than myself over there, and I’m proud of this.
I’m sick and tired of living in a country and living in a world that makes people afraid to love. It’s a sin. I don’t use that term often, especially not in the pulpit. But it’s the most accurate word I can find. It is a sin against ourselves and a sin against nature to instill fear where love could be possible. It’s a sin to condone bigotry and legislation that limits other people’s happiness for the sake of an outdated sense of what is appropriate. It’s a sin to make decisions based on greed and self gain. There is only one antidote to this sin. This antidote is love, and James Baldwin writes about the kind of love I believe in.
I believe in the kind of love that stirs our bodies, the kind that is personal, messy, and transformative on one condition – that we give ourselves to it, regardless of what anybody else thinks. We risk who we think we are, and risk becoming more than ourselves. That’s the kind of love I believe in. That’s the kind of love we need. That’s the kind of love we can carry with us whether we walk to the North Side or we fly to Transylvania. It’s a love that people have struggled and died for, and in the strangest places. It’s a love that knows pain, yes, but also triumph. It’s a love that celebrates being more and more and more.
This is the kind of love we can all be proud of. A love that makes us more than ourselves. In a little bit we are going to move downstairs and carry the hymnals with us. As we move downstairs, imagine all the LBGTQ community moving with you throughout the generations. Let them move with you, as we carry songs of hope and inspiration on behalf of all of us.
