by Marjorie D. Grevious, Evangelist for Spiritual Healing
Click here to watch the sermon recording on YouTube.
Happy Pride Month! June is also the first month of summer where we are well on our way to June 21st, the longest day of daylight all year, as the sun shines bright well into the evening, if Mother Nature cooperates. June is the month where Pride celebrations ignite all over the country. I bring a little Pride history to share with you this morning as we prepare to not only celebrate, but most importantly honor those who are too often forgotten and left out of our history books.
Stormé DeLarverie (1920–2014) was a biracial, butch lesbian, drag king, and civil rights icon. A towering figure in LGBTQ+ history, she is widely celebrated as the spark that ignited the 1969 Stonewall Uprising and spent her life protecting and providing for her community. Before Stonewall, Stormé was a cabaret trailblazer. From the 1940s to the 1960s, she toured with the Jewel Box Revue, North America’s first racially integrated drag show. She was the troupe’s only drag king and performed as the charismatic male-emcee, proving that women could command the stage in men’s suits. On June 28, 1969, Stormé was present at the Stonewall Inn- the only gay bar in New York City where dancing was allowed. That night, like many others, the police had been watching patrons enter the bar and decided to raid it. As Stormé was being arrested by police, she passionately resisted and called on her community to fight back against the injustice that was unfolding in their once safe space. This was the catalyst that sparked the historic multi-day Stonewall uprising. Years later her story was covered on CodeSwitch, a show on National Public Radio. Stormé was quoted as saying, “It was a rebellion, it was an uprising, it was a civil rights disobedience—it was not a riot.” Stormé died in 2014 at the age of 94.
This brings me to today’s gospel, how Jesus, knowing he was being watched by the Pharisees, has His own act of rebellion against the traditional spiritual leaders, and a sort of civil rights disobedience of His day, sparking revolutionary change to the religious status-quo. In today’s gospel found in Matthew chapter 9, Jesus calls the tax collector, Matthew to follow him as one of his chosen apostles. Jesus then has dinner at a house where Pharisees notice that other tax collectors and sinners come to sit with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees are irritated by this display of equanimity between Jesus and those they consider unworthy.
Now equanimity is defined as: a state of psychological stability, emotional balance, and even-mindedness, especially under stress. Unlike equality and equity—which refer to fairness and resource distribution—equanimity is a psychological and spiritual concept. It involves mental calmness, composure, and the ability to not be emotionally disturbed by changing circumstances or the chaos of the world. Now, you know that Jesus knew he was being watched and that the judgemental Pharisees would have something to say. Jesus was in a balanced state of being fully present with those around him, while also fully cognizant of those observing them. He did not allow the uneasiness of the situation to override his emotions, or his ability to calmly respond, Matthew 9:11-13 reads: 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ 12 But when he heard this, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’
In preparing for today I looked up the word sinners as understood by Jesus. This word is full of complexity and creates extraordinary spiritual trauma and distress. In Jesus time, religious leaders held themselves apart from those they considered sinful, unworthy, unclean, or less than. By sitting and eating with tax collectors (the unworthy) and so-called sinners (the less than) Jesus as a spiritual leader was breaking a deeply entrenched tradition that felt almost like breaking the law. Jesus was actively demonstrating that all people are the same to Him, whether Pharisee, a bleeding woman, a dead girl, or a common person. Sin is the universal human condition. Like blood, sin is the one thing we all have in common as human beings. Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Pope Leo, Marjorie Denise Grevious, all sinners- and although the first three may be more well known, they are no better or worse than me in the eyes of God. I want to be clear that my divinely created identity and orientation are not what makes me a sinner-it is the lived reality of being human, and not God. There are no exceptions among us.
A definition of biblical mercy that I found was the compassionate treatment of those in distress. It is the foundation of God’s forgiveness and His active, loving response to human suffering. God withholds judgement and punishment and offers us healing, comfort, and restoration. I was recently asked by a close family member on what to say to someone questioning the sinfulness of same gender loving Christians. What books would I offer, what scriptures would I use to defend my marriage, and the fully realized lives of my Christian queer brothers, sisters, siblings, cousins, uncles, and aunties. In the moment of the question, I felt my own sense of equanimity leave me as I was flooded with that bitter mix of rage and sorrow that can sometimes overtake those of us with intersections of identities that society deems as less than, shameful, and most painfully- not worthy of God’s love-those who dare call ourselves Christians. I am reminded of Jesus’s equanimity, too often mistaken as passivity. His mental calmness and emotional stability in the tension of facing Pharisees looking to judge him by the company he keeps and questioning his divine purpose and presence as a teacher and spiritual leader.
After a deep breath my response, although not nearly as calm as Jesus, was more carefully measured. As a rule, I do not engage in discourse that seeks to weaponize scripture. When you have gone to seminary, studied various theologians, the history of scripture, the history of the church, and are forced to examine and re-examine all you thought you believed through the lens of scholarly research and the endless papers you write-it becomes difficult to casually engage in even the most mundane theological topic as the average church-goer is not looking to go down an abyss of religious inquiry and introspection. More often than not, what they desire is a magical Bible verse or two for easy answers to the multi-layered complexities of human life.
When I am confronted with blatant bigotry and criticism, I rediscover my equanimity in the teachings of my pastor, the late, great Archbishop Carl Bean. The Archbishop, as we referred to him, founded the Unity Fellowship Church Movement (UFCM) a liberal Protestant denomination created to provide a welcoming church for the Black LGBTQIA+ community. Created for those who had been turned away, shut out, or dismissed from their traditional home churches, it was founded during the height of the AIDS crisis in the ’80s. It was a ministry that demonstrated God’s mercy- offering healing, comfort, and restoration to God’s love, that was inclusive of their whole identity as Christian,black, queer people. Every Sunday The Archbishop reminded us that God is Love and that Love was for EVERYONE without exception. It was printed in a large banner that hung above the pulpit. His benediction always included Romans 8:38-39, where the Apostle Paul writes that absolutely nothing—neither death, life, angels, demons, fears of today, worries about tomorrow, nor anything else in all creation—can ever separate us from God’s love. There are no exceptions.
Genesis 1:27, reads: “So God created humankind in God’s own image, in the image of God-God created them; male and female God created them”.This concept, known as the Imago Dei (Latin for “image of God”), means all human beings uniquely reflect God’s nature and have an inherent divine dignity. It is because of the balanced nature of the divine, that is equanimity, that we each receive the eternal love of God equally, that meets our specific needs equitably, as we are seen, cared for, and validated as divinely made individuals. There is no exception to this. It includes me being black, female, queer, full-bodied, born to a single mother, and all of the other things particular to who I am. I am loved by God for all that I am created to be, without exception. In today’s gospel Jesus is saying he did not come for those who are so righteous they stand in judgement of their fellow human beings–he came for all of us who need spiritual healing, comfort, and restorative guidance– and at some point in this life that is everyone of us.
In the midst of Jesus’ dinner conversation a leader from the synagogue came and knelt before Jesus asking for a miracle for his daughter who had just died. Jesus got up with his disciples to follow the man. Spoiler alert: he raises the girl from the dead. It’s the story before that, which intrigues me. You see there was a woman with an issue of blood, who had been bleeding for 12 years. She dared not approach Jesus because according to the law a bleeding woman was seen as unclean for 7 days and even the chair she sat on or bed she slept in could make someone else unclean who shared that same furniture after her. Women separated themselves from the community during their monthly cycle and on the 8th day took a ritual cleansing bath in order to return to the community clean. The woman in this story dared not make her presence known to anyone, especially a holy man, or healer such as Jesus. She would be seen as contaminating the lot of them and face dire consequences during that time in history.
So can you imagine her, filled to the brim with faith and hope, isolated from community for 12 years, severely anemic and weak, positioning herself in a way where, as the scripture reads, she comes up behind Jesus so she could just touch the fringe of his garment. Scripture reads: for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Can you imagine that much faith and belief, not just desperation, but an assuredness that if she could just touch a bit of Jesus clothing-she would be made whole. She does it and in his divine equanimity and mercy, scripture reads: Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.
God’s mercy allows for healing, comfort, and restoration- no matter how the world sees and treats us. We are restored through our faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. This applies to us all without exception, or exclusion.Now remember, this all happens as Jesus is on his way, with an entourage in tow, to raise a little girl from the dead. In a span of minutes Jesus heals an unclean woman, and raises a girl from the dead at a time in human history, culture, and law that was so male dominated, that women served at the pleasure of their father, husband, or brother, and were most often relegated to domestic duties. Women held little value or power in a patriarchal society,as women were not allowed to inherit land or wealth, and yet, this is who Jesus sees fit to heal, comfort and restore. Because they, like all of us, are Imago Dei-made in the image of God.
One of the things I love about the queer community is that we have a healing and restorative practice of creating family when we are cast out of our biological ones. We create spaces that welcome, care for, and tend to the needs of those set out by family, churches, jobs, and society. Like Stormé DeLarverie, we create rebellious revolutions by loving each other at all costs, believing that our love is sacred and worthy. As Christians, Believers, Disciples of Christ, where might we set aside our unreliable emotions, and self righteous judgements and step into a divine state of equanimity becoming extensions of God’s mercy by welcoming all people to healing, comfort, and restoration? How might we use scripture to lovingly call in those who need us, instead of snarling verses like weapons of mass destruction? How might we remember that we are all created in the divine image of God, remembering that God’s Love is for EVERYone, and that absolutely nothing can separate us from the Love of God. I call on each of us to Heal, Comfort, and Restore whoever we can, wherever we can, however we can. Create a riot of your faith. Become a rebellious revolution of God’s all encompassing love and mercy for all people.
Amen.
