On hiding out for forty days, legitimate fear, and the church's chance to tell a new story: a sermon on Elijah, Jesus, and Legion

Click here to listen along: https://drive.google.com/open…

(The recording did cut off the first 2 minutes which is more on the story of Elijah but is not crucial to the rest of the sermon.)

The Shooting at Pulse: Pastor Emmy's Response (from the Church Newsletter)

When worship began last Sunday morning, we had only begun to get reports out of Orlando of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub.  We now know that forty-nine lives were taken that night, almost all of them members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community, and almost all of them Latinx.  Rumors are still circulating about the gunman's motivations, but we know that he (like many of the other men across America who have targeted minorities and marginalized communities in mass shootings) had a history of violence.

As a gay woman, I am still in deep grief over this massacre.  I am still struggling to put into words how vulnerable this makes the whole LGBTQ community feel.  I keep running through memories of dances at clubs, marches at Pride Festival, rallies at the legislature -- all times when I was vulnerable to violent attack because I believe that God made me beloved exactly as I am.  This week my partner Michelle and I have been afraid to hold hands in public, more aware of potential attacks than we have been before.  Already we are hearing that Westboro Baptist Church will be protesting at victims' funerals, where they will likely hold signs and blast music at full volume declaring God's absolute hatred for the victims and delight in their deaths.

In addition, the Muslim community in America is experiencing significant backlash over the attacks.  Many Islamic groups (including the Minnesota branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations) immediately responded to the attacks with rejection and condemnation of the shooter's supposed ties to Islam.  The majority of the Muslim community continues to reject violence and murder, yet the actions of a few are often applied to the whole.  I am reminded of last year's massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, carried out by a young man who belonged to the very same denomination we do.  The violence of one does not always reflect the values of the whole, and when the majority of Muslims condemn violent attacks, I am asked to listen to those voices.  To that end, I will be attending the iftar hosted at First Lutheran in Columbia Heights this coming Wednesday.  An iftar is the celebratory meal that ends the day-long fast Muslims perform during the month of Ramadan.  This iftar is open to the public and I invite you to join me -- you may RSVP here.

There are a number of vigils scheduled for Sunday evening to remember the victims.  Gustavus Adolphus has invited us to join them for a service at 8pm.

I will also be joining an ELCA Young Adults webcast on Sunday evening -- a live video chat among nine young adult leaders in the Christian church that will discuss and reflect on the shooting in Orlando.

Worship on Sunday will offer some time for prayers for the victims of the Orlando attacks.  I also invite you to reach out to LGBTQ family and friends -- this is an incredibly painful week for us, and every word of support and love counts.

In peace and hope,
Pastor Emmy

A sound of sheer silence: a commentary on Elijah, Legion, and Pulse

After the fire, there was a sound of sheer silence.
After the hail of bullets, the murderous flash of bullet light, the thunder of bodies against the floor.
After the earthquake of hope and joy and life torn from lives.
After the ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing of cell phones as friends and family tried to reach those who were no longer reachable.
A sound of sheer silence, and Elijah the prophet cowering in the cave of a nightclub bathroom.

Why are you here, Elijah?, the Lord said, as if the Lord did not know.
As if the Lord had not mourned every time a servant was slaughtered.
As if the Lord had not charged the last remaining prophet with destroying the gods who offered fertility in exchange for blood and violence and death.
As if the Lord had not heard the proclamation of Jezebel: may those gods do whatever they like to me if I do not tear your life from you.
As if the Lord God had not come down from heaven in a flaming and magnificent burst to proclaim that whatever might try to drown it, freedom and life and freedom and life and freedom and life would fight through.

When the Gerasenes, Gentiles who knew not of the God of Israel, arrived at the tombs, they found the man dressed and completely sane,
and the pig-herders said:  This Jesus cast the legion of demons out.
And the people said:  Who is this Jesus, this Jewish rabbi?
And the people said:  Who is this God which he proclaims?
And the people said:  This man has been so violent that leg irons and chains could not hold him.
And the people said:  This man has been so dangerous that we have let him live among bones and graves to protect ourselves.
And the people said:  This church has been so violent that it has broken our bodies and hearts and told us to be grateful that God might spare us from how we were made.
And the people said:  This church has been so dangerous that we have watched it work itself into a frenzy among dead bones, and we have let it go, in the hope we might be safe.
And the people said:  You are asking us to welcome home a man and a church who has tried to destroy us.
And Jesus left, but left the man behind, to live into the story of what God has done.

In the sound of sheer silence, the church began to speak, and said:
We mourn you!
We mourn you!
We mourn you!
As if the church had not been demon-possessed.
As if the church had not tried to tear Elijah limb from limb.
As if the church was not complicit in the wind and the fire and the earthquake.
As if the church had not seen devastation and demonization, death threats and suicide, the continual murders of trans women of color -- and responded with sheer silence.
As if the church had not beaten and broken the lesbian and gay and bisexual and transgender and queer children of God and stood over their bodies to mockingly say:  Where is your God now?

The church proclaims that its demons are gone, but dead bodies lie around it.

Meanwhile, the messenger of God finds Elijah.
Get up and eat, the angel said,
and spread a simple table:  a jar of water and a hot bit of flatbread.
Not much.  But enough.
Enough to take us back through the wilderness.
Enough to find each other,
to fight for life amid proclamations of death.
To fill the sound of sheer silence
with the powerful resurgence of ourselves.

They tried to bury us.
They didn’t know we were seeds.


---

( The last lines are from Dinos Christianopoulos, a Greek 20th century poet and gay man.  The lines were adopted and used often in the Zapatista movement, a Mexican revolution for social and agrarian reforms in the 1990s. 

Image by Oscar Keys through Unsplash. )