Southwark Cathedral 16th November on 20th Aniversary of the lesbian and gay Christian movement
"There is one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." Eph 4:6
I want to thank the Provost and Chapter for inviting me to preach on this occasion. Thank you to the LGCM for their sensitivity and welcome to me. Amidst all the controversy surrounding this event I Want you to know what an enriching experience it has been to have heard people's stories. Time and again, people have come up to me and said things like this, "We know you are preaching at that service I want to tell you about my daughter, my son, my friend." Then I am introduced to the most moving and human stories of Gay and Lesbian people. For me this occasion is all about people.
"One God and Father of us all"
When we worship our lives are open to God. When we are open to God we are drawn deeper into the mystery of the way God heals the divisions and confusions of a broken world and humanity. When we speak of the love which binds all things together, of reconciliation which removes the barriers that tear us apart, of forgiveness which overcomes the bitterness and of truth which drives out all falsehood, we are talking the language of God.
The contrast between that vision and our confused and often divided community is deep and disturbing. Today we must refuse to be dragged down into division. For that we need the courage to seek the unity to which God calls us all. So we listen for the voice of God.
I want, therefore, to suggest to you four boundaries which give shape to the debate we must all have if we are to grow as a church united under the Lordship of Christ and witnessing to the power of God.
The first boundary has two words on it. Tradition and Experience. All serious Christian thought about the meaning of good and evil - of what is right and what is wrong - is born of the encounter between tradition and experience. The Christian tradition has nothing to fear from the experience. The experience will be enriched and enlarged by the Christian tradition.
The experience for homosexual people is deeply painful. The horrific example of this in the 20th century is the nightmare of evil perpetrated by the Nazis against homosexual people. They used laws already in existence to send thousands to the Gas Chambers. The failure of the Church to speak out against this wickedness is part of this terrible history. The story of the abuse of homosexual people has not gone away. Gay and Lesbian people are still on the receiving end of violence, exclusion and discrimination. The report by Stonewall, 'Queer Bashing' is disturbing evidence of the persistence of such abuse. That report speaks of at least 181 gay murders in the past decade. Powerful and ungodly homophobic forces are at work in our culture undermining and destroying peoples lives. Then there is the tragedy of AIDS. The loss, the pain, the exclusion, the courage and the depths of sacrifice are all part of this story. The gains that have been made in recent times in removing some of the legal disabilities to homosexual people have to be set against that background.
The experience of the 20th century has also been one of a changing understanding of sexuality for all of use. Christian moral reasoning cannot proceed as if none of this had happened. Whether we are talking about what we now know of the powerful place sexuality has in the development of the human personality, the impact of family planning on marriage family life and sexual practice or our changing perceptions of the place and relationships of women and me - male and female - in human life and society - we are talking about our century. These things have contributed to a growing emphasis on the importance of quality of relationships, of balance and equity between people and on the fundamental God-given character of human sexuality.
At the same time the fact is we are assembled in a historic place of Christian worship. The word 'Christian' is in your title. That places an obligation upon us to hear the Word of God as revealed in the Scriptures and interpreted in the historic teaching of the church down the ages. But there is a tension - even a conflict - between the church's understanding of the tradition and what gay and lesbian people find to be good and creative in their lives. That is no reason for abandoning the tradition. The dichotomy provides the agenda. It is a particularly sensitive matter because gay and lesbian Christians carry within their own being these conflicts and confusions. They are both gay and Christian. So the task has a sharpness and urgency to it.
The second boundary has but one word. Honesty. How difficult that is in a society which abounds in self-deception, delusion and sheer humbug when it comes to matters of sex. When we compare ourselves to our continental neighbours - evidenced by the tabloids - there seems to be extraordinary even prurient pre-occupation with what people do in their bedrooms.
At a time of when we are afraid and anxious we are tempted to scapegoat particular groups for the problems of the whole of our culture. Single parents, divorced people, homosexual people carry the burden of blame and, by implication, everyone else is let off the hook. We are quick to blame. We focus on the speck of dust in the eye of the other and totally miss the plank in our own. So we lose the chance to build lasting relationships and a community which cares for all its members.
Honesty requires humility. Humility means recognising that all is not well in our society. There has been a serious loss of confidence in marriage. It is not meeting people's needs. The collapse of marriage in parts of our culture is alarming and dangerous. High rates of divorce - and we have one of the highest in the world - show that we struggle to sustain close and permanent relationships. The impact this has on children and families and the wider community is untold but deep. No wonder the voices grow for a new sense of shared moral and civic values. The victims? Always the weak and marginalised. Which is why gay and lesbian people among others have a particular interest in finding a better way forward.
When we all learn to be honest we provide space for gay and lesbian people to be more open about their dilemmas in forming and sustaining wholesome human relationships. Self deception, delusion and humbug are no respectors of differences in sexual orientation. That is why the penitential and reflective note of this service is vital. We need much more honesty in this debate.
The third boundary may point to the most difficult and contentious part of the journey to discover the unity God wants for us all. It has but one word. Marriage. Bear with me as we explore this. Marriage, we are taught in the Christian tradition, is a gift of God in creation and a means of blessing for all people. When a woman and a man come to marriage they are not creating marriage but receiving it and entering into it. This conviction is the basis for treating marriage as a public institution recognised and sustained in society. Marriage is a God-given basic building block of a loving and ordered community.
Marriage is not something, therefore, which we create for our own convenience. We live in a culture in danger of privatising marriage by reducing it to a personal arrangement between two people. It is not surprising, if that is all it is, that people begin to think that any private arrangement between two people should be treated as if it were marriage. But that fails well short of the Christian tradition. We cannot solve our dilemma by turning cohabitation or same sex relationships into marriage. That is the hard part and I know it is not easy to hear.
But let us go further in our understanding of marriage. The Christian faith cuts in another and surprising direction. Marriage, it teaches, is the sacramental sign in human life of what God seeks for everyone. It should therefore help us build a society in which all people experience its benefits. It is not good, the Bible tells us, for anyone to be alone. Love, friendship, trust, community, forgiveness, service, commitment are basic to being human. Not all people are called to enter marriage. That has always been true. It is particularly true of our own society where household life takes many different forms. To the question which the Church needs to address is "how can the blessings of this gift of God be experienced by all people whatever their state of life?". Sometimes we can find help by thinking about the experience of cultures very different from our own. I was particularly struck by a passage in Nelson Mandela's autobiography, 'Long Walk to Freedom'. This is what he says.
My mother presided over three huts at Qunu which, as I remember, were always filled with the babies and children of my relations. In fact, I hardly recall any occasion as a child when I was alone. In African culture, the sons and daughters of one's aunts or uncles are considered brothers and sisters, not cousins. We do not make the same distinctions among relations practised by whites. We have no half brothers or half sisters. My mother's sister is my mother; my uncle's son is my brother; my brother's child is my son, my daughter. 'p.10
Our world is very different. That story, however, does challenge the way we have privatised domestic living. Family and household life need rebuilding in an inclusive way so that the needs of all - single people, old and young, gay and lesbian people, people with special needs - are brought within a community of support and care. In this context the public institution of marriage can make a unique contribution to the stability and well being of our society. We might then recover what we have lost in our culture without losing what we have gained. Let us not be put off by the fact that we do not possess all the answers. The future always emerges as we make the journey. So this gift of God becomes a sign of unity rather than a cause of division.
How are we to travel? The word on the last boundary is vision. It leads us to God. At the heart of all reality is the love which will satisfy our longing. How did we come to be here? Why is it that a company of gay and lesbian people find themselves, against all the odds, to be Christians and members of God's Holy Church? Clearly that did not happen by human design. Indeed, if the wishes of some of your brothers and sisters in Christ were met you would be out on your ear! The trouble for the church is that it is not created by human endeavour but by the grace of God. Being a Christian means that you have to share the journey with the people God chooses not the ones we choose. Every time we stop and look at each other and focus on the differences between us strife and dissension begins to flourish. When we have the courage to look up and forward at the vision which draws us on we move and we begin to grow together into a new humanity.
I believe passionately in an inclusive church. A church in which the contrasting and conflicting experiences of human life are joined together into something new and better in Jesus Christ. Such a church gives its members space to bring who they are to God. Yes, commitment to truth means that it refuses to avoid the conflicts however difficult. Yes, we all of us have so much to learn. It is God who heals us and unites us. It is God who energises us to bind up the wounds, to gather together the scattered fragments and to bear witness to the hope of something better.
LGCM is 20 years old. It is a significant age. This is the time to recognise that the delights of childhood are over and the confusions of adolescence have to be left behind. At 20 years of age what contribution will you make for the good of all? What vision inspires you and encourages you to move on and to grow? How ready are you to share the journey with everyone else, to learn from others and to contribute to the building up of Christ's body as the Ephesian letter says but a few verses further on ... "until we all attain to the unity inherent in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God - to a mature humanity measured by nothing less than the full stature of Christ."