Church of the Brethren Annual Conference, BMC Luncheon, July 2003

Kerby Lauderdale was the featured speaker at the BMC luncheon held during the 2003 Church of the Brethren Annual Conference in Boise, Idaho. Kerby is the pastor of the Peace Church of the Brethren in Portland, Oregon, a publicly affirming congregation. He has the distinction of being the first openly gay man to be called to pastor a congregation in the Church of the Brethren.

8 July 2003
Boise, Idaho

I suspect there are but few times in most lives when people and event and place come together in what is truly experienced as fulfillment. This is one of those times for me.

My maternal grandparents were married in Boise one-hundred years ago. Will Kerby married Jenny Mae Hawkins. They were homesteaders in Long Valley—about 150 miles north, on highway 55. Those of you who were at Song and Story Fest drove by the homestead about 8 miles south of Cascade. A small white Grange building along the east side of the highway marks the old settlement of ’Alpha.’ And in the wheat field south of the gravel road stands an old barn, known to this day as Mae Kerby’s barn. Grandpa died about 12 years after they were married and was buried in a cemetery up the road to the east. His parents, my great grandparents, are buried in Caldwell, Idaho, west of here 20 or so miles. And my only reason for extending this genealogy is to add another personal connection to this place. On a ridge overlooking the Boise River, at the Caldwell Cemetery, you’ll find a small Douglas Fir tree, planted with ashes of my partner of 14 years. Caldwell has been his family’s home for 25 years. He died in June, 1996. . .of AIDS. I discovered the Kerby connection to this cemetery the day we planted that Fir tree. So perhaps you can understand the sense of things coming together for me in this moment and in this place.

One more thing in the coming together, is having returned to the pastorate a year ago last March, by the calling of one of the finest churches in our denomination, Peace Church of the Brethren, in Portland, Oregon. I have been known by Peace Church for 20 years, and even before I arrived in Portland in January 1982, as an openly gay man. I had come out two years earlier and 4 years after I had left the pastorate in Indiana, having left the pastorate for reasons unrelated to my sexual orientation.

So now, being back in the pastorate which I love, in a church I love, as an openly gay man which I love affirming, in the Kerby family homestead territory which I love, and in my partner’s home territory whom I loved . . . well you see . . .

Thank you very much, Carol, and BMC, for inviting me to speak this day and in this place. The hand of God has been so very active in my life . . . more visible to me sometimes than others. This is one of those visible times. I feel so richly blessed!

I want to read some words of Thomas Merton [that were shared at Song and Story Fest last week].

The natural phenomenon of the world, and all forms of life in the world, has been of compelling and life long interest to me. I consider the natural wonder, and the natural beauty and the endless variety of life on earth to be the work of our Creator. And I consider this work of the Creator not just . . . or primarily . . . a gift to me . . . or even to all humanity. I consider this work of life and beauty and wonder, the sheer awesomeness of the universe, to be revealing of the Creator. To say ‘gift’ is to suggest something of possession or control, something of life ‘belonging’ to us . . . which is suggested by Genesis 1 thru 3. But, Adam and Eve have become 6 billion people . . . and the result is more than a quantitative change. This awesome creation is available to see, hear, touch, smell, experience, and in some measure, comprehend. And we learned from observation, not from Genesis 1, that the earth is not the center of the universe. And in fact the church denied this truth, which observation of the work of God, revealed. Galileo was, you will recall, finally forgiven by the present Pope! The existence of this planet, the amazing diversity of life here, and the awesome wonder of the universe, is breathtaking, and finally incomprehensible to human brains. So to say ‘gift to us’ is to not be paying attention.

Consider . . .
There are islands, being born even now, in the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, made of sand. Coral sand. And the coral sand is the product in part of parrot fish, who scrape off bits of algae infused coral, and digest the algae, and excrete the sand. This process and other coral reducing forces produces enough sand to contribute significantly to the building of Atolls . . . small sand islands mostly in the tropical Pacific, but also in the Indian Ocean.

These tropical islands are inhabited by many wonderful birds and reptiles, among them the bright green gecko, which lays eggs in the hallow openings of drift wood on the island beaches. The tides lift these chunks of drift wood, setting them adrift, and they frequently land on the beaches of relatively new islands. And when timing is right, and the eggs have remained safely lodged in the hallowed crevices, the hatching baby geckos, with just enough yoke in their tummies [that’s a technical term] to find and climb a young Palm tree, begin to populate a new island. An amazing process, involving many natural phenomenon. The interaction and the complexity and the wonder of Gecko mating, and egg laying, and available drift wood, and ocean tides, and small sandy islands, and residual egg nutrients, and young palm trees . . . it all leaves me speechless.

But I’ll go on anyway.

Consider again . . .
The Olympic Peninsula in the Pacific Northwest is majestic: saw toothed, snow covered peaks to nearly 8,000 feet, surrounded at lower elevations by dense rainforests of Western Hemlock Alaskan Cedar, Douglas Fir, and Sitka Spruce. Awesome beauty. All of it. What is equally awesome, but not seen by humans is the abundance of life in the canopy of the rainforest . . . some 150 to 250 feet above the ground. The mosses, the lichens, fungi and algae are so abundant on the tree trunks and branches and twigs, that the trees support more foreign plant material than they grow themselves. And so much moisture is held in the canopy that some roots from the individual trees actually grow upward, between the bark and the thick mosses, absorbing moisture and nutrients from the decaying plant material high in their own tops. Awesome.

I share these pieces of information about the natural world, which sustains our lives, knowingly or not, because it is a crucial part of my faith perspective. I’ve had a life long interest in plants, gardens, and outdoor life. But more to the point for us in this gathering . . . the gift of my homosexual orientation has given me an opportunity, and perhaps a necessity, to notice the overwhelming diversity of life forms and behaviors, which the Creator has brought to life on earth . . . to see it all with a kind of neutrality, with a kind of openness, and ultimately with tolerance. My experience as a gay man has provided me the opportunity to personally identify with all the life phenomenon that did not fit with the 20th century western and Judeo-Christian view of that which is natural and moral. And certainly my personal experience informed my faith. How could it be otherwise? So . . . hold the thought: this world . . . God’s creation . . . is awesome, and extraordinarily diverse, in numbers of life forms and behaviors.

But another observation arises from our natural world that profoundly informs my faith: that death is an implicit part of life. Walk with me briefly in the north woods of Minnesota with photographer, Jim Brandenburg. A walk revealing the glory and wonder but also the pain and suffering that is life on earth. [It was a National Geographic project and his walk was at the time of the winter solstice.]

While I wandered through the woodland, the lands wild residents struggled daily. . . . I heard a gunshot at midnight, and the dawn’s fussing of ravens and eagles led me to the scene of the crime. A deer had been wantonly killed by a poacher. [Later in the morning I saw another lifeless deer] this one brought down by wolves in an old and necessary drama. When I arrived, the body had just been opened and was still steaming in the below-zero air. . . All around me I witnessed cycles of life and death—with deer becoming wolves, bones becoming soil, lichens eating rocks, herons stalking fish. Irate wolves chased ravens, which in turn teased indifferent eagles . . .
[Jim Brandenburg, ‘Special Place: North Woods Journal,
National Geographic, November 1997]

Death is perhaps the most defining reality within life. So frightening that most humankind does not believe that our personal lives end in death. But, death’s role in life is so pervasive that it is perhaps best expressed in the statement: life is sustained on planet earth by death. Cellular life can only survive by consuming and digesting other cellular life, flesh or bone or fruit or leaf or wood, living or decaying.

There is no moral judgment in this reality. And the food chain has no hierarchy. If it gives us pride to consider ourselves at the top of the food chain, consider, what eats us: viruses, bacteria, fungi, insect larva . . . some of the least complex forms of cellular life . . . they consume us even within the vacuum sealed vaults of our cemeteries and mausoleums.

Life has been sustained on earth by eating itself for billions of rotations around the sun. As an expression of my faith: That is how God created it. ‘That way, and not some other way.’ [words of Cormak McCarthy, Blood Meridian]

Let me suggest a poetic way of saying that death is a defining reality within life. The words are Cormak McCarthy’s written in his novel, Cities of the Plain: ‘Beauty and loss are one.’ The words arise in a love story, not a death story . . . although, the point here is precisely that death is always an unknown player in love. But we need a love story right now—even if it is heterosexual. John Grady Cole is the protagonist, a 19 year old cowboy—a real cowboy—in south Texas in the 1940’s. He has found himself in love with a Mexican girl, Magdalana . . . a prostitute . . . an unwilling prostitute . . . she was sold by desperate and unloving family members to pay a gambling debt. They have spent the night together.

Beauty and loss are one. Paradox. Paradox, at its most simple, at its most profound.

So—seeing the Creator’s creation as extra-ordinarily diverse and complex and interconnected and paradox—beauty and loss as one—let us turn to the Bible. Where, behold, we see diversity in biblical perspectives of the Creator, and complexity of the Creator, and intimate connection with creation.

Just before I returned to the pastorate, I became aware of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, God, A Biography, by Jack Miles. Actually, I think it was through a review of his second book about the Bible, Christ, A Crisis in the Life of God. If you have no familiarity with this writing you have a treat in store. Because Miles’ approach to writing about the Bible is unique. He reads us through the Bible as literature. Let me share with you from his opening chapter:

To the eyes of faith, the Bible is not just words about God but also the Word of God: God is its author as well as its protagonist . . . Jews and Christians . . . while revering the Bible as more than literature, do not deny that it is also literature and generally concede that it may be appreciated as such without blasphemy. . . .

God is, as I shall try to show in the book that follows, an amalgam of several personalities in one character. Tension among these personalities make God difficult, but it also makes God compelling, even addictive. While consciously emulating [God's] virtues, the West has unconsciously assimilated the anxiety-including tension between [God’s] unity and [God’s] multiplicity. In the end, despite the longing Westerners sometimes feel for a simpler, less anxious, more ‘centered’ human ideal, the only people whom we find satisfyingly real are people whose identity bind several incompatible sub- identities together. . . . Incongruity and inner conflict are not just permitted in Western culture; they are all but required. . . .

Our forebears understood themselves to be the image of a God who, in effect, had made matters similarly difficult for [God’s]self. Monotheism recognizes only one God: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.’ God is the Rock of Ages, integrity in person. And yet this same being combines several personalities.

God is no saint, strange to say. There is much to object to in [God], and many attempts have been made to improve [God]. Much that the Bible says about [God] is rarely preached from the pulpit, because examined too closely, it becomes a scandal. But if only some of the Bible is actively preached, none of the Bible is quite denied. On the improbably unexpurgated biblical page, God remains as [God] has been: the original who was the Faith of our Fathers and whose image is living still within us as a difficult but dynamic . . . idea. [Pp.5-6]

I love his perspective! Paradox. Complexity, Unity and multiplicity,

Congruity and incongruity. Words, which for me describe the entire creation . . . certainly they describe life on earth.

I was further moved and [dare I say] entertained by Miles’ writing about the two creation stories in Genesis 1 thru 3. It is delightful writing with inspired insights. The most important insight, for our purposes here, and actually for greater tolerance throughout our denomination, is the revelation that the Bible sets precedent for the validity of different perspectives within the Judeo-Christian faith. And it ‘starts at the very beginning’: [That’s as close as I am going to get to a line from a Broadway show!] Without leading you all through these three chapters, I will share a paragraph of Miles’ writing that will reveal the diversity and complexity they present.

In the first creation account, God created [humanity] to be God’s own image. The second creation account is different. Here the Lord God creates [humanity] from the dust, not by the word of [the Lord God’s] mouth, and never describes [this] creature as made in [the Lord God’s] image. Moreover, the nakedness or otherwise of the first couple, a matter of no interest in the first [or God] account, is insisted on in the second [or Lord God account], as [is] their sexual desire and their shame. . . .

In the long, emotional outburst [following the temptation in the Garden], the Lord God does indeed act as the original of a human creature made of dust and passion. [Yet] In the first [or God] creation account, the relationship between the creator and creature is not about obedience at all. God is so magisterially powerful but also so splendidly generous that human misbehavior cannot possible trouble God’s calm. God’s ‘be fertile and increase’ is a more magnanimous invitation than a command. But in the second creation story, the Lord God seems not just less powerful and less generous than God but far more vindictive. Worse, [the Lord God] is as gratuitous in

. . . wrath as God was gratuitous in . . . bounty. [p.35]

Biblical scholarship has shown conclusively that these two Creation stories are the work of different authors. And even evangelical scholars agree. The diversity in the various author’s work, and their preservation as diverse perspectives, give us reason to consider that the Bible sets precedent for the validity of different perspectives within the Judeo-Christian faith.

Another biblical source of diverse faith perspectives, which we can more easily see is to be found in the four gospels of the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all proclaim Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the one sent from God. Indeed in John, Jesus is God incarnate—the Word became flesh.

We all should know that only two of the gospels have birth stories. And we all should know that the two birth stories have nothing in common but the three main characters: Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. The reason for the couple being in Bethlehem, the place where the birth occurs, and the guests who come to the scene, are different in both stories. And further, it seems upon examination of those details that they fit the themes, the faith perspectives of each gospel writer. Matthew tells the story of the wise men come to see the birth of God as king, and Luke tells the story of the lowly shepherds come to see the birth of God as humble servant and teacher. Mark, which is the first gospel written, begins his gospel telling of Jesus baptism, which is the beginning of his ministry. And John begins his gospel with a New Testament reference to the first creation story in Genesis: ‘In the beginning was the word’. Notice that John does not place Jesus as God-incarnate within the virgin birth. Four very different beginnings to make the same proclamation.

The Bible sets the precedent for the validity of different perspectives within the Christian faith. In a community where the nature of God’s creation, the diversity of God’s creation, is reflected in its faith, we need not make too much of the differences. But in a community where diversity is unwelcome and differences are a threat to faith, we need to make much of the textual diversity!

Diversity is coming to have its day, if not among the majority of the Brethren, if not among the majority of Americans, if not among the majority of nations. Diversity is still coming to have its day. In the Manchester Church of the Brethren. In Skyridge Church of the Brethren. In Peace Church of the Brethren. In Voices for an Open Spirit. In many other Welcoming and Affirming Brethren and Mennonite churches. These are places where diversity is honored.

And, diversity is honored in Vermont; and in Canada; and finally, in the United States Supreme Court!

Perhaps it began with Darwin’s simple and not so simple observations of life on our awesome planet. And perhaps it began with the biblical scholars of ‘form criticism’, and a simple, and not so simple re-reading of the scriptures.

And perhaps it began with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the simple, and not so simple belief that all humanity was in truth endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. And perhaps it began with Martin Rock, and the not at all simple courage to publicly state that God had created him as a homosexual man, and that there was no sin or shame in that gift of God in his life.

Diversity is becoming increasingly evident everywhere we look, everywhere we listen, everywhere we live. It is the light of the Spirit of God, evident in all Creation. And the light cannot be distinguished. It can be ignored, even as the lights of our civilization allow us to ignore the brilliance of the night sky. A quote from John’s prologue: John the Baptist was not that light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. And still is.