The Gift of Faith

Delivered at The Hearth Fireside Series on February 26, 2017, Atherton, CA

 

Matthew 15 

21 ¶Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.

22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

 23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.

 24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

 25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

 26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.

 27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.

 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

The story of the Syrophoenician or “Canaanite” woman (told in Mark chapter 7 and re-told in Matthew chapter 15) is unique in the Gospels, in that it is only story where Jesus refuses to bless someone. At least initially.

It’s easy to focus on the end of the story, in which Jesus miraculously heals the woman’s daughter long-distance. We’re inclined to interpret his initial refusal to bless as a test of the woman’s faith.

Except that Jesus’ refusal is coupled with what, on the face of it, looks like blatant racial or ethnic discrimination and insults.

“It is not meet,” says Jesus, in response to the woman’s pleas for a blessing, “to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to the dogs.” I’ve seen some exegetes try to soften the blow of the insult of comparing this woman to a dog by suggesting that the original Greek in the text was diminutive, that it didn’t have the same harsh connotations that referring to someone as a dog in Middle Eastern culture typically has. Maybe. Consider it through the eyes of the Canaanite woman. Her daughter was suffering, and she was being refused in language that literally dehumanized both her and her daughter.

In the Matthew version of the story, she followed them, crying after them from a distance, and Jesus refused to answer her. When the disciples begged Jesus to relent, just to make her stop, he replied tersely, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

That phrase (not present in the Mark version of the story) was the key to James E. Talmage’s interpretation of the story. Jesus was not called by the Father to minister to the Gentiles. The keys to that work were not to be delegated until after Christ’s ascension.

The story might credibly have ended with that rejection. Most women in her shoes might give up and leave after being insulted. This would not, however, have been much of a story if it had ended there. It occurs to me that in the course of his ministry, Jesus might have said no to Gentiles seeking blessings many times, so often that it wouldn’t have seemed worth mentioning. This story might only have been told because of its exceptional quality; because it was the case of a Gentile who refused to take “no” for an answer, and whose faith was such that the blessing ultimately could not be withheld.

It is reminiscent of another story (recounted in Luke chapter 7) in which a Roman centurion beseeched the Jewish elders to intercede for him on behalf of a dying servant. Perhaps the centurion knew that Jesus was “not sent but unto… the house of Israel,” which would explain why he never appeared in person to Christ, and why he sent Jewish messengers to convey the message: “I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof… neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed” (vs. 6-7). Jesus marveled at the man’s faith, and proclaimed: “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel” (v. 9). The Luke account does not specify whether the servant was of the house of Israel or not, but it does state that like the daughter of the Canaanite woman, the servant was healed thanks to the exceptional faith of a Gentile.

To return to the story of the Canaanite woman, her faith was such that she did not allow herself to be put off, neither by the insistent rejections, nor by the dehumanizing language. “Yes, Lord,” was her response to the ‘dogs’ comment, “yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.” It was when she said that, that Christ knew there was no blessing he could withhold from her. “O woman,” replied Jesus, “great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt” (Matthew 15: 28).

As a gay man who am excommunicated, and who am unable to be reinstated into membership in the Church because of my 25-years relationship with my husband, and who have a testimony of the Gospel, and who am active in my LDS ward, I have occasionally been accused of accepting crumbs. I’ve been told that a self-respecting person does not do that. A self-respecting person demands a full place at the table and accepts nothing less.

I don’t believe for a single moment that that Canaanite woman believed either she or her daughter were of less value in the eyes of God than any child of the house of Israel. The proof of that was in her unwillingness to relinquish a blessing she knew her daughter needed; her perseverance until she had secured that blessing; her willingness to humble herself before God in order to claim that blessing. In a sense, by turning Christ’s refusal away with the words, “Yes, Lord, yet the dogs eat the crumbs,” she affirmed her infinite worth in terms that Christ could not deny. “Great is thy faith,” he said of her. Or “I have not found so great faith in Israel,” as he said of the Roman centurion.

To my way of thinking, it would have been her turning away, her giving up, that might have devalued her. To turn away might have been an admission that she or her daughter were less worthy of the blessing than anybody else Christ might have healed more readily. I am of infinite worth, and so is my husband, and so I show up at Church and I live the Gospel as fully as I am permitted within the current confines. My presence at church is simultaneously two things: a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel, and a testimony of my infinite worth.

This still begs the question: Why does the Church treat people in a discriminatory manner? Or, to put it in slightly harder terms, How could a church that discriminates against people, that is seemingly a respecter of persons, be true? As I was writing this talk, I was exchanging messages with a faithful lesbian mom who has been distraught because her daughter just turned eight years old, and will not be able to be baptized as her older siblings were. We can take the experience of LGBT people today, and put it in the context of long millennia of discrimination of some sort in the Church, for race, or gender, or ability.

God is no respecter of persons. If the story of the Canaanite woman is an illustration of anything, it is of this fundamental truth. But apparently God’s church is a respecter of persons. The story of the Canaanite woman is also an illustration of that reality.

Even Christ himself seemed somewhat bound or limited by that reality. The gospels' and the Book of Mormon's witness of Christ almost always shows Christ standing with the disadvantaged. It shows us that when society and/or the Church marginalize people, God stands with the marginalized. That is the normal ethic that God demands of us. But if we believe — and I believe it — that Christ was God incarnate, then the incarnate aspect of his being placed him in a temporal, worldly context and in the framework of all the limitations that came with that context. He could transcend it at times, but he couldn’t just dispense with it. And if Christ could not, then I’m not sure how I would expect his apostles to, especially when the scriptures are replete with examples of Christ’s apostles’ limitations. It doesn’t make the Gospel or even the Church less true.

We can theorize or speculate about why the limitations exist. Perhaps it is God accommodating human weakness. Perhaps when human beings learn to stop putting artificial limitations on someone because of their race or their gender or their sexuality or their gender identity or their ability, then God eagerly takes us to the next step of evolution as a human family. There is a fundamental Gospel principle that we are able to see God only to the extent that we become like him. The becoming like him part is a real challenge.

Perhaps God has some master scheme in mind that requires steps. Perhaps God could, for instance, only have overcome the innate human tendency toward idolatry by creating a “chosen people,” a necessarily limiting or discriminatory act. There’s scriptural support for the notion thatGod used the Law to discipline his chosen peoples because of our innate tendency toward selfishness and egotism, though the arc of the history of God’s engagement with humanity shows him weaning us toward a higher law of selflessness and compassion, free of the legalism and the harsh discipline of the past.

Nothing about the existence of these limitations or of the trauma they create for so many convinces me that God is absent or nonexistent. Amidst the pain, God is at work. I have had too many experiences that are unexplainable to me in any other way than that his hand has been in my life and that the restored priesthood is real, to not believe that God lives and that he is guiding the Church.

I am also convinced that God takes the principle of agency very seriously. It is the foundational principle of creation, and equal parts of human misery and transcendent joy in this life are the product of it.

All that having been said, whatever the reasons for legalism and discrimination in our institutional religious framework, it doesn’t change the fact that to be gay, lesbian, bi or transgender in this world today demands an extraordinary kind of faith. And that is why I want to directly and personally address the last half of my remarks to my fellow lesbian, gay, bi and transgender siblings here in the audience today.

There is a significant difference between us and the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15. The Canaanite woman had her daughter, and her daughter had her. They had the love of family; that is what drove this woman to demand a blessing from Jesus in spite of the rejection: her family. And many of us have lost our families. LGBT people are sometimes blessed to have our families come on this journey with us, but we’ve never been able to take it for granted. And in my time as a leader in Affirmation I have seen the absolute devastation and trauma of this total rejection so many of us experience from our families and from our church.

But here’s what I can say about the rejection we’ve experienced. Every significant thing I was told in the Church about what it would mean to be gay has turned out to be completely false.

I was told that gay people were incapable of real love, that we were incapable of forming lasting commitments. This year my husband and I are celebrating our 25th anniversary, and one thing I can say about the love between us is that it has never been deeper, or stronger, or more nourishing than it is now. That love has steadily grown, day by day, month by month, year by year, through trials and challenges and heartache and through mistakes and failings and forgiveness and through the raising and care of foster children. And if our love is not real, then I can’t imagine what real love is, because what we have surpasses my ability to express, in its power to heal and teach and inspire, and in its infinite potential.

I was told that if I entered into a same-sex relationship of any sort, that I would lose the Spirit of God. But I have the Spirit in my life, and so does my husband. How do you know when the Spirit is in someone’s life? When you see the fruit of the Spirit: love, hope, patience, faith, kindness, forgiveness, perseverance… Do I know gay people in same-sex relationships who manifest the fruit of the Spirit and who have gifts of the Spirit? I do in abundance. No matter our sexual orientation or gender identity, no matter our status in the Church or our life circumstances, if we seek God in patience and humility, he pours his Spirit out on us.

I have one thing to say about the Church’s current policy relating to gay people. If these things that I had been told were true — if real commitment and love were impossible in a same-sex relationship, and if a same-sex relationship denied us the possibility of having the Spirit in our lives or a relationship with God — then the policy would be wise and kind, evidently designed to prevent us from harming ourselves, to protect us from falling into lonely lives devoid of spirituality or meaning. I think our leaders believe they are protecting us.

I am the president of Affirmation, so I feel like I would be remiss in my duty tonight if I did not leave you with some affirmations.

First: We are greater than the rejection.

When people are unkind to us, when they reject us, there is a fundamental spiritual principle that we all need to be aware of. What you do to others, you only do to yourself. We are all interconnected. And we are all connected to God. That is why Christ said, “If you do it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25: 40)

When people reject us, we might think it is some kind of reflection on our worth. But it is not. A person who rejects you may be revealing something unfortunate and unpleasant about themselves, but in their rejection there is not the least of an iota of reflection on who you are or what you are worth.

We are greater than the rejection.

Second: God does not reject us.

Read the founding scripture of Mormonism: “If ANY of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to ALL LIBERALLY and UPBRAIDETH NOT.” (James 1:5) It says “if ANY of you lack wisdom.” That means the only prerequisite is that we lack wisdom, which most all of us do. Or I can speak for myself and say I do. It says, God “giveth to ALL.” There are no disclaimers here, no exceptions, no requirement that you be straight or righteous or anything at all. It says ALL. It says “and UPBRAIDETH NOT,” which means that God does not scold us or punish us for asking him the “wrong” question. That’s not how God operates. He doesn’t care what question you have to ask. He doesn’t “upbraid” you for that. He cares only that you ask him, that you turn to him. And it says “LIBERALLY,” which means, when we ask God for something good, he is not stingy. God does not hold back. He pours out blessings on us.

How do I know this scripture is true? Because I have tested it, and I have found it truer than I ever had been able to imagine.

God does not reject us.

Third: LGBT people are in a better position to understand the Gospel than many of our straight brothers and sisters.

Why? Because we have to work and struggle and fight for every ounce of understanding about ourselves. Because we are not permitted to take anything for granted. Because we have to build a relationship with God that is refined through trial and error. Because we learn the heart of the Gospel by forgiving. And right now we have plenty of opportunities to forgive.

Forgiving does not diminish us. Forgiveness is one of the greatest, most humanizing gifts of the Atonement. It is the most powerful way we can realize for ourselves that first affirmation I shared with you, that we are greater than the rejection. It enables us to access the forgiveness we need for our mistakes and shortcomings. It unlocks the power of love and redemption.

The gospel applies to us every bit as much as it applies to every other child of God on the planet. But when we are marginal, when we have experienced rejection and loneliness, when we have had to sit in the dark without human friends or guides, then we are in a position to acquire deep understanding.

We LGBT Mormons are in a better position to understand the Gospel in all its depth and power than we think.

We have gifts to offer the Church, without which the Church cannot prosper.

I have a vision of Mount Zion, of the Lord’s Holy Temple, where we will all some day gather, gay, lesbian, straight, bi, transgender, non-binary, people of every race and tribe and background, women and men. I had a dream once, that we were all together in the temple, dancing, like the Saints who danced in the Nauvoo Temple before they were driven out. In this vision of Mount Zion, there will be no poor among us, no marginal people, no people on the edges. I will see you there, with my husband, and with our foster sons, with my parents and siblings and nephews and nieces, and uncles and aunts and cousins and ancestors and descendants. And the Spirit will be poured out on all of us with a richness and a power that none of us imagined possible; with a richness and power that our straight brothers and sisters had never realized was possible because until that moment, we LGBT folks had been missing from the equation.

I have a friend here in Oakland, Judy Finch. Judy has been one of the most constant supports to me through one of the most challenging times of my life. One of the things that Judy keeps reminding me is that the most important thing I can do for anybody else is to take care of myself, to do whatever I need to do to be healthy and happy and whole. I can’t help anybody else if I don’t do that.

And so in closing I want to pass Judy’s reminder on to all of you. I love you deeply. Every morning I wake up to thoughts of you. I pray and I work throughout the day, thinking what can I do that will bring hope and encouragement to my siblings who are lesbian and bi and transgender and gay. And I have seen the trauma so many of us have experienced and I have felt the pain of it and I have been amazed by your capacity to transcend it.

But I say: Take care of yourselves. Do whatever you need to do to be happy and healthy and whole. You don’t need to go anyplace where you are not affirmed in the fullness and integrity of who you are, all of you, every molecule of you.

And if you have begun to catch a vision of yourselves as whole and good and complete and as a divine child of God, if you have found that healing ground and that spiritual center, there is work for you to do. There is much healing needed in the world. And I invite you to join in that work.

In the name of Jesus Chist, our Teacher, our Savior and our Redeemer. Amen.

Truth, Lord, Yet the Dogs Eat of the Crumbs...

My initial reaction to the new LDS Church Handbook of Instructions' directives regarding the children of gay couples was something akin to horror. Excommunicating individuals in same-sex marriages was one thing, but why exclude the kids? Wasn't that directly contradictory to the Savior's own teaching regarding children, that his disciples should suffer them to come unto him?

But as I began to reflect more deeply on precisely what the Church is doing through this policy clarification, it dawned on me that this situation is far more complex than it appears either to conservatives or liberals in Mormondom. The piece of this policy which is new -- the policy excluding children of same-sex couples from membership in the Church -- is the piece that both conservatives and liberals have had the most difficulty understanding. Many conservatives have leapt to the defense of the policy by suggesting it is about protecting children from confusing contradictions, or because the children of gay couples are analogous to the children of polygamists. But as I will explain briefly in a bit, neither of those explanations really hold up to scrutiny. Liberals, on the other hand, have viewed that part of the policy as a desperate attempt on the part of Church leaders to insulate the Church from pro-gay thinking, though, as I will also explain, that also doesn't really hold up either.

There are scriptural texts that read on this policy, and they are neither Matthew 19:13-14 ("the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, suffer little children...") nor Declaration No. 1. They are Mark 7:25-30 / Matthew 15:22 -28. These are texts which I think neither conservatives nor liberals will be inclined to read on the new policy on children, even though it seems to me the text most analogous to this situation.

Matthew and Mark both offer an account of a Gentile woman who comes to Jesus seeking a blessing for her daughter, and being rebuffed and refused by Jesus, who explains to her that "it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs" (Mark 7:27). Here's the full version of the story as recounted in Matthew:

And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. (emphasis is mine)

This perplexing story doesn't fit the nice, liberal paradigm of a fuzzy, warm Jesus who blesses everybody regardless of race or sexual orientation. In fact, it's hard not to read this text without cringing at Jesus' seeming insult to the woman based on her nationality. But neither does it fit the conservative paradigm of Jesus loving everybody while drawing a hard line against sin. Here, sin has nothing to do with Jesus' act of exclusion. And Jesus, in the end blesses the child because of the woman's persistent and humble faith (though he might not have blessed, if the woman had not persevered). Liberals will fret about this text, because to them it looks like Jesus is unnecessarily toying with or testing someone rather than immediately giving her what she needs for the well-being of her child. Conservatives will reject the application of this text to the new policy on the kids of gay couples because the scope of the Church's work was eventually broadened to encompass Gentiles, something they refuse to consider as possible in relation to gays. But I say, what if what is going on here in terms of the new policy is more complex (and wonderful) than what either liberals or conservatives are willing to countenance at the moment?

Something dawned on me one morning as I reflected on the question: "But... Why the children?" The argument about protecting the children from contradictory and confusing messages makes no sense. There is not a single child in the world who is not already bombarded by a host of messages that contradict what they learn in the home. America has always been roiled in controversy about what kids are taught in schools. Kids learn stuff on the playground, on TV and on the Internet that horrify most parents, gay and straight. LDS parents, of all parents, should know that you simply can't protect kids against contradictory messages. It makes even less sense given that LDS leaders have said children of gay couples are certainly welcome to attend church; just not be members of it. How will that not send a confusing or contradictory message to these kids?

Nor does the argument about kids of gay couples being analogous to kids of polygamous couples make much sense. The reason for that earlier prohibition was rooted in the Church's complicated history with polygamy, a practice based on a doctrine which the Church has never formally disavowed. Kids of gay couples are not going to grow up and enter same-sex marriages (unless they are gay). There's no need for them to "disavow" the practice in order guarantee that they won't enter into it themselves.

Liberals have been arguing that since neither of those rationales for the policy make sense, the only reasonable remaining explanation is the LDS Church hierarchy's animus against gay people, and its desire to keep pro-gay sentiment out of the Church. Exclude the kids and you will not only drive the parents away, but also prevent members of the Church from seeing that not only are gay couples normal, but their kids are just as well adjusted and happy as everyone else's.

I do not find that liberal argument compelling first because of personal experience with the Church's hierarchy that persuades me they in fact hold no animus against gay people: quite the contrary. But also, because I know that growing numbers of Church members already view their gay family members and neighbors in very positive terms, and I do not believe that Church leaders are naive enough to think it will be possible (or even necessarily desirable) to prevent pro-gay attitudes from spreading in the Church.

Defining same-sex marriage as apostasy has also upset liberal Mormons and the LGBT community. The upset is understandable, given the extremely pejorative connotations of the word "apostate" in Mormon circles. But in the strictest sense, the term apostasy is used by the LDS Church simply to differentiate between what is doctrine and what is not. Its purpose is to uphold the teaching authority of the Church, not to classify people in negative terms. And what this policy clarification does is simply to affirm what Church leaders have repeatedly stated in every major recent pronouncement on this subject: that same-sex marriage stands outside the official doctrine of the church. No one should be surprised by this. This is not news.

But in the flurry of arguments about whether the policy relating to the children of gay couples is discriminatory or not and whether it was motivated by animus, people have failed to recognize that the new policy, by addressing the status of children, seems to be the church's first ever recognition that gay couples and their children constitute a family unit. It is albeit a family unit that stands outside the doctrine of the Church. But this recognition, to me, is the only thing that makes sense of the policy as it relates to children.

This simultaneous strengthening of the doctrinal position and the recognition of a kind of integrity of gay families is particularly poignant, given the LDS Church view of salvation as something that happens in and through families. Does this point to a gap between the doctrine as it is currently articulated, and the fullness of human experience, as manifested in gay families?

If it does, this is where Biblical texts related to the New Testament "grafting in" of the Gentiles (such as the story of the "woman of Canaan") become interesting. Mormon liberals frequently compare today's LGBT concerns to the LDS Church's problem of blacks and the priesthood. But in terms of the theological challenge, the relationship of LGBT people to the Church looks much more like the relationship between Gentiles and the Church in ancient times. Unlike the exclusion of blacks from Priesthood ordination in modern times, Gentiles were not excluded in the ancient Church on the basis of race or lineage. Gentiles could join the Church, but in order to do so, they had to submit to the Mosaic law and be circumcised, among other things. What was momentous about the revelation Peter received in Acts 10, and the subsequent baptism of the Gentile Cornelius and his entire household (everyone who claimed his home as their primary residence?), was that it set aside the law that the Church abided at that time. (The Lord to Peter: "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.") The subsequent confusion caused by Peter's precipitous baptism of Cornelius was later clarified at the Council of Jerusalem (described in Acts 15). It was no longer necessary for Gentiles (or anyone) to submit to the Mosaic law in order to be a member of the Church.

Like pre-Jerusalem-Council Gentiles, modern gays can be members of the Church, but in order to do so they must submit to ecclesiastical law that forbids them from having intimate relationships or legal same-sex marriage. The only scriptural law currently prohibiting homosexual behavior is found in the Book of Leviticus, part of the very law that the Council of Jerusalem set aside.

I don't think Christ in the Mark 7 / Matthew 15 texts was merely testing the faith of the woman of Canaan. He was making a clear cut statement about the scope of his ministry, in much the same way, I think, that the LDS Church's current handbook policy regarding gay families does. The exchange between Jesus and the woman about bread, children, crumbs and dogs revealed that saving faith was not confined to the children of Israel; and it was at the point where the nature of this particular woman's faith revealed itself that Christ literally could no longer withhold the blessing from her. "Her daughter was made whole from that very hour."

Another core principle of the Gospel that applies in this situation has to do with the Lord's declaration that he is "no respecter of persons." Regardless of our status in or out of the Church, we are all equal in the sight of God. The happenstances of race or lineage or economic station or gender or sexual orientation or whatever other incidentals that make differences between us in this world are all part of the "person," the outward aspect, that God does not look upon. "For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). In D&C section 1, the Lord says "I am no respecter of persons," but he contrasts that declaration with a world order in which "the devil shall have power over his own dominion," before the Lord "shall reign [in the midst of the Saints], and shall come down in judgment upon Idumea, or the world" (vs. 35-36). Does the Lord remind us that he is no respecter of persons here to emphasize that one of the primary sins of the world upon which he shall come down in judgment is its elevation of the outward over the inward, of the superficial over the substantial, of the "person" over the eternal? Perhaps a necessary precursor to the Lord's coming down will be to eliminate those worldly distinctions from our midst, a work still in progress.

The LDS Church hierarchy has named members of the LGBT community "apostates," something on a par with Jesus referring to Gentiles as "dogs." There may still be, even in the wake of this policy clarification which has cut so many so deeply, LGBT Mormons in same-sex relationships who are willing to persevere in faith within the LDS community. My sense is that if we do, there will be blessings Christ cannot possibly withhold from us or, for that matter, our children.

Hobbit Love

One of Göran's and my more memorable activities was reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings together, from cover to cover. The reading was usually before bed time. I would read dramatically out loud, while Göran would snuggle up against me or rest his head on my shoulder or chest. He loved my impression of the ent Treebeard. (Ents were a magical race of giant tree-like beings that cared for the forests, and that spoke very slowly. Göran thought my version of Treebeard was better than the movies). He was also impressed by my fluent reading of Elvish text, which he attributed to the fact that I grew up speaking Finnish, the idiom that provided the template for the imaginary language that Tolkien created for his books. But what delighted us most was the hobbits.

For us there was never any question that the relationship at the center of the epic -- the relationship between Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee -- was really a gay relationship. The mutual devotion and sacrificial love of Frodo and Sam became a role model for us, an example of the kind of love we felt for each other. We knew that if one of us were ever called to go to the ends of the earth on some great adventure, it would not be possible without the other by our side, and that neither of us would hesitate to give our life for the other.

One of the really emotional moments in Peter Jackson's film adaptation of the epic for me was the scene where Frodo, wanting to spare Sam the danger of the journey into Mordor, attempts to strike out on his own by stealing a boat and paddling out across the great Anduin River. Sam finds Frodo and heads out to catch up with him, but can't swim. As it seems Sam is about to drown, Frodo reaches down and heaves Sam up into the boat where they collapse into a tearful, loving embrace, while Sam swears undying devotion to Frodo. Where you go, I will go, Sam says. From the moment I first saw that scene, it electrified me. It reduces me to a lake of tears every time I see it. That is what our love is like, I thought. Frodo and Sam was Göran and I.

I remember subsequently having a friendly argument with Sam Welter, a close friend of the family, specifically about that scene, and about hobbit love in general. Sam didn't think there was a gay subtext in Lord of the Rings. He insisted I was reading too much into Tolkien's story. (Tolkien was, after all, a devout Catholic, and married with children!) We ended by agreeing to disagree, though Sam acknowledged that he could see how gay men might read those themes into the story.

But now, a recent review by English Literature Professor David LaFontaine in The Gay and Lesbian Review, makes the case in very persuasive terms that, not only was there a gay subtext in the Lord of the rings, but that J.R.R. Tolkien himself may have experienced same sex attraction and likely felt a bond with his friend C.S. Lewis that had homoerotic elements. Those of you who are interested in reading the details of his argument should buy the November – December 2015 issue of The Gay and Lesbian Review. I'm happy to lend my copy to anyone who's interested in reading it! I won't recapitulate the specifics of his arguments here, but he points out that not only does the text have clear homoerotic themes, critics of the day ridiculed Tolkien's work precisely because of this, and Peter Jackson's film adaptation deliberately muted these elements in the text.

I remember watching the film The Fellowship of the Ring with Göran and being disappointed (though not surprised) that Jackson elided the hobbit bathing scene (which was a part of the book Göran and I very much enjoyed). But, in The Return of the King, when Sam finds Frodo with pants on in Cirith Ungol, instead of completely naked as he was in the book, Göran and I were taken aback. Why did Jackson make that directorial decision, when he could easily have found a tasteful way to portray the story as it was written? The film version makes us forget that in the book before Sam does anything else, he lovingly cradles his naked Frodo in his arms.

But what really takes the cake is the scene outside of Mount Doom, famous among gay fans of Tolkien as a portrayal of same-sex love and devotion. Again, Frodo is being tenderly cradled in the arms of Sam, as they prepare to die, and all of a sudden, Sam is going on about "Rosie Cotton dancing." What the heck....???  There's no Rosie Cotton dialog in the book. Jackson almost certainly added it to disperse the undeniable homoerotic element in the pinnacle expression of same-sex love in the three films. (Well, that and Boromir's death scene.)

If the movie, in other words, had portrayed in a more straightforward manner what was told in the books, the film almost certainly would have aroused the same homophobic wrath that Tolkien's books apparently unleashed when they first came out in the 1950s. Jackson, wanting to avoid that, tweaked the film version enough to allow plausible deniability of homo love in the films, while leaving enough in to keep gay fans of the film (like me and Göran) coming back again and again.

Last June, when Göran and I were in Oxford, England, we made a point of visiting the Eagle and Child pub, where Tolkien and Lewis met to discuss their writing projects. Little did I know that we were visiting a place that maybe ought to be listed in the gay tour books!

Darkness and Light

The first half of 3 Nephi begins to address some disquieting/depressing themes. Just a few thoughts/observations.

Miracles don't convert us. They might impress us in the short term. But in the long term we can always find ways to explain them away or ignore them if we wish. Conversion is ultimately a product of an inner yearning to reach out toward and be touched by God.

At the recent Affirmation Conference in Mexico City, a number of us witnessed protests in the wake of the brutal murders and burning of 43 student protesters, a tragedy that brought to the fore the pervasive, endemic problem of government corruption by powerful drug cartels. It was heart-breaking to hear our Mexican Affirmation members express despair about whether there is any hope for change, whether this terrible corruption can ever be rooted out and power returned to the people. Since then, I have been reading and watching documentaries about the drug cartels (fed by U.S. drug trade) to try to understand this whole thing better. The more I learn, the more heartbroken I feel. This is not just a central American problem... It's a U.S. problem. The cartels get their power from the gangs, and the gangs started here in the U.S., to feed the hunger for drugs. And the gangs have appeal because of the terrible, grinding poverty that the U.S. has allowed to fester within and beyond its borders.

At the same time, I have been reading in the Book of Mormon about "secret societies" set up by nefarious individuals for the purpose of accumulating personal gain and power; how they used terrible oaths of allegiance to blind and enslave people; and how they used fear and intimidation to undermine democracy. In one of the documentaries I watched (produced by National Geographic), a young man who had gotten involved in one of the most powerful narco gangs in the U.S. talked about how once he got involved in the gang, it was like some kind of darkness had descended over him (he used the image of his eyes being covered or blinded), how he could no longer see or act beyond what gang leaders told him to do. Gang members spoke of having lost count of how many people they had killed, including people they had considered their closest friends.

There is a real and terrible darkness in the world. 3 Nephi 8:20-23 describes a literal darkness that descended in the wake of the crucifixion, but there is a metaphorical darkness that is every bit as real in the world today, and that inspires the same kind of despair that 3 Nephi describes. We don't have to look too far to see the evidence of it. And if we don't believe in a light greater than the darkness, a light that can inspire us to stand up to the darkness, and if we don't believe in a life that transcends this mortal coil, a life that gives our deaths meaning, and that would permit us to defy the kind of death that the powers of darkness use to try to manipulate us, there is no hope.

The message of these chapters in the Book of Mormon is that there is light and life and hope. But it demands of us patience and humility; it demands of us a commitment to one another, to care for one another. At times, it can also demand a kind of courage or heroism that seems impossible. But I have a testimony of how God can strengthen us beyond what we thought possible when the situations we face demand it.

By Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage, Is the U.S. "Choosing Iniquity"?

My scripture study today was Mosiah 29 (in the Book of Mormon).I can't resist commenting on verse 27 of this chapter, because of the frequency with which it is quoted (in conservative Mormon circles) against the legalization of same-sex marriage.

First of all, I believe this verse is true, and the entire chapter, actually, is a very interesting (and in some ways challenging and surprising) piece of political philosophy. (Political theology?) One of the most interesting concepts in this chapter, IMHO, is the idea that democracy encourages each individual to take responsibility for his or her own actions in a way that other forms of government can't.

The history of Nazi Germany is one demonstration of the "great destruction" wrought when "the voice of the people doth choose iniquity." (Though of course, Hitler came to power in a parliamentary system with only 33% of the vote.) It's also a classic demonstration of the notion in verse 21 that "ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous king save it be through much contention, and the shedding of much blood." There are plenty of other examples, but that one springs readily to mind.

If verse 27 is true, and if majority support for legal same-sex marriage constitutes "the voice of the people [choosing] iniquity" we should see "great destruction" falling on Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, France, the Low Countries, the U.K., Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, and of course the states in the U.S. and Mexico where it has been legalized. These are all democratic nations where same-sex marriage has been legally recognized through democratic and constitutional means.

Is it possible that the legalization of same-sex marriage in these democratic nations is a demonstration of the truth of Mosiah 29:26, that "it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right"?

You could argue that same-sex marriage has not been legal long enough to bring these countries under the judgments of God... But we can already see the fruit of legal same-sex marriage in the lives of gay couples, their families, their neighborhoods and communities, and it is good. We're seeing more stability, more commitment, more security both for adults and children. We are able to work at our jobs and receive the same benefits and protections for our families as other (heterosexual) workers. We're seeing the social safety net helping to protect many vulnerable who previously were not protected. We're seeing individuals who were once pariahs and outcasts integrated into their families and communities. These all seem like blessings of God being poured out in consequence of righteous choices rather than "great destruction" being visited in consequence of iniquity.

Let's also acknowledge that the predicted "destruction" of the family simply isn't happening. Gay individuals and gay families are being protected under the law -- not at the expense of but alongside heterosexual individuals and families. Heterosexuals are still getting married and having kids, as they have from time immemorial and as they will continue to do. Gay people will continue to be born into many of these families. But gay couples will now be able to get married, strengthen and support one another, support their parents, and adopt and care for kids whose heterosexual parents are not able to do so -- strengthening the social safety net for everybody.

And we will all be blessed, unless we -- like the voters of the Weimar Republic in the 1930s -- choose some genuine form of iniquity (like genocidal hatred of Jews) and bring destruction on ourselves.

Ye Have Sinned a Great Sin

Exodus chapter 32 represents a key moment in the history of God's dealings with Israel. It is the moment where the children of Israel first face God's wrath. In preceding chapters of Exodus, it was the Egyptians who had plagues poured out on them because of Pharaoh's intransigence. But these plagues appear merciful in comparison with the utter destruction God threatens against the people of Israel in this chapter.

First, it's worth examining a few turns of phrase in the King James text that have dramatically colored the way in which this text has been read in American culture. In verse 6, the KJV reads, "and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play." Later, in verse 25, the KJV reads, "and when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies)." If you've ever seen The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston, the portrayal of the events of this chapter as a kind of Bacchanalian sex orgy is pretty unforgettable. It gives the impression that when "the sons of Levi" rallied to Moses' call and slew "three thousand men," that they were being slain as much for their sexual licentiousness as for anything else. This translation/reading of the text has certainly cemented in the American religious imagination a connection between idolatry and sexuality. Better translations and a more careful reading of the text present a much different and, in my opinion, far more sobering picture of the relationship between God and his people.

The Jewish Publication Society translation of these texts (which is supported in the footnotes of the LDS edition) first of all reads away from the image of a sex orgy, and toward the establishment of a new (idolatrous) religion. In verse 6, JPS reads, "they sat down to eat and drink, and then rose to dance." The contrast between the KJV and JPS translations of verse 25 are even more striking. JPS reads, "Moses saw that the people were out of control -- since Aaron had let them get out of control -- so that they were a menace to any who might oppose them." In other words, Moses finds in progress not a sex orgy, but an armed rebellion. And in that light, what is portrayed to ensue -- the quelling of the rebellion with armed force, resulting in the deaths of three thousand -- makes much more sense.

Read in context, we see that what is happening in this chapter is the establishment of a new religion without divine authorization. Moses, accompanied by Joshua, goes up into Mount Sinai to receive God's commandments. The people are distressed by his absence, which they feel has been long enough that they no longer know what's happened to him. At their urging, Aaron gathers gold from the people and fashions an idol. And here's where it gets interesting.

"This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt," he proclaims. He builds an altar for sacrifice, and then proclaims, "Tomorrow shall be a festival of the Lord!" Exodus 32 proceeds to describe a standard religious festival, complete with sacrifices, sacraments (eating and drinking), hymns and liturgical dance. Not an orgy, but worship.

This is fascinating to me, because I had often read this text as a violation of the first commandment ("Thou shalt have no other gods before me" -- Exodus 20:3). In fact, it is a violation of the second commandment, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image."

The difference to me between these two commandments has always been kind of fuzzy, especially given the Christian culture I am accustomed to where portraits of God are common -- in stained glass windows or on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Mormons don't think twice about fashioning images of God when portraying Joseph Smith's theophany in the Sacred Grove.  Such portraits in Sunday School manuals or films or in missionary flip charts is commonplace. To us that is not idolatry, that's missionary work. (Even though some of us have learned to squirm a bit about portrayals of God as a white guy with a beard.)

But the distinction between the first and second commandments is less fuzzy in the context of Jewish history and culture, where any visual portrayal of God is taboo, where even the writing or the careless speaking of God's name is considered off limits. I guess the Jews have stayed closer to the lessons of Exodus 32 (and Exodus 20:4-6) than Christians. Jews understand, as this text should make clear to any people who cherish the Bible, that false images of the one true God are just as dangerous as false gods. You don't have to worship Asherah or Beelzebul to have gone astray. You can worship something you have persuaded yourself to be the one true God but is actually a mere false image.

When Aaron stood before the golden calf and proclaimed, "This is your God... who brought you out of the land of Egypt," he intended to point toward the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Perhaps he hoped that this form of devotion was better than the lawlessness the people seemed to be careening toward in Moses' absence. Perhaps he reasoned, it is easier for people to stay focused if they have something concrete to worship.

The problem, of course, was once they had latched onto their own image -- their own idol -- of God, they became fixed upon it to the exclusion of any true revelation from God. When Moses reappeared in the camp with a bonafide revelation, they rejected it in favor of the one they had fashioned for themselves, and the result was violent rebellion, "a menace to any who might oppose them."

This is far more disquieting in my mind, than the image of the children of Israel engaging in orgiastic revelry so often presented to us from this chapter. A more accurate reading of this text reveals the children of Israel actually engaging in orderly worship, in devotion that looks not too different from the devotion demanded by the One True God. In the chapters just preceding Exodus 32, we have revelations in which the Lord spells out what kind of altar to build for the purpose of the sacrifices he requires (see particularly Exodus 30), and in Exodus 32 we see Aaron building an altar for sacrifice to "the Lord."
Idolatry, it seems, is a far graver sin than revelry; and it seems a much easier sin to mistake for the kind of worship God demands of us.

*****

For what it's worth, what ensues in the story is revealing about the fundamental nature of idolatry versus true worship.

An idol is problematic because it is "graven," it is fixed. And so it seems all the more significant that the description of God presented in this text is of a being who is not fixed.

In verses 9-14 of the same chapter, the Lord clearly states his intention to utterly annihilate the children of Israel, to wipe the slate clean and start over with Moses. And Moses enters into a kind of pleading or bargaining with the Lord that is reminiscent of the bargaining that Abraham engages in on behalf of the city of Sodom (Genesis 18: 23-35). Moses actually, remarkably, puts himself on the line for the children of Israel. Moses pleads with the Lord, in verse 32, "Now, if You will forgive their sin well and good; but if not, erase me from the record which you have written." Moses was willing to go down with the sinking ship if necessary; and greater love hath no man. God accepted Moses' pleading, Moses' sacrifice of love, and made a different, more merciful, arrangement.

Idols can't do that. An idol is fixed. And a fixed idol can be an idea as much as a statue or a picture.

God preserve us from that.

Pharaoh's Heart

Everybody gets things, everybody sees the light and understands things, at differential rates.

And sometimes the Lord works in such a way that he won't move things forward until everybody gets it.

There is a moment in the Exodus account of God's delivery of the children of Israel from slavery when all of Pharaoh's servants beg him: "Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God: knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?" (Exodus 10:7). They've seen that the fight is over, and they've lost, and they plead with their leader to relent.

Pharaoh himself, of course, wavers throughout the account. At times, he seems ready to let the children of Israel go, but then his heart is hardened. The Joseph Smith translation asserts that it is Pharaoh who hardens his own heart. The original Hebrew text is fairly clear that it is God who hardens Pharaoh's heart, "that I might shew these my signs before him, and that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am the Lord" (Exodus 10:1-2).

Without wading into the thorny debates over predestination and free will that have historically been provoked by these Old Testament texts about God hardening Pharaoh's heart, it is worth noting that Pharaoh's refusal to let the children of Israel go does in fact seem to serve a didactic purpose. It gives God an opportunity to demonstrate his power in a way that ultimately everybody -- Israelite and Egyptian -- confesses that it is God who has freed the Israelites from slavery and nobody else.

God wanted everybody, Israelite and Egyptian alike, to know who he was and what he stood for, before he delivered the children of Israel from their plight.

That's why it's interesting to me that the Exodus account takes note of what ordinary Egyptians think about the plight of the Israelites. God is as interested in reaching them, as he is in reaching Pharaoh. More importantly, he's reaching the Israelites themselves. He's as concerned about what Moses will tell his children, and what Moses' children will tell their children about what God has done for them.

This gave me insight into any process of social change -- whether we're talking about racial justice, or women's equality, or the treatment and status of gay and lesbian people or transgender people. The process of "getting it" is long and painful, especially when the end goal of the process is for everyone get it.

The United States is not a dictatorship. It has always appealed to "the people" as the ultimate authority. So even more than in Egypt, in America "the people" need to "get it" if anything of lasting social value is to be achieved. If it was important to God that ordinary Egyptians, that ordinary Israelites get it, that they understand that all people deserve to be free, and that they understand that all true freedom originates in our status as children of God, how much more important for ordinary Americans to "get it"?

This isn't supposed to be easy, folks.  If it were easy, we wouldn't need this: this earthly, embodied experience of life and mortality.

These kinds of lessons, painful, life and death lessons, are what God put us on this planet to learn.

"For Thy Pleasure They Were and Are Created"

There's a scene in the Book of Revelation, in chapter 4, where 24 elders sit on 24 thrones gathered around the throne of God, a throne surrounded by a rainbow, "in sight like unto an emerald."  Emerald is green, the color of life.  I wondered why 24 elders rather than 12, the usual sacred number that designates the gathering of the Saints.  Perhaps 12 male and 12 female.  There are also 4 "beasts" around the throne, the first "like a lion," the second "like a calf," the third having a face "as a man," and the fourth "like a flying eagle," each having "six wings" (total freedom of movement?) and "full of eyes within" (seeing everything?).

The beasts "give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever," but the elders "fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created" (vs. 10-11).

I immediately thought of a couple of verses that Mormons like to cite in relation to the purpose of creation:

For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. (Moses 1:39)

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. (2 Nephi 2:25)

A very pleasant image sprung to mind of God lovingly telling us his children it is for our pleasure we were and are created, and us echoing back, It is for thy pleasure we were and are created!

This is righteousness in creation: doing what we do first for the glory and joy of others.

Christ, of whom Paul said "to whom be glory forever and ever" (Hebrews 13:21), set that pattern in heaven, when he said in response to the call before the creation of the world, "Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever" (Moses 4:2).  He set that heavenly pattern in his ministry on earth when he taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done, in earth as it is in Heaven.... Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever" (Matthew 6: 10, 13).  It is the prayer with which he completed his ministry on Calvary: "O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done" (Matthew 26:42).

Divinity is giving glory and joy to others, for ever and ever.

On the Law's Side or on God's Side?

In the first chapter of Paul's epistle to Titus, Paul deals with a problem that was perennial throughout his ministry: people speaking vociferously in support of the Law, insisting they were on God's side, when in fact they were not. Legal-ness is not next to godliness.

Legalism is a particularly popular and dangerous form of godlessness.  Its power is the appeals it makes to previous commandments or ordinances. Like the ancient Hebrews who had taken to worshipping as an idol the brazen serpent that God once commanded Moses to forge (2 Kings 18:4), legalists make idols of past or particular commandments that they latch onto for their own (usually ego-driven) reasons. Because their concern is about commandments, they like to see themselves as more obedient than everyone else.

Titus chapter 1 begins with an interesting frame for his later discussion of law. He writes of eternal life "promised before the world began," "but... in due times manifested" (vs. 2-3). This is about as concise a statement as you can find anywhere in scripture about progressive revelation of eternal principles. None of us, in other words, yet know the full mind of God, which has existed since before time in relation to our understanding. What understanding we do get is "manifested" in "due times," progressively.  This is why Mormons insist that faithfulness comprises obedience to modern day revelation.  What is most important is, What does God have to tell us now?  Knowing this requires a current, living relationship with a living God.

It is that failure to be attentive to what God is telling us now that constitutes damning disobedience (damning in the classical Mormon sense of being stymied in one's progress).  This is why, when Paul speaks later in the chapter of the "unruly, vain talkers and deceivers," he means "specifically, they of the circumcision" (v. 10).  This is an interesting conjunction of descriptors, since, in the cultural context of his time, "they of the circumcision" would widely have been understood as synonymous with "those most obedient to the law of God."  "They profess that they know God," said Paul (v. 16).  It was this "obedient" class that Jesus clashed with time after time during his own ministry; and the "obedient" class that made it their mission to silence Paul.  Paul, for his part, insisted it was they "whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not" (v. 11), condemning the obedience they were preaching as "fables" and "commandments of men" (v. 14).

It is significant that Paul then addresses the issue of "purity," a typical preeminent concern of those who idolize obedience.  True purity, for Paul, was a product not of zealous obedience to outward ordinances, but of adherence to God's higher law of love.  "Unto the pure all things are pure," says Paul, "But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled" (v. 15).  Compare, for example, with 1 Corinthians 10:23, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient."  (This was an awareness that Martin Luther capitalized on in the Reformation and that provoked accusations of antinomianism by his opponents.  It would be truly antinomian, of course, only if one denied the discipline love demands of us.)  Obsession with pure obedience, ironically, defiles us; while ability to forgive opens the gates of forgiveness (and purity).

"Unbelieving," here, would be inability to trust in the love of God, as communicated through the Atonement. Paul described them as "defiled," I think, because of their inability to see purity in themselves, or to see or appreciate it in others, thriving instead on condemnation.

Paul wasn't exaggerating here when he speaks of "whole houses subverted" by legalism. "Houses" stands here nicely for any kind of polity. Legalism poisons all our relationships with authority -- whether it is household authority, ecclesiastical authority, or political authority. Once the idolatrous demon behind the mask of "perfect obedience" is exposed, trust is often irreparably destroyed. Legalism presents us an idolatrous image of God as tyrant, so one of the first things to go once we recognize the deception is our faith in God. Until, and unless, that is, we are able -- by the grace of God -- to recover some meaningful sense of God as Love.

If He Strive Not Lawfully

The temptation for me as a gay man has always been to take some kind of short cut in my spiritual path.  To find some "easy" resolution to the challenges I face that does not take into account the fullness of who I am as an embodied, gay child of God.

Some people tell me: "The Church rejects you, so just reject the Church."  It sounds simple enough.  There are lots of ways to make that right in my head (I've tried them all on).  The Church should be universal, it should include all people regardless of sexual orientation.  So if it doesn't, it can't possibly be true.  And yet, in order to do that, in order to turn my back on the Church I'd have to ignore everything in me that insists: It is true.  Or, perhaps, more generically, I would have to turn my back on the truth I find within the Church.  I tried that for a while, but ultimately I realized there were pieces missing in my life.

Others would tell me: "You CAN be a full member in good standing of the Church, enjoy the blessings of the temple, hold the priesthood, partake of the sacrament.  Just leave your husband."  Most Mormons are not so heartless as to insist that that course of action would be "simple enough."  Most are at least decent enough to acknowledge that if someone told them the price of Church membership was to abandon their families and spend the rest of their lives alone in the most meaningful earthly sense, they would not likely be willing to pay such a price.  I've wrestled with this long and earnestly enough to hope that if I believed God were asking this of me, I would find a way to do it.  But God has clearly said to me: Thou shalt not do this.  And it's not because I'm paying some kind of price for past sins.  It's because this is where my "fullness of joy" (D&C 93:33) lies.

This is the significance, to me, of Paul's admonition to Timothy: "Yet is he not crowned if he strive not lawfully" (2 Timothy 2:5).  There are no shortcuts.  I can't achieve exaltation ("the crown") by cutting myself off from either aspect of my eternal soul ("spirit" or "element") through which "fullness of joy" is achieved.  This means I must do the hard work of integrating.  I need to stay in the battle, and resist the temptation to take an alluring shortcut that promises to quickly and easily resolve the tensions between those two aspects of my soul that need to be integrated, by eliminating one pole in the tension.

For me, in the specificity of my life, that means being true both to the love I share with my husband and the family we are building, and being true to my faith, my testimony and the Church.

Paul continues, "The husbandman that labors must be first partaker of the fruits" (v. 6).  On its face, Paul is saying here, we can't be missionaries if we aren't living the Gospel.  As an example of what this means in practice, Paul mentions his imprisonment.  Paul could easily have avoided imprisonment by making some strategic denials (along the lines of the denials Peter made three times before the crowing of the cock).  But we lose our salvation when we deny what we know.  We need to be faithful to every aspect of ourselves, even when it entails inconveniences such as prison or excommunication.

It is worth parenthetically noting how Paul acknowledges that "if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself" (v. 13).  Christ is the rock on which all our faithfulness (for we have all fallen short!) abides.  If we have a foundation of faithfulness to return to after erring, it is on Christ's faithfulness and abiding love toward us, because "he cannot deny himself."  Beautiful text!

Paul's advice toward the end of the chapter feels strangely relevant to me as well.  He counsels (v. 16) against "vain and profane babblings" and (v. 23) against "foolish and unlearned questions... knowing they do gender strifes."

Another, very subtle temptation to someone in my situation is to speculate on how or why the Church needs to change, or what kind of doctrine the Lord can reveal to the Church at some future time.  Since I don't know the mind or the timetable of the Lord, that can be nothing but speculation on my part.  And speculation always leads to contention.  So being "crowned lawfully" also includes accepting that my testimony of the Church involves, to some extent, accepting the Church as it is, despite its limitations or the inconvenience or the limitations this places on me.  It requires of me much patience and hope.  And humility: I don't solve any problems by insisting that I somehow know the answers to these problems better than other Church members or Church leaders.

"The servant of the Lord," says Paul (v. 24), "must not strive; but be gentle unto all men."

Amen.

Sin, Hope and Redemption in the Story Arc of Jean Valjean

Spoiler alert! If you want to enjoy the movie Les Misérables without hearing extended discussions of it before hand, don't read this post if you haven't seen the movie yet!

Viewed from the perspective of Inspector Javert, the central concern of the story in Les Misérables is redemption from sin. Jean Valjean has broken the law, and he must pay. Once he has paid his debt to society, he is free. This is on the face of it a very reasonable perspective. Arguably, no lawful society can exist without adherence to this principle.

Of course Victor Hugo's entire point in writing the novel was to show how very problematic this is in the kind of world we live in. In a world where injustice reigns, slavish adherence to the law is the sin. From the perspective of Jean Valjean, "Against love there can be no law."

From the perspective of the law, Valjean is a repeat sinner. He steals, twice; attempts to escape from prison; violates parole; and joins in an unlawful uprising.

But Valjean stole bread in order to feed a starving child. He attempted to escape prison because feeding a starving child cannot be a crime. He violated parole because society was forcing him to continue to pay even though he had completed his sentence. He joined in a revolution that sought to alleviate the conditions of injustice that produced tragedies like his and so many others'.

Jean Valjean is from the beginning to the end of this story a person fundamentally driven by compassion. This does not change. It is not a variable within his story arc. From the point of view of the story's author, Victor Hugo, Jean Valjean is not a sinner (at least not in any conventional sense). Inspector Javert, though on the side of the law, is a sinner: utterly lacking in compassion, which is the Higher Law.

Javert Is never redeemed from his sin. Though offered numerous opportunities to tender mercy, he refuses every time. In the end, he succumbs to suicide (despair) at the moment when he simultaneously recognizes that compassion is the higher law, and that he is incapable of submitting to it.

Yet, Jean Valjean sees himself as a redeemed sinner. If he is a consistently compassionate person, what sin can he possibly be redeemed from? Valjean is redeemed in a very real sense, but not from lack of compassion as Inspector Javert should have been. The sin from which Valjean is redeemed is his lack of hope. He gives up on the world and on himself, not because he lacks compassion, but because he lacks hope that compassion has any place in such a world as this.

This is why Bishop Myriel's act of mercy is so significant to him. Valjean recognizes through this act that compassion in the world is possible, and it does make a difference. This act of mercy gives him the gift of hope. And from that moment on he commits his life to making a difference. Valjean's story arc is about redeeming himself from cynicism, not mercilessness. He evaluates every decision in his life based on whether it will provide concrete comfort and relief in this world.

Valjean must, by the way, believe in God in order to find hope. Only faith in God, who was manifested through the incomprehensible charitable act of Bishop Myriel, could offer him hope that his actions would ultimately make a difference in a world plunged in mercilessness and cruelty. Bishop Myriel made God real to Jean Valjean. And Valjean in turn made God real to others through a lifetime of consistent, sacrificial compassion.

*****

This is why the story of Les Misérables resonates so deeply with me. As a young Mormon missionary in France, the central lesson I learned was the importance of love over the law. As a missionary I was subject to very exacting rules. I learned that frequently in order to respond compassionately to particular situations I needed to be willing to bend or break rules. I also needed to be able to forgive myself and others for perceived transgressions.

This lesson was extended over the years following my mission, as I came to terms with being gay. I learned much about the cruelty of the law, or at the very least, the cruelty of certain legalistic interpretations of the law. My coming-out process was a process of learning compassion toward myself and toward others.

What was much harder for me to learn, was the lesson that I needed to learn about hope. Serving a mission and coming out had taught me the central importance of love as the highest principle in the Gospel. But for many years I was plunged in despair and anger, because of my inability to believe in the possibility of love manifesting itself in the world that we live in.

To learn hope ultimately required a much greater act of faith on my part.

Comfort You Concerning Your Faith

I love Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. There's some great stuff in there about how being a Saint involves having the Holy Spirit in our lives to guide and direct us. It talks about how the Holy Spirit is our true teacher. And of course it talks about trusting in and waiting on Jesus Christ. But today, I'm particularly grateful for Paul's words of comfort in the third chapter. There Paul reminds the Thessalonians (and us) that true faith is challenging.

Paul says to the Thessalonians, "We told you before that we should suffer tribulation" (I Thessalonians 3:4). He writes "to comfort you concerning your faith" and that "no man should be moved by these afflictions" (vs. 1 & 3).

This struck me particularly as I've been reflecting on the tribulations that LGBT people face in the Church. We tend to live in a church culture where there's something wrong with you if you can't join in the chorus of "all is well." So many Mormons think of a life of faith as being happy, shiny, and trouble-free.  But here at least is a scripture where the writer makes it clear that he expects faith to involve tribulation.  True Sainthood must make place for tragedy, even as we affirm that tragedy can't have the final word.

I relate this to my experience as a gay Mormon. Gay Mormons even at our best live constantly on the edge of tragedy. We have all faced life and faith shattering crises. Even when we've graduated to a place of acceptance or joy we can't avoid awareness of the alienation and suicide that are all too present realities for so many LGBT Mormons, past, present and future.

Many will insist, living with the kind of tragedy LGBT Mormons live with shouldn't be embedded within our experience as Mormons.  Our faith should provide us a comfort.  Our fellow Mormons should be our friends, not our antagonists.  The Church should not be the main source of our alienation.

But I don't see any guarantees in the Gospel that our relationships with fellow Christians will be trouble-free.  Look at the tragic, conflicted relations between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the first century and beyond. We have Jewish Christians insisting that Gentile Christians were not real Christians, so long as they did not submit to the Law.  Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the early Church was a kind of apostasy that allowed Gentile Christians eventually to label Jews as Christ-killers and assent to various forms of genocide throughout the middle ages and beyond.  This intense Jewish vs. Gentile conflict was a reality of the congregations Paul ministered to.  It has shaped much of our understanding of the Gospel as revealed a throughout the Pauline epistles.  Conflict within the Church has always defined Christianity.

No, the Gospel speaks directly to the tragedy and alienation we LGBT Saints experience as Saints, living in this time with the particular kinds of conflict and misunderstanding that mark our experience as unique, just as the experience of every age of Christians has been unique.

The goal of the Gospel, as Paul puts it in this epistle, is that "the Lord make [us] increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all men" (v. 12), "to the end that [Christ] may stablish [our] hearts unblameable in holiness before God" (v. 13).  Our unblameable-ness is in our growth into Christ-like love.  This is the trajectory Christ has established for us LGBT Saints no less than any others, and the unique challenges we face can equip us for this work no less than any other.

This past week has been a painful week for me because of the extent of alienation I've witnessed among us, especially as we attempt to make sense of the Church's latest initiative dealing with "same-sex attraction" on the "mormonsandgays.org" web site.  I was aching to go to Church, and was so grateful to finally gather this morning with other members of my elders quorum, and then Sunday School, and then Sacrament.

The Spirit was there, with healing in its wings.  Our chorister decided to sing all five verses of the Sacrament hymn, "How Great the Wisdom and the Love" (LDS Hymnal #195), instead of just singing the usual first three.  It was an inspired decision on her part.  That last verse struck me with particular force: "How great, how glorious, how complete / Redemption's grand design." And what struck me is how for so many of us LGBT Saints it has felt anything but complete, like there wasn't a place for us in the Gospel.

In Sunday School, our teacher had listed the "saving ordinances" on the chalkboard:

1. Baptism
2. Holy Ghost
3. Priesthood (for men)
4. Endowment
5. Sealing

(I pondered the mystical nature of women that requires only four saving ordinances for them to achieve complete exaltation.)  I looked at that list and thought, at best, the Church tells gay people that their completion is for the next life, but in this life we must be left with missing pieces. But if redemption's grand design is, at its best, incomplete for gay people in this life, who is to say they know exactly how it is incomplete? Who exactly is to say what scales will fall from everybody's eyes when that shore appears to our view?  And with such big questions ahead, why let despair have the final word?

As we sang the words of that hymn, the Spirit sang sweetly with me: "In Redemption's Grand Design you are complete, and its completeness is in its full inclusion of you too."

And I was comforted concerning my faith.

And I will not be moved by these afflictions.

Being a Partaker of Hope

Paul uses an interesting image in describing the freedom of those who work for the Kingdom of God in 1 Corinthians chapter 9.  He references the Old Testament prescription (in Deuteronomy 25:4): "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn."

Now, presumably, one would muzzle an ox being used to tread out corn to prevent the ox from eating some of the corn that he treads.  To muzzle the ox under such circumstances would completely reduce the ox to the status of beast of burden, as if the ox existed only to satisfy the needs of the muzzler.  When you muzzle an ox that is being used to tread out the corn, you are essentially saying to the ox: "I can force you to do labor, but you will reap no benefits whatsoever of that labor."  The Deuteronomic prescription here is essentially an acknowledgment that to do so would be an act of animal cruelty.  Oxen have needs.  They get hungry when they work.  If you're using an ox for labor, you owe that ox some basic consideration, including the right to eat a little bit of the corn that it is treading out for you.

The ox does not in other words exist solely for the use of humans.  It has an autonomous existence in and for itself that humans need to consider.  Oxen, in other words, are people too!  There's a whole sermon in this alone, about the value of all life, not just human life, and what it means to be stewards of the planet.

In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul extends this principle of consideration for animals in the same way that Jesus did in Luke 14:5.  Jesus used the example of pulling an ox out of a pit on the Sabbath.  If an ox falls into a pit on the Sabbath, we don't just leave it in there because it's the Sabbath and we're not supposed to do any work then.  That would be cruel!  We pull the ox out, as soon as it falls in.  Jesus used this example to point out that fundamental human needs are more important than legalistic considerations.  If we'd pull an ox out of the pit on the Sabbath, how much more should we be willing to attend to basic human needs, even when to do so technically breaks the law?  "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath!" (Mark 2:27)

Interesting to me that Paul and Jesus both seem to be making a point here that we very often treat human beings worse than we treat animals.  Both Jesus and Paul are making a point about how human beings should treat one another, by pointing out that if we understand that it is morally right to give basic consideration to an ox, we should be willing to give at least that much consideration to a fellow human being.  Paul goes so far as to say: "Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for our sakes?"  In other words, God gave us this commandment about oxen specifically expecting us to understand that this rule applies to people too!

So if this basic principle applies to oxen, surely it applies to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

If oxen are allowed to eat the corn they're treading -- in other words, to meet basic, physical needs -- what about spiritual and emotional needs?  Aren't those more important?

And don't human beings have a fundamental, basic need for love, touch, companionship, intimacy and affection?  When we have those things do we not flourish?  And when we do not have those things, do we not wither?  Göran and I just recently became foster parents again, to a 10-year-old boy.  And having him with us reminds me once again how very, very fundamental those basic human needs are.  We are so much more than just machines that run on food.  Our bodies are temples for our spirits, spirits that need companionship, love, affection, touch.  These are spiritual needs as much as, if not more than, they are physical needs.  If a soul is body plus spirit, then it makes sense that they are simultaneously physical and spiritual needs.

But what if we tell LGBT people in the Church: "You may labor for the Kingdom.  But you may not have an intimate relationship.  You will muzzle that part of yourselves."  If we do that, aren't we treating LGBT folks worse than we would treat an animal?

As Paul says: "For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope" (1 Corinthians 9:10).

The Tree of Life

Here's the text of the talk I delivered at Circling the Wagons, San Francisco, CA, on August 11, 2012

________

I am indebted to my yoga teacher Meher, who is a Muslim and a woman, and who seems to empathize extremely well with what it means to be a Mormon and gay. She gave me this wonderful quote by the Muslim mystic Rumi, who wrote of the Tree of Life:

You have searched for the form of the tree, not the essence. Sometimes it is known as tree and sometimes the sun, sometimes the sea and sometimes the cloud. It is that from which a thousand places, life comes everlasting. Even though its source is single, it brings a thousand doubles, innumerable names befit its form. Without design it has all virtue. Whoever seeks it finds his own. Why stick to one shape or another? You'll fail to find the tree, and find ill fortune. Disappointment only will be your bitterness. Pass on from the name, and look closer at the source. The source will show you what you seek. Leave the form behind.

I remember first learning from the Book of Mormon of the Tree of Life, that tree whose beauty “was far beyond, exceeding of all beauty,” which was “precious above all,” whose fruit was “most sweet” and “desirable above all other fruit” (1 Nephi 8, 11). I have always known I wanted to partake of the fruit of that Tree. I have always known that my parents had it, and they wanted me to partake of it. Throughout my life, I have encountered others who have had it: my grandmother, Sunday School teachers and priesthood quorum leaders, missionaries, BYU professors, brothers and sisters in the wards I grew up in, ordinary people in whom I could feel some special quality, in whom there was some special light that I knew I wanted too.

I knew I was closest to the fruit of that Tree when I studied my scriptures, when I prayed alone or with my family, when I listened – really listened! – at Church, when someone laid hands on my head to give me a blessing, or when I engaged in service to others, maybe accompanying my dad on a home-teaching visit, or delivering Christmas gifts to a needy family, or volunteering at the Stake welfare farm, or helping to paint an elderly member's home with other members of my priesthood quorum, or going on a split with the missionaries. I knew that I would be partaking of the fruit of that Tree by becoming a missionary, and I realize now that is because we only truly partake of the fruit when we share it with others.

When I was at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, I remember being at my very first devotional there. It was the most incredible feeling. In this auditorium surrounded by other missionaries, I felt a combination of awe that I could be counted among their number, and terror that I might not be worthy. Was I really going to measure up? All the greatest apostles and prophets of scripture, before they were anything else, they were missionaries. Could I put myself in the same category as a Paul? An Alma? A Peter? An Ammon? Could I really be a missionary? And as we began to sing the opening hymn at that devotional, and I heard this incredible, powerful chorus of voices singing in harmony around me, and as I joined my voice to theirs, singing with all my heart, I was overcome with emotion. I felt a light radiating all around us, and I looked up, and I saw the ceiling of the auditorium fading away, and clouds drawing back so that I could see straight up into the Heavens. And there was God, surrounded by all the angelic hosts of heaven, shining down on us. And I saw the world: I saw war, poverty, misery, slavery, and cruelty. And the Spirit said, You are heralding the end to that slavery and unhappiness. That is your calling as a missionary. And I understood in that moment, more clearly than ever before or since, how my work as a missionary could have value, if it freed God's children from bondage, and if it created a world more filled with love.

I didn't fully understand it at that time, but that experience gave me a key to understanding what it meant to truly live my faith, to finding the essence of the Tree of Life as opposed to the mere form of the Tree. Is my action in the world making someone more free? Do my words bring healing, comfort or joy? If so, then I'm accomplishing the mission the Lord sent me to accomplish.

When Joseph Smith prayed to God to know where he could find truth on the earth, the Lord warned him against those who have “a form of godliness, but... deny the power thereof” (Joseph Smith History 19). What is the power of godliness? It is love:

The angel said unto [Nephi]... Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw? And [Nephi] answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things. And [the angel] spake unto [Nephi], saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul. (1 Nephi 11: 21-23)

It is worth noting what the angel reminds Nephi of; that we can tell the love of God because of how it makes us feel; that it is “most joyous to the soul.”

But what does it mean to say we can have the form of godliness without its power? We can have all the trappings: we can wear our Sunday best to Church, we can quote scriptures and conference talks over the pulpit and in Sunday School discussions, we can hold a temple-recommend and follow all the rules. And we can be without love, and without mercy. That is the form without the power.

But if we can have the form without the power, we can also have the power without the form.

I was excommunicated from the Church in the fall of 1986, a few months after I had very nearly committed suicide because of my inability to reconcile being gay with my faith. God spoke to me that summer, and told me he knew me from my inmost parts, and that I was not condemned, there was nothing wrong with me, and I had no reason to fear.

In 1992, I met Göran, my husband of almost two decades. Everything of value I have learned in life, I've learned through loving him. We have parented a foster son together. His name is Glen, and he just finished his second year in college, at the University of Minnesota. We've just now, within the past week, become foster parents again, to a ten-year-old boy named Jeremiah. We can't wait to go back to Minnesota to be with him!

In 2005, I followed a prompting of the Spirit to become active in my ward. With the blessing and encouragement of my bishop, and following other promptings of the Spirit, I have sought to live my life as much as I can in accordance with the teachings of the Church. I have a testimony of the Church. I know that God lives, because I've tasted the fruit of that Tree of Life. But I've been told that unless I leave my husband, I can never be a member of the Church.

That has been painful to me. I know my love for my husband is sacred and blessed by my Heavenly Father. How could our love for each other be an obstacle to Church membership, when in it we fulfill the measure of our creation, and through it, we become more loving, faithful, patient, hopeful people? Yet, I've learned not to be frustrated. I've learned to seek the essence of the Tree, not the form.

I can be excommunicated from the Church, judged too unworthy to take the sacrament, much less hold a temple recommend, not allowed to pray from the pulpit, much less hold a calling.

But I can still have a conversation with someone who sits alone at Church, and really listen.

After a flood in North Dakota, I can join a team of LDS volunteers to build sandbag barriers around homes that are threatened by the rising river. Or I can serve meals at a Methodist church, or help distribute food and necessities at the Bishop's Storehouse, or keep watch at a homeless shelter at night.

I can invite people into my home, and feed them, and make everyone who comes in feel welcome and honored.

I can pray for and encourage a friend at Church who feels overwhelmed by his struggle with doubt, or who feels worthless because he hasn't found a life partner.

At work I can be patient with an attorney who's just yelled me, and focus instead on solving her problem.

When I make a commitment to a person – whether it be my husband, or one of my foster sons, or my father, or my bishop, or a friend, or a co-worker – I can keep it. I can let my life be an accumulation of commitments kept.

I can ask forgiveness, when I've failed to love as I ought.

I can forgive those who judge me. I can let go of the fact that someone refuses to see things as I see them, and love that person for who he is.

Over time I have learned that members of the Church recognize the power of godliness, and they respect it, even when it resides in forms they do not expect. LGBT people in the Church have the power to teach their straight brothers and sisters about the true nature of love. Perhaps there's a kind of redemption that our Church needs that only we can offer.

If someone looks at me and thinks I'm unworthy, or rebellious, or disobedient, or unclean, or thinks what I think doesn't matter much because I'm gay and excommunicated, maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it's good if that person will not be impressed no matter what I do or say. Because if I do something to impress others, I'm beginning to strive after forms rather than essence, rather than power. If you take everything away from me – church callings, the temple, the sacrament – that leaves me only the reward inherent in love itself. It gives me an interesting kind of chance. It can free me to focus on the essence of the Tree of Life, the power of godliness, rather than the form. Maybe we ought all to be excommunicated at least once in our lives. Maybe we all ought to have the experience of being hated or condemned by at least some one.

Or maybe not. We can always find new ways to accumulate worldly credit for ourselves, even when the Universe does its darnedest to humble us, to help us see more clearly.

The realm of the Tree's essence, of its power, is in our hearts. Only we and God can ultimately know what our true motives are, and that is a good thing. At some point, life must teach us that it does not matter how acclaimed we are by the world.

I don't mean to say that the forms are bad. It is good to go to Church, to follow rules. The forms provide a necessary structure within which love can be clearly expressed and received. The Church provides me a context within which I can learn the true nature of disinterested, unconditional love. It does not do this any less effectively if I am not loved by everyone at Church, or if I am not treated fairly. In fact, under such conditions, it may actually teach me the profoundest lessons anyone can ever learn about love.

My prayer is for God to teach me – to free me always and everywhere to see and seek after his love, even when it resides in the forms I least expect.

In the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.