Rogue Reverend

Who Am I?

Some days, I don’t know who I am.

Audacia Ray wrote a post at Feministe this week about American Sex Worker Activist Projects and mentioned Star Light. She wrote, “There is also the now sadly defunct Starlight Ministries, an outreach ministry to exotic dancers that was totally awesome and not in any way a creepy paternalistic shaming religious group.”

Ever since I resigned from Star Light Ministries, the organization I founded as an outreach to sex workers, I have struggled with my concept of who I am. It’s not so much who I am inside, but who I am outside. What do I tell people I “do for a living?” How do I express my passion for people deemed “unacceptable” by the Church, by society at large, by whatever social circle I seem to find myself in, and still be “just a pastor.”

The church that I pastor is amazing. They are smart, funny, easy-going, committed, and so accepting. I really love being around them in a way I haven’t felt in church in a long time. And my love for them seems to grow.

And yet, there’s me. Who am I? WHO AM I?

Many, many years ago I read a story in a book of Russian fables about a student who goes to Minsk to study. But he’s miserable. So he searches out a hermit Rabbi in the woods and says, “When I was in St. Petersburg, I prayed. I read books. I studied. I was happy. Then I moved to Minsk. Here, all I can do is cry. Tears is all I have.” The Rabbi answered, “Maybe what God wants from you now is tears.”

So maybe me not knowing who I am right now is precisely what God wants from me.

Start Reading Journey Mama Now!

I rarely try to convince anyone to do anything.

But if I were going to convince you to do anything today, it would be to start reading, regularly, a blog called Journey Mama. It’s about Canadian Rae, who is the mother of four children, married to American Chinua, living in India (Tibet?), well, right now, I don’t know exactly where they’re living. They’re on a journey!

This is from Rae’s latest post:

This is what I have learned about hospitality:

1. No one cares if your house is perfectly clean. What everyone craves is to be welcome.
2. The smallest things are gestures of inclusion. A cup of tea, the offer of your kitchen if they’d like to make themselves a sandwich.
3. Children are very hospitable, if you allow them to be.
4. You can fall apart, even with people over. You can say, “What a day, I’m so tired.” People want to help.
5. The world is full of lonely people. Invite someone in.

Learning to Perform Miracles, A Sermon

John 6:1-24

I have a favorite novel called Lamb and subtitled, “The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal.” Written by Christopher Moore, it is the story of Jesus from age 6 seen through the eyes of his best friend. In the book, Jesus is resistant to the idea that he is the Messiah, and decides to go in search of the Magi who visited at his birth to see if they can explain his Messianic nature.

You think you know how this story is going to end, but you don’t. Trust me, I was there. I know.

The first time I saw the man who would save the world he was sitting near the central well in Nazareth with a lizard hanging out of his mouth. Just the tail end and the hind legs were visible on the outside; the head and forelegs were halfway down the hatch. He was six, like me, and his beard had not come in fully, so he didn’t look much like the pictures you’ve seen of him. His eyes were like dark honey, and they smiled at me out of a mop of blue-black curls that framed his face. There was a light older than Moses in those eyes.

“Unclean! Unclean!” I screamed, pointing at the boy, so my mother would see that I knew the Law, but she ignored me, as did all the other mothers who were filling their jars at the well.

The boy took the lizard from his mouth and handed it to his younger brother, who sat beside him in the sand. The younger boy played with the lizard for a while, teasing it unitl it reared its little head as if to bite, then he picked up a rock and mashed the creature’s head. Bewildered, he pushed the dead lizard around in the sand, and once assured that it wasn’t going anywhere on its own, he picked it up and handed it back to his older brother.

Into his mouth when the lizard, and before I could accuse, out it came again, squirming and alive and ready to bite once again. He handed it back to his younger brother, who smote it mightily with the rock, starting or ending the whole process again.

I watched the lizard die three more times before I said, “I want to do that too.”

The Savior removed the lizard from his mouth and said, “Which part?”

More »

Being Enmeshed (with God)

I’ve been getting my fill of enmeshed relationships lately. You know what I mean by enmeshed? Dr. Drew and Adam Corolla (really?) define enmeshed relationships as overdependency. Dr. Drew says:

Dr Drew: Anytime you need somebody in order to be complete, you’re overdependent. Anytime you get in a situation where you lose yourself in a relationship, you’re too dependent. If you’re in a situation where you can’t get out because there’s something about what that person has that you can’t do without, you’re in trouble.

To the extent that your feelings become another person’s, that’s too much. On the other hand, to be overly independent with no concern for the feelings of others is not right either; that heads toward a narcissistic relationship. You should be independent. You should be a separate person who comes together in a relationship, not one who blends into a relationship. It’s not like a puzzle where two pieces have to be together in order to fit or to complete one another. It’s more two separate entities creating a new entity when they’re together.

Ever since I went to the church with the “Jesus is my boyfriend” music, I’ve realized that the religion we’re encouraged to have is enmeshed! Think of some of the things we say, “I want people to see only Jesus in me.” And, “Not me, but Christ in me.” And, “I am nothing without God.” This is what we teach our newest members in our churches.

And the opposite side of the coin of enmeshment is “cutoff.” A cutoff relationship is “where two individuals have no contact at all, characterized by extreme disengagement and emotional intensity where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness.”

Isn’t that how we “recover” from our too-close relationship with God? We create a cutoff?

God wants us to be differentiated, not enmeshed. God wants us to be close, not cutoff. Intimate, not consumed. Together, but separate.

Homosexuality: A Sermon

I’m doing a series at church on Romans. Last Sunday, I preached on Romans 1:18-32. Normally, I put the text up on this site. However, I am not writing a manuscript for this series. I’m preaching off the cuff. So, instead, I’m putting up the recording of the sermon.

The sermon opens with me say, “Homosexuality. I’m for it.” First I recap the bad news about our treatment of homosexuals. Then I remind everyone that 1) we can’t make Paul say what we want him to say (ever), and 2) Paul would have no concept of homosexuality as we know it now, as a way of being (as opposed to an act). The Romans passage, I maintain, is not really about homosexuality at all, but, according to Tyler Wigg Stevenson, about hyper-sexuality. And that hyper-sexuality is not cured by more sex. Then there’s good news!

Go listen! Lia Scholl, sermon on Romans 1