St Matthew’s Wimbledon, 12 February 2023
2nd Sunday before Lent
Fr Alastair Newman
Romans 8:18-25
Matthew 6:25-end
(+) In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Something happened this week which has never happened before. For the first time in its history the General Synod of the Church of England – our church’s “parliament” if you like – has approved prayers of thanksgiving and blessing for couples who have entered same-sex unions. In just a few months it will be possible for civil partnerships and civil marriages between same-sex couples to be blessed in C of E churches. I hope…I know…this will be a church that will want to offer those blessings.
This decision of the church comes after many years, many decades of conversation and debate. Here at St Matthew’s a group of us joined that debate using the Living in Love and Faith course, submitting an official response to be taken into consideration when the church decided what should happen next. The church has decided. The church has been talking about this for a long time, and finally it has acted.
It’s admittedly a fairly small act. Same-sex civil unions may be blessed in church. But it won’t be possible for same-sex couples to be married in Church of England churches, a change that many people were asking for, including me and others from this church.
Compromises had to be made to get the prayers of blessing approved – statements that the new prayers did not change the Church of England’s official position that marriage is between a man and a woman only. The new prayers are a step forward, but it feels there’s been a step back at the same time. We’re still waiting for a great leap forward.
St Matthew’s has tried to be a safe place for LGBTQI people for a long time. As members of Inclusive Church we have sought to be a church which celebrates and affirms every person and does not discriminate on grounds including gender, gender identity and sexuality. We have agreed to challenge the wider church, wherever it continues to discriminate.
There will, no doubt, be sermons preached up and down the country this morning decrying the decision made by the C of E, and saying all sorts of terrible things about gay people. I’m sure you will find at least one church in Wimbledon preaching just such a sermon. Let those sermons be preached. Let them be preached. Because they will find themselves consigned to the same part of history as every sermon preached in the church in favour of slavery. Every anti-semitic sermon which led to the persecution of Jews. Every sermon preached in the USA against the civil rights movement. Every sermon preached in South Africa in support of apartheid.
Those sermons this morning will say that those of us who advocate for LGBTQ people in the church are unfaithful to the Bible. By no means. Our gospel is a gospel of love – the love of God given to us through Jesus Christ as we read in the Scriptures. In our celebration and affirmation of people of all sexualities, we seek to mirror the radical welcome of Jesus himself. And we find nothing in Scripture against the union of two men or two women in a faithful, loving relationship. The church’s understanding of marriage has shifted over the years, and it can evolve again to embrace a same-sex couple’s love.
Those sermons this morning will say we are succumbing to “liberal Western values”. By no means. It is the Spirit moving us in sighs deeper than words, drawing us towards the peace and justice of the Kingdom of God. But unless there is justice for all of us, there can be peace for none of us. The struggle is ongoing.
Undoubtedly there have been improvements in wider society. I remember when I was at secondary school twenty something years ago. The deputy head boy was gay, and hadn’t told anyone in the school. But with just a few weeks left of his last year in the school he felt he could trust his closest friends and tell them. He was bullied out of the school in a matter of days.
I think…I hope…that it wouldn’t happen quite like that now. But in the church, the present time is still beset with suffering for those excluded from congregations or leadership positions. People have been and still are excluded because of their ethnicity or gender, but at this moment the burden of suffering falls most heavily on God’s children who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, or who are considered in any way sexually “other”. There is suffering. There is groaning. And there is longing – eager longing to enjoy the same freedoms promised to all the children of God.
St Paul, you urge us to have patience, but…there is a time when patience runs out and it is time for action. And, St Paul, you were never the most patient fellow anyway.
And Jesus, much as I love you, now doesn’t feel like a time to be told not to worry. I do worry. I worry for every gay person in a conservative church. I worry for every person living in a country of the Anglican Communion where homosexuality is still criminalised. Where the church supports those laws. Where people are lynched, just for being gay. And selfishly I worry about the state of the church in this country, and how much of it will be left, if we continue to shut out people just because of who they love.
I worry for the kind of world and church my children are growing up in. My children cannot believe that there are parts of the world where people are still persecuted, even imprisoned for being gay or trans. They cannot believe that there are parts of the church where it is not safe for gay or trans people.
Several years ago a great friend of mine who is a priest and who is gay entered a civil partnership with his partner, also a priest. After their civil partnership they threw a fabulous party. We went with Sebastian and Genevieve, and they couldn’t understand why this wasn’t a marriage. In fact, if we ever talk about that day they talk about the day our friends got married. To them, love is love. The same love between man and man, or woman and woman, as between man and woman. They see no difference. These children – so young, but so wise. Inclusive from the start. Now that is hope. A hope not yet fully seen, but a hope to come for the church, if we will only listen to what the Spirit is saying through these little ones.
There is hope. But there is also suffering. My friend longed to be joined to his partner in the sacrament of marriage but if they had been married to one another, even in a civil ceremony, they would both have lost their jobs.
I still remember the moment a close family member who is gay came out to me when we were both teenagers. They were terrified. Terrified, because they did not how I would react. Terrified, because they did not know if they would be judged. Terrified, because they did not know if they would be rejected.
Teenagers in this country and all over the world are still terrified of coming out. Terrified that if they come out as gay they will be rejected, kicked out of home, shunned in their church or synagogue or mosque, coerced into undergoing dangerous conversion “therapy”. Terrified, because the most recent studies show that LGBTQ teenagers are four times as likely to take their own life as their peers. Jesus wept.
These young people need saving. Not from their God-given sexuality or identity. But from the toxicity of people who ask them to change it or to suppress it or to be ashamed of it, in the name of religion or anything else.
This present time is beset with suffering. But this suffering isn’t equally shared. As a priest, I will never know the horror of my gay colleagues who have terrible, terrible things said about them and their relationships, backed up by selected clobber texts from the Bible. I will never be afraid of losing my job, just because of who I love.
This suffering isn’t equally shared. Those of us who are not gay have never known the pain and terror of coming out to friends or family and not knowing how they will react. Not knowing if we will still have a home or church to call our own. Not knowing if we will be bullied out of school.
For those of us who are not gay, I think there needs to be a sort of coming out moment too. A moment when we say to our LGBTQ friends and family that we are their allies. We stand with you. We will march with you. We will fight with you. We will weep with you. And for those of us in ministry, if that is what it takes, we will lose our jobs with you too.
A coming out moment when we stand up to those who oppress and exclude people because of their sexuality or gender identity, who call them sinful or worse. A moment when we stand up and say to them, ‘If you want to hurt our gay sons and daughters, if you want to come for our gay brothers and sisters in Christ, then you’ve got to come through us first.’
My priest friend who entered a civil partnership a few years back, the one whose wedding party my children enjoyed…he was at Church House this week as the Synod voted to approve the prayers of thanksgiving and blessing. Reflecting on it afterwards he said, ‘Goodness knows there’s so much work to do. But we broke the wall today.’
We broke the wall today.
The wall is cracking, but it still stands. These walls, these structures of oppression, they imprison people: they keep them from the freedom of the glory of the children of God. The walls may be cracked, but they will not crumble by themselves. They must be pulled down piece by piece, brick by brick, if we ever want to see justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. These walls must not be allowed to stand.
So may I ask you…will you pull down one brick today?