Briallen Hopper is a divinity student at Yale, a faith blogger, and a future leader of the Church of NALT. She shared her Passion Week sermon with me and gave me permission to post it to Slog. Briallen’s heartbreaking “mashup of an It Gets Better video and the Passion of the Christ” gave me hope.

My text today is from the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 31.

“Thus says the LORD:
A voice is heard in Ramah,
Lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
She refuses to be comforted for her children,
Because they are no more.
Thus says the LORD:
Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears;
for there is a reward for your work,
says the LORD:
they shall come back from the land of the enemy;
there is hope for your future, says the LORD:
your children shall come back to their own country.”

It’s been thousands of years now,
but Rachel is still weeping for her children.
She’s still refusing to be comforted.
But she’s not in Ramah.

Right now Rachel is in suburban Minnesota.
Her son Justin bravely came out at age thirteen and endured merciless bullying for two years.
He killed himself last August.
Rachel found his body.

Rachel is also in Indiana.
Her son Billy was called a fag at school.
His classmates told him to kill himself.
And so he did.
Rachel found his body too.

Rachel is in California,
Where her son Seth hung himself from a tree in his backyard
After being sexually tortured at school.

Rachel is in Texas.
Her thirteen-year-old son Asher shot himself in the head
When he was tormented for being gay.

Rachel is in Ridgewood, New Jersey.
Her son Tyler jumped off a bridge
After his college roommate secretly filmed him having sex
And outed him on the internet.

Rachel is in Wisconsin.
Her son Cody felt unsafe at school
So he tried to form a gay-straight alliance for Safe Schools.
Before he could create a safe space for himself,
Cody was gone.

But Rachel is weeping for more than her dead sons.

Rachel is also in New Haven.
Her daughters go to Yale.
They are hardworking, talented women.
They have been called sluts.
They have been raped.
Last year,
when one of Rachel’s daughters was raped by a classmate,
The daughter went to people in authority for help.
Traumatized and fearful,
She told her story over and over.
But nothing was done,
And now she sits in classrooms with the man who raped her.
Rachel’s daughter will survive,
But the damage will never be undone.

When Rachel’s daughter told her mother what had happened,
Rachel held her and they clung to each other and wept together.
And Rachel knew that even though her daughter was still alive,
The trusting, joyful girl she used to be
was no more.

Rachel is still crying.

We know these stories.
We read them in the paper,
And we see them close to home.
We know that Rachel and her children are nearby.
We know they might be in this room.
But it’s hard for us to know what to say or do
After reciting this long litany of loss,
And registering the endless hurt.

Sexual violence, sexual damage, and sexual shame.

They invade our bodies and pervade our culture.
They wound us
and haunt us
and dissolve our spirits in nausea and nothingness.

I grew up in a church that had a rich vocabulary for describing sexual darkness.
As young people growing up in the church,
We knew vividly the damage and sorrow that sexuality could cause.
Of course, the church was also the one doing the sexual violating,
damaging,
and shaming.

That is why I am no longer there.
That’s why I am a liberal Protestant.
But sometimes I worry that mainline Protestantism
doesn’t know how to talk about this dark side of sexuality.
Our language about sexuality is so resolutely cheerful.
When it comes to straight sexuality,
Our main message is that sex is good.
We’re not like the evangelicals with their chastity rings
And their abstinence education and their crazy hangups.

And when it comes to gay sexuality
We just want to make it clear that church is a safe and happy place,
And we signal that in the language for our stances on LGBT issues.
The Congregationalists are “open and affirming,”
the Baptists are “welcoming,”
and the Methodists are “reconciling.”
The Episcopalians talk about “Integrity,”
and the Presbyterians say “More Light.”

We love to talk about welcome,
Tolerance,
Healing,
Even justice.

But “Justice” cannot do justice to the stories
Of the people who come through our doors
Reeling with pain,
Trapped in cycles of trauma,
Covered with scars and bruises in their spirits or under their clothes.

Sometimes when I think about all the children who are bullied to death
Because of their sexuality,
And all the vulnerable people with no one to protect or defend them
From rape and sexual abuse,

I get angry—
Especially because I know that when Rachel and her children come to our churches
They sometimes feel that they are welcomed and affirmed,
But only on condition that they are normal and happy.
They are welcome to be gay or lesbian or bi or trans,
but they have to be relatively unscathed by their experiences with homophobia.
They are allowed to be a rape victim or a sexual abuse survivor,
but they have to have gotten over it.
They have to move on.

When I think of Rachel and her children and what they require,
I think of what should be written on our church signs and banners:

“East Rock Methodist Church. Welcoming the Disconsolate.”
“New Haven Baptist Church. We Mourn with those who Mourn.”
“Grace Presbyterian. A Weeping and Wailing Church.”
“First United Church of Christ. God is Still Weeping.”

So far this has been a sermon about lamentation:
About being aware of sexual sorrow
And making space for it in our congregations.
I think this is urgently important,
But I don’t want to stop there,

Because the Scripture doesn’t stop there.
In the words of Jeremiah:

“The LORD said:
There is hope for your future:
your children shall come back to their own country.”

Or, to put it another way—
In the words of Harvey Milk—

“You gotta give ’em hope.”

But giving hope isn’t easy.
For some people, it doesn’t get better.
Their pain is never going to be fully healed in this life.
For years or forever,
They will be too wary to get too close to people.
They will wake up in the dark with racing hearts,
Reliving their nightmare.
Their children will remain dead until the Last Day.
What does the church have to offer them?

In addition to creating space for suffering,
The church needs to provide strong narratives
That show people how devastated God is by their suffering,
And how lovingly God sees them.

The church needs to make sustaining religious meaning for people dealing with sexual damage.
And the phrase that came to me as I was thinking how to do this,
Inspired by liberation theology,
Was “a preferential option for the gays.”
Or maybe, “a preferential option for those who have suffered sexual violence.”

The idea of a preferential option for the poor comes from Catholic social teaching.
It reminds us that on the last day
We will be told that whatever we did for the least of our brothers and sisters,
We did for Christ.

The doctrine of the preferential option for the poor reminds us
That through their vulnerability, the poor are identified with Christ.
I believe that those who have been sexually hurt.
Are also closely identified with Christ.
I believe the beauty of God’s love is uniquely revealed in them.

As we near Passion Week,
I want you to think about the Passion Story in a new way.
I want you to imagine Our Savior
As a thirteen-year-old American boy.
For a few years now he has found the courage to tell the truth about who he is.
Everyone at his school knows that he is different.
There are a few people who hang out with him,
Who love him and who look up to him and love to repeat the things that he says,
But most of the students avoid him or spread rumors about him.
And there are groups of students who follow him around at recess and after school,
Telling him why he’s wrong,
Trying to get him in trouble,
Trying to set traps for him.

He feels isolated from his family.
His religious community doesn’t support him.
Sometimes the stress is too much, and he has to go away by himself
To just pray and try to find the strength to go on.
It’s clear that he isn’t fitting in.
He’s a source of disruption in the school.
Kids have created a facebook page to mock him.
Graffiti about him is scrawled all over the bathrooms.
Something has to be done.

A teacher sends him to the Principal’s Office.
The Principal says:
“What do you have to say for yourself?
Is it true what they say about you?”
The boy says, quietly,
“If you say so.”
The Principal says,
“Look, I don’t think you’re a bad kid,
But the other students seem to think you’re strange,
And a lot of the teachers have trouble with your lifestyle.
Personally I don’t have a problem with who you are,
But don’t look to me for any favors.”
And the Principal sent him back out into the hallway.

This happened on a Friday.

It breaks my heart to tell this next part, but I know it’s true.
After school, a group of students were waiting for him.
They gathered around him and beat him up.
They kicked him to the ground.
They smeared him with lipstick they’d stolen from their big sisters
And they called him Queen of the Fags.
They wrote it on his forehead.
They tore off his clothes
And they flipped a coin to see who would get his ipod.
When the boy stumbled home hours later
It was getting dark.
He went into the house.
No one was home.
He found his father’s gun
And then he went out into the garden in the backyard and sat down,
Too tired to move.
He texted all his friends,
Hoping for a word of encouragement,
But none of them replied.
He was alone.
He clutched the gun, and in a broken voice, he prayed,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
I don’t want to do this.
Show me another way.”

I don’t know whether this boy lived or died that night.
But here’s what I do know.
I know, in the words of Isaiah,
quoted by the Ethiopian eunuch,
That in his humiliation, justice was denied him.
And I know that in the words of the Psalm,
This boy is the stone that the builders rejected.
And I know that if he is alive, he is in our church.
And I know that if he has died, his family is in our church.
I know that his story is not something to be ashamed of
Or silenced
Or gotten over.
His story, and the story of all who have suffered like him,
Is the story of Jesus.
It is the foundation of the Good News on which we build our lives.

Here is our hope:

“The stone that the builders have rejected has become the cornerstone,
And it is marvelous in our eyes.”

If necessary,
Let us tear down our churches
And rebuild them on this story,
This broken body,
This cornerstone.

100 replies on “A Sermon for Passion Week”

  3. That’s really powerful, and brilliant: Imagining Jesus as a bullied gay kid could send a very big message. And while asking a certain sector of Evangelicals to see that–to see Jesus as the most persecuted among us–will never happen, that could be an incredibly though-provoking tool for moderate Christians.

  4. man, i consider myself an agnostic at best, but if going to church meant hearing sermons like that i think i would have to reconsider

  5. I’d forgotten today was Easter Sunday. What a great way to be reminded. At first glance I thought, oo, brevity’s not always the soul of the ivy league wit. But by the end I was blown away. A strong echo of the feeling I’d get after the social-justice sermons we used to hear in the old days at St. Joe’s, the few times the family went when I was a kid.

    Nicely done, Ms. Hopper, and thanks for sharing it, Dan. Happy NALTy Easter, all.

  7. Palm Sunday was one my favorite holy days because it was the one day where they gave you free stuff… albeit a folded palm leaf which you could pin to your little jacket.

  8. Sweet Jesus (okay, maybe inappropriate on this thread) gus, don’t freak me out!!! It’s Palm Sunday, you heathen! (I’m thinking, “Easter baskets! Chocolate! eggs! bad mummy!)

    Doh. And good morning… !

  11. How beautiful – and heart rending – and hope inspiring. If only all Christians could understand that this is the spirit of religion … not the dogma they repeat to reinforce their bigoted views. I’ll email this to the Christians I know … how could anyone refute her words? (well, of course they could and some will, but they’ll tear their “Christian” costume and be exposed in their ugliness)

  13. I cannot, cannot, can NOT advocate for belief in magical men who live in the sky. That’s just silly.

    BUT that is some beautiful stuff, right there.

    If contemporary religion focused more on healing and caring like Ms. Hopper and less on condemnation and coerced compliance with arbitrary dictates at all costs, I think you’d see a lot fewer anti-theists like me.

  16. Easter and Passover always fall close together (and there is some speculation, in fact, that the Last Supper may have been a Passover seder). With the commemoration of the Exodus fast approaching, we Jews are obligated to reflect on the lesson that we were once oppressed, that we were once strangers in a strange land.
    Embedded in the myriad laws of the Torah are repeated exhortations to treat foreigners with the same respect accorded native members of the community and to give them the same protection of law as all the Children of Israel.
    In today’s global society, the foreigner is no longer so dependent on the kindness of his hosts, and is no longer so irrevocably separated from his native soil. Instead, we should turn the bulk of our outreach to those who are foreigners in their own lands, those who have no homeland to protect them and advocate for them. They are those suffering most bitterly from oppression or abandonment: religious, ethnic, and sexual minorities, the aged or infirm, and those bound by the shackles of poverty.
    At the conclusion of a Passover seder, we proclaim together “L’shana haba’a b’Yerushalayim!”
    “Next year in Jerusalem!”
    As long as there are those among us who are lost, abandoned, or oppressed, we live in Mitzrayim rather then Yerushalayim. And so at this time of the year we are commanded especially to throw open our doors and let the hungry join us at our table.

  19. “I believe that those who have been sexually hurt.
    Are also closely identified with Christ.
    I believe the beauty of God’s love is uniquely revealed in them.”

    oh FFS. Is this like Mother Teresa saying that suffering brings you closer to God, so you should suffer more and not get any pain relief? How the fuck can anyone derive comfort from a belief system which says that the most “beautiful” aspect of their deity is in someone who’s been raped? Assaulted? Tortured? Bullied?

    I understand BDSM, as sexual acts between consenting adults. But as an all-powerful deity torturing innocent children to get off? Fuck that noise. “The beauty of god’s love is revealed in a teenager who shot himself in the head.” How splendid this deity must be, how warm its affections, how worthy of being worshipped, that the best part is shown in a horrific suicide. God loves you so much that he really really wants you to endure tremendous pain.

    There is NOTHING, NOTHING beautiful about pointless suffering. There was no beauty in Tyler jumping off that bridge. There was no “god’s love” there. There was the casual cruelty of the schoolyard, and there was a soul in torment.

    This woman may call herself one of the Not All Like Thats, but until she gets over the very Christianist fetishizing of sadistic suffering, she’s Like That too.

  20. @10: like an Episcopalian
    I come from a huge Catholic family on my dad’s side (dad has 11 brothers and sisters, each of them had kids – some just 2 or 3, most more). Now more than half of them have “fallen out” of the Catholic church and into Episcopalianism.

  22. “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but [they are commanded] to be under obedience, as also saith the law.”

    And let me add to that

    “Happy [shall he be], that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”

    So she may be NALT, but she’s not much of a Bible-believing Christian, either.

  23. @22
    How appropriate to point this out to you on Palm Sunday:
    Luke 19: 39-40
    39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
    40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

    Personally, I don’t hold for an instant that women shouldn’t speak in church, but anytime, anywhere, the people who are supposed to be speaking out in love, hope, and charity, then everyone else is required, but human decency if nothing else, to speak up.

    Sili, who the !@#$% is supposed to keep silent about teen suicide and rape? How DARE you claim someone who speaks out isn’t doing God’s work.

    At the same time, thanks for making her point and Dan’s. Now, go back in your hole.

  26. You totally miss the point, Action Kate. She’s not saying “suffer and be close to God”; she is saying “those that have suffered are closer to God”. Try to understand the difference.

    Dan, that was beautiful – it brought tears to my eyes. maybe you should include it in the next edition of the ‘It Gets Better Book’

  29. As a man who has not regularly gone to Church in more than forty years, this sermon touched me. Why is it that so many churches try to divide and spurn when I thought the message of most faiths was unite and love? I read this and saw hope. I read this and despaired. How could the Christian faith produce a thoughtful inclusive sermon such as this and at the same time allow the Fred Phelps types to prosper.
    As an Australian I look towards America and see the fundamentalist Christians denying rights and liberty to so many who do not believe in their version of the word and I despair. How long before they become the loudest voice in America?

  30. Great stuff here. As a congregationalist in the United Church of Christ – “open and affirming” “God is Still Speaking” – this rings very true with me and even sounds like my own paster. Thanks, Dan, for giving some space to the more enlightened side of the faith journey.

  32. Schweighsr @26: “Those who have suffered are closer to god.” if A=B, then NotA=NotB: “Those who have NOT suffered are NOT closer to god.” Otherwise you’re arguing that suffering makes no distinction about who is closer to god, right? (that A=B and NotA=B) So no, there is no difference. If those who have suffered are closer to god, then the only difference between those who are closer and those who are farther is the suffering. Therefore, one must suffer to get closer to god.

    And even if I agreed with your interpretation (which I don’t) she is STILL saying that this suffering — this pain, torture, agony, bullying, destroying of lives — is somehow a beautiful thing. She spells it out very clearly: she thinks “the beauty of God’s love is uniquely revealed in those who have been sexually hurt.” She’s not even euphemizing. Are you even reading those lines? “The beauty of love is revealed in sexual hurt.” Someone has to be raped in order to display how beautiful god’s love is? What kind of fucking psychopathic deity is that?

    I find this idea abhorrent. If she genuinely wants to support “Rachel’s children,” then that concept had no place in this work. Seriously, I was with her until that line, but once you start rhapsodizing over how someone is tortured to death — when that is labeled “Good News” — I’m gone.

  33. Beautiful, but there’s a part of me that wants that young man to pull the trigger…after aiming carefully at one of those motherfucker’s knees.

    Because, you see, since there is no God, it’s up to us, and since the arc of the universe is completely amoral, sometimes it isn’t pretty.

    Or he could pull the ‘blanks in the lunch-room’ trick from “Heathers”—nothing like a jock in brown pants to brighten your day.

    …but then he’d just get sent to juvie or prison, where the homophobes do all the usual stuff and add rape of those not manly like them.

  35. sarah68 @34, I don’t think Duke61 is saying Australia is without homophobia, but outside of the Middle East, the loudest, most strident anti-gay voices are in the States. It’s funny (and I say this as someone who grew up in the States) that while we acknowledge the faults of our own country, we are quick to condemn others who make the same observation.

  36. That’s the first time I’ve ever answered back in that fashion to someone from another country, Canuck. If by “we” you include yourself, perhaps you’ve done so more often.

  37. I tend to agree with @19. christianity has a huge fetish for glamorizing pain and suffering. if you actually remove that, you will no longer have christianity. what would it be without worship and adulation of a man brutally killed? pretty much nothing. that said, most of that (poem? song? spoken or sung? set to a popular tune? i’m unclear on the mashup part, i guess) was very well done, particularly the framing of rachel in modern day times. and though i’m an atheist, there’s nothing wrong with metaphor and myth to make a larger point, which this does. so, my congratulations to this NALT.

  38. sarah68, I meant that for all the voices on slog that (rightly) condemn the Christian extremists, it struck me as funny that you singled out the guy from Australia. I mentioned it because I’ve noticed, after living outside of the States for so long, that there is a certain defensiveness that exists…”outsiders” aren’t supposed to comment, and yet people in the States feel comfortable passing judgment on other countries. But, I wasn’t trying to start a slog war here, just pointing out that the defensive attitude you immediately had toward a non-citizen is, well, kind of typical. (And of course I no doubt do the same, I was raised on the East coast, after all.)

  39. “Therefore, one must suffer to get closer to god.”

    Hey, one must suffer to get closer to just about anyone in this world (love has a way of hurting) and I think that’s very much the point here. Briallen Hopper is quite explicitly calling out fellow Christians who are happy to embrace well-adjusted homos (and anyone else who is well-adjusted) but don’t leave room in their embrace for real suffering and all the messy realities that go along with it. Because to love the beaten gay kid or the poor or the vulnerable is to share in their suffering. One must suffer to get close to them, and that is the sense that one must suffer to get close to Christ, because Christ is standing with (Christ *is*) those who are suffering.

    That there are people (and, possibly, a divinity or two) in this world who stand with those who suffer is something I’ll readily call beautiful. It’s not the suffering that makes it beautiful to me, and it didn’t seem to be the suffering that made it beautiful to Briallen Hopper, either. What’s beautiful is the love displayed by those who share the burden of suffering.

    I’m nowhere near the front of the line to pick up anyone else’s crosses for them (I wouldn’t die for your sins) so I ain’t critiquing anyone for drawing boundaries and limits to how much they’re willing to sacrifice for others. It can still be fine and good to do what you can for those who suffer without having to suffer yourself. But there is a particular awesomeness to those who make themselves vulnerable alongside those who can’t help but be vulnerable, and when we worship that awesomeness, we’re not “fetishizing suffering,” we’re giving thanks to those who have loved us enough to suffer alongside us when we suffer.

    At least, that’s where I’m coming from as a Christian.

  41. That is quite an astute observation, Kate. The problem is that this trite line that is in keeping with the greatest hits of christian martyrdom (an obscene catch all to justify needless suffering and explain away the existence evil in some incoherent “god’s plan for us all” way, sidestepping the very real problem of evil wide a mile. Redemption on life support), is that it doesn’t say ONLY those who have suffered are closer to god, whatever that means. And literally, it isn’t meaningful. Trying to get the religious to clarify what they mean is often chasing down the will o’ the wisp. But it’s language used to stir emotions rather than provoke critical reasoning. Subdue critical thought through emotion manipulation. It’s a sermon offered to fellow travelers, not a serious moral inquiry. Without being too obnoxious (but obnoxious), this is ghoulish, as is the case whenever scripture is used to define the parameters of real world horror, tragedy and loss. A good example of how the bible can be used to package any message. It lacks a certain sincerity that subtracts from the profound loss of tragedy. Like receiving a get well soon card with only the sender’s name hurriedly scribbled at the bottom, after being diagnosed with cancer. A generic eulogy, perhaps, or one of those grab bag slogans people offer during difficult times. I suppose the “hope” being endorsed here is in trying to change the hatred theology characterizing mainstream christianity. Good luck with that. Really, good luck (no sarcasm).

  42. As another agnostic who was raised Christian (Lutheran), I also found this exceptionally beautiful, powerful, and moving, and I’m also inclined to share it. It is exceptionally well-worded, and I think the sentiment behind it can be found in agnostics and atheists as well as Christians, despite the Christian context and metaphors.

    Also, perfectly explained, JackDitch @39. And venomlash @16, you’re awesome as usual.

  44. Beautiful. Definitely just started crying, and I’m a total atheist. The idea of “Rachel” being every woman crying over her children . . . just beautiful. Definitely passing that on.

  45. Jack Ditch@39: If my child falls and skins his knee and comes to me crying because it hurts, of course I’m going to feel hurt for him. But wouldn’t it be better if he didn’t skin his knee and didn’t hurt himself at all?

    I’m just a human; I can’t keep him from skinning his knees. But this allegedly amazing deity allegedly knows when every sparrow falls, and allegedly has omnipotent abilities to do anything it damn well pleases — stop the sun in the sky, flood the planet, etc. So this allegedly amazing deity decides to enflesh himself to live among the creatures he allegedly created so he can feel our pain when we suffer, but he can’t be arsed to do anything to stop the suffering from happening in the first place?

    I come back to her line once again: “The beauty of god’s love is uniquely revealed in those who have been sexually hurt.” Once again: it takes rape, assault, torture to show us how wonderfully compassionate and empathetic this allegedly amazing deity is? Wouldn’t it be even more amazing and compassionate and empathetic if this alleged deity had kept the rape, assault, torture, and bullying from ever happening?

    If Christ loves the rape victim and the bullied gay kid so much, why doesn’t Christ appear with a flaming sword to drive off the rapist and smack the bullies upside the head? “Nah, I think I’ll just lounge around on this cloud listening to the hosannas and waiting for the rapist to get his rocks off, and then I’ll go down and be awesomely comforting to the rape victim. I will just love the dickens out of that poor suffering woman. I will hurt so much for her.”

    And if “love has a way of hurting,” dude, use more lube or get therapy.

  46. Action Kate it would be lovely if people didn’t suffer. But whether or not one believes in god suffering is going to happen. I take issue with the language of religion because it often confuses the issue, or as JackDitch @39 so perfectly put it, ‘fetishizes suffering’. I totally get where you’re coming from. I left my church when I was 12 when I realized that because of my differences I would be pitied but never welcomed. People said I should be thankful god trusted me with my burden. Oh dear. I took that as “better you than me”. I still believe that.

    People do what they need to do to get by. Personally, I don’t do religion. I do, however; get people like Briallen Hopper and JackDitch. There’s NALTS and there’s the mainstream. The irony is not lost on me that 5 years after leaving my church I got the validation I needed that it’s ok to be female, it’s ok to have a disability, it’s ok to be just odd from, of all places, the bible.

    I’m not entirely sure I believe in god. I know I don’t believe in god as Santa Claus. I don’t need to justify the twists and turns of my life as god’s plan. If there is a god I’d say thank you for giving me some common sense. Life ain’t fair but it can get better.

  47. For lack of a better term, I have a heart for hurting people. And, I make every effort to stay present with people, especially in those weeks, months, anniversaries when grief can manifest as anger, depression, and isolation. Not because I enjoy suffering, but because I’ve seen that the burden of putting on a cheerful face has great costs to those who are still suffering. We humans are very busy creatures and we easily become absorbed by that which affects us and we, likely without malice, expect others to have their shit together and not inconvenience us with their grief. And, it is hard to sit with a woman on the anniversary of her being raped. It’s hard. And, it’s made worse if she laments feeling like a failure for not being over it. She feels the burden of putting on a happy face for the world. The expectation that she not inconvenience others with her struggle had added a layer to her suffering. An expectation that she have it all together, be ‘perfect’, or be rejected. The second great command of Christianity, according to Jesus of Nazareth, is to love your neighbor as yourself. I think that is the heart of this sermon, at least that is what stands out most to me. To love one’s neighbor is to put yourself in their shoes and treat them as you would wished to be treated. Easier said than done, but powerful in its ability to inspire compassion and the conviction to seek justice. As always feel free to disregard my $0.02.

  48. @19 and @45

    Like #13, I don’t believe in magic sky men either. But I think you’re misunderstanding the sermon. I’m totally with you on Mother Theresa as a sick puppy who fetishized suffering.

    But I think in saying the sexually abused are identified with Christ, this woman is not sending a message that there is some beauty in abuse, rather she is saying that how we treat “the least among us” is what we will be judged on. She wants people to treat the bullied gay kid with the same kindness they would bestow on Jesus if he showed up at their school.

    So I don’t see it as saying that we need bullied kids (or suffering of any kind). But that we should be judged by how we treat those who suffer.

    Maybe I’m the one reading it wrong, but that’s a message I can get behind.

  49. Oh, I see where you are coming from, Action Kate. You would prefer that God take a way free will so that no one would suffer, ever. My point is that as long as we have free will there will be people who suffer. Innoncent people will suffer because of the actions of cruel people, they will suffer through negligence, they will suffer because the laws of nature are unforgiving. But there will be suffering – that is what life is. For example, people get old or sick and die – and the loved ones they leave behind suffer in their absence. We can’t end that kind of suffering without ending death [and that opens a whole ‘nother kettle of worms].

    The sermon calls on us to embrace those who have suffered, to feel compassion for them, to ease their pain. It doesn’t say ‘suffer needlessly so that you can be close to God’. It says that to comfort someone who is suffering, to feel compassion, to aid the injured, is to act in a Christ-like manner. I mispoke in my previous post – it isn’t suffering that brings us closer to God, it’s being compassionate to those who have suffered [including ourselves when we suffer] that brings us closer to God.

    You sound like a person who has suffered a terrible loss. My point is that losses happen; but compassion is a choice. It’s a choice we should make because it makes us closer to God, because it makes us better people and most importantly because it will make the world a better place to live in. I hope that you can forgive whomever caused your loss, if only because it will make YOU feel better.

  50. @48, that’s probably what she meant, but she covered that part beautifully here:

    I get angry—
    Especially because I know that when Rachel and her children come to our churches
    They sometimes feel that they are welcomed and affirmed,
    But only on condition that they are normal and happy.
    They are welcome to be gay or lesbian or bi or trans,
    but they have to be relatively unscathed by their experiences with homophobia.
    They are allowed to be a rape victim or a sexual abuse survivor,
    but they have to have gotten over it.
    They have to move on.

    At which point,

    The doctrine of the preferential option for the poor reminds us
    That through their vulnerability, the poor are identified with Christ.
    I believe that those who have been sexually hurt.
    Are also closely identified with Christ.
    I believe the beauty of God’s love is uniquely revealed in them.

    simply jars and veers off into Mother Theresa territory. JMO. She could have left that stanza out and my socks would have truly been blown off into orbit 🙂

    Overall, I do think it’s very powerful, particularly to those who identify with and/or believe in Christian precepts.

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