I can picture my mother-in-law wrinkling her eyebrows in discomfort as she harrumphs the brazenly offensive lyrics of this song. How dare a chocolate confection be compared to the Savior? What a mockery of Jesus!
For many Christians like her, faith is a battle. Christ calls on us to defend him from the secular world. Following Jesus then becomes the work of building walls around, and imposing false binaries on, everything from gender identities, to marriage, to Jesus himself.
Thanks be to God, Jesus is bigger and better than this. He cannot be contained by any walls. And he certainly can handle the absurdity, irreverence, and whimsy of Chocolate Jesus.
This song, in its own silly way, reminds me that no walls or labels imposed by others can change the fact that I belong to Christ. And he most certainly can handle the absurdity, irreverence, and whimsy of a person like me.
There is more than enough room for all of our fabulous selves, literal and figurative chocolate Jesuses in hand, at Christ’s table.
Rev. Paul Clark ( he/him/his) was unwillingly dragged by the tenacious Holy Spirit from Minnesota to California, where he served in Lutheran Campus Ministry for five years. He currently lives in Bakersfield with his husband, and spends his time preaching at Episcopalian congregations, making coffee with his Chemex, and playing Dungeons and Dragons.
“We’re better off for all that we let in.” –Indigo Girls, All That We Let In
I grew up in Atlanta, where the Indigo Girls got their start, so their presence loomed large there. I remember one summer–the summer before I came out as bi–they headlined a free concert for Pride and my friends and I, home for the summer from college, went together.
As they sang their song “All That We Let In,” tears welled up in my eyes. “I don’t know where it all begins / and I don’t know where it all will end. / We’re better off for all that we let in.” I was better off for letting in the stories of people who lived fully into who they were, and I was better off for letting in acceptance for myself exactly as I was.
My wish this Pride month is that we might each let in the stories of others, and the knowledge of God’s unconditional love. My hope is that those of us in the LGBTQIA+ community might let in the love and affirmation of God, who created us holy and beautiful. My call for those who support the LGBTQIA+ community is to let our stories into your own, and be changed by them.
Bio: Rev. Miriam Samuelson-Roberts (she/her/hers) is Associate Pastor at Westwood Lutheran Church in St. Louis Park, MN. She identifies as bi/queer and is grateful to all the Lutheran LGBTQIA+ leaders on whose shoulders she stands. Miriam lives in Minneapolis with her husband Daniel and their daughter Esther.
I’ve had the lyrics “I am made of love, and I’m stronger than you” in my head lately and it’s been making me smile. They are from a song in the cartoon Steven Universe. Steven is a crystal gem who is a lot like a superhero and is learning from three other gems as they preserve and protect the Earth. The show includes non-binary and queer characters and one named Garnet that is actually a fusion of two different gems, Ruby and Sapphire. When they fused a long time ago most other gems rejected them, but they loved each other and chose to stay together. An opposing force separates them, but Garnet comes back together and sings the song “Stronger Than You.”
When I heard the song I couldn’t help but think about similarities in the relationship of the Trinity and the mystery and wisdom that comes from God loving God’s self. We are all made of love and made in God’s very image and that love is stronger than anything that tries to tell us otherwise.
This music video shows the artist Estelle who plays [is the voice of] Garnet’s character performing the song and hundreds of young fans singing along which brings me so much joy! I didn’t grow up with LGBTQIA+ people to look up to and I’m proud to think of all the affirming role models out there now – from cartoons to church leaders – and I am humbled to be one myself.
We are all made of God’s love and stronger together!
Rev. Laura Kuntz (she/her/hers) is always eager to curl up with her dog Toby to watch some good TV after spending her time fly fishing, going on a family walk, or cultivating her bonsai garden. Her spouse Sara thinks the show Steven Universe is a little too strange, but that’s ok.
The LGBTQIA+ nightlife of Atlanta often represents the best of the South to me. On any given weekend night, especially in Midtown, you can find people of many races, nationalities, ages, sexual orientations, and gender identities and expressions all enjoying the night together.
On one particular evening in 2014, I was standing with my friends who are my family, watching a gorgeous drag queen perform Reba McEntire’s “Is There Life Out There,” and the Holy Spirit descended.
The song tells the story of a young woman from the South who married at twenty, and finds herself feeling trapped. The chorus goes like this: “Is there life out there / So much she hasn’t done / Is there life beyond her family and her home / She’s done what she should, should she do what she dares? / She doesn’t want to leave; she’s just wondering is there life out there.”
Every one of us in that bar sang every word. We sang because Atlanta is a haven for us LGBTQIA+ folk in the middle of the rural South. Because we, too, once felt trapped.Because we, too, didn’t want to leave our homes. Because we did what we “should” for so long before we did what we dared: to be our full selves. We pounded the air with our fists and raised our cups and sang at the top of our lungs as if to say, “We’re still here – hallelujah!”
Sometimes the Holy Spirit appears as drag queen lip syncing to Reba.
Sometimes the love of God swoops in and saves your soul when you least expect it: like at a pub on a Friday night. May the love of God swoop in and save your soul again today: by land, by sea, or by drag queen. There is life out there, friends. There is.
Bio: The Rev. Anna Tew is a 30-something Lutheran pastor serving Our Savior’s Lutheran Church (ELCA) in South Hadley, Massachusetts. A product of several places, she was born in rural Alabama, lived most of her adult life in Atlanta, and now lives in and adores New England. In her spare time, Anna enjoys climbing the nearby mountains, traveling, exploring cities and nightlife, and keeping up with politics and pop culture.
The movement for LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the full life of the church lost a saint when Tim Fisher died.
For the casual observer of the Lutheran LGBTQIA+ movement, Tim and his work may not have been immediately apparent. He wasn’t someone who sought the spotlight, but worked diligently in support of others in the movement. Tim wasn’t a member of Proclaim. He wasn’t clergy or a deacon. He was a layperson, an administrator, a writer, an editor. And his calling was so clear and apparent to everyone who knew him. He was my colleague at ReconcilingWorks (though at the time, the organization was known as Lutherans Concerned/North America).
Tim’s ministry went beyond the issue of ordination, relationship recognition, or church policy. He worked, systematically, pragmatically, relationally, that we could become a church that continued to take steps that welcome, include, and utilize the gifts that we all, clergy or lay, bring to the church. A brilliant writer, he penned articles, op-eds, and social media statuses that informed, inspired, and challenged.
Tim was a quiet, non-anxious presence at Churchwide meetings. He listened to proceedings carefully, talked strategically with those who supported inclusion, gracefully engaged with those who were movable but had concerns, and gently challenging those who were in opposition to inclusion. Tim used his privilege and his presence to bring people from a place of rejection, to tolerance, to acceptance, and in some cases, even advocacy for LGBTQIA+ people in the life of the church.
Tim was a straight man, who followed his calling to work for the Lutheran movement for LGBTQIA+ people. I was blessed to work with Tim on a conference for ReconcilingWorks in San Francisco in 2008, featuring a three-hour training on storytelling for change. After the training, Tim sat for a video, to practice his storytelling. In the video, Tim moves from uncertainty and discomfort to an increasing assertion that he has been the recipient of ministry and blessing, and that his work is essential to continue that blessing.
Tim fought for LGBTQIA+ people to be included in the church, because he was already the recipient of their ministry. Even after his death, the cycle of ministry continues. Tim was ministered to by LGBTQIA+ people, and because of that, he wanted to be in a ministry that would include LGBTQIA+ people into the life of the church. Because of Tim’s ministry, we have hundreds of openly LGBTQIA+ people fulfilling their calling to ministry, at the altar, in the pulpit, in organizations, and on the street, all over the country and world.
The cycle of ministry and advocacy for the LGBTQIA+ community will continue, both within and outside the Lutheran Church. Tim Fisher’s calling was to push that cycle along. And for that, we can say, “Thanks be to God.”
Deacon Ross Murray is the Senior Director of Education & Training at The GLAAD Media Institute (https://www.glaad.org/), which provides activist, spokesperson, and media engagement training and education for LGBTQ and allied community members and organizations desiring to deepen their media impact. Ross uses the best practices perfected by GLAAD to train a new generation of advocates in order to accelerate acceptance for LGBTQ people, as well as other marginalized communities. Ross is also a founder and director of The Naming Project (https://www.thenamingproject.org/), a faith-based camp for LGBTQ youth and their allies. The Naming Project has also been the subject of much media, including the award-winning film Camp Out, as well as the controversial episode “Pray the Gay Away?” of Our America with Lisa Ling. Ross has secured national media interest in stories that bring examples of LGBTQ equality across diverse communities in America. He specializes in relationship between religion and LGBTQ people. He has written and appeared on numerous media outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Religion News Service. In 2014, he was named one of Mashable’s “10 LGBT-Rights Activists to Follow on Twitter.”
“It’s just so hard to be in this process,” I said, “because I have no idea where I’ll be six months from now! Normally I’d have an idea of what would be happening, but in the call process I could be anywhere in the country by then!”
She raised one eyebrow and gave me a pointed look, “nothing has actually changed. You haven’t actually lost control – only the illusion of having control to begin with. None of us really know what will happen to us in six months.”
My therapist knew how to offer me the gifts of wilderness. The wilderness strips away what was only an illusion and leaves us vulnerable to the truth: we never know what is coming next. A year-long call/coming out process filled with nine rejections was not the kind of wilderness I would have chosen. It was painful and raw and disheartening.
I don’t think God sent it into my life as some kind of twisted lesson.
But that doesn’t mean that God didn’t get to work stripping away my comforts, illusions, and self-identity until only the essentials were left: Child-of-God, beloved-queer, created-and-called.
This particular wilderness story has a happy ending: a congregation I adore and one that loves me back; a call that challenges me and makes me more myself; a community that is passionate and dedicated to the gospel. But, for every wilderness out of which I wander, another one presents itself almost as quickly. And, I am learning, ever so slowly, to hand myself over to that wilderness road, trusting that the gifts are still there.
“The Uses of Sorrow”
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift. by Mary Oliver, from Thirst, 2007. Beacon Press.
The Rev. Megan D. Elliott is the pastor of Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church in Seguin, Texas. Before coming to Spirit of Joy she was the pastor at Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Alliance, Ohio. This summer she will celebrate 10 years in ordained ministry! When she’s not pastoring you might find her playing with her dogs, reading, running, crocheting, or enjoying anything to do with music. She has special talents for making babies fall asleep, folding fitted sheets, and buying entirely too many books.
Ash Wednesday marked the twenty-sixth anniversary of my “official” coming out. It was on this night, following the Ash Wednesday worship service, that I began sharing with friends a truth about myself—my being gay. The worship service with its message of facing the fullness of life, of death, and life beyond death became the nudge that pushed me towards authentic living—marked in the brokenness and the beauty of the cross. In the face of this period, a time marked by the AIDS pandemic, the stories of families disowning children, of ex-gay therapies, I knew that being marked with the ashes of the cross was God’s call to living fully, authentically, and faithfully…here and now.
It would be eleven years later, nearly two weeks after Easter, that I would be ordained as a Lutheran pastor with a call to serve a Presbyterian Church.
The years between that Ash Wednesday service in college and the Easter-season ordination would, in many ways, feel like a time of wandering through the wilderness—of keeping faith in the midst of a broken Church; of trekking across the country for school, of journeying to the other side of the country for CPE and again for Internship; of longing to find someone to share my life with; of meeting with a candidacy committee that threw Vision & Expectations in my face—only to approve me, because I wasn’t in a relationship at that time; of the hard work and challenges of staying hopeful when there was interview after interview with congregations who thought I was great, but weren’t quite ready for a “gay pastor.”
Yet, now as I look back at these eleven years of “wandering in the wilderness” I realize how this time has formed me as the pastor and person I am today.
I met some of the most amazing people and communities of faith; there was laughter, love, and strength mixed with the tears and frustrations; there were opportunities for side-winding trips—like being a publicist for a drag queen, waiting tables, caring for people living with HIV/AIDS, working alongside recent immigrants, immersing myself in justice work—that were life-giving; there were signs of God’s presence and care along the way.
As I reflect on the sojourners of the Exodus, I hold on to the struggles, the questions, and the pain of the wilderness; yet, I am aware of how it formed them, how it forms us, into a people of new and renewed faith and promise who dream and journey toward a place of promise.
Bio: Brad Froslee (he/him/his) lives in Minneapolis with his husband, Bill. Their family also includes a very active 8 year-old son, a Border Collie, and a tabby cat. Brad serves as senior pastor at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Roseville.
Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries believes “Trustworthy Servants of the People of God” is fundamentally flawed in development, content, and implementation and should not be approved by the ELCA Church Council.
The premise of “Trustworthy Servants” and its predecessor, “Vision and Expectations,” is unethical. A simple revision of either document fails to eliminate their fundamental flaw: the fact that they were created to label and exclude marginalized leaders.
They should both be let go and set aside.
These documents claim to lift up the ethical standards of our church, yet were crafted to police human sexuality, especially with respect to candidates for rostered ministry. Both documents explicitly focus on a narrow construction of acceptable sexual expression and demean and dehumanize many who are and might be called to professional ministry within the church. Both “Trustworthy Servants” and “Vision & Expectations” confuse what qualifies as healthy intimacy and sexual expression and behaviors that should be labeled as misconduct.
Many gender and sexual minority leaders do not see themselves, their community, their families, or their values reflected in this document. ELM mourns and protests the dangerously narrow scope our Church seems to be using to define “trustworthy:” hyper-focusing on sexual expression while, for example, ignoring the needs of people with disabilities and failing to name white supremacy as sinful.
“Trustworthy Servants” and “Vision & Expectations” are morally compromised documents. They should have no moral or juridical authority over the body of Christ. Therefore, if approved, we refuse to be guided by this document or to advise seminarians, candidates or rostered leaders to shape their lives, conscience, or behavior according to their pages.
In Christ’s love,
Rev. Amanda Gerken-Nelson, Executive Director and The ELM Board of Directors
When I feel like I’m in the wilderness of my soul, there is an emphasis on the experience being ‘wild.’ I can’t tell what is right or wrong, or which way is up or down.
One way I seek to help me tame this wildness is on the dance floor.
This is where the unseen wilderness of my soul can become physically manifested.
The particular place I do this is key: while surrounded by my LGBTQIA+ siblings in a bar devoted to us. And if these LGBTQIA+ siblings are Christian, even better! Here, the dance floor becomes a place of healing. It becomes a holy place.
With myself and other bodies moving in time with the music, it can look like a whirlwind from the outside. But this is often when I feel most close to God and can acutely sense that God is near me.
Out of this whirlwind of music and bodies, I can find clarity.Job faced a time of being in the wilderness during his life. He lost his family and property, and then his health. It even appeared that God was not innocent in these happenings.
Those of us in the LGBTQIA community can feel similarly. We suffer hardships on account of who we love and/or how we present ourselves to the world. And it can appear that God is not innocent in causing these sufferings.
We can feel as Job feels “For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.”
But then, out of this whirlwind, God speaks to us.
Even if God doesn’t tell us why these things are happening, God is still speaking to us.
Even during the times of wilderness in our lives, God still wants to draw near to us and touch our soul.
Bio: Alex Aivars isa candidate in Word and Sacrament, awaiting first-call. I worked in Web development for 7 years before getting the call to ministry at a Gay Christian Network (now Q Christian Fellowship) conference. In addition to dancing, I also love being in nature and reading.
A reflection on this week’s events in the global church from ELM’s Board of Directors
The apostle Paul reminds us that we who claim to follow Jesus are one body in Christ and that “if one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” (1 Cor 12:26).
Bisexual, LGBTQIA+, and Trans Flags
As members of the one body and in the spirit of co-suffering love, ELM mourns and laments, with all our United Methodist kin, the St. Louis 2019 General Conference’s vote to reaffirm and strengthen the ecclesial prohibitions on ordaining same-gender loving clergy and officiating same-gender weddings, as prescribed by the “Traditional Plan.”
As we know from experiences within our own Lutheran denominations, such decisions globally impact and harm LGBTQIA+ people who are and will be told that God does not love them or that they do not bear the image of God. They wound the whole body of Christ, because LGBTQIA+ individuals are members of this body and, thereby undermine the church’s witness to God’s ever-expanding, radical love.
ELM holds with tenderness and compassion, all individuals that have experienced similar instances of institutional sin across denominations that caused safety and trust to be threatened, and that lead to further marginalization and feelings of isolation for specific groups of people. The effects of trauma and re-traumatization stretch wide and run deep, and we encourage and support those impacted in seeking support during these painful times.
Furthermore, with the entire body of Christ, we acknowledge and lament our own active and passive participation in the sins embodied in this decision. We mourn the sins of queerphobia and transphobia. We rebuke the forces of fear, ignorance, and hate that keep the church from celebrating the gifts and ministries of LGBTQIA+ Christians.
As members of the body of Christ, we also confess and repent the sins of racism and white supremacy, particularly as enacted through colonization, which continue to enforce the gender binary and heteronormativity as divinely and scripturally ordained, thereby erasing global indigenous expressions of same-gender love and expansive gender diversity. These sins also lead to the creation of a false binary between LGBTQIA+ people and people of color.
As the scriptures teach us to welcome one another, just as Christ welcomes us for the glory of God, so we believe that the Gospel commands us to extravagantly welcome all people, particularly those who are marginalized and oppressed.
Worship at 2017 Proclaim Gathering
Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries believes the public witness of sexual and gender minority ministers transforms the church and enriches the world. We know the value and gifts that queer people bring to the church and to ministry throughout the world.
Grounded in this conviction, we commit to living in solidarity through mutual prayer and support with our UMC kin as they discern their way forward, just as we too continue to discern and struggle within our own denominational structures.
We rest in the knowledge that the Spirit continues to be present among us, calling and guiding as we journey towards God’s promise to gather all people as part of God’s one family:
Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed… Do not let the foreigner joined to God say, “God will surely separate me from God’s people”; and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” For thus says God: To the eunuchs… I will bring them to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the sovereign God, who gathers the outcasts…” (Isaiah 56: 1, 3, 7-8).
May we hold each other graciously and tenderly in our times of sorrow. And, may we not forget to step out in bold faith, trusting the Spirit to guide us on the path of reparation and justice.
ELM Board of Directors
Emily Ann Garcia, Co-Chair Matthew James, Co-Chair
Margaret Moreland, Secretary Charlie Horn, Treasurer
Jessica Davis, Emily E. Ewing, Matta Ghaly, Jeff R. Johnson, Barbara Lundblad, Margarette Ouji, Angela Shannon
