- Hits: 259
"The Radically Inclusive Love of Jesus for All."
Some say that preachers really only have one sermon in them, it is just interpreted in different ways. I don’t really think that is true per se, but I do think there is some truth in it, and if you stripped everything back, my sermon message would be the ‘radically inclusive love of Jesus for ALL’. This may be obvious to you already in terms of what you have heard me say but given it is Manchester Pride on August Bank Holiday Weekend, and I am busy organising the Pride Eucharist in the Cathedral, and will be walking in the Pride Parade with ‘Christians Walk With Pride’, I thought it a good time to share something of my own story.
The best place to start is by saying that for the majority of my 20s and early 30s I just instinctively felt that I was not welcome in church. To be fair, this wasn’t because I had been told not to come but having been to a very religious school in the 1980s, I never imagined there was a place for me in church. In fact, truth be told, in retrospect I think I thought that was probably fair. In other words, I had no right to be welcome in church.
I came out in the mid 1990’s, I was in my early twenties. Clearly being gay had been legal for nearly 30 years by then, but it wasn’t really the “done thing” to be indiscreet outside the comfort and safety of the gay scene. My parents were accepting but still for the first few years it was not widely known in my family. And of course, at this stage HIV and AIDS remained the “gay plague” in public consciousness and I think this coloured the view of the mainstream.
I went through periods of attending church, but I would tend to go to an 8am said Mass which as generally attended by a handful of people, I would arrive just before the Mass was about to start and would be the first out of the door at the end. I felt that if I was cornered and asked about myself, I would have to tell a lie. LGBTQ+ people have this thing of regularly having to come out or to be opaque and it saddens me.
About 15 years ago, I read an essay written by the journalist Charlie Brown about his conversion to Roman Catholicism. As gay man this was something of a surprise to him, but he described a Mass that was regularly celebrated for gay people in Soho, in an Anglican church in fact. He also talked about finding in Catholicism a big enough space where his own weaknesses and failings drew him closer to God. He seemed absolutely comfortable with his sexuality and being part of the church.
When I plucked up the courage to speak to a Priest about it, I was evidently too honest because he said he regretted I had been so open and suggested that Mark and I would need to live as Brothers, so I went back to the anonymity of 8am Masses and not feeling part of it.
Mark and I moved back to Manchester from Essex in 2011 and I did a google search with 3 words – “gay, Catholic, Manchester”. In truth I was praying to find a gay Roman Catholic Mass like Charlie Brown had found in Soho. Instead, I found an Anglo-Catholic Church, St Chrysostom’s. I attended for the first time on Christmas Eve 2012, having begged Mark to come with me, and I have to say I was nearly sick when I realised, we had to sit in the choir stalls so close to everyone else but I was hoping they lived up to the inclusiveness of their website.
They did live up to their promise of inclusivity and I started to attend their Parish Mass on a Sunday morning. By the beginning of February, I had plucked up the courage to stay for tea after Mass and the rest as they say is history.
In 2021 I was ordained, and each day, I look in the mirror and can’t believe that I have the privilege of this calling. It is such a far cry from creeping in and out of church hoping no one notices me. I am so grateful to be in a Diocese that’s trying its best to be inclusive and to be serving in a mission community where I am loved for who I am, and not only me but my wonderful partner too.
We must never take inclusion and equality for granted, we need always to be intentional and when we get it wrong, on whatever grounds, because this isn’t just an LGBTQ+ thing, we must learn the lessons and do better next time.
I would never have dreamed ordination would be an option for me and the Church of England still worries me, infuriates me, and makes me feel very sad at times; but I have hope for the future that the ‘Radically Inclusive Love of Jesus for ALL will be found throughout the church some day and mission communities like ours will no longer be the exception to the rule. After all, I’m a Christian and in Christ there is always hope!
With every blessing.
Fr Paul.
- Hits: 151
"God put a rainbow in the clouds ..."
Last week in school collective worship we explored having the courage to tackle injustice in the world. We reflected on how injustice simply means unfairness but perhaps it is unfairness that’s magnified and has a big impact on people’s lives. Sadly of course there are lots of things that are wrong or unfair in the world today, and in truth as much as we like to look back on the halcyon days of yore, the world has always been rife with injustice.
The easy option of course would be for us to think, ‘that’s not our problem, or there’s nothing we can do’, particularly when people far away are treated badly. I mean, what can we do about the hundreds of desperate people who die in the oceans in search of a safer place to live? What can we do about the illegal trafficking of people or the appalling treatment of asylum seekers? But we are all children of God so wherever there is injustice, wherever people are being treated badly, wherever people are hurting, we all have a responsibility to speak out.
Of course, it takes courage to speak out, to challenge injustice and make a difference. But I encouraged the children saying, “we all have that spark of courage within us and we can all make a difference, however big or small that is”.
I decided that there are others far better placed than me to speak into this issue so told them about one of my heroes and shared a video of her. That hero is the American Civil Rights champion, poet, singer, actress and writer Maya Angelou. You can see the video for yourself on YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0nYXFletWH4
I am so struck by the words of the 19th Century African American song she sings:
“When it look like the sun wasn’t going shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the cloud.”
God put a rainbow in the cloud! Just think, this is a song of those in slavery. And Angelou said that in whatever she did, she brought everybody who had ever been kind to her, with her because, she said, then “I don’t ever feel I have no help”.
“Be prepared to be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud and be a blessing to somebody” says Maya Angelou. Being a blessing to somebody is to me the most simple form of what it is to stand up to injustice – being one of the people that is there to help.
It has made me think about how willing I am to be that rainbow, to be that blessing? And what does it mean? Perhaps it is about doing my best to reduce waste and care for the planet so those in poorer countries don’t face climate injustice. Perhaps it is standing with people in the community who are struggling. Perhaps it is about being willing to put my neck on the line and speak out against injustice in the church!
There are so many ways in the day to day to tackle injustice and whilst these things may seem small, they are actually massive because these are the things that really start to make the world a fairer place, and these are the things that are so Christ centred. He who always put his neck on the line to speak out for others.
I’m so glad I used Maya Angelou as my inspiration last week, her words have given me much to think about and I hope they do the same for others too. May we each be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud and may our church community here in Shaw & Crompton and Thornham be a blessing to those we serve.
With every blessing.
Fr Paul