July 15, 2001
6th Sunday of Pentecost
Year C
Title: Flaming John Paulk?
Theme: Jesus reminds us that our enemies are to be recipients of mercy,
much like we have been recipient of God’s generous mercy.
I know that you must be curious why in the world I would entitle my
sermon, “Flaming John Paulk?” and I suspect a few of you are just
wondering who in the world John Paulk is. Well, I’ll answer the second
question before I explain my motives for giving my sermon such an odd
title. For those of you who are not familiar with John Paulk, let me share
with you a little bit of his history. Mr. Paulk was once the chairperson of
Exodus International, which is a Christian umbrella organization whose
goal is to make the case that lesbian and gay people can change their
sexual orientation through combination of prayer, hard work, and
ironically, Freudian psychology. John Paulk has said that he was once a
gay man and has now changed his sexual orientation, to the point that
he is now married to an ex-lesbian and has a child, I believe. He has
become famous for being on the cover of Newsweek and for being the
most vocal spokesman of the ex-gay movement—well, until recently.
Nowadays, he’s probably most well known for taking a detour into a gay
bar in Washington, D.C. and then being caught on film while he was
there, literally being chased down the street by a wild-eyed staff person
of the Human Rights Campaign. After the incident hit the press, he first
denied knowing it was a gay bar, but later he admitted to knowing that it
was a gay bar and explained it as simple curiosity about the life he had
left behind. Just recently, after being removed for such an indiscretion,
he was reinstated to the Exodus Board, though not reinstated as the
chairperson.
Now, when this whole story broke, I must admit that I was just fascinated
by the story, as were many of my friends and colleagues. And I must
admit to a certain satisfaction about seeing an enemy—yes, let’s name
him as an enemy, though an enemy who worships the same God I do—
about seeing an enemy fall on his face so completely and so publicly—a
fall that called into question the very foundation of Exodus’ propaganda.
I think a lot of people felt a certain amount of self-righteousness about
the whole thing—“See! You can’t change!” we were saying to our
selves, in our glee about being proven right. The whole John Paulk
drama seem to mirror some of our own journey of trying to change, and
realizing that, though we could change our behavior, we could not our
fundamental sexual orientation. Lately, I’ve seen John Paulk in the press
again, most notably in THE ADVOCATE, a gay newsmagazine, where he
continues to say that he has been changed, though his definition of
being heterosexual doesn’t sound like any I have heard before—he
sounds more bisexual to me, by his own definition. But that argument will
never end, I suppose, and that is not the point of bringing him up this
Sunday. One of the things that has disturbed me about my own reaction
to this incident is our self-righteousness and our own lack of mercy for
another person of Christian faith, even a person whom I—and we
disagree with and whose dogma and beliefs we find destructive and filled
with self-loathing. I fundamentally disagree with Paulk’s ideas and beliefs
around sexual orientation because I believe that sexual orientation is
neither good nor bad—it just is—and that it is not the object of our
affection that determines the goodness of our love—it is, in fact, the way
we love rather than who we love that determines whether goodness
surrounds our love. But whatever my—and our disagreements—with
Paulk, the viciousness and mercilessness, almost the glee with which we
watched him fall, has disturbed me—and I think it should disturb us all.
Everyone deserves mercy, even the people whom we vehemently
disagree with, because we too have received mercy from God, and like
love, it is something we need to pass on.
I guess this issue of mercy came up recently when I was reading this
passage from Luke, where Jesus is going towards Jerusalem, and he
send some of his disciples ahead to a Samaritan town to prepare for his
arrival. When Jesus entered into any town, it was always a big deal—
kind of like a movie star arriving into town. But the townspeople of this
Samaritan village didn’t want him there—they simply told the disciples to
bypass their village and go on ahead to Jerusalem. And the reason why
these Samaritans told Jesus to take the bypass road was because he
was headed to Jerusalem to go worship. Now, you need understand that
the Samaritans were fellow Jews who had intermarried with non-Jews and
had become outcasts because they married Gentiles. The Samaritans
also believed that Jerusalem was the wrong place for worship—and they
had a separate temple in a different part of the country where they
worshiped the same God of Abraham and Sarah that the more traditional
Jews worshipped. In fact, the Samaritan Jews and the traditional Jews
had had this long standing argument about where worship should
happen for quite awhile, and so when the people of this Samaritan town
find out that Jesus was headed to the temple in Jerusalem rather than
their own temple in the opposite direction, they simply told Jesus that he
wasn’t welcome in their town. Because Jesus’ face was set towards
Jerusalem, they didn’t want to have anything to do with him.
You know, what’s so disturbing is that Jesus’ disciples are so angry and
arrogant that they want Jesus’ permission send a little fire from the
heavens to teach these Samaritans a lesson. They didn’t have any
mercy with these Samaritans with whom they disagree with—and whom
they probably felt insulted by. They wanted to punish them, to turn up
the heat, and give them a little bit of hell on earth, so to speak. So, they
ask Jesus’ permission and he is so disturbed by their meanness and
their lack of mercy that he stops walking and turns around and tells them
off—he rebukes them, the Scripture tells us! “What in the world are you
thinking? Just because we disagree with them, they deserve fire and
brimstone?!?! Just because they are headed to their place of worship
and we are headed to Jerusalem to worship the same God, you think
they deserve death?!?!?! Get your priorities right!” I can imagine Jesus
saying this to his disciples, as they once again disappoint him in the
inability to “get it.” And then in the next scene, you see Jesus reminding
them that following him means letting go of a lot, it means dropping all
the excuses and simply following him in the way of love. Second-rate
discipleship, where you call on fire and brimstone on your enemies, will
not do if you want to follow Jesus.
As much as I would love to say that mercy and grace is what I extend to
my enemies, I want to admit that I probably identify with the disciples in
the first part of this passage. When I see the damage my brothers like
John Paulk have wrecked on the lives of people that I love with their bad
theology and even worse psychology, I have entertained fantasies of a
flaming John Paulk—and I am not talking about putting him back into a
dress and makeup. To see Paulk fall on his face so dramatically and so
publicly—yes, like a lot of people, there was a little bit of self-
righteousness going on inside of me. But the problem is that John Paulk
is my brother—we share the same Christ, we are part of the church, we
are one, though not of the same mind, to be honest. Which is, of
course, not an unusual thing, in the history of the Christian church, this
phenomenon of the church not being of one mind about a particular
issue. But I am asked by Jesus to show some mercy here—to see in his
brokenness and his fragileness and awkward confusion, my own
fragileness and brokenness and sometimes my own confusion, and I am
asked to give away what I have been given by God, which is mercy,
which is grace, which is understanding. We don’t all have to have our
faces towards Jerusalem for us to recognize that we all deserve mercy,
that we are all in need of grace. To enjoy or revel in the public
humiliation of an enemy fails to give away what I have been given. We
don’t have to worship at the same temple to worship the same God,
though it is sad that we can’t find the common ground to celebrate God
together. Like us with the ex-gay movement, Jesus disagrees with the
Samaritans about the location of the temple, but he never fails to
recognize the beauty and worth of his enemies—and that despite the
worst impulses of his disciples, he recognizes that these Samaritans are
too in need of what he has been given and what he is giving away to the
world—so much grace, so much mercy.
To follow Jesus, to make a life of wandering with this Jesus of Nazareth
means that we must follow and do what we have been asked to do, to
give away what we have been given but we must do it NOW, not later, as
Jesus later in this passage reminds us. And that means choosing mercy
over vengeance, giving a blessing rather than calling fire from the
heavens, living love and walking away from hate. We are not
responsible for the actions or the beliefs or even the lies of the enemies.
We are not called to argue them into the truth, or to even charbroil them
into reality—we are responsible for our reaction to them, and our
reaction must be a reflection of the Christ we follow, and what we have
received in our journey with this Jesus. We are responsible for
ourselves and our reaction to their untruth—will it be defensive, full of
anger and bitterness? Or will it be able to see past the fear and see the
fragile and beautiful human whom does not journey with us to Jerusalem,
but who chooses to worship God in another temple, another place which
we think is the wrong place to worship God? Remember, we are not
loved because we are right about anything, but because God is right
about us as God’s beautiful creation. John Paulk, know this: I see Christ
in you, my brother, my scared, confused, and fragile brother. It matters
not what you see in me—but I see you through the eyes that have met
me in this Jesus of Nazareth. You and I, all of us, we have been given
much, haven’t we? Much mercy, much grace, much hope, much joy.
Your pain and confusion, John, is no source of happiness for me or for
us—it cannot be if I am to remain a disciple of the One we both follow.
Know that I—that we as fellow disciples—we only wish you peace and
blessings, my friend and brother. Go in search of the truth and you shall
find it, and it will most certainly set you free. Amen and amen.
