"There's No Place Like Home"

       
"Maybe there's a chance for me to go back
Now that I have some direction
It sure would be nice to be back home
Where there's love and affection
And just maybe I can convince time to slow up
Giving me enough time in my life to grow up
Time, be my friend
Let me start again." 

In the final chapter of Marcus Borg's book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, he lays out his image of Jesus - which is wholly contrary to the most commonly held beliefs and images of Jesus - as "a spirit person, subversive sage, social prophet and movement founder who invited his followers and hearers into a transforming relationship with the same Spirit that he himself knew, and into a community whose social vision was shaped by the core value of compassion."  As I've stated in previous posts, this is not the image of Jesus that we were introduced to as children.  Nor is it the image of Jesus that oppressed peoples around the country and the world are accustomed to.  Finally, it is not the image of Jesus that is being preached in most mini and mega churches today.

And while I know many of you are probably expecting me to weigh in on the latest controversy surrounding Eddie Long, and his alleged seduction and coercion of impressionable, at risk young boys, I will do so in the context of the bigger picture.  I want to focus my comments on what I believe to be the larger issue, and interestingly enough, the misconception of Jesus in church and society as professed from the pulpits of the institutional Black Church, which also includes mosques and temples.  While Jesus and Christianity is our focus, the insidious nature of using religious dogma, tradition and faith as weapons of bondage, oppression and tyranny against other human beings that the dominate group(s) in society have determined to be of lesser value, is a practice that crosses all religious lines.  But for us Christians, if we knew Jesus as a "spirit person, a subversive sage, social prophet and movement founder," that calls for us to engage and encounter one another with love and compassion; If we knew Jesus as one who saw the "sacred worth" of each and every one of God's people, the controversy surrounding Eddie Long would be moot.  We would not be here at all.

He, Eddie Long, would not have ever felt the need to castigate God's same-and-both-gender loving people.  And I, the media, progressive minded folk and other same-and-both-gender loving people would not be cheering and dancing around the proverbial camp-fire, roasting marshmallows around his "chickens coming home to roost" moment.  Honestly, I am troubled by the dichotomy of my internal urgings.  On the one hand, as a woman and a lesbian, I feel a supreme gladness in my heart that this man in particular, has had the cover of excessive exhibitions of masculinity, piety, marriage, and misguided misinterpretations of scripture snatched off of him.  On the other hand, I feel an equal sense of sorrow and a maternal need to protect him, as he too, is a victim of the very religiosity he so loudly purported.  It is never a good day when people are taken through what both he, and the young boys are about to go through.  It is an incredibly sad time for African Americans as well.  But, "Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh" (Galatians 6:7,8a).  And so, while I struggle in my own flesh - not with my sexuality mind you - but with what has happened to this man, who by the way, is still my brother, I do take heed, because God is passing by.

Now, back to the matter at hand.  Central to Borg's claim is that the bible can be summed up in three "macro-stories, the Exodus Story, the Story of Exile and Return and, the Priestly Story."  We, African Americans, know the Exodus Story almost intimately.  As descendants of captured, kidnapped, raped, beaten, lynched, exploited and enslaved Africans, we know what it was/is like living under the rule/yoke of Pharaoh.  Those long, hot days in the fields picking and chopping cotton and tobacco was akin to making bricks without straw.  We, too, bore the lash of the slave master's quirt on our backs for nothing more than for the taskmaster to exact absolute control of our minds and our bodies.  As such, we also know the Story of Exile and Return.  I, like many other African Americans, have made the pilgrimage back to Africa - that place where many of us call Home.  And like the Israelites on their journey to the "promised land," and the "Prodigal Son," we too have traveled to a far and distant land, and we found ourselves among new and unfamiliar people.  We, too, have landed in places closely resembling that of a "pig's pen" and longed to return Home.  To take this even further to the margins of the marginalized, when it comes to the institutional Black Church, we, same-and-both-gender loving people, have been set apart, put out and ostracized from a place in our community, our homes and yes, even our churches.  We have traveled near and far to find a place for us that closely resembles that which was, is comfortable and familiar to our hearing, our cultural understanding, racial kinship, tradition and worship experience.  We, too, know well the loneliness and longing for Home.

Finally, the Priestly Story is for me, Jesus' Story. It is the story of a man with a message of divine love, inclusion and compassion.  It is a message that welcomes all to the table of fellowship.  This is the story of one who stood against the kind of conventional wisdom that created the atmosphere that causes one like Eddie Long to live his life in dark, hidden and secret places.  One that leads to destructive behavior with, as we have seen, potentially catastrophic consequences.  Jesus' Story, as the imitatio dei (imitation of God), the incarnation of divine Wisdom, Sophia, is the story of a sage introducing a new and alternative wisdom whose message "sets the captives free."  That is, any and all persons who are or have been victims of conventional wisdom - racism, economic exploitation, religious arrogance and intolerance, sexism and homophobia - to be free.  We are to be free to be all that God has called us into purpose to be.  It is to be on the journey back to that place where we all were once before, floating in the abyss of divine love and compassion with God - HOME.  Oh how I pray; 

"If you're list'ning God
Please don't make it hard to know
If we should believe in things that we see
Tell us, should we run away should we try and stay
Or would it be better just to let things be?

Living here, in this brand new world
Might be a fantasy
But it taught me to love
So it's real, real to me
 
And I've learned
That we must look inside our hearts
To find a world full of love
Like yours
Like mine
 
Like home..."             
             (Charles Emanuel Smalls)
© Dorinda G. Henry, 2010

THEOLOGIA HABITUS EST!