“Many Rooms”
Yesterday was far more than the most glorious day we’ve had all year, with the sun shining brightly, the temperature hovering in the low 70s, the blossoming trees still resplendent in all their flowering glory. After a very rainy couple of weeks, yesterday was also the day that made us believe spring is here to stay at long last, and summer is on its way.
Thanks be to God!
But even more than that, and all the more joyful because it was happening on the most perfectly glorious day of the year, yesterday marked the return to Northampton and our little Happy Valley of the Pride Parade and Festival for the first time since 2019. It, too, was glorious. It, too, featured countless individuals resplendent not only in their sexuality but also in the fullness of their humanity.
And there was so much joy. But there were tears, too.
I’m guessing I saw more tears than most people because I spent four hours offering Blessings to Go. But before I tell you about that, you should know that First Church Amherst was there at Pride with bells on, leading the long procession of UCC congregations and staffing an outreach table that was all but mobbed for a good five hours, resplendent in our welcoming love, generous sharing, happy connecting, patient explaining, and the unbridled joy of simply being the church together.
According to the count of Marla Killough, whose commitment, organizing persistence, and negotiating skills made Pride and First Church Amherst come together, there were 31 of us who marched, 15 of us who staffed the very busy outreach table, and another five First Churchers who stopped by to connect.
Thanks be to God!
For me the day also marked 10 years since I started offering Blessings to Go at Pride, on the sidewalk outside the Black Sheep Deli, at the Amherst Block Party, and, while on my first sabbatical, in Jerusalem and Washington, D.C. With a large sandwich sign (on rollers) that says “Ask me for a blessing” on one side and “Blessings to Go” on the other, I use blessing as a way to tell people—all people—that they are beloved children of God, that God made them and loves them just as they are, that there’s nothing they have to do to earn that love and nothing they could ever do to lose it, that this love is a free gift poured out on them every day simply because God is love and they are God’s children—and to always, always, always remember that.
Offering Blessings to Go, is a great blessing to me, and it brings me deep joy. It reminds me, every time I do it, that God’s love really is for everyone, that everyone really needs to know they are beloved, and that it is our common call and purpose as followers of Jesus to share that love.
There are many, many moving stories I could tell you from my offering of blessings yesterday, and I’m happy to do that when we have more time. For now, let me simply be clear that just as God’s love is for everyone, the blessings I offer are for everyone, no exceptions.
More than a few times yesterday, someone asked me what a blessing is. One woman approached me, and said, “I’m a Neo-pagan, may I still have a blessing?” A young man approached me and with a quiet, shaky voice said,“I’m not sure I believe in God. Is it alright for me to be blessed?”
“Absolutely!” I said, and then I added, “Is it okay if I mention God in my blessing? Because I do believe in God, and I believe God loves you.”
“Sure,” he said.
I don’t know what he thought about God after I blessed him, but I can tell you that, like so many people I blessed yesterday, he was weeping when he walked away.
Which brings us to Jesus and the disciples at their so-called last supper in that upper room. Jesus has just told the disciples that very soon he will leave them, that they will see him no more, and they are upset, scared, and confused.
“Don’t be troubled,” Jesus says. “Trust in God. Trust in me. Believe me when I say that God’s house has many rooms, that in God’s heart there is room to spare.”
As you undoubtedly noticed, there is more to today’s scripture reading than that. There is also that part where Jesus says that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to God except through him.”
Well.
As I was writing this sermon last night, as if on cue, someone from Florida sent a message to our church Facebook page, saying, “Is being trans or gay a sin? And can you get into heaven if you are?”
Good grief.
I have yet to respond to him (because sermon-writing), but let me first be clear with you: Those are the wrong questions!
For my money, the only question that really matters for followers of Jesus is this one: Since Jesus loved everyone, since Jesus’ new and overarching commandment was to love our neighbors as ourselves, and since Jesus taught us that everyone is our neighbor, how can I more completely and purely love everyone? And, more to the point, how can I love God and everyone as Jesus did.
Friends, the easy sermon to preach today, and the easy sermon to hear, would be one that focuses on deconstructing the “way, truth, and life” statement and the business about Jesus being the only way.
But because I believe our times call us to go far beyond what is easy and on to the truths that challenge us, I’m not going to dwell on that. But before moving on to the challenging message, I’ll share with you these thoughts, from Frederick Beuchner, who said it much more clearly than I could:
While Jesus spoke of being the way to God’s heart, Jesus did not say, to quote Buechner, “that any particular ethic, doctrine, or religion was the way the truth and the life. [Jesus] didn’t say that it was by believing or doing anything in particular that you could “come to the [Parent]” or gain admittance to one of those many rooms.
What Jesus said, according to John, was that he was the way, that his way—the Jesus way of loving and living, the Jesus way of giving and forgiving, the Jesus way of evaluating everything, including religious tradition and belief, by what is most compassionate, life-giving—is the way to the heart of the Holy.
“Thus,” Buechner said, “it is possible to be on Christ’s way and with his mark upon you without ever having heard of Christ, and for that reason to be on your way to God though maybe you don’t even believe in God.”
So the easy sermon makes clear that there is plenty of room in God’s house for all people who try to love as Jesus did, to walk with Jesus alongside the lowly and the least, into the very heart of God—even if they don’t know Jesus, even if they don’t believe in God. That sermon goes on to say that there is room in God’s house for people of every faith, and people of no faith.
Of course, there is, we think. Thanks be to God!
But this “many rooms” business, this “room enough for all” approach also challenges us. It tells us, for example, that there is also room in God’s house for those who think God’s house is only for people who believe as they do.
The more challenging sermon says there is room in God’s house for Jordan Neely, the unhoused and likely mentally ill Black man choked to death on the New York City subway last week.
Of course there is, we think.
But that message goes on to say that there is also room in God’s house for the former Marine, a white man named Daniel Penny, who put Jordan Neely in a chokehold and held him down until he stopped struggling.
The “many rooms” message assures us there is room in God’s house for transgender folks, queer folks, lesbians and gays, drag queens, and all manner of people who flaunt their sexuality.
Well, we know that, we say!
But the “many rooms” message tells us there is also space enough in God’s house for the people who don’t see things that way, room even for the state legislators who would ban medical treatment for trans youth, for state lawmakers who would bar a trans lawmaker from their chamber, for governors who would restrict what schools can teach about sexuality and what children can say about their same-gender families.
That truth is a little harder to hear, isn’t it?
And the only way to get there is the Jesus way. The only way to love people who spread hatred and harm is the Jesus way. And the only way to live the Jesus way is by the grace of God and the power of the Spirit.
There was another man at Pride yesterday who spent several minutes talking to me or, more accurately, talking at me. He wanted our church to join him in ministering to people on the streets because, he said, so many people are lost, because, he said, so many people don’t know Christ.
I don’t think he realized that I bless anyone and one, regardless of whether they know Christ or believe in God.
Beloveds, my experience tells me that everyone needs to know that there is room for them in God’s house, everyone needs to trust that they have a place in God’s heart of love.
Everyone needs to know that they are loved—whether they believe in God or not.
And that, I think, is why so many people cry when I bless them. That is why some people were weeping even before I blessed them. They listened to me bless their friend or partner, and the tears started flowing. And then they would say to me, “I think I need that, too. May I have a blessing?”
So let us be on the Jesus way, blessing and loving all the while. Let us never tire of telling people God loves them. And let us share that love with everyone, in every way we can imagine, all the time.
