Remember my sermon from Capitol Hill the night before the Inauguration—the same sermon that is in the process of being archived in the Smithsonian? Well, here it is! I hope you enjoy it.

Much love.
http://www.themarinfoundation.org/

And what did happen next was one of the greatest honors of my life to date:

A lady came up to me and gave me a big hug, thanked me for my words and life’s experiences, and said she felt very challenged and yet encouraged that things can change in this culture war. As it turns out she then revealed to me that she was a representative from the Smithsonian Institution Museum in Washington DC! She then expanded and told me that my sermon touched her heart, and wanted to place and archive a copy of my speech in the museum.

Wow! Ok, an archived copy of my sermon in the Smithsonian? That sounds just fine with me!!!

So we talked a little more and she pulled out an official Smithsonian release sheet, which I signed. She then told me that she would be in touch with me soon to give me the full details of it’s placement in the museum. And here we are today—my sermon: Homophobia and Bridging from within the Evangelical Church will be placed in the Smithsonian! As soon as I’m given more info of when it will be in there and where it will be placed, I’ll be sure to let you all know.

I’m so humbled and truly blown away by all of these things in how the Lord has been blessing our bridge building vision (which is His vision). Look at what He’s doing, and we’re all in this thing together!

And then the rest of my night, and my trip to DC were over. I went back to my room (after hanging out with Rick Ufford-Chase—the former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church—and his lovely family), and I contently passed out.

The next morning, Inauguration morning, I took my time and headed to Reagan National Airport once again to catch my 12:45pm flight. As if in another parallel universe, I felt like I was in a ghost town from the moment I stepped into the cab until the moment I walked onto that plane. There were no cars or people on the streets, nobody in the airport (in fact, from my first step into the airport to boarding my plane, I counted a grand total of 53 people!), and I didn’t wonder where any of them were. All I had to do was peer at any TV screen—which were all tuned to CNN—to see for myself how an entire city, nation and world had gathered live in Washington DC (whether physically or virtually) to celebrate the Inauguration of a man many thought would never have a chance.

And for the rest of my life I can say that for just a little bit, I got to be there, experience, and participate in some small way in history. What a trip!

On my flight out the pilot took us right over the Capitol Building as the Inauguration was still commencing. Below is the picture I took from my seat.

History has been made, and now let’s see were the future will take us.

Much love.
http://www.themarinfoundation.org/

When I walked up to the All Souls Church I just took in the site—it was beautiful and looked like a tradition-steeped colonial church built in the 1800s. Later that evening I came to find out that (here is their blurb about themselves):

All Souls has a long tradition of promoting social justice issues [within religious views]. In the first half of the 1800s it was known for its opposition to slavery, and counts among its past ministers the prominent abolitionist William Clay Channing. The Revere Bell at All Souls was stripped of its status as “Washington’s Town Bell” after the congregation tolled it to commemorate the death of John Brown. It was thereafter called the “Abolition Bell”.

As I walked into the speakers lounge I was greeted by:

Rita Nakashima Brock (her book, Saving Paradise, was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the “Best Books of 2008”),

Bob Edgar (now CEO of Common Cause, he served 12 years in Congress, and a part of the congressional class nicknamed “the Watergate babies” who were elected in the wake of the Watergate scandal and led to sweeping Congressional reforms),

and

Dr. Vincent Harding (close colleague of MLK Jr.—Dr. Harding wrote speeches for MLK, including the famous “A Time to Break Silence”. Since MLK’s death Dr. Harding and Coretta Scott King co-established the King Center in Atlanta and they speak around the country on racial reconciliation).

That set the tone right then and there.

When the time came for us to head towards the sanctuary we had a difficult time due to the overflow of people who gathered outside to try and somehow squeeze into the main seating area. After a little detour we finally made it into the back of the sanctuary. And when I walked in, my eyes popped wide open.

I saw TV cameras all over the floor and the balcony, and sitting in the periphery were a gob of reporters, videographers and cameramen from various papers, journals and magazines. This is not to mention the 1,200-1,300 people absolutely packed into the pews, the balcony and sitting in folding chairs and on the floor—anywhere they could fit. This church might have been a historic church on the Hill, but it sure was not sized to hold so many eager people.

The first few rows on the main floor were sectioned off for us to sit and, and in classic Washington fashion, we (the speakers) were introduced and paraded down the middle isle to our seats in the front—walking between various politicians, Washington elite, and those who were able to get a seat. For one fleeting moment I felt like the President being introduced at the State of the Union walking down the middle isle as everyone stands up and claps. That was quite a moment for me (and then I started getting really nervous!).

I was the third person to speak—and I have to tell you about their stage and podium:

It wasn’t what you would think of as average. The stage was actually just the podium, as I had to walk up about 15 steps to get to the 14 ft. podium that towered over the attendees. It felt like an “old school excitable preacher” setting, as I could just image back in the 1800s preachers standing up there getting all riled up about the abolition of slavery. That thought pumped me up! So when I got up there to speak I peered around the sanctuary, looking at all of the TV cameras, photographers and people, just taking it in for one brief second—and I prayed in my Spirit:

“Lord, thank you for this opportunity to stand up here and communicate your message in front of the most unlikely of audiences. Send your Holy Spirit to indwell in this place and come upon me. Let your words clearly flow through me with enthusiasm and grace—and let’s give them something they’ve never seen! In Jesus’ Holy Name.”

The event planners asked me to speak on homophobia, so my sermon was titled:

Homophobia and Bridging from within the Evangelical Church

For the next 10 minutes I laid it down with all the passion and enthusiasm—totally everything—I had (if you’ve ever heard me speak you know what I’m talking about).

I ended my sermon with:

“So this is my call for all of us here today, as well as to all of my fellow straight evangelical brothers and sisters around the world: It’s time to stop running in fear—fear of what might happen, fear of what other people might think and fear of what is right or wrong! Only with that countercultural commitment can true, sustainable and systemic growth actually happen! Faith in our Holy God is not about sexual orientation; because it should always be that love is our orientation!”

And with that (and for some added dramatic effect) I immediately walked off the podium!

I then received one of the two standing ovations that were given throughout the night.

But what happened next was one of the biggest honors of my life to-date…..

Much love.
http://www.themarinfoundation.org/

Monday January 19th came quickly as I didn’t end up getting to my room until about 1am. Even then I was still so excited for what I was about to experience that I couldn’t fall asleep until about 2am. When I woke up it was 10 or so, and I had scheduled to meet a good friend of mine, Brad Ogilvie, who founded the Mosaic Initiative and now lives in DC and works for the Quaker William Penn House on Capitol Hill as their Program Coordinator.

I love getting together with Brad because he is one of the growing number of gay men that I know who look at homosexuality, politics and religion in quite a unique, countercultural way from the overwhelming majority of the rest of the GLBT community. As Brad says:

“The most close-minded people in Washington DC seem to be the GLBT community and liberals who say they’re open minded.”

and

“Do you ever wonder why Gene Robinson is always reduced to—including GLBT organizations—being called “the gay bishop” instead of Bishop Gene Robinson? That’s not helping our cause because our own organizations even still focus solely on sexual behavior as the identifying characteristic.”

Here is an example of an AWESOME article that Brad sent around to our conservative Christian friends (coincidentally, the article was written by a mutual friend of Brad and I).

Since I had never been to DC before, Brad took me around and gave me the quick tour of what is called the “Mall”.

Here is a picture of me in front of the Capitol Building a few hours before I was to go and speak (taken with my cell phone).

The excitement in the air permeated every inch of Capitol Hill. People were packed everywhere—in the restaurants, on the sidewalks, in the streets, and packed in and around any legally walk-able area, museum or building. I found myself getting easily swept up in the excitement as well. I bought a shirt that had all the former President’s white faces in a circle around Barack Obama’s face which was placed in the middle. I usually see those types of shirts and automatically think, “Cheesy”. But this time it wasn’t so cheesy to see 43 faces of white men, and then 1 face of a black man—which one of these doesn’t look like the other?

My time with Brad quickly flew by and then it was off to the event where I was speaking at on Capitol Hill.

Much love.
http://www.themarinfoundation.org/

My flight into DC on Sunday night, January 18th, started in Omaha, NE. I spent the weekend at Christ Community Church of Omaha, a Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) Denominational church, with my friend Richard Engle. What a great, loving group of people who genuinely have a heart to learn about building bridges with GLBT people. It isn’t often I can say that every person I met throughout that weekend was humbly trying to listen, learn and understand what it means to try and grasp the gay community through the gay community’s filtration system. Not only that, but I was excited at how many GLBT people attended the service—not that it is too much of a surprise anymore because it seems that no matter what church or conference I’m at or speak at (no matter how conservative or fundamental) there are always GLBT people who come to listen. But what did surprise me was the solidly constructed relationships those gays and lesbians already had with the largely conservative congregation. It seems as though many of the individuals at Christ Community have done a magnificent job on their own, and thus, the reason they were so eager to gain some additional perspective and framework to make their bridge building efforts more sustainable—corporately and individually.

I would also be remise not to mention the few precious hours I got to spend with my great friend—Chris Heuertz—International Executive Director of Word Made Flesh and author of Simple Spirituality. I truly love and respect him so much. Each time we are together his brilliant mind and his theologically and socially stimulating thoughts and ideas push and challenge my own to continue experientially integrating my faith into social environments within everyday life. He is the real deal, and I’m so blessed to call him a friend.

On Sunday evening I flew out of Omaha (and I was bummed I didn’t have any time to try and stalk Warren Buffet) en route to DC to speak at an interfaith event on Capitol Hill the night before the Inauguration. I had a quick layover in Chicago (which always annoys me when I have a layover in Chicago because that is my home—why do I have to layover in my own home?!). And when I boarded my United flight to Reagan National Airport, that’s when the impact of where I was going hit me square in the face.

I fly quite a bit so I’m fortunate enough to have a great status with United allowing me to sit in upgraded seats in the front of the plane. As I was one of the first to board I quickly noticed something interesting—I was the only white person I could see. I looked toward the entrance to the plane and started keeping a tally of the ethnicities of the people who boarded. On a completely sold out flight, there was only a total of 17 non-black people on the plane:

9 white people,
a family of 5 Indian people (of which 2 were kids),
and 3 Asians

As I sat in my seat looking around I started to tangibly realize the magnitude of what was going on. Not only so, but every African-American person on this late-night flight was dressed in their Sunday best—suits, ties, hats, dresses, heals, jewelry, long business coats, furs, etc. More-so for them than I could have ever grasped as a recipient male of white privilege, even the plane ride to DC deserved to be treated with respect and honor; the same respect and honor that each moment of this Inauguration experience means to African-Americans all of the world. Looking at this I was reminded that years ago, black people were only counted as 3/5ths the person of that of a white man. And now with as much pride as they could muster, a plane full of festive and exuberant African-Americans were about to fly to Washington DC to witness history first hand.

Much love.
http://www.themarinfoundation.org/