Guest Sermon by Dr. Barrett Scroggs
I knew I was gay when I was 12. The way the story goes is that I went to my first overnight church retreat and found more than just Jesus. I found someone else too. It was the epitome of an adolescent sexual experience: awkward yet developmentally important. After that experience it still took me 5 more years to come out. Everyone else was okay with it but I wasn’t. I remember my grandmother lovingly telling me that I could talk to my openly gay uncle if I had questions. 14-year-old Barrett was not happy about that recommendation because in my own mind I was straight. I remember yelling at her rather dramatically saying, “I’m not gay.” Who knew… I finally came out of the closet at 17 with little fanfare (the way I wanted). I moved around for college and work and then ended up here in Omaha where I became a part of my first real LGBTQ community. And I lived happily ever after…
Except that’s not where the story ends. The narrative of being a member of the LGBTQ community is not a short story but one that continues across our entire life. It is a journey with ups and downs. We are always growing and deepening in our understanding of who we are. Now I’m biased, my Ph.D. is in life-span human development so I literally geek out about how we develop. One of the tenants of developmental theory is that development occurs across the entire life-span; that we continue to develop from cradle to grave. We cannot think of the LGBTQ experience as one instantaneous moment. We also cannot think of the LGBTQ experience as a trajectory that levels off and becomes stagnant once we are out of the closet. LGBTQ development is a continual process.
One of the major moments of the LGBTQ experience is coming out, when we openly tell others about our sexual orientation or gender identity. I recently watched a video interview with one of the hosts from the new Queer Eye who spoke about how he preferred the term “letting people in” instead of “coming out.” No matter what the language, the coming out moment is a pivotal one. But it is also a deeper experience than I think we sometimes consider. As a researcher I talk about how LGBTQ individuals must first come out to themselves. I mentioned that to one of my best friends who, a few months after, came out to me as bisexual. He spoke about how what I had said stuck with him. He understood what that meant because it had been something he had been avoiding for so long. But now he had the words to really understand what he needed to do. Before we acknowledge our identity to anyone else we must first acknowledge it ourselves. Also, coming out is not a one-and-done experience; but a choice to come out continually; every day. I came out publicly when I was 17 but even in the age of social media there was no way for me to reach EVERYONE with that announcement. And so, every day I have to make the choice to come out again and again. Sometimes it is a big choice like whether or not to tell my new employer about my identity or whether to come out to a new friend. But sometimes these choices are small like whether or not to tell the woman cutting my hair that the reason I’m getting a haircut is that I’m going on a date with another guy. She doesn’t need to know. I won’t ever see her again. But I still have to decide whether I am going to come out in that moment.
Why don’t we come out so easily? Why is it something that we have to consciously think about? Brene Brown would say that it is due to shame. She reminds us that, “we all have shame. We all have good and bad, dark and light, inside of us. But if we don’t come to terms with our shame, our struggles, we start believing that there’s something wrong with us—that we’re bad, flawed, not good enough—and even worse, we start acting on those beliefs. If we want to be fully engaged, to be connected, we have to be vulnerable. In order to be vulnerable, we need to develop resilience to shame” (p. 61). Easier said than done, right?
A few years back I was having a difficult time processing some things related to the death of my mother. She had passed years before when I was 12 but as I say she was “hanging out” and I couldn’t really figure out why. I set up an appointment with my therapist and went to my appointment. Towards the end of our meeting my therapist brought up the possibility that I was dealing with issues related to internal homophobia. I brushed it off and encouraged her to move on…. After all, I was very proud of my sexual orientation and was open with everyone about that. To say nothing of the fact that I was the one paying for this hour. No reason to waste our time with issues I clearly wasn’t dealing with. Months later I realized she was right. My mom was hanging out because of the shame I still felt. I never got to come out to her and somewhere deep inside of me the shame and internal homophobia were brewing. Brene Brown speaks of the negative implications of shame like this saying that, “shame derives its power from being unspeakable. If we speak shame, it begins to wither. Just the way exposure to light was deadly for the gremlins, language and story bring light to shame and destroy it” (p. 67). In order to deal with the shame I was feeling I had to speak it: first to myself, then to my therapist, then to my friends, and now to you. I also think that this story about my mom illustrates that shame sits deep. Shame sits deeper than guilt. Whereas guilt may be in response to a behavior, shame is more about feeling like we are unworthy, that we are somehow less than. My shame sat so deep that I was unable to notice it. I didn’t even realize that it was there inside of me for years.
So if shame is what is making things difficult to come out, where does that shame come from? For me, part of it related to my mom. For so many members of the LGBTQ community, myself included, feelings of shame are connected to our history of homophobia and transphobia from our faith communities and our inability to integrate our LGBTQ and religious identities. My own experiences of this led me to research this topic. 10 years ago I had just moved here to Omaha to work at the Rose Theatre and I found myself at Pride. It was there that I first met the folks from First United Methodist Church. Having grown up Methodist, I was a bit shocked when I saw the First Church booth at Pride. I assumed they were there to protest and I was pissed. I walked up to the booth ready to debate with them. What scripture were they going to throw at me? Leviticus? Romans? I built up my courage and approached the booth. I was not met with a debate and instead was met with a bright green t-shirt that said “compassion.” They invited me to come visit church and the following week I did just that. Many of you heard me and my colleague Nate Faflick speak here at the Abbey in April about the concept of identity integration; how LGBTQ folks can integrate and reconcile their LGBTQ and religious identities; and it was thanks to First Church and the Urban Abbey, that I was able to integrate and reconcile my own sexual orientation and religious identity.
With my research, I am interested in what experiences or characteristics make it so that LGBTQ folks can reconcile these identities. I am also interested in what this reconciliation does for the individual. Through our research, my colleagues and I found that people who were able to integrate these two seemingly conflicting identities were more likely to attend church but that people who felt like their LGBTQ identity was really important to them were less likely to attend church. We also found that integrating their two identities made LGBTQ folks feel better about their lives and that the positive implications of identity integration was due to spending time with people in a supportive church community.
So what does this all have to do with shame? LGBTQ folks are so often ostracized by religious communities which pushes them away from that community and that identity. But my research finds that being connected to a faith community is good for one’s well-being. One of the things that Nate and I spoke about when we were here in April was how faith communities could better welcome and protect members of the LGBTQ community. It is our jobs in these safe spaces to make our faith communities welcoming in order to support the well-being off LGBTQ folks.
I have spoken a lot about shame. I have spoken a lot about how shame can manifest in LGBTQ folks and how that is connected to LGBTQ folks coming out to themselves and to the people around them. But coming out isn’t just about moving away from shame. It’s also about moving more towards a place of pride. After all, pride is the opposite of shame. Whereas shame has detrimental implications for our well-being, my research has found that being open and proud about one’s LGBTQ identity has positive implications for our well-being. The more we are open, out, and proud about our identity, the better we feel.
One of my best friends recently sent me the song “Reborn” by Kid Cudi and Kanye West to listen to on Spotify and the lyrics have stuck with me. They say:
Somethin's wrong; I don't know why
Been lookin' for my way out from the storm
Which way do I go?
I'm so reborn
I'm movin' forward
Keep movin' forward
I think these words have stuck with me because they illustrate that movement from shame to pride. The lyrics move from the shame of “somethin’s wrong” and sitting in the storm to a place of pride and moving forward. It also illustrates the journey of finding pride. Just like coming out is not a one and done experience, having pride is not as well. Having pride is a journey. I am reminded that through coming out we are moving forward away from shame to a space of pride. In their book titled A positive view of LGBTQ, Ellen Riggle and Sharon Rostosky (2012) tell us that “the personal growth that comes from cultivating self-awareness and insight is important in the personal journeys of LGBTQ individuals. A sense of growth, of changing in positive ways, and of moving forward in our lives enhances our well-being” (p. 35). Growth. Change. These words remind us of the movement and the development that is constantly occurring. Pride is not a destination, but a journey.
I am reminded of the story of Peter’s denial after Jesus was arrested. The story is told in all four of the gospels and is a story filled with shame. Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him, a revelation which hits Peter hard. How could Jesus think that he would shy away from his pride and hide in shame? And yet, it happens. Just as Jesus said it would. Peter could not have predicted how he would respond in that moment when he was confronted. And in the same way, we cannot predict how we are going to respond each day. As open and out as I am there are still moments when I shrink down and hide. I try and “pass” or at least try and not call attention to myself. I cannot judge myself for those choices. I cannot beat myself up over brief moments when I tip toe to the safety of the closet. Instead, I can learn from them.
So being out has implications for LGBTQ individuals’ well-being. But what else? Why is it important for me personally to be out and proud? My outness begins conversations and I am okay with that. Think of it as my own transfiguration moment. In Mark’s account of Jesus’ transfiguration, we hear that, “Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them…. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.” Jesus had a coming out moment right before their eyes. It was an intentional act that he wanted to share that with his closest friends. He came out, or better “let them in,” on this moment. But what is interesting is that it doesn’t end there. After that, Peter, James, and John continue to ponder what they had just witnessed. “What could this rising from the dead thing mean?” When we come out and express our pride, others are left with questions; with things to ponder.
And so, in the same way, when I come out and stand with pride I do it for me but also for those around me. I come out and stand with pride for my friend who learned more about what it meant to be open about his own sexual orientation through watching me. I come out and stand with pride for the middle school student I teach who has never met a queer person before and for the first time is able to empathize with this community. I still battle shame. I still have days when I feel as though I would rather hide in the closet and mind my own business. However, my outness is not just for me. In June of 1990 when Pride meant something different than it does today, a group of individuals passed out leaflets at pride events which said, “how can I convince you…. That everyday you wake up alive, relatively happy, and a functioning human being, you are committing a rebellious act. You as an alive and functioning queer are a revolutionary.” And so, I come out and stand with pride as an act of rebellion. May it be so. Amen.
© Dr. Barrett Scroggs, 2018
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