CLGS

Easter is more than egg hunts and candies though MCC in the Valley gathered over 800 plastic Easter eggs with candies for orphans. Nobody wanted to provide plastic eggs filled with candies for the Easter egg hunt this year. MCCV, under the leadership of Audrey Antley, stepped up to volunteer. Orphans are castaway children, social nobodies. Easter is about nobody and nobodies. Let me reflect on this a bit.

In the Greco-Roman world of the first century CE, resurrection was not an unusual idea. It was a commonplace notion crossing a number of religions at the time. Deities were raised from the dead. For example, Osiris was murdered by his brother Set, and Set chopped up his body into a number of parts and buried them. Isis, the wife of Osiris, found all but one part of the dismembered body to re-assemble and resurrect Osiris. Osiris became the god of the afterlife. Within the Jewish biblical tradition, Elijah is transported into the heavens. The prophets Daniel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah hoped in a merciful and just God who gave new life.

Great heroes and rulers were viewed as sons of God, and many were often raised to a divine status after death. Hercules was raised to divinity after his death. It did not surprise any citizen of the Roman Empire to hear that the Augustus Caesar, a son of god, was raised from the dead and elevated to divine status in the heavens. In fact, the Roman Senate proclaimed Augustus Caesar alive and a god after his death. His life justified such a claim.

Biblical scholar Stephen Patterson writes, "Ancients readily believed in resurrection; they just would not have thought Jesus a likely candidate. His death was not heroic. He was born a peasant and died a criminal." (Beyond the Passion, p. 106) What would surprise the listeners of the Christian gospel message was that God raised Jesus, a Galilean carpenter from the peasant class, from the dead. Jesus was a nobody. He was not a hero, a high priest, nor an emperor. He was simple prophet from Nazareth, a nobody from a non-distinct village in backwaters of the Roman Empire. What would been difficult for ancients to conceive was that God would raise a nobody like Jesus from the dead.

The followers of Jesus proclaimed that God raised the crucified nobody from the dead. His witnesses were non-conformist women and irregular men. The idea that women could bear legal witness was unheard, even scandalous. Women were legal nobodies and could not provide legal testimony. Yet Magdalene and other women found the tomb empty. Literally, there was no-body to anoint and perform the burial rites due to their teacher and prophet. As nobodies, they witnessed and proclaimed the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen Jesus. During his time with his women disciples, Jesus convinced them that they had value and that they were somebodies to God. They endangered themselves and followed him to Jerusalem, to the cross, and to the tomb. He was their hero, their teacher, and their prophet. Jesus died for God's cause. Easter uncovered for them that Jesus was God's Christ. He was indeed God's somebody.

Translesbigay folks are considered dangerous nobodies. We are certainly legal nobodies, denied the legal protections and benefits of marriage. The current hysteria over same-sex marriage during the presidential campaign and its violent aftermath has resulted in 17 states prohibiting same-sex marriage. We are labeled threatening nobodies because of our loves and attractions. Let us take to heart the example of Jesus. The Roman officials and the coopted Judean leadership moved against a nobody from Galilee—who threatened the status quo with dreams of a world where God values nobodies and all are welcomed at table. Now the legacy of the violence two millennia ago against God's nobody is renewed in the Bush administration and the religious right in their attempts to crucify us in a homophobic cultural frenzy to stifle our voices, make our lives invisible, and oppress us. They have failed to heed the words of Jesus parable in Matthew 25: "Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to the one of nobodies, you did it to me." They failed to recognize God's insurrection in the death of Jesus. God refused to comply; God raised Jesus from the dead. I believe too that God will raise us nobodies from this cultural persecution. We will triumph. We have been entombed by recent events, but there are pockets of light and life emerging again. Just as God raised Jesus from the dead, so that merciful and justice-loving God will be in our insurrection of love. Love will conquer hate and ballot initiatives.

MCCV is a community of cultural nobodies, but we are somebodies in the eyes of God. We are pocket of light because we recognize that we are nobodies like Jesus the Christ and we carry out his mission to nobodies. We are a small church alive with the presence of the risen Christ, welcoming, growing, hospitable, compassionate, caring, adventuresome, and fun-loving. In less than year, I have witnessed tremendous generosity and commitment in the members and friends: we have made over our sanctuary, raised nearly $15,000 worth toys for gay and lesbian kids, raised $2,200 for Oxfam for relief of the Tsunami survivors, seen a generous benefactor donate a steeple for the church, and just recently collected over 800 plastic eggs for orphans. More importantly, I have noticed how people at MCCV have grown in love, hospitality, prayer, and care these past months.

May we as a church of nobodies continue to proclaim the Easter message that God cares deeply for nobodies. May we reach out to the cultural nobodies of the translesbigay community and proclaim loudly and clearly that they are God's somebodies as Jesus was God's somebody.

Rev. Dr Robert Goss is Pastor of MCC in the Valley. He was on staff with MCC of Greater St. Louis for nine years. Goss transferred as clergy into MCC from the Roman Catholic Church where he was ordained as a Jesuit priest. He has worked in Mother Theresa’s House of the Dying Destitute (Calcutta, India). Goss received his doctorate from Harvard University in Theology and Comparative Religions with a specialization in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Christianity. He has been part of the Buddhist-Christian dialogue and practices and teaches meditation.

Rev. Goss is the author of Jesus ACTED UP: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto (1993), coeditor of A Rainbow of Religious Diversity (1996), Our Families, Our Values: Snapshots of Queer Kinship (1997); Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible (2000); and Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus ACTED UP (2002). He is co-author of Dead But, Not Lost: Grief Narratives in Religious Traditions (Fall, 2004) and coeditor of the forthcoming: Gay Catholic Priests and Clergy Sexual Misconduct Spring (2005).

He is currently co-editing a translesbigay commentary on all the books of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. The editors have assembled a stellar group of international queer scholars to participate in the project. For five years, Goss has served as co-chair of the Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group of the American Academy of Religion. He serves on the National Advisory Board of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry of the Pacific School of Religion (Berkeley, Ca). Goss has been involved in a number of peace and justice movements.