**#MakeLoveLouder**

I\’m Darren Calhoun and really appreciate being asked to speak to you
today.

I’ve heard that it’s really good to start off talks like this with some
great quote or literary reference like a poem. So here’s some poetry I
wrote during my freshman year of college. I won\’t read the whole
poem\…after all I was a freshman in college when I wrote it. But
here\’s one line from it that was pretty memorable: **\’I\’m black. I\’m
Christian and I\’m gay.\’**

(Yeah…) that caught the attention of the folks around me… some of
them celebrated. Some had a slightly more *low key* acknowledgment of my
declaration. But others\…yeah, **there were others who told me, loud
and clear, that God didn\’t want me to be gay.**

In my sophomore year of college, I found myself in a bible study group
digging into the question of what God wanted for my life – specifically
asking if God wanted me to be gay. This ongoing bible study lead me to a
place where I was *convinced* that God wanted to change my sexual
orientation to heterosexual. Powered by the zeal to be pleasing to God
and encouraged by church leaders who thought they knew what God wanted
for me, I would go on to spend the next eight years of my life trying to
be healed of my same-sex attraction.

For much of this time, I did all the things I was asked. I stopped
calling myself gay and I pulled away from other gay friends. I also
followed the guidance of my pastor to quit school, cut off friends and
family, and move into the basement of the church. This was all so God
would heal me the way those good Christian folk expected God to. I gave
everything I had to try to become ‘normal’ to try to become what the
people around me wanted. But I only found myself more and more isolated
and full of despair as the change just didn’t seem to materialize.

One particular day, my pastor came to talk to me. I’d been struggling
with changing my sexual orientation and living in the church for close
to three years at this point. He came to give me some pastoral advice.
First, he asked if I were being *spiritual* enough. I told him how I’d
been fasting 48 hours through the week, how I was reading chapters from
the bible daily, and how I’d been in the morning and evening prayers we
held at the church. He seemed surprised but inquired further. **”Darren,
are you *really* sold out for God? Do you *really* want to be saved?”.**
I quickly responded “Yes” but he questioned further. “You know, God
*might* let you into heaven, but you don’t want to go to heaven with
*AIDS* do you?”.

His question shook me, but it was clear to me that something was very,
very wrong with what he was saying. I couldn’t articulate it at the time
but **I knew enough scripture to reason that we don’t take HIV or any
other illness with us into eternity.** It also became clearer in that
moment that **he just wanted to scare me,** … to make me afraid of
being gay… Very afraid. I suspect because *he* was afraid of *me*
being gay. It scared him – it didn’t fit with his world view or his view
of God.

Of course later I would realize that what I was experiencing was an
informal *prayer and deliverance based* version of gay conversion
therapy – a practice that seeks to make people heterosexual – and has
now been proven to be so clearly abusive and harmful that some states
including Illinois have outlawed the practice.

But not long after this, a series of moments happened where I felt
God\’s presence in a way that overpowered all the negative things that
were said about me, and I **realized who I am was no surprise to God. My
sexuality, my identity, my attraction.** ***Aaaaall* of
[this]{.underline}\…is exactly how God created me…**

**And all I really needed to be healed of was my shame about it.**

**My sin, my missing the mark, was not listening to God\’s still small
voice within me that told me I was loved, just as I am, and instead,
listening to those voices that told me otherwise.**

Not long ago, I was doing some thinking about healing, both my own
personally and in our world, which seems so sick in so many ways these
days, a world so in need of mercy and justice and healing\…and I found
myself digging into one of the more dramatic healing stories in the
Bible. You may remember it – it’s from **Luke 8:26-39**… In this story
we see Jesus healing a man who had many demons. This guy was known as
the local madman – he was naked, living in a cemetery. The townspeople
had placed him under guard and chained him up. But when Jesus starts to
order the demons out of him, the Bible says, the demons begged Jesus not
to order them to the bottomless pit. So Jesus sends them into a herd of
pigs nearby and these suddenly-crazed pigs, stampede over a cliff, into
a lake and drown. Of course the folks in town get wind of this and come
out to check out what’s happening. And there’s this beautiful moment
when they see this formerly naked, tortured man, sitting there with
Jesus, well, and whole and happy. But then, the Bible tells us, not too
long after that, a lot of these same people got together and asked Jesus
to leave town…and you kinda get the feeling, reading this passage from
Luke, that they didn’t ask politely.

Now, when I first read this story, I pretty much focused on how nice and
collected the man was after he was healed.

But here are a few things that jumped out at me when I read this
scripture again. Which just seems so applicable to where we are in our
world today.

**1 – Sometimes we try to help, but really don’t know what we’re doing.
(Luke 8:29)**

When the people saw that there was something wrong with the man, they
did what they thought they should do – **they bound him and guarded
him**. They were doing everything they could to control him, to make him
less **scary…**

And we get that, don\’t we? I mean I know I do.

When there are things we can\’t understand or we fear might harm us or
disrupt our lives, we try to restrain them, control them\…right? And
we see that happening a lot in our world today in lots of areas,
including around sex and sexuality. **We try to restrain and conform
things to what we know, but that doesn’t always work.**

As sex and sexuality have risen to the forefront of headlines and online
conversations, some have tried to respond by locking it down and holding
tight to what we have known from the past. We shout things like
“marriage has always been between one man and one woman” in an attempt
to control these scary queer folk who dare to seek to be married as
well.

**A second thing I noticed: – Sometimes people are afraid of what
healing looks like (Luke 8:35-37)**

Something was wrong, and Jesus made it right, but that disrupted the
world of the people in the town *and they didn\’t like it*. So they told
Jesus to leave town, leave them alone, stop messing things up for them.

And we know what that\’s like in our world today too, don\’t we?

There are ways that God is making things right in the world, **showing
mercy and compassion and acceptance where it’s been missing, bringing
about justice in places where there’s only been injustice and
oppression,** but sometimes that scares us and we’d rather see things go
back to the way they were.

I hear this often from my LGBTQ friends who come out with their
stories – not stories of becoming heterosexual, but rather stories of
how they are **becoming themselves – queer and fully beloved children of
God**. And these stories sometimes scare people. They shake up people’s
assumptions, they make us question things we\’ve always been taught to
believe about God and ourselves ***and*** about our sexuality. And it\’s
uncomfortable at best. And for some, it\’s downright terrifying.

For as long as I can remember, there has been a group of protesters who
show up each year to LGBTQ Pride parades around the country. This group
identifies as Christian and they have banners and posters that declare
judgment and punishment \– *from God* \– for basically anyone who
disagrees with them. They bring ladders and bullhorns so that they can
have a birds-eye view to “warn people of their sin” – like women wearing
pants, **men having long hair,** and of course the “sin of
homosexuality”. And no one is safe from their taunting.

Even a heterosexual couple walking down the street will be ridiculed for
being on the same street as gay people during a parade. And as terrible
as that might sound, I think it comes from a place that we all can
resonate with in one way or another.

Deep down inside, most of us would like things to stay the same… it’s
comfortable, we’re familiar with it. When things shift in our world **it
can feel like something important is being taken away.** **It terrifies
us.** Reading scripture with a new understanding, updating our view of
marriage, or taking the extra effort to use new pronouns when someone
transitions in their gender identity might feel weird. It makes us feel
stupid when we use the wrong words sometimes. And we don\’t like feeling
stupid\…

And just like with those pig herd owners, changes like this can also
affect our businesses, our bottom line, and maybe our sense of what
we’ve worked hard to accomplish for ourselves. And that’s no small
thing.

***But what if we push past the awkwardness and uncertainty and fear to
discover what God is doing and what God might have in store for us?***

We could discover this:

**3 – Real healing and real change starts close to home and just keeps
going. (Luke 8:39)**

We’re often ok with the idea of change happening *somewhere else.*
Cleaning all the plastic out of the ocean? Great, except if it means I
have to change how much plastic I use on a daily basis. Racial equity?
Absolutely! As long as it doesn\’t mean I have to have uncomfortable
conversations with people at work or school or God forbid… *my
family!* Caring for the poor? Certainly, as long as they are in some
other country that I can send money to as a mission project, versus
changing my routine in the morning to make a little time to talk to the
guy experiencing homeless \– that I otherwise would I pass on my way to
my next appointment.

In the last part of this story from Luke, there’s this great little
moment where the man that Jesus healed says he wants to leave town too.
He wants to *GO* tell the world about his healing. But Jesus instructed
him to *STAY* and declare God’s goodness right where he was. And I
imagine that this guy was smart enough to know, that was *not* going to
be easy.

When I began to heal from the shame and the view of myself as flawed and
wrong and not how God created me, **I had to get away from that church
and every other basement (or proverbial closet) that people wanted to
lock me in.** I had to, in order to keep healing. But I have to tell
you, as more healing has happened for me, I\’ve felt a real call to go
back into those kinds of spaces where I was so hurt and abused, to go
back and spread the good news of God\’s love and mercy for all of us.
But it\’s *hard*\…and some days\…yeah, it\’s brought me to tears.
And when it’s really hard, I\’ve got to focus on **self-care and rest**
while I remind myself why I’m there. In this case, I don\’t believe
running away is what Jesus wants me to do.

And I think that was maybe one of the most important points Jesus was
trying to make\…one that we often overlook in this story. **We are
called to do our own work, do our own healing. And we are also called to
stay in the middle of it. In the middle of the messiness.** Not just
safely staying far away because in the middle is where real life is…
the abundant, face to face, transformative, awake and fully alive life
that Jesus came to give us.

About 10 years ago, I began attending the Pride parade with the
intention of countering the messages of hate and judgment that were
coming from other Christians at the parade. Eventually, this effort grew
into what’s known today as the #MakeLoveLouder campaign. It’s a simple
idea: **that we show up in front of the protesters to counter the hate
with love.** We sing, dance, give high-fives and my favorite: give free
hugs. All of this is an effort to bring some healing in what has been a
sore spot in the parade. And it’s not easy, several hours stationed in
front of professional hateful speakers can wear anyone down. **But in
that messy place,** I’ve seen countless smiling faces, twerking parade
goers, and the tears of joy as people are reminded that they are loved.

**So the question I\’d ask you this morning, is what messy place is God
calling you to?** I\’d ask you to think about: What might it look like
to declare God\’s goodness in your family where you disagree
politically\… What does it look like to be a person who\’s been healed
and proclaiming God\’s love in the middle of an institution where votes
against the affirmation or inclusion of LGBTQ people are happening? How
do we embody God’s call to seek justice, **and let the oppressed go
free** when you\’re a citizen of a country that\’s practicing systemic
racism and oppressing the poor?

It won’t be comfortable\…not always. It will be as disruptive as
Paul’s words in ***Galatians. 3:28 There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female;
for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.***

These were words that turned the world upside down for the people of
that time. And they pretty much still do the same for us today, right?
…

I think about that guy who Jesus healed and how it started something…
it disrupted that community and it created a ripple of change… so that
ultimately, it wasn’t just one person healed. I think that might be
God’s wish for us when God heals us. That it doesn’t end. That it
changes us\…and just keeps going\…it just keeps growing\…and
little by little, **healing changes everything**.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Scripture Readings:

**Galatians 3:23-29**

3:23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law
until faith would be revealed.

3:24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that
we might be justified by faith.

3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a
disciplinarian,

3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.

3:27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves
with Christ.

3:28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ
Jesus.

3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham\’s offspring,
heirs according to the promise.

**Luke 8:26-39**

8:26 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is
opposite Galilee.

8:27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met
him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a
house but in the tombs.

8:28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top
of his voice, \”What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High
God? I beg you, do not torment me\”\–

8:29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.
(For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound
with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by
the demon into the wilds.)

8:30 Jesus then asked him, \”What is your name?\” He said, \”Legion\”;
for many demons had entered him.

8:31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

8:32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and
the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them
permission.

8:33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the
herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

8:34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it
in the city and in the country.

**8:35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came
to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at
the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were
afraid.**

**8:36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been
possessed by demons had been healed.**

8:37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of **the Gerasenes
asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear.** So he
got into the boat and returned.

8:38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with
him; but Jesus sent him away, saying,

**8:39 \”Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for
you.\” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus
had done for him.**