"Seeing Beyond Limitations"
Peter Rothstein
Sunday, March 14th 2004

My little niece Clara was recently preparing for her first communion. In her class, they made small crosses out of popsicle sticks. And then attached a piece of yarn to one end and made a loop. The idea being that the kids could hang the cross on their bedroom door as a sign of protection. Well, Clara did just that, but before hanging it on the doorknob, she got out her magic markers and wrote, on the cross, "KEEP OUT!"

Like many great artists, my niece was unaware of how profound her creation was. I assume she was also unaware of the irony and the incongruity of that gesture. I was taught from an early age, at St. Joseph's Catholic School, that the crucifix, whether made of gold, silver, or popsicle sticks is a symbol of salvation. Christ opening the gates of heaven. An act of liberation. However, if I look at the history of the Church I wonder if the Church itself hasn't written "keep out" on the cross.

Some of my friends and colleagues challenge me about my about my faith. "How can you be a gay man and a practicing Catholic?" My short answer is St. Joan of Arc. The long answer is more complicated. I am the youngest, the baby of ELEVEN children. Now if that's not evidence of an Irish Catholic family, I don't know what is. My Catholicism is as intregal to my identity as my sexuality. While the Church condemns my sexuality, a part of my life journey is to embrace that sexuality as a God-given gift. And that point of conflict, that tension, is one of the things which keeps my faith active. I want to create change. No one understands the concept of change better than this congregation. We don't change the church by leaving the church, in fact, we change the church because we remain.

I am currently directing a new musical called A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE. It's is about a gay, Irish, Catholic, theater director. I have absolutely no idea what drew me to the piece. It takes place in Dublin in 1964. It's the story of Alfie, a Dublin bus conductor, who reads poetry to passengers and directs plays by Oscar Wilde in the basement of St. Imelda's Catholic Church. Unable to reveal his true self to the world, Alfie lives vicariously through the words of Oscar Wilde -- one of Ireland's greatest writers and the first self-proclaimed homosexual of English Literature. Like many of us, Alfie turns to Art to both comfort and confront his humanity. In an act of great courage, Alfie decides to stage Oscar Wilde's masterpiece Salome. It's the story of John the Baptist and Princess Salome, but Oscar Wilde's play is about forbidden sexuality and religious hypocrisy. And Alfie is going to stage this play in a Catholic church. I think Alfie's attempt to unite his Catholic faith and his Authentic Self is a struggle to which many of us can relate.

Here is a scene from A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, with Tod Petersen as Alfie, Jonathan Peterson as Fr. Kenny and Dieter Bierbrauer as Robbie. The setting of the scene should ring familiar.

music: Confession from A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE

My nephew James... I have 37 nieces and nephews, so you'll have to forgive all the anecdotes. My nephew James was preparing for his first confession. His teacher had the kids write a list of their sins and practice saying them outloud. James was an incredibly well-behaved child, and he honestly couldn't think of any. So he went home and hit his baby brother.

I guess James completed his assignment, but he missed the grade. I think many of us miss the grade. We tend to focus on sin rather than on forgiveness. We tend to focus on our shortcomings, rather than our God-given gifts. We tend to focus on our limitations rather than our potential. Our Lenten theme urges us to SEE BEYOND, beyond ourselves, our fears, and our limitations. Those individuals I would call visionary, those I emulate, have the ability to see beyond, they have the ability to imagine a different world, to see in every person "a marvel, with the capacity for anything."

For me, they are people like Oscar Wilde, who went to prison because he refused to hide his sexuality. They're people like Fr. George, who speak out for the disenfranchised and for a non-violent world, when those visions aren't always popular. They're the people in this room, who everyday work for justice. And they're people like my parents, who put eleven children through Catholic School. I can't begin to count the hockey games, the piano recitals, the school conferences, nor the number of rosaries they prayed. They planted the seed, and were pretty extraordinary gardeners.

Today's gospel -- the parable of the fig tree -- is a simple story about a gardener, a landowner, and a fig tree. I would like to think that I move through the world a gardener -- that I see potential in the smallest seed, that I nurture, that I practice patience, that I live hopeful. But I am very often the landowner -- impatient, desiring instant gratification, investing in the fortunate rather than the disadvantaged.

A couple of months ago I was working in Toronto. I was rushing from dinner back to the theater. It was one of those bitter cold January nights, I was walking fast, and talking on my cell phone -- maximizing every second off my break. I turned the corner and a woman screamed violently, "Stop your stupid conversation, I need help." She was wrapped in a sleeping bag, clearly feeling the same January chill. I jumped, I was terrified, and I kept walking. The fig tree was given voice. I can still hear it. It seems to haunt me. What did she want from me? Why did I keep walking? Why didn't I stop? My only answer is fear. In that moment, my fear was greater than my compassion.

Perhaps, that's where the Catholic Church resides -- at times our fear is greater than our compassion. Why else would we deny women the sacrament of priesthood, our priests, and gay and lesbian couples the sacrament of marriage, our divorced the sacrament of communion?

Last week, Coleen Rowley spoke about fear with such authority and insight. We live in a fear-based culture, feeding off fear-based propaganda, barricading our borders layer upon layer, until we become blinded. Ultimately fear is blinding. Our Lenten journey is about stripping away, tearing down the barricades, removing the blinders, filtering out the noise. Allowing ourselves to hear the voice of the fig tree; to see in ourselves and in every person pure potential. Doesn't Christ call us to challenge our limitations, to see beyond them, to act out of compassion rather than fear?

Christ ends the Parable with the gardener saying, "Leave it another year, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; then perhaps it will bear fruit. If not, it shall be cut down. " And there the story ends. I automatically create the pat ending in my head. The landowner agrees, the gardener sticks to his plan, and the tree bears fruit. But Christ stops, we don't hear the landowner's decision, we don't know if the gardener follows through, we don't know if the tree ever bears fruit. I guess we get to decide. How will YOU finish this story? You write it every day. How will we, the Church finish this story?

At the end of A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, the Church shuts down Alfie's production of Salome. Oscar Wilde's play is labeled blasphemous and the Monsignor bans the production from taking place in the basement of St. Imelda's Catholic Church. Today St. Joan of Arc tells a different story. Here we are, and we're not even in the basement. And an openly gay man is given a voice from the altar. And it's not blasphemy, it's liberation, it's fearless, it's real growth. And there are so many gardeners, so much potential. We're standing at my nieces door, let's turn the cross around, and see beyond our limitations. THANK YOU.