Thought I’d start with something light and happy.

My background: ‘Good’ Swedish, Lutheran boy from Montevideo, MN. I didn’t rock any boats because I saw what happened to boat rockers.

I became born again in college. Then I became unborn, I guess.

I went to Luther Seminary, where I discovered seminary is the place they put the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional.. “Am I doing enough now, God?” That drove me to despair, and finally the only revelation I’ve ever had in my life (most people are luckier than I am) hit me. God loves me. No matter what. No strings attached. Period. Completely.

I’ve attended St. Joan’s the past twelve years where that grace has been felt in many ways. And now I am also attending The Friend’s Church, the Quakers, because I like their oatmeal.

Let me tell you three short stories.

I will never forget my best friend at seminary. Four years I knew her. In our fourth year she asked to have cup of coffee. We were preparing for our certification process, the process to determine - after all this time - whether we were ‘fit’ to be pastors in the Lutheran church. The Lutheran church had just inserted in the certification process a new question that had to be answered by all candidates. They asked if we were gay. She said - and I’d known her for four years and she’d never told me - ‘I’m gay.’ I said ‘I don’t care.’ She said, ‘But they do. Being a pastor is the only thing I’ve ever wanted. I am called to this.’ I said ‘I know’. She said ‘They won’t let me be a pastor.’ I said ‘I know’. ‘Unless I lie’. All I could say was ‘I know’.

She left seminary before graduation. Her life fell apart. She would have been a great pastor.

Story two. My daughter Madeline was four years old sitting right about there when she looked up at the altar and saw Father Jim Cassidy standing there ready to preside over the Eucharist. She pointed in awe and said ‘Daddy, there’s God!” I said “Well.... no. I know Jim Cassidy. I love Jim Cassidy. Let me tell you about Jim. On second thought, no...”

And I realized that, mistaken as my daughter was, she would never be able to point up to the altar and say that about a woman in the Catholic church. And I was swept by a wave of sadness.

Third story. Back to the Lutheran church. I’m sitting in a pew with the confirmation service going on for a niece of mine. There are probably 70 kids being confirmed. Half boys, half girls. The minister is a woman. In the entire two hours, with half the confirmands being girls and more than half the congregation women, not one reference was made to God in the feminine. Not one. I didn’t know what to do. If I didn’t do something I would stand up and scream “No!” And then my family would just have another story to tell about “Oh, that Neal”.

So I wrote a song instead on the back of the bulletin.

song: SHE

She is a memory
Slipping away
She is a buried word
Hardly ever heard
To this day

She is a flicker
She is a ghost
She walks the halls at night
You can hear her cry
Almost

She is a sacrifice
She is a lamb
She’s being burned alive
On the altar of the cold as ice
Great I Am

She is the water
She is a wave
She is the open sea
And a watery
Dark grave

She is a mystery
She is a clue
She holds the the key to life
But the answer lies
In you

She is a prisoner
Darkness her chain
When I can’t see anything
She keeps whispering
My name

She is
She is
She is

Let me ask a few questions.

What would happen if one Sunday, all the women and girls in this church did not show up? Or in the entire Catholic church? Or if they didn’t show up until the church really let them in?

What would happen if gays and lesbians were allowed to unleash their gifts in the church instead of having to spend time defending who God created them to be?

What would happen if instead of giving a token ‘Our Mother who art in heaven’, we began using language that embraced the feminine image of God as often as we embrace the male?

Why does that bother us so much?

Welcome wherever you are on your journey.

Today’s Gospel is a journey. The Prodigal Child. Which brings me to my real question of the day. Just who is the real prodigal around here? You can answer it for yourself, but here’s my answer today.

The church.

People of deep faith have been excommunicated, discredited, shunned. The church is squandering God’s inheritance.

It is dangerous for us to challenge the religious authorities with an inclusive understanding of God. But what is the price we pay if we don’t? Look at what happened to Kathy Itzin in this very congregation. Or how about every woman or girl in this congregation who wants to be a priest or at least wants to have the option of saying ‘No, thanks, I’m called to something else, but I’m glad my sister can...’ How about every gay or lesbian who wants to be a minister, or just be accepted for who God made them? By the way, maybe we should stop talking about accepting GLBT people for who they are and start talking about embracing who they are.

God is saying ‘I welcome you wherever you are on your journey’.

I believe that someday a pope will stand up and say ‘Enough. We’ve been gone long enough. Now open the doors and let women in. What have we been thinking?’

I believe that someday a Lutheran bishop will stand up and say ‘Enough. Our parishioners who are gay or lesbian, pink or purple or green, have been shunned and we have suffered because of it. We have sinned. We have been shutting off God’s work. Enough. It’s time to go home and face the consequences.’

And the church will come home and some of us will be mad because God will not smite the wayward church, God will embrace it.’ That’s the bummer about God. She is an equal opportunity grace giver.

But until that day comes, those of you who have stayed home surrounded by the grace of God, continue your work. Those of you on your way home, show the way to the rest of us. And all of us, keep our eyes on home, not the church.