Communion Thoughts

A Durrell Discourse

Communion Thoughts (my own, that is):

Transubstantiation = At the Eucharist, the bread and wine are miraculously transformed into Jesus himself.

Consubstantiation = The spirit of Jesus is present with and in the elements of Holy Communion.

Memorial Feast = The Lord’s Supper is a reminder of Jesus’ ministry and death (also remembering that the Last Supper was a Passover meal).

Divine Oneness = Ritualistically sharing bread and cup together to remind us of our unity (union) with (comm) with all people, all life, and with the Source of life.

Over the last 50+ years, I have held (at different times) EACH of those sacramental views. NONE of them, in my opinion and experience, necessitates excluding anyone from the Table for their beliefs, political views, marital status, or sexual orientation.

Whether, for you, the Bread is divine, or the bread is just bread, there is nothing about the Bread that should be weaponized to control, hurt, shame or exclude others. 

Your sacramental theology is your own, and you are entitled to it, but if you are using it to hurt, shame, control, or denigrate others, you are missing the point of it (regardless of what you believe “It” is) being a symbol (or affirmation) of grace. 

Jesus said, “Whenever you do this, remember me” - 

pro-choicers, LGBTQ+ folk, divorced people, non-baptized folk,  - everyone, just as they are, can follow that simple directive. Remember the loving, compassionate, justice-seeking Jesus, who fed people spiritually and physically, no questions asked. 

—Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins

Senior Minister, Sunshine Cathedral 

#OpenTable #StopWeaponizingFaith

Remembering Mother Emanuel

God of many names,

We recall the events of 6 years ago at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

During a time of bible study and prayer, eight parishioners and the pastor were slain by one they welcomed.

People who gathered to seek and serve the God of their understanding were viciously murdered in the place they held sacred.

We know, YHWH Shammah, God who was and is there, that the first voice to cry out in horror, pain, and sorrow, must have been yours.

We know, El Roi, God who sees, that you witness our violence, racism, injustices, and our failure to demand, defend, and demonstrate “liberty and justice for all.”

We know, YHWH Rapha, God who heals, that there is much pain that leads to and results from on-going violence in our world.

YHWH Shalom, you are our peace.

Give us the grace to repent of our violence and to become blessed peace-makers.

Give us hope that justice will yet “roll out like waters.”

Give us the will and show us the way to “do justice, love mercy, and live humbly.”

Give us the courage to resist racism in our society and in our hearts, and to do the work of anti-racism. 

Help us be better. 

Help us do better.

Help us rise to the level of love, compassion, and justice that you desire, El Elyon, God Most High.

On this sad anniversary, we remember, and we bless the Mother Emanuel community of faith. 

Amen.

 

--Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins

Senior Minister

Sunshine Cathedral

 

GOD’S MIRACLE, NOT GOD’S MISTAKE

GOD’S MIRACLE, NOT GOD’S MISTAKE

A Durrell Discourse

For years now at Sunshine Cathedral, we have said (repeatedly, often, from pulpit and in print, in lessons and in liturgy), “You are God’s miracle and not God’s mistake.”

After years of using this phrase as a sacred mantra at Sunshine Cathedral, I recently am noticing it popping up on social media. At first, I felt a bit proprietary, as if no other person might have ever thought to string those words together in that order. But then I remembered Ecclesiastes’ wise counsel, “there is nothing new under the sun.” I might have heard it or something similar years before I thought the phrase a product of my own genius. And whether it was me, Zig Ziglar, Mary Baker Eddy or Krishna himself who coined the phrase, what matters is that it is true. I now want everyone saying it, and acting as if the phrase fell from heaven (as perhaps it did).

In my theology, God is really all there is. One Source, One Power, One Presence, One Substance...God is all and in all. That doesn’t mean that we always remember our divinity or that our every act or word is godly, but when we get caught in our dramas and fictions, that doesn’t change the reality that our essence is divine, and what is really Real is what we call God, and what is real about us must be part of God. So, we aren’t mistakes, we are God expressing.

The message of the Incarnation, for me, isn’t that God became human once, but that God expresses in, through, and as all that is, including you and me. Jesus, then, is my reminder that when we are most human, we express divine love.

If I’m part of God, then I am a miracle. If God is love and I am part of God, then my love is God’s love in action. I am, you are, we are God’s miracle and not God’s mistake: That isn’t a slogan to own, but a truth to share. If you see Sunshine folk posting it, feel free to share. It’s a message that needs to be universally embraced.

No matter where you heard it first, I hope you hear it now - you are God’s miracle and not God’s mistake. I especially want my Queer siblings to embrace this truth. We are the Rainbow people of a Rainbow God. Our lives and our love are miracles, never a mistake. Spread the word!

(Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins, Senior Minister, Sunshine Cathedral)

RECOVERING FROM RELIGIOUS ABUSE

RECOVERING FROM RELIGIOUS ABUSE

A Durrell Discourse

In the Bible Belt, in various sects and cults, in “missional” and “evangelical” traditions…many of us were told we’d suffer for eternity if we didn’t ask Jesus to rescue us and take prominence in our lives. So, having no desire for eternal damnation, we said, “Jesus! Do please come into my life and do what you do to keep me out of hell!” We were told that God created hell and created the rules that we were bound to break that would land us in hell, but “loved” us so much that “he” (sic) gave us a loophole - Jesus. We bought it. And, we honestly loved Jesus, and we thought we loved God (though that dysfunctional, threatening, transactional setup isn’t really “love”).

But then, some of us discovered that our gender identity didn’t fit neatly into an arbitrary binary, and/or that our love and attractions were bigger than a false binary as well. Then suddenly, Jesus wasn’t enough. We were back on the track to hell! Now we needed Jesus AND self-loathing and the dishonesty of pretending to be straight (or cis). No wonder many of us turned to destructive behaviors or gave up on religion or never really learned to trust our friends or co-workers...no wonder we remained children in our families, or found ourselves irreconcilable with our families.

We were told God was out to get us but loved us enough to give us spiritual protection from God’s own plan but that protection was cancelled if we were attracted to people who peed like us. We were left with such a crazy making religious outlook or we felt forced to give up religion for the sake of our sanity.

Screw all of that! I won’t give up the joy of baby baptisms. I won’t give up the love feast at the open table where, regardless of belief or background we share a ritual reminding us of our unity and innate goodness (Eucharist). I won’t give up the beautiful singing of hymns (though some of the hymns I love are from Lady Gaga rather than Charles Wesley).

I will give up the homophobic and human sacrifice requiring God of my terrifying childhood, but I will not give up the search for the Sacred, an experience of the Ground of being, the ubiquitous and everlasting Love that is beyond every creed, scripture, and sacrament, that not only does not and cannot condemn me for living authentically, but is fully present in my life and love.

Embrace your authentic identity and reclaim and redefine your spirituality. As we used to say in earlier days: Gay by God, Proud by choice! Works for Bi, Trans, Queer, and Questioning folk, too.

We are each God’s miracle and not God’s mistake.

(Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins, Senior Minister, Sunshine Cathedral)

THE SACRED HEART AS A SYMBOL OF QUEER COMFORT

THE SACRED HEART AS A SYMBOL OF QUEER COMFORT

A Durrell Discourse

June gives us Father's Day and LGBTQ+ Pride, but June (in the Roman Catholic tradition) is also the Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Jesus' Sacred Heart represents love, mercy, grace, and compassion. Jesus' Heart is a symbol of divine love in human experience. Devotion to the Sacred Heart reminds us that faith should be kind and caring. Those of us who are Protestant or Humanist may not have grown up with the Sacred Heart devotional tradition, but if it gives us hope or joy, then why not embrace it?

In the 18th century, Pope Clement approved the Feast of the Sacred Heart for certain locations. In the mid-19th century, Pope Pius approved the Feast for the whole Church. In 1899, Pope Leo dedicated the entire Catholic world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. During his pontificate, John Paul 2 maintained a devotion to the Heart of Jesus.

According to tradition, devotees of the Sacred Heart can expect various blessings and aid throughout life, including inner peace and strong faith.

I love that this Sacred Heart celebration shares a month with LGBTQ+ Pride. The Heart of Jesus is a heart filled with justice-love, a heart with room for all who suffer, a heart that wishes joy and healing for everyone. The Heart of Jesus as a symbol of love seems fitting during a month where people are celebrating their love over against objections and insults from the worlds of politics and religion. People who have been heartbroken by rejection and cruelty can imagine a loving Heart that will always embrace them and never turn them away.

The sacred symbol won't be a comfort for everyone, but for those who miss (or never had but would like to try on) some of the metaphors and symbols of traditional faith, the Sacred Heart may be a balm for the pain that others have inflicted in the name of religion. We are certainly entitled to reject religion, but we also can reclaim and redefine religion. Those who weaponized it do not hold the deed to faith.

Today, my reflections include imagining the Sacred Heart as a sign of love for all who need Love's healing touch, especially the Queer children of God.

(Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins

Sunshine Cathedral)

GOD LOVES YOU, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT

GOD LOVES YOU, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT

A Durrell Discourse

I’m seeing a lot of “God loves you” talk in these early days of Pride Month. Good! But I am aware that such sentiments may be a bit hollow for those who doubt or who have rejected “God.” Of course, divinity need not be limited to an Olympian humanoid figure...God may be a power rather than a person, a presence, the source of all energy which makes up all that is, even a symbol to represent all that is good and beautiful.

I’m in the God business and have dedicated my life to the God-experience, and yet, the God of my understanding is not a person in a great beyond, but rather, the very life that I know as my life, the heartbeat of the world I see, the substance of worlds that I can scarcely imagine. God isn’t something apart from me, but Something I am a part of...forever.

Ultimate Reality is too big (even “big” is too small a way to describe It) for us in our physical state to comprehend, so we are left with the god of our understanding (our various understandings). In a sermon once, Rev. Shelley Hamilton said, “God is the search for God.” I can’t know exactly what she meant, but that phrase has stuck with me for almost 30 years, and how I understand it is that we experience God according to our consciousness (awareness, understanding, life-view). God (Life, Eternity, Reality, Existence) is bigger than anything I imagine, but I experience It as I imagine It.

Rev. David Alexander once said it this way on a podcast, “God is our relationship to the ‘Thing Itself.’” Again, Ultimate Reality, the “Ground of Being” (#Tillich) is known as we experience It, and our experience will be shaped by what we believe about It (and a belief is just a well rehearsed opinion, a crystallized thought). I believe it was Ernest Holmes who said God is personal to the degree that we personalize God...another way of saying, “god is the search for god” or “god is our relationship to the thing itself.”

My non-theistic theology (or more accurately, my monistic theology, or perhaps, Panentheistic theology) means that, for me, God is not loving but is Love itself, not good, but Goodness (All that is good is an expression of God), not powerful, but all Power, not a being, but the Source of being.

If God for you is a loving parent figure on a high mountain - then, let me join with the others who are saying, “God loves you!”

But if God (life, hope, joy, meaning, beauty, the animating spark of existence) is an experience that can’t be fully explained, a presence rather than a person, a Wholeness that includes you or high Ideal that you hold, then let me say it this way: God is Love and it exists in and is expressed through the love you share.

Don’t let religious vocabularies which are limited at best keep you from the euphoria of feeling good enough, empowered, joyful, and vibrant.

God loves you, OR, God is love and dwells richly in and shows up as your love. Either way...Happy Pride!

—Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins

Sunshine Cathedral

Doesn’t the Bible Condemn Homosexuality? (Spoiler Alert: the answer is no)

Doesn’t the Bible Condemn Homosexuality?

by Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins

Doesn’t the bible condemn homosexuality? The short answer is, no.

The bible certainly records human fears and prejudices, as well as human hopes and resilience, but the bible, as a whole, isn’t about condemnation.

The bible is a collection of stories, songs, sermons, sayings, poems, and prayers covering centuries and continents and even a few languages. It is a rich and wonderful anthology that invites readers to think and feel, explore and imagine, heal and grow. In light of this understanding of our sacred texts, it would be difficult to think of them as being condemnatory.

Lifted from the larger narrative or divorced from cultural, linguistic, literary, or historical contexts, any sentence or phrase from scripture can be used to endorse or vilify almost anything imaginable. That is not, however, the most faithful way to engage the bible.

Relationship, hope, courage, generosity, second chances, compassion, and love are the values that are repeatedly featured in our scriptures.

One can easily enough deconstruct and challenge the few bible verses that have often been used to demonize same-gender loving people. Moreover, one can without too much effort find several hints of same-gender love and attraction occurring in scripture, and even seemingly being affirmed; however, I am at a point in my life and ministry where I don’t need a bible verse to defend my sacred value nor a bible story to justify my experience of life. I simply trust that God is good, that love is holy, and that life is diverse. Same-gender loving people are, first and foremost, loving people, and love is not condemned in the bible; indeed, love is the biblical litmus test for what is holy.

In the bible we find exhortations to welcome strangers, be good neighbors, forgive one another, care for the vulnerable, pray for others (including those who are unkind to us), treat others as we would wish to be treated, not judge others unfairly, live humbly and show mercy and work for justice…all of these are demonstrations of love. We find in the bible that “the fruit of the Spirit is love…” In fact, Jesus is recorded as having said that his followers could be identified by their loving actions. He also said love was the greatest of all commandments.

For me, the message of love is the biblical message and mandate, and love does not condemn love. Love does not diminish people. Love does not seek to deny justice or dignity or safety to anyone. Love does not suggest that anyone is unworthy of or beyond the reach of love.

Does the bible, an anthology of writings whose running theme is love, condemn same-gender loving people? As someone who has spent my life studying, teaching, wrestling with, and even playing with the bible, I must say unequivocally, it does not.

(Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins is the Senior Minister of Sunshine Cathedral in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA.

Sunshinecathedral.org)