The Unitarian Univeralist General Assembly of 1985 will be remembered by most as the one where delegates voted approval of our "Principles and Purposes," the "Principles and Purposes" that you hold in your hands every Sunday morning - the same ones that many of you mention when telling about why you chose to become part of this faith community. When I returned from Columbus that June, ready to speak about what my "take" was on GA, I know that most in the Sunday morning congregation wanted to hear about the "Principles and Purposes" debate and vote, after all we had participated in the process that led to that Assembly vote.

There had been another major debate and vote that General Assembly June which virtually no one wanted to hear about. This was the vote that encouraged UU ministers to perform unions between same-sex couples. I talked about this too that Sunday after I returned, but it was clear that very few wanted to hear about or discuss it - several even came up to me after the service and shared that they thought it was disgusting or irrelevant or inappropriate.

Quite frankly, we have come a long way over the last 16 years, not only in terms of the welcoming of gays and lesbians but in terms of sexuality issues in general. For example, this congregation has a strong and committed vision about sexuality education. We taught the UU curriculum About Your Sexuality (AYS) for decades - hundreds of our teens and adults were part of that program. And so several years ago when the new Bryant Gumbel pseudo-news program aired as a feature the controversy this program had caused at one of our churches, I could feel and see the outrage among many of you - an outrage that prompted quite a few letters including a former member of our youth group who wrote both Gumbel and UUA President John Beuhrens. Gumbel's show never got beyond a six-month run while the UUA completed on schedule its plans to retire the popular but outdated AYS and just recently published a long awaited new and better sexuality education curriculum called Our Whole Lives (OWL) - it's being taught this year in our church for the first time. Eventually, components of the OWL curriculum will be available at every level of the church's education program - from kindergarten through adult enrichment. Its scope is really quite breathtaking.

What some were wondering that Sunday after the General Assembly, what a few wanted to know following the Bryant Gumbel show, and what many still ask about now that we have this new sexuality education curriculum is this: Why is the church involved in speaking to and about sexuality issues? What's it got to do with religion and church?

It's because "The Word became flesh," as stated in John 1.14. We didn't ask for it that way, it just is. Now of course, one interpretation of this passage - the narrower and more restrictive one - is that the Word was with God and the Word, that is God, became, through Jesus, flesh, human, one of us, on earth, which is all to say God came to earth. In a broader way, "The Word became flesh" simply means that the mystery which some call Holy is among us, is in us, this mystery called God is as close to us as is the flesh on our bodies. Our flesh - our "skin" - is Holy. We cannot separate our sexuality from our spirituality - talk about the interdependent web of which we are all apart, this is it at its most intimate level. "The Word became flesh."

This is why sexuality issues are so difficult - it's because all issues of sexuality are eventually rhetorical ones, they end up being questions, challenges and issues about our selves, about our own sexuality and spirituality. This was assured when the Word became flesh - there's no running or hiding from it, there's no successful denial either. Our sexuality, as is our spirituality, is intrinsic to who we are, it is our essence. And because we know all of this - maybe it's hard to acknowledge and we all acknowledge it in a different way, but we do know - we are vulnerable in ways that make some tremble and shutter like at no other time. How and to whom will I be vulnerable? I think that this is what Rafael Campo is addressing in the reading I shared from his book - he too is looking for a way to give from his vulnerable side, to share that which is most meaningful and deep for him. Vulnerability then is a significant if not determining variable when it comes to addressing sexuality issues.

Does this, then, clear it all up for you? If it does, then please see me following the service because I could never make such a claim. Of course many are unable to see through the haze because the messages we've received from family, peers, church and society are so mixed, confused and conflicting. Anyone who can think and see with clarity is amazing. I was really struck with the way Sam Keen expresses this:

At least some of the confusion is the result of misunderstanding as well as ignorance. Sexuality refers to a broad range of issues and challenges about our bodies and relationships, about knowledge and intimacy, about biology and physiology, about gender and gender roles, lovemaking and dating, about values and sexual orientation, about abuse, harassment and rape. These are all sexuality issues.

It's too bad that our culture has convinced so many that any time the word s-e-x appears in whatever form, it means one thing only - the sexual act, intercourse, making love. In allowing this to happen, in limiting it to this level of thinking, sexuality is debased by those who are usually the ones who are complaining about its debasing. They turn human sexuality (and spirituality) into one word and one act. Is this not a form of idolatry? It is.

This is why naming what we are talking about, naming what we are doing, becomes so crucial. There is power in naming. Let me talk a little bit about this in terms of our own congregation's history. When this congregation chose to name itself a Welcoming Congregation, that we welcome gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered into our community and celebrate the diversity they bring to our congregation, there were those who didn't like the fact that we were naming one particular group. Some asked, "Why can't we be welcoming to all?" It was felt by some that we shouldn't have to name any one as unique or special because we affirm the inherent worth and dignity of all.

We do, and we don't. The fact is that this nation and its institutions have a long and clear record of saying that all people are equal and then doing just the opposite. Saying it's so doesn't make it that way. Of course I believe and will act to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of all people. And until that time when it becomes a reality, not just in this congregation but in society at large, I feel we must name because there is power in naming, it makes our intention clear and we all have seen how easy it is to hide behind a lack of clarity. And so it is with sexuality - we must name what we mean because there are others who only understand sexuality as meaning one thing. Which is what, in part, prompted this sermon (every sermon as a reason).

There were three events in the last 5 months that have focused my attention. Last November, John Turner asked me if I'd seen the guest editorial in The Capital (November 21, 1999), the kind of thing that led to my dropping the paper. The article was about harassment in the public schools and the removal of "sexual orientation" from those to be protected from harassment. Included in the editorial was the following paragraph:

The author uses most of his space to cite hearsay examples of inappropriate behavior in the schools and to talk about the spread of AIDS.

With my usual disgust for the newspaper, that they would give significant editorial space to these homophobic meanderings and, I learned after a phone call to the State Superintendents office, a manipulation of what actually happened, I set the article aside without much further thought. Until Bobbi Famula asked me one Sunday if I'd seen Dr. Laura's column in The Capital (February 13, 2000). No I hadn't and I looked it up. I'd never heard of Dr. Laura, but when I learned a little about her - which included her recent conversion to fundamentalist, orthodox Judaism - I had a sense of what I was in store for (converts always have the strongest opinions about virtually everything!). Her weekly column was in reaction to "A Religious Declaration on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing" that appeared in several major newspapers in mid-January. The Declaration was signed by 850 clergy, many of them UUs. In fact, she names Unitarian Universalists in her column where she claims the Declaration is a manifesto, it's conspiratorial and absurd, just one more attempt to infiltrate the faithful and right thinking (like her). Again, I was surprised - but obviously I shouldn't have been - that The Capital would print this kind of trash. This time, the article hit closer to home since I was one of the 850 signatories she was slamming, calling absurd and conspiratorial. (The opening paragraph of the "Declaration" is: Sexuality is God's life-giving and life-fulfilling gift. We come from diverse religious communities to recognize sexuality as central to our humanity and as integral to our spirituality. We are speaking out against the pain, brokenness, oppression, and loss of meaning that many experience about their sexuality. If you'd like more about this, and have a computer, you can go to the UUA web site at UUA.org or read about it in the UU World.) Of course, she too misrepresented the facts. If I'd been asked to endorse the document she'd described, I'd been terrified too!

But beside the distorted and erroneous information both of these authors presented as fact, there was something far more disturbing in their words and advice. This was reinforced by a third event. Several Mondays ago, a good number of us from the church attended the rally on Lawyer's Mall organized by Free State Justice - the advocacy organization that lobbies for and distributes information regarding legislation dealing with sexual orientation issues. The list of specific bills that were addressed that evening were actually quite ordinary - the kinds of things that heterosexuals take for granted, but that all homosexuals could never dare assume without putting themselves in great danger: dignity, hate crimes, anti-discrimination and of course what has become a perennial issue the lawful recognition of marriage between two consenting adults. As I said, these are all basic assumptions for many. What we were seeking was justice - equal treatment for all citizens of Maryland, an assumption taken for granted by most if you just read the words of the state's constitution but as we all know there are some who are treated more equally than others. Again, this is a clear reason for naming - there is power in naming. A power that many do not want to hear or feel.

Many of the speakers were excellent, but two really impressed me. First was a 17 year old high school student from Montgomery County. Now, I remember what it was like in high school, I remember the callous and harassing things that high school teens can do to anyone who looks and thinks differently. So, could you imagine being openly gay? Well, she is. Her poise and the truth she spoke, not in anger but with compassion and justice totally blew me away.

And then, Gov. Glendening. When I saw him arrive, I was impressed that he'd taken the time to show up. Then I figured he say just a few sentences, probably meaningless for these are very tough issues. But when he started to speak, I could tell that it was not going to be business-as-usual. He talked for at least 15 minutes, maybe 25. It was a major statement where he put himself on the line - he spoke firmly with compassion; he spoke with passion about justice; he shared his vision of what Maryland could be for all people.

Both of these speakers, as well as the 6 others - one of whom was a UU minister - did not incite the crowd, there was no name calling, divisiveness or belittling. People spoke from the heart, they spoke about their experience, they spoke about wanting to treat everyone right. They spoke in a way that is glaringly absent in the inflammatory, inciting, divisive, degrading and malicious language of the two newspaper columnists.

This is what happens, in part I believe, when you summarize sexuality into one word - when you make of sex an idol, when you polarize human sexuality. The "Declaration" states it clearly: "Our culture needs a sexual ethic focused on personal relationships and social justice rather than particular sexual acts."

Until this happens, it is up to those who understand that sexuality is about more than sex, it is up to us to make sure that compassion and equality are always part of the discussion. In the last 25 years, I feel as though our nation has been forced to come-of-age around sexuality issues. Some have found this coming-of-age awkward yet liberating while others have refused to acknowledge the changes and the growth, they want to reverse the hands on the clock and take us back to a fictitious golden age fantasy that never did exist. But we have come too far, we know too much. We live in a new century, a century that is post-birth control, post-sexually transmitted diseases, post-internet, post-Matthew Shepherd, post-Columbine High School. One way to address the myriad of issues raised by these facts of the last century is to scream a little louder, to point our fingers at more wrong-doers, to turn up the conspiratorial heat and condemning flames, to use fear, name-calling and misinformation to hammer the wedge deeper assuring that divisions will widen.

Or we can stay on the battlefield, which it has become. We can stay on the battlefield and work for healing the injustices that have been committed in our names; we can promise that we're going to stay and treat everyone right; naming the inherent worth and dignity that all people have.

"It is time to move us all into another century, time for freedom and racial and sexual justice, time for women and children and men, time for hands unbound," writes Sonia Sanchez. "Come to this battlefield called life."

We are people of the flesh. This is our life, the only life we have. With compassion, let us heal sexual injustice, let us heal ourselves, let us stay on the battlefield of life and treat everyone right.