I was at a retreat recently with a facilitator who is known for pushing the envelope a bit regarding Roman Catholic Church teaching. The question posited throughout the weekend: Whom should we accept as brothers and sisters in faith?
During the retreat someone asked the facilitator how we should approach ministry in our churches in regard to the gay and lesbian community. A fellow retreatant replied, “Invite us to speak for ourselves.”
Who better to speak on challenging topics than those who are living inside the issue?
This concept of “insider” and “outsider” — those who understand something from the inside, and those who consider that same something from the outside — is a notion others may think obscure, but has been one of the most compelling concepts I took away from my undergraduate work. From the inside, the true meaning of a situation or belief is being lived. From the outside, that situation or belief is only observed, and can rarely be understood in its deepest sense.
As a church and a society, we do this. How often do we hear someone speaking “on behalf” of the poor, the marginalized, the vulnerable? We presume to know something about the plight of one group or another and “advocate” on their behalf. We tend to go to these groups, and bring them “what they need” to live a more full existence based upon our notion of a fulfilling existence. We like to think we know what’s good for the poor, the marginalized, the vulnerable, children, elderly, abused — as if we have some sort of inside track on how these people live and what their experience and relationship has been with society and the church.
But we don't need someone from the outside to speak. We need to invite someone from the inside to speak out.
There are many populations whose plight we presume to understand. Consider prostitutes: Did they choose that life? Perhaps it’s all they know. Perhaps they were forced into it, and do not see a way out. We cannot judge what leads others to live the way they do. What about the abused individual who stays in a relationship? What about the elderly who experience abuse at the hands of their caretakers? Who better to help us understand these terrible injustices than those who have experienced it first hand?
And what of our gay brothers and sisters who are coming to be accepted by American society but are still marginalized by many in the church? How do we begin to minister to them, despite what some churches teach? Is there anyone brave enough to “invite us to speak for ourselves?” Is there anyone brave enough not to judge — someone who is willing to see homosexuals as individual people rather than as a stereotyped group?
I hope so. As a lesbian who is a practicing Roman Catholic, I’d like to be invited to speak on my own behalf about my experience of being shunned by the only house of faith that I know — the home that I love despite its neglect of me and my spouse; the home that I, as an insider, would look at from the outside and only see injustice in my regard.
But I know better and I have hope for our church — my home. I would welcome the invitation to speak for myself, from the inside out.
Jesus did not speak on others’ behalf. He did not speak on behalf of the wealthy and prominent people of his time. He did not tell the paupers to give the tax collectors a break because they were “just doing their job.”
He spoke on behalf of himself: a poor man from Nazareth who knew what it was like to barely make a living and experienced want for the basic necessities of life; a poor man who was taken advantage of by the government and pushed to submit to their will; a man who could no longer remain silent about the injustice he and his family and friends endured at the hands of the Romans.
He spoke on behalf of himself — a Jew who was persecuted for his faith; a Jew who would no longer stand for the misinterpretation of the Torah — the rule by which he was expected to live; a Jew who knew that he was to act as God does by accepting his brothers and sisters in faith and life, with love and mercy.
Jesus spoke from the “inside out.” It’s time we invite others to do the same.
Judy Brown has been involved in parish ministry for over 30 years both as a volunteer and as a parish staff member with an emphasis in music, retreats, and faith formation.
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