Becoming Beloved

This morning at church an interesting thing happened. A lady who was sitting a couple rows behind my partner and I came to us during the peace and commented in a very animated manner about her observation of Rick putting his arm around me during the sermon. It is common that during a sermon or prayers for me to put my hand on his knee and that acts as a kind of cue for him to hold my hand. If the seating is right, he will sometimes take the further step of putting his arm across the pew behind my shoulders and rest a hand on my shoulder and I may lean back into this embrace as well. It was one of those kinds of mornings today. Because of the winter weather it was a small crowd, so we all sat near the front to be a little more cozy. There was an intimacy to the service and we just relaxed into it.

Thankfully the comments were very positive. She was moved to see two men showing tenderness towards each other and voiced her desire to have such a partner herself. Neither of us were sure how to respond, so we smiled and thanked her and continued on with the peace. As the service progressed her reaction got me thinking about toxic masculinity and how our culture normalizes violence between men while dismissing tenderness as a joke. It struck me that this may be one of the most important ministries that gay men can offer to the larger world, an example of how men can care for each other without the need for competition or domination.

It is a sad commentary on our world that the sight of two men in an embrace is so rare. For the lady at church it offered a kind of epiphany, a vision of what could be. Of course, this is the season of Epiphany, when we focus on stories that reveal hidden truths, and today was the story of John baptizing Jesus. Again, this story offers a moment of vision when Jesus is revealed as the beloved of God. I couldn’t help but see the similarities between the reading and the woman’s experience.

I was also put in mind of an experience I had at Easton Mountain many years ago, when during a guided meditation I had a vision of the Spirit wrapping itself around me and becoming part of me. It was a life-changing moment and I still struggle to understand the implications of it. In talking to my priest after that I wondered if I could claim to be the beloved of God or was that reserved for Jesus only. I had spent the entire journey home thinking about how Jesus claimed his own ministry in Luke 4 by quoting the prophet Isaiah, and when I returned, I found that that very scripture was the reading for the week. At the church staff meeting that day I was stunned to be reading it and as we discussed it another person was circling around the same question I had. When I asked it directly the priest answered that yes, I could claim that call, as could we all.

Claiming an identity as the beloved of God has been a major theme in both my own spiritual journey and my art. In my twenties I participated in a bible study where we were asked to identify the most potent image of God for us. I was at a loss. My experiences with father figures was less than satisfactory, and images of kings or lords were somewhat meaningless to me. After some thought I slowly realized that it was the image of God as lover that made the most sense to me. Song of Solomon seemed to offer the most powerful images and I was clear that my relationship with God functioned on a level of such deep intimacy that none of the other images even came close to describing the reality of it.

Of course, for gay men the image of God as lover does not take on the overtones that can be found in traditional bridal theology, which sets God up as the groom and the church as the bride. Those images buy into patriarchal inequities which are not inherent in the relationship between two men, at least in the modern era. For me the image of God as lover and me as beloved is a partnership. That does not mean that I see myself as equal to God, rather that I can expect to be treated with respect, as if I were an equal. That is a relationship I can relax into, where there can be absolute trust and peace.

Because of that lady’s comments this morning I was led to a vision. Perhaps one of the things gay men offer to the world is a concrete image of God’s relationship with humanity. Perhaps we are called to hold hands in public, to kiss one another where we can be seen, even if it makes people uncomfortable. We can be an embodied image of the kingdom of God, where tenderness and compassion are the norm, where violence and competition are no longer needed or even tolerated. We can offer the possibility of relationships between equals where the needs of all are respected and met. I offer this as a vision, but I am fully aware of how tough it is to live with just one other man as beloved, how hard it is to treat his needs as my own. I see how I fail in this, but I keep trying. I have no idea how to translate this ideal into a world-wide reality when I can’t even do it with one other person. All I can do is recognize the vision as something worth working toward and keep struggling in my own little corner of the world. Perhaps if enough of us try we may one day find ourselves in a world where it is not remarkable at all when one man puts his arm around another.