Preaching on Teen Suicide

The following is the text of an email I sent to some friends with whom I am part of an on-going internet community of some duration – an “email listserve” that has been in existence for several years.

This is long, but I have to write it down and share it with someone. And I apologize in advance for what I know to be offensive content below. It offended me – and I protested to the sender.

This morning I preached about the rash of recent gay teen suicides. I want to share the experience with you all. I preached ad lib with only a few notes.

I began reading John Donne’s Meditation XVII (“No man is an island, etc….”) and said that we had all been diminished recently by the suicides of Tyler Clementi (18 y.o. freshman at Rutgers), Asher Brown (13 y.o. middle school student in Houston), an unnamed 11 y.o. child in California, and Sladjana Vidovic (a Croatian immigrant student at a high school in Mentor, Ohio, age 16). Each of these children was driven to commit suicide because of bullying, teasing, oppression aimed at them because they were perceived as “different”, as outcasts. And the fault lies with each one of us because we have all participated in behaviour which has made such bullying permissible in our society. We have all sat by silently as jokes or political comments or gossip which was racist or sexist or heterosexist were uttered in our presence; we may even have told those jokes or made those remarks ourselves.

I then exegeted the lesson from Jeremiah and talked about how the Jews were the foreigners, the “other” in their exile in Babylon, and how although Jeremiah seems to be counseling assimilation, he is actually telling them to be proud of their heritage in a way that is respectful of those who are their oppressors, to pray and work for the welfare of the society in which they find themselves because in its welfare they will find their own wellbeing. And I noted how when they returned from exile, they hadn’t learned the lesson of what it is like to be “the other” in a strange society, how they had excluded the “Samaritans” from participating in the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple and how the Jews continued, some of them even to this day, to practice religious intolerance and an exclusionary theology, noting particularly how it affected groups like women, gentiles, tax collectors, and the chronically ill (lepers) in Jesus’ day, and Palestinians today. I then moved on to the Gospel and focused on Jesus’s last words to Samaritan former leper – “your faith has made you well.”

I argued that it is our faith which can make our society well, if we will simply live up to it. Basically my message was “Stop it!” – do not in anyway participate in jokes, comments, conversations, that promote racism, heterosexism, sexism, or any other exclusionary ism. If you are with someone …who starts that kind of talk, tell them to stop it!

I made note of the fact that I had heard members of the congregation criticizing and making jokes about the President in the vilest and most racist of language, that I had heard men in the congregation make jokes about their wives or other women that were not fit to repeat, that I had heard women in the parish make jokes about gays and lesbians that were decidedly unladylike … and that I had said nothing when I had, but fair warning – no longer – if someone from now on says anything of that nature in my presence I will tell them “Stop it!”

I noted that in our Epistle Lesson, Paul warned Timothy of the power of words, of wrangling over words, and that’s basically what we have to deal with — the power of abusive, exclusionary words, of taunting and teasing and “making fun of” (a terrible euphemism if ever there was one). I made mention of James’s letter in which he notes that the tongue is a flame which can start a conflagration — and that is what we have – a conflagration of youthful suicides which result from words being spoken abusively, in a social climate which makes that acceptable behaviour. It is NOT acceptable and so we must stop it! So from now on, I will speak up and protest when I hear it. I will not do it myself … and I begged them not to do it and to speak up when they hear it.

Jesus told the outcast (the leper) that his faith had made him well – only our faith can make our society well – but that faith must be public and vocal – we must tell those who make an atmosphere of abuse acceptable through their racist, sexist, hetersexist jokes and snide remarks to STOP IT! And we must do it because that is the only way to be faithful to Jesus Christ!

That was my sermon, in a nutshell; it was longer, but that’s enough for here for now.

I expected a negative reaction from some, and I’m sure there was some. Mostly those who agreed with me told me as much, and those who didn’t avoided talking with me at all, even those very conservative members who usually do exchange pleasantries didn’t do so. Oh well….

Anyway, I came home … had lunch … checked my email.

So now I need to explain that we have a men’s group loosely affiliated with the church. It started as an attempt to create a men’s fellowship, but devolved into a poker and Scotch-sampling group and includes men whose families, for whatever reason, have left the Episcopal Church as well as members of the parish. This group meets on the 2nd Tuesday of the month and though I am usually unable to take part, I’m still on their email list. Tuesday is the next meeting and so several emails have been exchanged about where they are gathering, who’s hosting, the need to replenish the stock of various labels of Scotch, and so forth.

One of the men whose family are former members of the parish (now worshiping in a Southern Baptist church because of the couple’s very strong right-wing and Christian conservative feelings) … sent this email which I found in my in basket this afternoon:

Sorry guys, if any of you are offended by the attachment below, just couldn’t help it.

This will be my daily routine, through to 2012.

HOW TO START EACH DAY WITH A POSITIVE OUTLOOK

1. Open a new file in your computer.
2. Name it ‘Barack Obama’.
3. Send it to the Recycle Bin.
4. Empty the Recycle Bin.
5. Your PC will ask you: ‘Do you really want to get rid of ‘Barack Obama?’
6. Firmly Click ‘Yes.’
7. Feel better? GOOD! – Tomorrow we’ll do Nancy Pelosi.

Could there have been a more timely email, a better example of exactly what I was talking about? This offensive drivel was sent to about twenty men, mostly members of the parish, at least half of whom were in church this morning.

I sent this reply to the same recipients:

I am offended. This kind of nonsense is precisely what is wrong with this country. It comes from both sides of the political spectrum and it has to stop. This country and our society will only get worse if this kind of disrespect continues.

Stop this! Stop it now before this country sinks deeper into the abyss of incivility.

The sender very quickly sent a one-line email to the same list – “I apologize to everyone.” And I sent a quick one line, “Apology accepted. Thank you.”

It has to stop … it is this kind of incivility to those perceived as “other”, the demonizing of those that are different from ourselves, that has brought us to the point where 11 y.o. and 13 y.o. and 16 y.o. and 18 y.o. children are killing themselves because they are the targets of this sort of thing. It has to stop.

We have to stop it and we can only do that by standing up to it and demanding it stop.