“Refuge”
Psalm 23; Matthew 11:28-30
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
March 12, 2017
“Welcome home.” These are the first words Ken Jones hears when he walks into the storefront church with the words “City of Refuge” written on a temporary sign. The woman who approaches him can see that he needs a welcome and a home.
It is a long journey that brings Ken to that day and that storefront church. His journey is powerfully portrayed in the TV miniseries When We Rise, which aired two weeks ago on NBC. The four-night, eight-hour series depicts the struggle for gay rights in the United States, focusing on the intersecting lives of three activists in San Francisco. Ken is one of the three.
When we are introduced to Ken on the first night, he is a young African-American sailor during the Vietnam War. He falls in love with a fellow sailor, Michael. Their only refuge from a ship where they fear even to sit near each other is a hidden hotel room on shore leave. Michael is killed when a missile launch backfires.
Soon thereafter Ken is transferred to a base near San Francisco, where his job is to lead seminars for Navy personnel accused of racial prejudice. As he puts himself on the line, a young African-American confronting senior, more high-ranking white officers, his loneliness and private grief overcome him. He tries talking to the chaplain, who warns him not to say the words he yearns to say. Instead, the chaplain refers him to a church off base.
Far from being the refuge he is seeking, the church preaches condemnation of homosexuality. He leaves the worship service and ventures into a gay bar. It is not safe space either, for there he faces racial prejudice and the threat of police raids. Outside the bar, Ken meets his second soul-mate, a man who, like Ken, would lose his job if he were found there. They find refuge in the house Steven shares with his ex-wife to keep up appearances.
When the second night of the series opens, Ken has left the Navy and become an activist. His activism takes the form of offering refuge, responding to the multitude of gay, lesbian and transgender youth who have flocked to San Francisco to escape families that condemn them. Recognizing how vulnerable they are to sexual exploitation and drug abuse, he creates a drop-in center where they can find food, encouragement, and an alternative to the streets.
It is there that he sees the first signs of what was initially called GRID–Gay Related Immune Deficiency–now called AIDS. He and Steve become family to a young African-American man who would otherwise have died alone. Ultimately, they both test HIV-positive, and within a few years, Steve becomes Ken’s second soul-mate to die.
Ken comes home one day to discover an eviction notice on his door. Steve’s family, who did not even attend his service, have come to claim the house that is their legal inheritance. Ken is alone, sick and grieving.
Months later, caught in the throes of alcohol abuse and despair, he makes his way to a VA hospital. It becomes his new home–but it is not a refuge. He sits in a support group for HIV-positive veterans, none of them able to talk about the people they have loved, for fear of losing their benefits. Finally, he walks out. In desperation he walks–actually runs–into another church.
It is a small church–a group of middle-aged white women with a healing ministry. Ken met them during a recent hospitalization, when they laid hands on him and prayed for him. This time, he comes to them, begging for help. Kind-hearted, warm women, they enfold him in their circle, laying their hands on him again, praying for healing. “Come to me,” Jesus says, “all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
In the next scene, Ken is dressed in a white robe standing in waist-deep water in their baptistry. At first, I am moved by the scene, this man choosing to accept the power of God’s healing love, surrounded by a caring community whose lives are very different from his. The scene goes from inspiring to heart-breaking when I hear the words spoken as they dunk him underwater. As the kind, gentle woman prays for him to be washed free from his sin, it becomes clear that she means the sin of being gay. To be baptized into God’s love, for that church, means denying who Ken is and who he has loved.
In his desperation and loneliness, Ken accepts this church as his community. One day, unintentionally, he walks in on a group renting their sanctuary. An African-American woman is preaching a message of love and embrace for lesbian, gay and transgender folks. His spiritual mentor–the kind woman who prayed for him to be freed from his sin–warns him not to listen. When she puts him to work disinfecting the sanctuary, he realizes he is not home. He picks up a flyer from the rental–City of Refuge.
Eventually he makes his way to the City of Refuge’s new storefront space. This church, now part of the United Church of Christ, welcomes him for all of who he is–a kind, passionate, gay, African-American, HIV-positive activist. He begins to heal and reclaims his role as one who creates refuge for others. Hands are laid upon him once again, this time to ordain him. He becomes one of the first ministers to perform same-sex marriages in San Francisco after the Supreme Court strikes down Proposition 8 and DOMA.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.” These familiar words reflect the promise of refuge that was fulfilled for Ken Jones the day he walked into that storefront church. The words are beautiful, comforting, and also disturbing. While the vision of God inviting us in for a feast while leaving our enemies hungry has a seductive appeal, it rightly makes us uncomfortable. Aren’t we supposed to love our enemies?
It helps to put this passage in the context of two ancient practices. The first comes from the Hebrew Bible: the establishment of Cities of Refuge, where someone accused of a crime could flee from being pursued. It was not necessarily permanent sanctuary, but a breathing-place, a cooling-off period, a chance to tell the story of what really happened. The second ancient practice is desert hospitality. In the desert, when someone came to your tent, you were expected to let them in, to give them food and water and rest. In that harsh climate, desert hospitality was an absolute necessity.
This line from the 23rd psalm brings together the promise of refuge with the tradition of desert hospitality–with a holy twist. God offers us a safe place to tell our story and gives us nourishment to sustain us–and then God goes further. It’s not just a bowl of soup and a cup of water; it is a feast–a table set, a cup overflowing. We are anointed with oil–an act that points both to our being beloved, honored guests and to our being called forth to do ministry.
For Ken Jones, the City of Refuge was a table set for him in the presence of his enemies. Some of those enemies had faces–people who judged him, people who tried to change him, politicians who preached hate or chose not to fund AIDS research. Some of his enemies were faceless–racism, homophobia, addiction, AIDS, despair. At City of Refuge, he found a refuge–nourishment for his soul, spiritual armor to protect him from hatred and judgment, anointing for his own role offering refuge to others.
There’s another piece to his story that, for me, transforms that biblical picture of the enemy standing outside God’s tent. An African-American transgender woman, a friend of Ken’s from City of Refuge, is killed in a car accident. When her family arrives for her funeral, Ken greets them with words of comfort about his beloved friend. From their angry response, it becomes clear they have not come to terms with who their child is.
Recognizing that they may not be open to receive comfort from City of Refuge clergy, Ken goes back to the leader of the church where he was first baptized–the woman who prayed for him to be who he was not. He asks her for help. He chooses to look past her prejudice to see her good heart. She chooses to move past her own theological perspective to respond in love. She and Ken sit on either side of the grieving family for the funeral at City of Refuge.
God prepares a table for Ken in the presence of his enemies–those who reject him for who he is–, and then God anoints him to go out and transform his enemy into his friend.
What a powerful story. What an inspiration for us as we seek to be a place of refuge–a safe and brave space. For me, there are three lessons in this story.
The first is that just wanting to be a safe place doesn’t automatically make us one. Ken sought refuge in places that were not prepared to welcome for who he was. Homophobia got in the way in the first two churches, racism was a barrier in the gay community, protocol kept him from healing in a hospital where he couldn’t speak his truth. As we seek to be sanctuary, we are constantly challenged to learn and grow–to keep waking up to the insidious nature of racism in our culture, to grow in our understanding of the lives and needs of recent immigrants in our town. We don’t just decide to be sanctuary; we spend our lives together becoming sanctuary.
The second lesson is that there is not one group of people who are refuge-providers and another that are refuge-receivers. We are all both. Each of us, at times, need others to offer us refuge; each of us is called to offer refuge to others. It takes grace and courage to move between those roles in our lives.
The third lesson is that sanctuary cannot just be a place to hide away from those we perceive to be our enemies. It is a place to find comfort and nourishment–and also to find the healing and wisdom we need to honor the humanity of our enemies. It is a place to be anointed to go forth and at least try to transform enmity into friendship.
A community of continual learning and growth. A community of giving and receiving refuge. A community of healing and wisdom. May God bless us that we may be and become sanctuary–safe space, brave space. Amen.