Q&A with Rev. Durrell Watkins
Question: This week’s question is a composite of two letters I received this week. The question is whether or not it is appropriate to make references to sexuality in church.
Answer: The issue is complex, and whether or not one feels comfortable having it mentioned in church largely depends on one’s social location. In a church as large as ours, opinions will vary. That having been said, I must confess that I do feel that such discussions are both appropriate and necessary.
Sunshine Cathedral is part of the Metropolitan Community Church movement, and MCC’s gift to the larger church is our willingness to integrate spirituality and sexuality. We have experienced our bodies and our consensual adult relationships to be among God’s good gifts.
Secondly, I love the bible and I want people to read it with boldness and gladness and to be willing to discuss any part of it at any time. To honestly discuss the bible will include grappling with some very “earthy” material. I sometimes feel the need to “clean it up” when I present it in church, but I refuse to ignore it. Whether we are discussing the highly erotic Song of Songs (aka Song of Solomon), or King Solomon’s HUNDREDS of wives and concubines, or the three-way marriage between Jacob and Leah and Rachel (and the two other women with whom Jacob has children), or the very provocative imagery that is included in the book of Revelation, or the seemingly homoerotic relationship between Jonathon and David, or the woman at the well who had been married multiple times… well, space won’t allow me to mention every erotic story in the bible, but you can easily see that if we avoided them all there wouldn’t be much bible left to discuss!
To be true to the history of MCC and to the contents of the bible, we will sometimes bring up human sexuality, and we may even dare to do so in playful ways that demonstrate how joyful that part of our lives can be.
The story of Job tells us that “in my flesh I shall see God” (19.26). Once we believe that our bodies are holy temples we will insist on being our whole selves all the time. Perhaps that is the mystery of the Incarnation (God expressing in humanness), and perhaps we are the ones to understand it properly.
If you have questions about faith, the bible, the church, or sexuality & spirituality, you can email your questions to durrell@sunshinecathedral.org, or go to the Cathedral web site at www.sunshinecathedral.org and click on the link there. Rev. Durrell Watkins will answer your questions and publish the answers in this column. Your name will always be withheld, so only the actual question and the response will be printed.
You can read past Q&A entries in the SunBurst archive.
Take your SunBurst home today
There’s a lot of useful information in each week’s SunBurst. There are announcements of upcoming events, membership anniversaries, financial and attendance records, religious education articles, the church prayer list, community ads, information about Metropolitan Community Churches and the Center for Progressive Christianity, and more. Re-reading the SunBurst at home is an excellent way to stay informed about what’s going on in the life of the church, and sharing the SunBurst with friends is a wonderful way of letting people know about our church. Use the SunBurst as a ministry tool and take yours home today.
Welcome new members!
If you have completed an Inner Circle Member card and have not attended the New Member Orientation, our next orientation will be held Thursday evening, May 22nd from 7:00 pm and will end at approximately 9:00 pm. Our next Saturday morning orientation will be on June 21st from 9:00 am and will end at approximately at Noon. A light continental breakfast will be served at the Saturday orientation. If you cannot attend in May or June, orientation sessions will continue to be held monthly throughout the remainder of this year. To register or for additional information, please contact Rev. Deacon Joel Slotnick in the church office at 954-462-2004 ext. 207 or via email joel@sunshinecathedral.org.
GoodSearch
What if Sunshine Cathedral earned a penny every time you searched the Internet? We can!
GoodSearch.com is a search engine that donates ad revenue, about a penny per search, to the charity its users designate. Use it just like any search engine, and it’s powered by Yahoo!, so you get the same reliable results.
Just go to www.goodsearch.com and enter Sunshine Cathedral MCC as the organization you want to support. Just 400 of us searching four times a day will raise almost $6,000 in a year without anyone spending a dime! Please spread the word!
Volunteer opportunities
God is truly doing great things here at Sunshine Cathedral! Over the past month, we have been blessed with so many new smiling faces helping out as volunteers. This Eastertide season, happiness and the joy of God is really rising up in people’s hearts so much so that people are actually excited to be helping out wherever they can.
Some people help out an hour a week, others a few hours a week. Some volunteer for a few weeks, others on a regular basis. Many give 15 minutes of their time a week to volunteering here at church and those 15 minutes bless us all more than you’ll ever know! If you want an opportunity to be a part of what God is doing through our volunteers, we have many opportunities for you to get involved.
Here are just a few:
For the next month right after our 10:30 am service on Sundays, we need people to help move chairs, risers, and the altar from the chancel area. With only five people helping volunteer, it takes 15 minutes total!
Every Friday at 3:00 pm for the next month, we’ll take time to set up the sanctuary for our Sunday services. This involves setting up the altar, sweeping, and vacuuming. This only takes an hour or two at most with 3 – 5 volunteers.
We are also looking for individuals to answer phones at our receptionist desk in the bookstore Monday thru Friday. You could help out for an hour, an entire day, or even more — whatever you like!
We have opportunities to help with Sunshine Cathedral’s MySpace page, our weekly SunBurst, and much more. If you’re interested in these or want to learn more about other volunteer opportunities, you can contact Michael Diaz, our Pastoral Intern, at 954-462-2004 or by email michaeldiaz@sunshinecathedral.org.
CAMP for your health
The Community Acupuncture Massage Project (C.A.M.P.) is one of the more than 20 groups that call the Sunshine Cathedral campus their home. During the week, C.A.M.P. is located behind the Green Door on the second floor of the Graves Building on the south side of our campus (above the Social Hall). Students, clients, and practitioners of acupuncture claim that the ancient healing art is good for many things — including pain management, stress reduction, relieving minor depression, improving digestion, and helping people quit smoking. Fees for acupuncture at C.A.M.P. are offered on a sliding scale, making acupuncture a low cost, non-invasive, complementary therapy available to anyone who wants to give it a try. If you believe acupuncture could be a good addition to your health maintenance program, call C.A.M.P. (954-566-2416) to set up an appointment or to get more information.
SunBurst publishing deadline
SunBurst is published on a weekly basis. If anyone wishes to submit an article to the SunBurst, it needs to be sent to sunburst@sunshinecathedral.org by 12:00 Noon on Tuesday in order to be considered for publication on the following Sunday.
Happiness NOW series continues
From now until May 25th we will be offering a sermon series called “Happiness Now”, based on the book Happiness Now!: Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good FAST by psychologist Robert Holden. The sermons will still focus on the scripture readings for the day but will be linked to the theme of happiness (perfect for the Easter season!). For those who want to read Holden’s book as a supplement to the sermon series, we have ordered several copies that will be available in Simply Divine Books & Things by Palm Sunday. Join us each week for the eight-part series on living happier, more fulfilling lives as people of faith, and invite your friends to join you.
Biographies introduce our spiritual heroes
May 17: Blessed Josephine Bakhita (1869 – 1947) — Ex-slave and nun. Born in the African nation of Sudan, at the age of nine Bakhita was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Eventually she was bought by a family who took her back to Italy. Upon hearing the gospel she understood that God meant for her to be free. She went to court to gain her freedom, and then discovered that slavery was illegal in Italy! She was then baptized and took religious vows as a nun. She spent her life serving others, and became famous for her quiet faith.