The first sign that something bad was about to happen was the change in my husband’s body language. We were on a walk in our favorite conservation park. Suddenly he bristled and said a few words that Watermark probably wouldn’t want me to repeat here.
During the pandemic, long walks in the wilderness have been my refuge. This particular park has become my safe space, my sanctuary in a time when the sanctuary of the church I serve has been heartbreakingly empty for almost a year. Providing for the needs of a faith community remotely has been harder than I could have anticipated. In a year of uncertainty, struggle, and loss, my hiking boots have kept me grounded.
During my many escapes into the Florida wilderness, this was the first time I felt unsafe. A man came charging toward us and yelled, “Do you know for certain that you are going to heaven?” His maskless face was filled with aggression. His mouth sprayed visible droplets of saliva as he shouted at us. He was carrying a comically large Bible. He demanded that we stop and let him pray for us. We declined. He continued shouting as we walked on.
On the one hand, because I am a pastor, folks like this make me just shake my head and lament that they are why Jesus needs better PR. On the other hand, I was surprisingly rattled by this encounter.
This person was literally spewing saliva at us during a pandemic, but let’s also consider what else he was spewing and why this behavior is so harmful. Recently, the voices of shame, harm and aggression have been emboldened. This man felt he had an inalienable right to aggressively force his dogma and theology on us.
I know the danger of bad theology. While his attack was random and not necessarily homophobic, his ideology and methodology were of the same toxicity as that which is used to harm our community.
Most of us who are part of the LGBTQ+ community have battle scars that people outside of our community cannot comprehend. These scars shape us in ways even we might not realize.
On one level, it’s true that this was simply a man shouting at two random hikers. But remembering that everyone carries histories and experiences that shape who they are, I have to cut myself some slack and accept that in the moment I was relieved that this man probably didn’t realize that he was shouting at a gay couple.
It felt safer to step a tiny bit farther from my husband, making us appear less of who we are and less of a target. We LGBTQ+ folks live in a paradox in which it is often dangerous to love the person who makes us feel the safest. While taking a step away from our beloved makes us safer in the moment, a lifetime of tiny steps away can harm us greatly.
It’s not enough to look at people who behave as that this man did and simply dismiss the behavior. Even if we laugh it off in the moment, it can wear on us.
We can’t change them, but we can change how the behavior of others impacts us. This was one aggressive person, but he was also all of the bullies I have faced in a lifetime of being different than my peers.
He was one person with his own skewed and bad theology, but he also represented every protester who has harassed my congregation, he represented the pastor whose bad theology drove my friend to death by suicide, more than 20 years ago. Toxic people are endemic to our culture, and we must remain diligent in protecting each other.
In becoming a pastor, I spent a ridiculous amount of my life collecting degrees, including a Master of Divinity and a Master of Arts in ethics and social theory. I completed multiple years of internships in my training. I have been in full-time ministry for nearly 10 years, the latter five of which have been as the senior pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Tampa.
The church where I am now the pastor was founded 50 years ago, as the first LGBTQ-affirming faith community in the Tampa Bay Area. As you can imagine, I have faced down more than my share of attacks by people who call themselves Christians. Even with all of this education and experience, I am not immune to the harm that people inflict on our community and on me personally.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the beginning of pandemic life, we can see that we have all learned new things about our own coping mechanisms. This past year has given us fresh wounds and reopened old ones.
We have witnessed the best and the worst behavior in our neighbors and nation. People like the man we met in the woods are aggressively coming after people at a time when most of us do not have access to our usual communities of support.
We LGBTQ+ folks need to support each other now more than ever. Rantings and ramblings of hate can’t dampen our enjoyment of each other.
The safe spaces of sanctuary that we create for ourselves cannot be stolen away from us. We must remember that our scars are the roadmap that shows the courageous places we have traveled to become exactly who we are meant to be.
Rev. Jakob Hero-Shaw is the Senior Pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Tampa, MCCTampa.com. He and his husband are the proud fathers of two wonderful children.
