As I reflected on this week, my mind went back to the 1980s and my first coming out experience, when I am came out of the closet theologically. What I experienced when I came out theologically shows some of the range of experiences people have when they come out. I faced personal attacks, rejection, affirmation and met some of the most amazing people. I grew up in a denomination where many people thought you did all sorts of things to buy God's love and to buy salvation. Some people went so far as to believe that God expected everybody to get to the stage where they could live with out sin. A dear high school and college friend learned that I believed it was all about grace and promptly said, "You are one of them, not one of us" and proceeded to inform me that he was on the right path and I was not. A few months later, I mentioned what happened in a Sunday School class of a church I was visiting. Afterward, I could hardly get out, because I was swarmed by people who shook my hand, hugged me and assured me that I was "one of us, not one of them." I met two wonderful people who taught me what I needed to know to defend my position that God is inclusive and filled with grace and who taught me how to defend what I believed from the Bible. And I was out theologically and was out for social justice in the very theology of the church.

My mind also went to a more recent experience with social justice, when the media, with no warning, stuck a camera in my face and started asking me questions about my experiences with bullying. Being outed on television news as a victim of bullying, who lived for months with death threats was not what I anticipated. I was intimidated, and, believe it or not, at a loss for words.

I wanted to talk about our feelings as our church comes out as Affirming today and tells the who world we are affirming. There is excitement and fear. Coming Out is a powerful event in the lives of all people who have a core defining identity that they start sharing with people. While the term Coming Out has been used by gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans people, the process of Coming Out is a fact for many other people. I have met a number of adults who were raised in Christian homes. They learn they have Jewish blood and then Come Out. Some people with Aboriginal heritage were raised with no connection to their roots and with no understanding of who they were. As adults, they learn they not only have Aboriginal heritage, but they are eligible for Treaty Status. And they Came Out as Aboriginal. People who change religions - Catholic to Protestant, Islamic to Christian, Protestant to Unitarian - go through a Coming Out process, as they share their new spiritual identity. I know experienced educators who are Coming Out as having a learning disability or Attention Deficit, so they can better assist students. At times, Coming Out is relatively easy and painless. In other cases, people who Come Out face being disowned by family, loss of friends and threats to their safety.

Throughout the Bible are many stories of God Coming Out, of God revealing Self to people. The first Coming Out Story is in the creation story in Genesis chapter 1. God created light and Came Out as both Creator and as the Light. [1] In the last chapter of the Bible, God comes out as the triumphant Lamb.[2] Today, we heard two of the most pivotal Coming Out stories in the Bible, the story of God Coming Out to Moses at the burning bush and the story of Jesus Coming Out at His baptism. Both times, God's Coming Out changed history. In each case, God Came Out to serve humanity.

The story of God Coming Out to Moses is arguably the most important and defining act of God's identity in the Hebrew Scriptures. God chooses to identify with an oppressed minority group and chooses to identify as a divine liberator and social activist. God promises to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.

The word for Egypt in Hebrew has shades of meaning that we do not get in English. There is a sense of "a limit" and a sense of a "besieged" place.[3] The Hebrew word from which Egypt was derived means a 'narrow' or a 'tight' place.[4] You could call Egypt a closet for the children of Israel. Jewish writer and author Lesli Koppelman Ross notes that when God took the children of Israel out of Egypt, God "extricated us from the place of constricted opportunities, tight control, and narrow-mindedness, where movement was severely limited."[5]

In the Bible, Egypt has very different roles, "a place of refuge" and a "place of oppression", a place to Come Out of.[6] Egypt had these roles in both the Hebrew Scriptures. At the burning bush where God Comes Out, Moses asks God's name. One scholar believes the answer given means, "I will be what I want to be".[7] The ancients might have gotten a sense that the God who is what God wants to be is calling the children of Israel to shoot high, to reach for their dreams, to move from a slave identity to being what they want to be. Today, through our church, God is also calling the oppressed to shoot high, to reach for their dreams, to leave behind identities of oppression.

There is another, richer meaning in the name God chose to Come Out with at the burning bush. Rabbi and Bible scholar Gunther Plaut states that the Hebrew means "I will be what tomorrow demands."[8]

To a people who had been oppressed for so long they feared their oppressors, to a people who had been oppressed for so long that being free was frightening, the words of God are comforting. No matter what tomorrow requires, no matter what tomorrow demands, the God who "will be what tomorrow demands" goes with them. To those in this congregation who are social justice people to the very core, the God who identifies as "I will be what tomorrow demands" walks with you. For those who find our church's Coming Out as Affirming a little frightening, the God who identifies as "I will be what tomorrow demands" walks with you and walks with our church, as we continue to affirm and welcome those who have traditionally faced societal oppression and who traditionally not been welcome in churches.