jesus teaches the biology of the sewer

June 14, 2026 • Seventh Sunday of Easter
Scripture Lesson: Mark 7: 17-23 (NRSV)
John C. Flake, Guest Preacher

[You can view the full worship video recording at: https://youtu.be/Gxwt5knu_rA]

Good morning and welcome, COTV FAMILY AND FRIENDS. It’s fitting that we are all gathered here, where we recognize that every living being is a child of God. AMEN !

The tables are set. (We are sitting at tables in church) Jesus and the disciples have entered in.

The circle is wide, (There’s an amazing diversity of folks always present in our church a miniature United Nations.) They don’t specifically say it in the scripture but I assume they have gathered for a meal.

ALL ARE WELCOME HERE!
Prior to the reading today, at the beginning of Mark Chapter 7, the Religious Leaders are chastising Jesus and his disciples. They are eating food without washing their hands. And sometimes they’re even just plucking food off the tree from wherever and eating it as it is without washing the food. What’s wrong with you? You’re not following the Law, they say. Jesus responds, looking at these righteous religious leaders, and proclaims: “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

Then as he and the disciples enter the place, he realize they are not understanding, and for sure the religious leaders are so full of themselves they don’t want to understand what he is getting at. So he repeats with more clarification and gives examples.

Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Where it is properly dealt with and recycled naturally.)

Now he clarifies more precisely:
“It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”

Now he gets and names some specifics and this is when it gets dicey: Fornication compulsive or exploitative sexual behavior.
Theft taking what is not yours.
Murder killing.
Adultery infidelity.
Avarice extreme, intense desire to acquire and hoard wealth or material things.
Wickedness active harmfulness.
Deceit dishonesty
Licentiousness shameless excess, with no restraint
Envy resenting others’ good
Slander verbal harm
PRIDE ego inflation
Folly moral foolishness

All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

Today, we are going to talk about PRIDE. A double-edged sword.

Such a powerful force that can both motivate to achieve great things:
Like Mother Teresa, or Jesus himself.

Or a double-edged sword, when toxic, it can go to our head and we think “well I’m god” I can do what the heck I want, destroying ourselves and others around us.

When we are celebrating our QUEERness, the pride we celebrate is being our authentic self, our lived reality. This pride emerges from:
Surviving Shame
Resisting erasure
Reclaiming our human dignity
Above all, telling the truth about who we are.

How many of you here today have been thrown out of your home, or told “you’re queer, you can’t be here. You’re incompatible with Jesus and THE BIBLE.”

To be clear, the CHURCH at large over millennia has taken a word like pride in an oversimplified, or incorrect translations and applied it in a dastardly and wicked way that:
Confuses self-acceptance with arrogance
Labels authenticity as SIN
Wants to force control over your natural state

And moreover, reinforces SHAME instead of healing.

So, today in the interest of time, and because it is PRIDE month:
Let’s just focus on PRIDE, and we can come back to all the others in the future with some more juicy John C stories.

This will allow me a shorter list that I can explain to you some examples from my personal lived experiences. There have been times in my life I’ve been on track and good things happened. Yet, at other times, I was way off the rails, and I became separated from God.

MY STORY:

I grew up in Florida, known as John C—emphasis on the C, as if the John didn’t matter. I learned early on how to be seen, charming adults and engaging in conversations that gave me a sense of connection. Plus I was the first child, the first grandchild, and like in the Lion King, I was held up like the future of the tribe depended on my survival. I got a lot of attention, in fact to be honest until my brothers and sister came along I was spoiled with attention. Naturally the one who help me up the most in the beginning was my grandfather on the Flake side. When I was three and a half he died in a car accident, so my grandmother was all alone and she’s lonely.

So she babysat me after kindergarten while waiting for my mom to come pick we up from teaching. Every afternoon after her soap operas she had to have her nap. This was the drill; we go in the bedroom. She puts a nickel on the dresser, now John C. you just take a little nap here with me and when you get up, you can have the nickel. Not three or four minutes into the nap she’s snoring like a freight train coming down the mountain. How can I sleep with such snoring. So, I quietly go out into the sunroom and play with my toys until I hear the freight train chugging to a stop. I run back climbing into bed next to grandmother when she wakes up claim my nickel (In 1953 do you know what a nickel would buy?) and life goes on day after today nickel after nickel. Now you need to understand in 1953 what a nickel would buy. A Coco-Cola for sure almost a half-gallon of gas. I wanted that nickel, so deceit after deceit, I utilized this behavior at an early age. Sadly from time to time it would re-emerge like a chronic case of singles.

Fortunately, because my mother was a teacher from a long line of educators, I was encouraged to do well in school and also at church. I would spend time with friends and family working, playing and even doing our chores faithfully. Many of our family friends had piano’s in their homes. So whenever I would go to these homes, I would ask if I could play the piano. Now I did not know how to play the piano, but what I could do was work out a simple melody by ear. After a few minutes I could play something.

Once at Christmas time I was in the bank with my grandmother, and while she was doing her business, I walked over to the lady playing Christmas music, and just started singing along. She coaxed me on, and before you knew it I was giving a little concert. Grandmother comes over astonished: “child I didn’t know you could sing like that." Of course not, you go to the Baptist Church, and I sing over at the Methodist Church, you’d have to cross over to hear me sing.

Music Lessons
I don’t get a piano, but I do get an accordion. Practice Practice. A few years later, I, along with some other accordion students, went to the 1964 World’s Fair. I see New York City—I like this. We play at the American Pavilion, and also take in the fair, witnessing innovations that at the time were unbelievable. It lit a little fire in me. I realized that I needed to know about these things that were outside my hometown. I needed to become an explorer. I am on a roll. In Junior high school I really enjoyed school. The pastor of our church gave me a key to the sanctuary so I could finally practice on a piano. That same pastor was sick with a terrible cold one Sunday morning, and saw me out in the yard as he was driving in for the 8 am service. He stopped his car, calls me over. John C. I need your help today. I have to preach for 3 services, and I can hardly talk, much less sing, and we don’t have a choir for the early service. Can you come and lead the hymns for me. I loved singing, and sure I’ll come help.

That same pastor encouraged me to get involved in something called MYF, And some how between the music, Bible study, recreation because you can practice Christian living when you learn to sing and play together. OH and let’s not forget cooking for the kids.

Our youth program grew like crazy. Through the training I received from the Annual Conference I gained the skills to work in churches doing youth ministry and music which ended up funding my way through college, with NO student loans. When I get my diploma, I had a new car, and money in the bank. God was watching over me.

In college something began to happen that was quite unexpected. I had never thought of myself as good looking, just an average guy next door. I guess I was just what they call in the south A “Late bloomer.” My first sexual experience just happened to be with another man, well that what a shock. I had girl friends all along, but looking back on it, there was not that spark. But I had close male friend too, and there was not that spark either. But now all of a sudden guys and girls are like all over me.

After undergrad school, I took a sabbatical because I was perplexed. The Methodist church at the time ( 1972) put in the book of discipline that homosexuality was incompatible with Christian teachings. So now the church that I grew up in and had invested in my spiritual and educational life is telling me “I’m incompatible with Jesus”!?

So on that sabbatical (one year and 47,000 miles) I met gay men and lesbian women all over the country working successfully in many fields, even churches. I arrived in Los Angeles, CA, in 1976 and enrolled in graduate school to get a Master’s in Leisure and Recreation Management. During this time, I did the same thing, working in restaurants as a waiter, at the Natural History Museum in the Botany Department, and also catering in private homes for special events. Again, I was able to continue my education working 3 jobs and also going to school full time. Then I met Dr. Lito. It was instant chemistry. We began what ended up being a 23-year relationship. It was a glorious time. We were young, full of energy, and zest for life, and for each other.

In 1994 we moved to NYC together.
At this time two little toxic bugs begin to emerge into my life:
1. My addiction to stimulants. It started with coffee and caffeine. As I went from cafe 1 to cafe 2 and back and forth all day 7 days a week, my espresso intake rose to 16 to 20 shots a day. My friend Dr. Max Schnyder warned me “John, you are addicted to stimulants. BUT Max I implored Caffeine is a socially acceptable vice. “John never try anything stronger than the coffee or tea, because you will love it, and you will need more and more to get the anticipated effect.”
2. THE COOLIDGE EFFECT.
How many of you here have ever even heard of the Coolidge Effect? It’s a biological and psychological phenomenon where sexually satisfied individuals (across both sexes, and many species experience reignited sexual interest and arousal when presented with a new, novel partner, even after habituation or satiation with a familiar partner). Researched and established by Endocrinologist Frank A. Beach.

In 1997 we ended our relationship after 23 years. I’m really feeling devastated and depressed. I’ve been with this man for so long, what’s wrong with me? It was a very hard transition. I took a new job working for the city, and for the first time in my life I was working 9 to 5. I had a lot of time on my hands. Dating new men, and discovering a stimulant of all stimulants Meth. I became addicted to both the new sexual interests fueled by a stimulant that made me feel like superman.

Life has a way of humbling us, and on October 2, 2012, at approximately 5:05 AM a big boom shook the building I lived in and woke me up. I ran to the window, and I looked out, and there was a fire truck at each end of my street blocking the whole street off. Downstairs, there are all these people running around entering my building. It was the FBI, DEA agents, a SWAT team, and a circling helicopter overhead. I knew they were coming to get me, and to get me, they did. They threw open the door, pushed me on the ground, handcuffed me, and the officers that put their feet into my back were the same officers I’d seen across the street in their unmarked car watching me for weeks. The officer said, “Are you cooking?” I said, “Man, it’s way too early to cook breakfast.” Officer, “You know what I’m talking about. Are you cooking Meth?” I tell the officer, “This is New York City. We order out!”

I had hit the bottom, allowing myself to fall into a life of addiction, arrogance, and eventual arrest, becoming the “Overlord of 104th Street,” supplying methamphetamine at a purity level even the DEA confirmed was 99.99%. My pride blinded me, making me believe I was above the law and all others. When the indictment came and my court date arrived, Judge Berman exposed my arrogance, forcing me to confront the truth about myself and the impact of my toxic actions on others. People from this church, family and friends filled the court room, and were there to support me in my darkest hour. It was truly the lowest point in my life EVER.

Lessons from the Sewer: SO WHAT DOES JESUS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT Overcoming TOXIC Pride, and how is the pride we celebrate in our queerness a plus and beneficial to society. While in prison I had the opportunity to either stew in anger, or change my life. It was time for me to go back to the Jesus I had learned about when I was a youth. It was time for me to realize I needed to take this time, a 14 year sentence, and use it to make the changes I needed to make. People in this church sent me letters of encouragement, they sent me magazines and books to lead me back on course in my spiritual journey. I did service in prison, playing the piano at both Catholic and Protestant worship. Typing up legal papers for inmates who were trying to seek help from the courts. I must add here, little was done by the prison system to make this transformation, the whole system is there to house undesirables, away from public site. My transformation came when I realized that God could change me, and I would take this time (at a huge public expense) as a tax payer paid monastic sabbatical to change, doing service in prison was the start.

Pride is a double-edged emotion, capable of driving us to greatness, or leading us to self-destruction. In the Bible, it is often portrayed as a sin that separates us from God and each other, the root of conflicts and misunderstandings. In Mark 7:17-23, Jesus teaches that our words and actions, driven by pride, can defile us and harm others, leading to emptiness and regret. It certainly took me in the wrong direction.

However, there is hope. Just as sewer water can be purified, so can our hearts and minds through honest self-examination, repentance, and forgiveness. We can learn to speak truth with love and compassion. Act with humility and grace, and live lives free from arrogance. Inspired by Jesus’ example of true purity of heart and mind from within. I had to admit to Judge Berman that if I had not gone to prison, I don’t think I could have gotten sober from Meth.

That’s ashamed because we done’t have sufficient systems in place to deal with addiction before people end up in prison, because at least half the people I met in prison were there ultimately because of additions.

So my friends, why do I come to this church? Why do I believe that Jesus showed me the way? Because it works, IT JUST WORKS IF YOU WORK IT. Whether you find your support community is a small group of friends, a 12 step group, a safe recovery group it’s about connecting with your higher power, which I name God.

But then when I got out, the only way I could stay on track was through the CMA 12 step program, having a sponsor, and now becoming a sponsor to my sponsee. Seeking professional help in therapy and counseling. Taking care of my health, eating healthy, and going to the gym 4 to 5 times a week. And recently adding a 30-minute Tai Chi movement exercise each morning before my 12-step meeting.

So, in closing, Embracing Humility and Love is something all of us in what I call the rainbow spectrum of queerness can truly be proud about. Here we are, all with different problems and challenges, but also with different skills and strengths When we turn them over to God in the name of Jesus Christ, we can truly be brothers and sisters to one another in a supportive loving community in our own rainbow colors. May God help us to become the beautiful loving queer, straight, or in-between person you’re ment to be. Thank you for being a part of this message today, for listening to my testimony, and leave here affirming your part in God’s rainbow of creation.

Copyright © 2026 - John C. Flake
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