On this final Friday of Advent, one week before Christmas we are asked through the readings from the Divine Office to look at how we are investing what God has given us. In God's abundance all of us have been given something we can invest and multiply for the good of others. For lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people giving of ourselves through our sexual orientations and/or gender expressions/identities can be dangerous but important work. Because LGBT people are often viewed as being "intrinsically disordered" just for being LGBT. Many people who are associated with the Catholic church and the religious right suggest that sexual orientation by itself is an addiction like alcoholism or drug abuse. They cannot see beyond the actual orientation, others stop at the door of our sexual relationships. Yet, for others like the 300,685 people who have signed onto the The Manhattan Declaration the idea of same-sex marriage is something that just cannot happen, lest the end of the world come. Lest those who have signed onto the Manhattan Declaration think they are the only one's who have invested their "talents" The Affirmation Declaration has grown to 1,128 signatures.
This mornings first Reading taken from the Prophet Zechariah reads: "The word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying: Thus says the LORD of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears in order not to hear. They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts. Just as, when I called, they would not hear, so, when they called, I would not hear, says the LORD of hosts, and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and a pleasant land was made desolate." (7:8-14).
These past few days have been very, very disappointing with the United States Senate unable to come up with a public option or Medicare buy-in plan for health care reform. As I have said in the past, the health care reform debate has moved so far away from those who really do need health care reform. Instead the health care reform debate is about how the monopolizing health care companies can exploit this for their own benefit. Their lobby machines and tycoons have masterminded what can be seen as a criminal enterprise and the the US Government that includes conserva-dems and Republicans have been all too willing to go along with the plot. Lost in all of the discussion are the unemployed and under employed families, along with all of those families and individuals with health care needs that they can neither pay for, nor obtain without the loss of everything they own. This was an opportunity for our President and Congress to put their best feet forward and show that America is a better place, that really does take care of it's own people. The Obama Administration, and U.S. House of Representatives and Senate had the chance to show that the United States of America helps those on the very bottom work their way to being successful and healthy individuals. Yet, rather than focus on those who really do need what could have been health care through a public option, the entire debate has turned into a political mudslinging session where politics and lobbying machine like insurance companies with all the money to throw gets a bigger part of the pot. Clearly the politics of it all, is twisted as usual.
What I cannot get in all honesty was this Prayer Cast that was reported on by The Rachel Maddow Show last night. Right in the middle of the thing was people like Sam Brownback and Rep. Michele Bachmann (sadly from my own State of Minnesota) praying about squashing the health care reform bill over abortion. I have to say up until Rachel Maddow started showing clips of Lou Engl and many of the speeches he's made, I had never heard of him. However, the moment I saw his face and heard him speak and the kinds of things he said, I had a nightmarish vision in my mind of Adolf Hitler beginning a Nazi Socialist party all over again. And I know there has been a lot of "socialist" slinging at President Obama. After hearing Lou Engl, I really do think that the right wing has been the pot calling the kettle black way too long. I have a very big problem with people praying for a health care reform bill to fail that features many of our Republican Representatives, and Focus on the Families James Dobson calling in to denounce it based on the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage. Women's rights and the rights of LGBT individuals are to blame for holding much needed health care reform hostage because of a bunch of lies and self-centered presuppositions. I just cannot wrap my mind around the lack of "love thy neighbor as thyself" that was part of that "prayer cast". How terribly backwards and a complete contradiction to what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is really about. And the sad part is, with our US. Senate increasingly unable to come to decent common ground over this health care reform bill, for many it appears that the prayers of the prayer cast are being answered. This issue is undoubtedly causing the faith of many to be shaken and challenged.
Over the last two weeks coming to the forefront of our news has been the anti-homosexuality bills in Uganda and now Rwanda. Apart from the Rachel Maddow Show, the rest of the news media has been all focused on Tiger Woods and his host of affairs and billions of dollars. I think two countries discussing imprisonment and the death penalty for homosexuals is a much bigger newsworthy priority. How is our nation and our world investing all the talents and opportunities that God has given them so as to help bring the reign of God's kingdom on earth?
How can LGBT people invest the "talents" God has given us in a world where being LGBT is still understood by many to be "intrinsically disordered?" How can LGBT Christians maintain their faith in God while it often appears as if our enemies are winning? Where do we see opportunities for investing the talents God has given us to help advance the cause for justice and equality not just for LGBT people but for all who are on the margins of society and the Church?
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. (Prayer Attributed to St. Francis, Book of Common Prayer, Page 833).
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