This has been a big weekend in the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota. Bishop Brian N. Prior was consecrated and ordained as the IX Bishop of the Diocese at a magnificent Liturgy on February 13, 2010. Today, in a ceremony marked by pageantry and rich Anglican ritual Bishop Prior was seated at St. Mark's Cathedral in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Bishop Prior has had another Cathedral seating at the historical Cathedral of Our Merciful Savior in Faribault, Minnesota. The Diocese has been busy with the excitement the comes with this wonderful occasion for both the Bishop and the people of Minnesota.
This morning at St. Mark's Cathedral we were privileged to have as our preacher Bonnie Anderson, the President of the House of Deputies in the Episcopal Church. Before being elected as Bishop of Minnesota, Fr. Brian Prior served as the Vice-President of the House of Deputies along with Bonnie Anderson as President.
Among the many profound points that Bonnie Anderson made this morning is that in the Episcopal Church it is understood that there really are four orders of ministry. In the Catechism found in the Book of Common Prayer on page 855 we read:
Today on this last Sunday before Lent begins we are brought to the mountain top with Jesus, Peter, James and John. We read the story about Jesus transfigured before the eyes of the Disciples and their response of fear at what they are witnessing. Yet, God assures them that Jesus is the one they must listen to, because Jesus is God's Son. When the fullness of who Jesus is was revealed to those Disciples they gained just a tiny understanding of who Jesus was. Jesus was made authentic before their eyes. They had a new understanding that they were following God's perfect revelation. The incarnation was given it's validity, even if it was not totally understood that way. This experience helped them begin to understand that God is with us in those times when life is just over the mountain top. Yet this event takes place before Jesus must go to Jerusalem and face his passion and death. We know from the Transfiguration that God is with us in the good times and the bad. This sounds very much like the love story that it in fact is meant to be.
Today is Valentine's Day. We celebrate love. Love between our partners, those we date, our friends, perhaps relatives and others that we have affection for. The important thing about love is that it is authentic. That we love out of the reality of who we are and we serve others with love as our reason and ultimate goal. This takes a life-time of work. All of us can love just a little bit better, deeper and with a sense of authenticity. We should always love as if we mean it. Yet, we know from our human nature that we can always be selfish, twisted and not so real. The story of the Transfiguration reminds us to be real, to be that light that shines in the middle of a dark world and that everyone is called to serve those who live in the dark of being without being loved.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people are told by religious and political conservatives that our love is not real, holy or authentic. When we attempt to work for marriage equality, or pass laws against hate crimes, work to repeal DADT and to be able to earn a living wage without being fired for our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression we are treated as sick people. Many refer to LGBT people as criminals. Religious conservatives accuse LGBT who want to serve in the military of wanting to do rape other soldiers. In seeking marriage equality LGBT couples are accused of wanting to commit incest and pedophilia. Even if the largest number of pedophiles are said to be among heterosexual married males.
What religious conservatives fail to understand is that lesbian and gay people are not able to authentically love someone of the opposite sex, because that is not who we are. We were blessed with the gift of loving members of the same sex, so that we can love each other as authentic human beings. How many closeted homosexual people have entered into heterosexual marriages only to find out years later that they really are gay or lesbian and they cannot stop themselves from seeking out people of the same-sex to be involved with? Such people are looking for real authentic love that they can truly understand. The language of the love between people of the opposite sex is one that they cannot talk without finding themselves confused and terrified. They may have been able to conceive children, but they do not really love the person of the opposite sex in a way that they feel fulfilled and they are not sure how to deal with that in a healthy manner. Young questioning teenagers and youth who experience same-sex attraction are not sure who to talk to, because they hear anti-gay jokes at home or in school. They want to understand how to love with a sense of authenticity, but they do not know if they should trust this love that they do not understand how to explain or express.
If lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people are going to experience what it means for us to be authentic, then we must be real before God and ourselves before we can be true to anyone else. We all have to come to the place where we realize that if we live by the rules of religious conservatives about what being LGBT means, we will never be authentic people. We will never quite love the way we were created to love. Only when we are true about being LGBT and allow ourselves to love that way, will we be authentic about who we are and why we are here.
As with Jesus, knowing who you really are and living that out means that we will experience both ups and downs. We will be taken to the heights of love and relationships, and at times we will experience the crosses of heartaches, break-ups, difficulties, addictions and difficulties. But if we place our trust in God and listen to Jesus in both his words and example we will be triumphant through the resurrection and know new life in the Name of the Son of God. We will live out our vocation as ministers of God's Church as our lives tell their own Gospel story. When the Gospel comes alive in our lives, it is no longer an abstraction. The Gospel is lived authentically and it moves others to want to make it their own story.
As we prepare to begin Lent this upcoming Wednesday perhaps we might ask ourselves how we are living authentically the mission of love as the Gospel calls us to do. We may want to look at ourselves as God sees us, as more than the rather than the anti-gay rhetoric of religious conservatives. Perhaps one of the ways we can spend Lent is learning to see ourselves as LGBT people in positive ways, and how we can impact the world and the Church with many of it's LGBT prejudices in positive and life-changing ways. How can LGBT people live authentically and as if we are listening to the Son of God, as God has called us to do?
This morning at St. Mark's Cathedral we were privileged to have as our preacher Bonnie Anderson, the President of the House of Deputies in the Episcopal Church. Before being elected as Bishop of Minnesota, Fr. Brian Prior served as the Vice-President of the House of Deputies along with Bonnie Anderson as President.
Among the many profound points that Bonnie Anderson made this morning is that in the Episcopal Church it is understood that there really are four orders of ministry. In the Catechism found in the Book of Common Prayer on page 855 we read:
Q. Who are the ministers of the Church?It is no mistake that the laity are the first mentioned as ministers in the Church. Yes we have our Bishops, Priests and Deacons who help minister the Word and Sacraments, but it is the ministry of the laity that keeps the Church going. We are the people who help bear the fruit of the work of those ordained. Without the laity the work of the ordained only goes so far. Without the ordained the laity risk not having direction. The reality is we are all in the work of God together and the ministry of the Gospel belongs to all of us. All of us have our tasks to do.
A. The ministers of the Church are lay person, bishops, priests and deacons.
Today on this last Sunday before Lent begins we are brought to the mountain top with Jesus, Peter, James and John. We read the story about Jesus transfigured before the eyes of the Disciples and their response of fear at what they are witnessing. Yet, God assures them that Jesus is the one they must listen to, because Jesus is God's Son. When the fullness of who Jesus is was revealed to those Disciples they gained just a tiny understanding of who Jesus was. Jesus was made authentic before their eyes. They had a new understanding that they were following God's perfect revelation. The incarnation was given it's validity, even if it was not totally understood that way. This experience helped them begin to understand that God is with us in those times when life is just over the mountain top. Yet this event takes place before Jesus must go to Jerusalem and face his passion and death. We know from the Transfiguration that God is with us in the good times and the bad. This sounds very much like the love story that it in fact is meant to be.
Today is Valentine's Day. We celebrate love. Love between our partners, those we date, our friends, perhaps relatives and others that we have affection for. The important thing about love is that it is authentic. That we love out of the reality of who we are and we serve others with love as our reason and ultimate goal. This takes a life-time of work. All of us can love just a little bit better, deeper and with a sense of authenticity. We should always love as if we mean it. Yet, we know from our human nature that we can always be selfish, twisted and not so real. The story of the Transfiguration reminds us to be real, to be that light that shines in the middle of a dark world and that everyone is called to serve those who live in the dark of being without being loved.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people are told by religious and political conservatives that our love is not real, holy or authentic. When we attempt to work for marriage equality, or pass laws against hate crimes, work to repeal DADT and to be able to earn a living wage without being fired for our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression we are treated as sick people. Many refer to LGBT people as criminals. Religious conservatives accuse LGBT who want to serve in the military of wanting to do rape other soldiers. In seeking marriage equality LGBT couples are accused of wanting to commit incest and pedophilia. Even if the largest number of pedophiles are said to be among heterosexual married males.
What religious conservatives fail to understand is that lesbian and gay people are not able to authentically love someone of the opposite sex, because that is not who we are. We were blessed with the gift of loving members of the same sex, so that we can love each other as authentic human beings. How many closeted homosexual people have entered into heterosexual marriages only to find out years later that they really are gay or lesbian and they cannot stop themselves from seeking out people of the same-sex to be involved with? Such people are looking for real authentic love that they can truly understand. The language of the love between people of the opposite sex is one that they cannot talk without finding themselves confused and terrified. They may have been able to conceive children, but they do not really love the person of the opposite sex in a way that they feel fulfilled and they are not sure how to deal with that in a healthy manner. Young questioning teenagers and youth who experience same-sex attraction are not sure who to talk to, because they hear anti-gay jokes at home or in school. They want to understand how to love with a sense of authenticity, but they do not know if they should trust this love that they do not understand how to explain or express.
If lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people are going to experience what it means for us to be authentic, then we must be real before God and ourselves before we can be true to anyone else. We all have to come to the place where we realize that if we live by the rules of religious conservatives about what being LGBT means, we will never be authentic people. We will never quite love the way we were created to love. Only when we are true about being LGBT and allow ourselves to love that way, will we be authentic about who we are and why we are here.
As with Jesus, knowing who you really are and living that out means that we will experience both ups and downs. We will be taken to the heights of love and relationships, and at times we will experience the crosses of heartaches, break-ups, difficulties, addictions and difficulties. But if we place our trust in God and listen to Jesus in both his words and example we will be triumphant through the resurrection and know new life in the Name of the Son of God. We will live out our vocation as ministers of God's Church as our lives tell their own Gospel story. When the Gospel comes alive in our lives, it is no longer an abstraction. The Gospel is lived authentically and it moves others to want to make it their own story.
As we prepare to begin Lent this upcoming Wednesday perhaps we might ask ourselves how we are living authentically the mission of love as the Gospel calls us to do. We may want to look at ourselves as God sees us, as more than the rather than the anti-gay rhetoric of religious conservatives. Perhaps one of the ways we can spend Lent is learning to see ourselves as LGBT people in positive ways, and how we can impact the world and the Church with many of it's LGBT prejudices in positive and life-changing ways. How can LGBT people live authentically and as if we are listening to the Son of God, as God has called us to do?
O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, BCP, Page 217).
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