I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift.
Therefore it is said,
"When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
he gave gifts to his people."
(When it says, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.
Today in the Anglican Communion we commemorate St. Dunstan who was a Benedictine Monk of Glastonbury Abbey. He was born near the Abbey in 909 and faced amazing persecutions and difficulties as the Kings of his time and the Church were facing lots of discord and difficulty with each other. Dunstan was also known for music and the making of bells. Under the support of King Edgar, Dunstan later became the Archbishop of Canterbury. Author James Kiefer writes:
The coronation service which Dunstan compiled for Edgar is the earliest English coronation service of which the full text survives, and is the basis for all such services since, down to the present. With the active support of King Edgar, Dunstan re-established monastic communities at Malmesbury, Westminster, Bath, Exeter, and many other places. Around 970 he presided at a conference of bishops, abbots, and abbesses, which drew up a national code of monastic observance, the Regularis Concordia. It followed Benedictine lines, but under it the monasteries were actively involved in the life of the surrounding community. For centuries thereafter the Archbishop of Canterbury was always a monk.
Dunstan took an active role in politics under Edgar and his successor Edward, but under the next king, Ethelred, he retired from politics and concentrated on running the Canterbury cathedral school for boys, where he was apparently successful in raising the academic standards while reducing the incidence of corporal punishment. On Ascension Day in 988, he told the congregation that he was near to death, and died two days later.
As I meditate on St. Dunstan and this reading from Paul to the Ephesians I am struck by some thoughts.
First Paul tells us to: "lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all." As I read this I cannot help but think that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people cannot live a life worthy of the calling we have received if we are not able to live our lives openly and honestly before God and others. The closet is a place of death, distance and self torture. While it is perfectly understandable that many do live there because of very real fear which includes rejection by their families, friends, churches, work places and all, that fear is not a place of freedom and it is one that will hold us back. Living in a way that is worthy with all humility, gentleness, with patience as we bear with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, is not something LGBT people can do if we have to deny the very essence of who we are just to make other people happy and comfortable. Truth does not always make us feel good, in fact, truth can make us very uncomfortable and uneasy within ourselves. When truth is not expressed within ourselves and the communities in which we exist as LGBT people, that closeted truth is self destructive and has severe consequences to our personal, mental and spiritual health.
If we truly believe that there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Creator of all, who is above all and through all and in all, then we must also believe that our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression is one way in which that one faith, baptism and God expresses God's Self to all the world. And it is God who is ultimately in control of who we are as well as who and how we love another person. What God has created and blessed in LGBT people is the same God who is above all, through all and in all, just as God is in people who are heterosexual. This very idea takes me backwards a bit in this Epistle to the word humility. Today's Forward Day by Day the author writes:
"Humility, true humility, is the deep knowledge that God is to be sought, and found, and served in every person. Humility bows its heart to all, in acknowledgment of the presence of the Holy there. (Page 20).God's perfect revelation in Jesus came, died, rose again and ascended into heaven for all of God's beloved children, with whom God is well-pleased. And just as not everyone has the same gifts to do the same works in the Church of God, so not everyone loves exactly the same way as another person will. Homosexuality, bisexuality and transgendered people are gifted by God to love people of the same sex, or to love both sexes, or to desire a different gender than by which one was born, so as to bless the world with just one more way in which God's magnificence is beyond our imagination.
The unity of the Church includes all kinds of people, from every walk of life, ability, challenge, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity/expression and gender, class and all the rest. God desires that the Church be an inclusive Church where diversity is welcomed and every gift is given the opportunity to bless God's people in wonderful and challenging ways.
Finally, Paul writes: "We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love." This particular part of this chapter of Paul's Epistle has often been misused against LGBT people, suggesting that we have been "tossed to and fro" by a doctrine of inclusion for us that really does not exist in the Bible. Another trick of those who insist on Biblical literalism. Keep in mind that Christianity existed for almost 2,000 years without Biblical literalism as retired Bishop Holloway in the movie: "For the Bible Tells Me So" suggested. Only in the last 100 years or so has Biblical literalism a very "modern invention" has become the weapon of choice against LGBT people as it has for the express purpose of making billions of dollars in capital revenue.
I would like to suggest that LGBT people as well as any group of people need to be very careful about adopting doctrines and moral ideologies without a thorough study of Biblical language, history, interpretation and Church history so as to not use it in inappropriate ways, as is happening with fundamentalist Christians. There has indeed been great intolerance and bigotry towards LGBT individuals through out the history of the Christian Church, thanks in part to how the Bible has been misused, and how cultures and social establishments have elevated hetero-sexism. I would further suggest that these are ways in which the Church and other Christians have been misled by every wind of doctrine and people's trickery so as to establish an ideology that is neither based in Scripture or Tradition without the good use of Reason to help us redefine where the Christian Church is going in its understanding of human sexuality.
As we pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we would do well to pray that the Advocate who has been sent to us by Jesus will help all of us in the Church to continue to learn and grow in our acceptance of one another. We have been exhorted by Paul to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit. Part of maintaining that unity is being open to the diverse people and ways in which the Spirit works within the Church. We should also ask the Holy Spirit to help us to be patient with those who are still moving from a place of intolerance and exclusion, to a place of welcome and full inclusion. The Holy Spirit has moved the Episcopal Church to this place where we now have one openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson and now one openly lesbian Bishop Mary Glasspool. The Spirit has been busy, and she will continue to move hearts and minds as they open up to her breath of fresh air. But, we need to be in prayer for each other, so that the Good News of God's salvation for all people will become more and more of a reality for every child of God.
O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. (Collect for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Book of Common Prayer, Page 226).
O God of truth and beauty, who richly endowed your bishop Dunstan with skill in music and the working of metals, and with gifts of administration and reforming zeal: Teach us, we pray, to see in you the source of all our talents, and move us to offer them for the adornment of worship and the advancement of true religion; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Collect for Commemoration of St. Dunstan)
God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us from godly union and concord; that, as there is but one Body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for the Unity of the Church, Book of Common Prayer, Page 818).
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