What Are Christianity's Problems?

John 8:33-47 (NRSV)

They answered Jesus, 'We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, "You will be made free"?' Jesus answered them, 'Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, because there is no place in you for my word.
38 I declare what I have seen in the Father's presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Father.' They answered him, 'Abraham is our father.' Jesus said to them, 'If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your father does.' They said to him, 'We are not illegitimate children; we have one father, God himself.' Jesus said to them, 'If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
 
Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? 

Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.' 

Diane Silver a blog contributor to The Bilerico Project wrote an outstanding piece last night entitled "My Christianity Problem."   She writes many interesting points but the following paragraphs that stand out for me is:

Here's what this story has to do with my feelings about Christianity: Christians terrify me. I am strong and capable, but part of me feels like a powerless child who can't withstand the Christian onslaught. I'm a 10-pound cat facing a 120-pound pit bull and the snarling beast is frothing at the mouth.

I'm an out lesbian and a non-Christian living in nation where more than 75 percent of the people are Christian. A healthy chunk of those folks are fundamentalists, Mormons and conservative Catholics who expend enormous effort and money to limit my legal rights and hurt my family. A tiny portion of those people, like my neighbor the Rev. Fred Phelps, believe I should be put to death for no other reason than who I am.

Preachers and priests rail against me from the pulpit. Churches and Christian organizations campaign against my family. In the process, they stereotype me as a vicious sexual predator or a sex addict. (A homosexual will have 10,000 sexual partners, and they're always looking for new victims, claims the pastor of a church in suburban Kansas City. I haven't had even 5 sexual partners in my life, let along 10,000. I don't even know how you would do that. When would you buy groceries, do laundry, go to work?)

I joke about this minister's outrageous claim, but I also worry about how many of the 4,000 members of his congregation believe him. How many of them would deny me work, or beat me up because he has convinced them I'm a threat? When I'm not being pilloried by Christians for being queer, I'm being exhorted to ignore my own experiences and my own spiritual journey and accept "Jesus Christ as my Savior."

 So this is my Christianity problem: some Christians have hurt me and continue to want to hurt me and the people I hold most dear. I'm having a horrible time figuring out how to handle my feelings about that fact.
Intellectually, I know every Christian isn't anti-gay or disrespectful of other people's religious beliefs, but my little girl self doesn't live in the land of logic. My little girl self wants to hurt them as much as they've hurt me. I can be the closest of friends with Christians if I know they don't seek my destruction. I can accept their theology, and support their worship. However, I also feel powerless to withstand what feels like a continuous assault from a portion of Christianity. My smallest, most frightened self is too scared to wait to determine if an individual Christian is friend or foe; I just want to verbally attack the instant I meet one.

But here's a fact about powerlessness that's surprising. I learned two lessons that day in karate. I learned that my anger is fueled by feelings of helplessness, but I also learned that my feelings distort my perception. My hapless practice partner was much smaller than I could see at first. What am I missing in my great tussle with Christians? What am I unable to see about them?

I've read that some Christians are just as frightened of me as I am of them. They think I want to destroy their way of life, take their Bibles, or close their churches. (I don't.) I think they're the pit bull, and I'm the helpless tabby. Do they think I'm the attack dog, and they're the cat?

I refuse to be governed by fear. I refuse to be fueled by hate and a thirst for revenge, and I refuse to add to the demonize-the-opposition poison that is sickening our society. I want to let go of my anger at Christians

Bravo Diane!   The problem with Christians is that we forget that the reason we are Christians is not for just ourselves and nor is it because of our dogmas. If we take the name Christian seriously, it means we recognize Jesus Christ as not only our Savior but also as our neighbor. Remember Matthew 25: 31-46?  Diane is writing this out of her own personal experience of what she is witnessing from Christianity towards herself as a lesbian.  Sadly, it is an experience all too familiar to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning and queer people.  It is an ongoing story from the various corners of the world.  Just here in the United States Box Turtle Bulletin blogs about The Great American Breakdown.   Joe Jervis of JoeMyGod writes about Focus on the Family's new website opposing anti-gay bullying in our schools.  Given examples like these why are we questioning why LGBTQ people are giving up on Christianity? 

I want to be very clear in writing that I am not giving up on Christianity.  I believe that our God does not give up on us, so we should not give up on God and God's prefect revelation in Jesus Christ.  If Christianity is going to have any impact on the world, than I must agree with much of what Bishop John Shelby Spong wrote in his book: "A New Christianity for A New World".   Bishop Spong is also the author of another book I will read someday entitled: "Why Christianity Must Change or Die."  Christianity needs more than a major face lift but needs a "new reformation." (Read A New Christianity for a New World for an explanation).  We are not reaching the masses of people with stories of miracles or age old dogmas and creeds.  Quoting Bible verses to shame women about abortion or birth control and homosexual, bisexual and transgendered people is just pushing them further and further away.  Among the many reasons why Christianity has been loosing it's attraction to people is the massive spiritual abuses of the Catholic church and the conservative and fundamentalist Christians with in protestantism.  Mainline churches loose out because we are so determined to maintain our institutions.  Change is a much liked term, but not much enjoyed in practice.  While the Church goes through all of these crisis' the hungry hearts of women and men of all races, religions, sexual orientations and/or gender expressions/identities, cultures, challenges and the like suffer terribly.  

In today's Gospel Jesus is talking about how we evidence who we are listening to.  Christians do not show that we are being attentive to God, when fundamentalist Christians are publicly distorting the truth about the religion of Islam.   When Christians support the idea of burning down Muslim places of worship or the stabbing of a cab driver in New York City, it be easy to say that we have been listening or keeping the words of Jesus, and that we are truly set free, but our actions show otherwise.  The violence that has been being heaped upon the Islamic believers is the same ignorance that has given way to fear that causes homophobia because of heterosexism.   The only way we are going to deal appropriately with that fear is to be open to learning some things about Islam.   At the web site Gain Peace, we read the answer to the question, what is Islam?

Islam is not a new religion, but the same truth that God revealed through all His prophets to every people. For a fifth of the world's population, Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness, and the majority have nothing to do with the extremely grave events which have come to be associated with their faith. 

Muslims believe in One, Unique, Incomparable God; in the Angels created by Him; in the prophets through whom His revelations were brought to mankind; in the Day of Judgement and individual accountability for actions; in God's complete authority over human destiny and in life after death. Muslims believe in a chain of prophets starting with Adam and including Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elias, Jonah, John the Baptist, and Jesus, peace be upon them. But God's final message to man, a reconfirmation of the eternal message and a summing-up of all that has gone before was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) through Gabriel. 

This past weekend while Jason and I were coming back the Minnesota State Fair, we were greeted by an Islamic man who passed us a card with the information to Gain Peace.  I told him that I stand with him against the prejudice and violence that his people are experiencing.  I told him that I am an Episcopalian and that I do not condone any violence against any person, for any reason.  He thanked me and asked if he could take a picture of Jason and I, which we let him do. 

As Christians it is our business to be peace makers.  Among our many important duties as Christians is to be people of radical hospitality and be about the ministry of reconciliation.  We cannot do radical hospitality or the ministry of reconciliation if we are condoning injustice, cruelty and violence upon people for reasons that are so unimportant as religion, sexual orientation and/or gender identity, gender, challenge, race etc.   In this regard as Bishop Spong wrote Christianity must change or it will die.   It will die not because Jesus Christ the resurrection and the life will have died, but because Christians will have done so much damage to his Name and what Jesus is about, that very few will want believe in him. 

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates two Bishops of Northern England, Aiden and Cuthbert.  Aidan died in 651 and Cuthbert in 687.  Both of these men did extraordinary work while Christians were working to evangelize Northern England.  In both of these men are examples of heart felt devotion and committed Christian witness.   Like all people, their work was not without it's casualties to Church history.  Such is the Church in the 21st Century. 

Wouldn't the Church be telling a whole different story if we could make use of our Faith, our Creeds, our worship, and our Bibles to enthusiastically preach and share peace, inclusion and salvation through radical hospitality and reconciliation?  Christianity would indeed be a living tradition if instead of looking at how we can use the Bible as a weapon of mass destruction to spread discrimination, we could seek to help people get along with each other and let each other be who we are.  If Christians joined Muslims in seeking peace with the rest of the world, Christianity would be known as a friend of other religions and not foes.   If Christians would support marriage equality for all people including but not limited to same-sex couples, then Christianity would not appear to be a Faith that condones spiritual and religious violence.  I believe that this is the Christianity that is real, because it is the real message of Jesus Christ's words and actions.  When will the words and actions of Jesus, welcoming the stranger, healing the wounds that bleed and helping to restore broken relationships become a priority in the ministry and mission of Christ's Church?

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 17, Book of Common Prayer, Page 233).

Everliving God, you called your servants Aidan and Cuthbert to proclaim the Gospel in northern England and gave them loving hearts and gentle spirits.  Grant us grace to live as they did, in simplicity, humility, and love for the poor; through Jesus Christ, who came among us as one who serves, and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  (Collect for Aidan and Cuthbert, Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, Page 553).

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for the Human Family, Book of Common Prayer, Page 815).

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 of Assisi, Book of Common Prayer, Page 833). 

More About Truth

John 8:21-32 (NRSV)

Again Jesus said to them, 'I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.' Then the Jews said, 'Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by saying, "Where I am going, you cannot come"?' He said to them, 'You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.' They said to him, 'Who are you?' Jesus said to them, 'Why do I speak to you at all? I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.' They did not understand that he was speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, 'When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.' As he was saying these things, many believed in him.

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, 'If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.'

Wow!  What a bunch of confusing messages throughout this Gospel reading.  This sounds like a huge bunch of drama in the middle of a Pride planning meeting.  It is drama no mistake.  There are individuals in Jesus' hearing who are responding to all kinds of messages, but they really do not understand what he is saying.  And when they ask questions to hopefully understand, Jesus appears to be a grouch.   Jesus is foretelling of his future death.  But he is so vague in saying that "where I am going, you cannot come" that his audience wonders if he is going to commit suicide.  In the midst of this discourse, Jesus is stating nothing more or less than who he is.  The writer of John's Gospel begins not with a detailed narrative about the Virgin Birth, but with a proclamation that Jesus is the Word of God.  Throughout this exchange Jesus is telling the audience that he has come as Savior and wants to lead those in captivity into a sense of freedom.   I really do think that Jesus is establishing himself as the Truth, but also telling us that truth is found in knowing ourselves and being totally and bluntly honest about who we are.  My very favorite song learned in my elementary music class had us singing the words: "Honesty, no matter what the consequences be, it's the very best policy."


It is wise to be very careful about different translations of verses 31 and 32 taken from this Gospel today.   The New International Version (NIV) reads: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free."  The New American Standard Bible (NASB) reads: "If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."  The King James Version (KJV) reads: "If ye continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  There is a major interpretation problem with the NIV, NASB and the KJV reading the word then after suggesting that we continue in Jesus' words.  As Christians we believe  that Jesus is the Word.  Throughout this Gospel Jesus is giving us some indication of who he is and who God is in relationship to Jesus. We are not Christians just because we abide in what Jesus said, but also because of who Jesus is, as well as what Jesus did.  The NIV, NASB and the KJV appears to be leaving us in the lurch by suggesting that following Jesus is only a matter of what Jesus said.  If we cling only to what Jesus said then we risk thinking that we do not have to bother with how Jesus brought closer to God and the household of Faith those who are on the margins of society.  We know from reading the Gospels  such as Matthew 25: 31 - 46 that it is as much our responsibility for us to include those whom society and the Church excludes as it is to love the words of Jesus.


The commentaries linked with John 8: 31 and 32 in the New Oxford Annotated New Revised Standard Version as well as the New American Bible (America's Catholic version, as poorly worded as it is), suggests that the truth Jesus brings that sets us free is freedom from slavery to sin.   This is another one of those passages of Scripture that is used by anti-gay evangelistic and Catholic preachers to suggest that if LGBTQ people accept our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression that we are evading the truth that Jesus wants to set us free.  This is again an example of how conservative Christians bend and twist the words of Jesus to suggest anti-gay rhetoric from the Bible when in fact it is not there.


To be enslaved to a lie within ourselves that we should be heterosexual, when we have physical and emotional attractions to members of the same sex, is to live in sin.  When lesbian, gay and/or bisexual individuals continue to torture ourselves because of the anti-gay messages of conservative Christians to try to be someone we are not, we are living in sin.  Sin not only attempts to tell us that something wrong is right, sin also deceives us into believing that we are the most horrible people if we go against the status quo that is defined by conservative Christians and Catholics.   If anyone is at all like me and you found yourself literally crying after masturbating because you just couldn't get rid of those same-sex attractions and heard some interior voice telling you what a shameful thing you did, that too is sin.  The sin is not that we have attractions towards the same-sex, nor is there really anything sinful about a physical relationship between two people of the same sex.  That false guilt that we sometimes allow to speak to our interior body that says we shouldn't be this way, because some Bible thumper said so?  That is sin.  Some ex-gay ministry that says that they can "cure" us of the inner gay, that is sin, because it is spiritually violent as well as fraudulent.   Ever wondered why ex-gay ministries sound a lot like the serpent in the Garden of Eden from Genesis 3 promising that we will be like God, that is perfect if only we were not LGBT or Q?   If they sound all too much a like it is because they are promising great things, while leading us so very far from the truth.   The same goes for the truth about transgendered people.  Transgendered individuals are created with a wonderful sense of transforming themselves from who they are on the outside, into who they are both inside and out.  Transgendered people are Christian missionaries by helping us know that there is within each of us a person who is so wonderful and holy, that we must be willing to transform our outer bodies to bring that wonderful and holy person out into the open.   


What about claims such as Pat Buchanan suggesting that gay marriage is like incest, polygamy or prostitution?   How about the former Catholic Archbishop of Belgium asking a raped child not to report his uncle who raped  him?  If these are examples of "remaining in" Jesus' "word" that we may "know the truth and the truth shall set" us "free" then we have a big problem.  Spreading lies and hate and making bribes with someone about their rape is far from helping to set people free so that they will know the truth.  We are not exactly keeping Jesus' words so that the truth will be known and make us free when we are lying to ourselves about our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression and not calling upon the Church and society to repent from their spiritual and political abuses that keep us and a lot of other minorities from being included.  As Ninnie Threadgood on Fried Green Tomatoes said: "Truth is a funny thing sometimes."  As much as it can sting and make us look weird admitting who we are is knowing the truth, it is keeping to the words and actions of Jesus.  When we tell our stories of coming out, our relationships and share with friends, families, our churches and communities that being LGBTQ is wonderful, holy, we are sharing the truth that will set us free from bigotry and cruel violence.  And that is a truth that will set us free from sin, and isn't that why Jesus Christ came into the world?

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 17, Book of Common Prayer, Page 233).

O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Collect for Peace, Book of Common Prayer, Page 99).

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).

Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost: Pride and Humility Are Compatible

This Sunday the Revised Common Lectionary offers us so many options of what Bible passages to read it can be difficult to know which one to use.  The choice of readings do all direct us to some common thoughts that we can inspire our meditation.  

The basic theme of the readings is as we gain a fuller understanding of who we are, how do we see our relationship with God, others and ourselves?  One of the choices for the Old Testament reading is Sirach 10: 12-18.  Verse 12 begins with: "The beginning of pride is to forsake the Lord, the heart has withdrawn from it's Maker."   As lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning and queer people we celebrate our diversity every year through Pride celebrations.  If you stand on the anti-gay side of the movement towards LGBTQ equality, the word pride is a word used to suggest that LGBTQ people have an arrogant view of ourselves.   Anti-gay conservative Christian preachers will often preach against pride and specifically direct such towards a questioning individual in their audience so as to shame them about their sexual orientation and/or gender identity expression.

Marti Steussy commented on the reading from Sirach in Out in Scripture.

"Is pride always a bad thing?" Those of us who are labeled "defective" often draw strength from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride celebrations. These are occasions when we give to one another the place of honor ("Friend, move up higher") in a wider culture that would keep us, at best, in "the lowest place" (Luke 14:10).

Pride seems more of a problem for those who already enjoy privilege. And when we hear some of this week's lessons speaking of God enthroning the lowly in place of established rulers (Sirach 10:14), we may feel justice is finally being served.

I really do not think that the pride spoken of in Sirach is meant to shame LGBTQ people about learning to have a sense of pride about who we are, who we love and to mean that we should not seek equal rights.  I do think it is meant to remind us to be careful about taking the position of our opponents, and therefore we should not think of ourselves better than heterosexual people, just because we are LGBTQ.  A pride that understands who we are and honors who we are before others and God is a good and noble pride.  A pride that says that we deserve our place because we are more important than everyone else who is different from ourselves is not a good pride.

John McQuiston II wrote a devotional book entitled: "Always We Begin Again: The Benedictine Way of Living."   McQuiston has taken the Rule of St. Benedict and put it into the language of every day people who have families, jobs and/or are struggling with our lives of prayer, spirituality and living with one another.   In the one page on humility John McQuinston writes the most profound of words.

Cultivate humility.
To be exalted is to be in danger.

Pride is considered sin because it warps our
existence.
It establishes our lives on a false foundation

No one can win all the time.
Therefore, a life on bettering others
will always be unfulfilled.

The way to affiliation with the sublime
is not to add,
but is to take away more each day
until we have been freed,
even from the desire for perfection.  (Page 37).

I think this can speak volumes to the struggle that heterosexism creates for LGBTQ people.  Our anti-LGBTQ adversaries have themselves developed a pride that suggests that they are to always benefit at the expense of those who are not.  Racism as Bishop Gene Robinson says suggests that those who are Caucasian benefit at the expense of those who are not.  Sexism suggests that men benefit at the expense of women. (See page 24 of In the Eye of the Storm).  And so a huge group of people have assumed a place of privilege from which no one who is not like them, can be given an opportunity to be included at the table, until they decide it is okay.  This is the problem with placing the rights of immigrants, LGBTQ, women, and people of other races, languages, religions etc into the hands of judges, legislators, elections, Church Conventions, conferences and leadership groups.  When the rights and opportunities of underprivileged people are made by people who are privileged, there is always the probability that the underprivileged will loose, because the privileged do not wish to give up what they think is theirs. 

Helene Russell finds the outlines for such a common life, a life of mutuality, in Hebrews 13. The writer envisions a community where strangers and prisoners are welcomed and remembered, whose members are not just willing but glad to share whatever they have. While some might read "honoring the marriage bed" as a put-down of same-gender marriage (Hebrews 13:4), Marti Steussy suggests that this admonition is about the community acknowledging and providing a supporting framework for intimate relationships. Mutual love includes respecting appropriate boundaries where intimacy is involved. Charles Allen regards this practice of mutual love as nothing less than practicing the presence of God. The foundation for this practice is God's promise, "I will never leave you or forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5).

The Gospel for today from Luke 14: 1, 7-14 suggests that we not assume what is not ours, but take our place from where we are first.  This is a very difficult lesson for those of us who are already second class citizens in the Church and society.  However, the good news here is that God knows all of us as welcomed guests to God's Banquet.  Everyone who comes to share in the Holy Eucharist is there because God has invited them to come.  Those who assume authority over the Banquet so as to decide who should not be there, are advised to be careful about exalting themselves, lest they should have to be humbled.  When Church authorities attempt to make the decision that practicing LGBTQ people, women who have had abortions, politicians who support marriage equality and a woman's right to choose etc should not be welcomed to receive Holy Communion appear to forget that they are not a Pope, Bishop or Priest because they are worth all the brains in their head.  Everyone is welcome to God's Banquet, because God's love is unconditional and all-inclusive.  Every child of God is invited to share in the Body and Blood of Christ, because it is for everyone's salvation that Jesus endured his passion, death and resurrection.   It really is not the place of Ecclesiastical people to decide who is or is not holy enough to receive Holy Communion.  God's grace moves our hearts to want to receive Christ in the Eucharist, God's grace invites us, and by God's grace we receive the very Presence of God so that, that Presence is to become real in us who receive God.  Such is God's work of grace, not the decision of those who think they are better than God.

God desires to pour out the very best of God's Self into all of us.  We do not need to hold ourselves or have others hold us in high esteem to be known by God or others as individuals who have the dignity, integrity, value and respect that is given to us by the very reason that we are God's beloved.   However, because we are God's beloved with whom God is well-pleased God wants us to live with a sense of dignity and integrity. "No good thing will the LORD withhold from those who walk with integrity." (Psalm 84:11). No matter where we find ourselves, including beneath the proverbial  or political shoe of someone who thinks that because they are heterosexual they are better than those of us who are LGBTQ, that God still knows us as the "apple of God's eye: hidden under the shadow of God's wings." (Psalm 17: 8 paraphrased).  "I praise you, O LORD, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." (Psalm 139: 14). 

Today we are invited to know ourselves so that we will have a sense of humility as we also gain a sense of God ordained pride by whom we have been created, redeemed and sanctified.  We are also invited to remember and be sensitive to the needs of others, while at the same time never compromising the very essence of who we are and who or how we love others.

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 17, Book of Common Prayer, Page 233).

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  (Prayer for the Human Family, Book of Common Prayer, Page 815)

Gracious One,
        you meet us,
        hold us and challenge us in our life together with others;
        transfigure our relationships so that mutual love may continue
        until we find ourselves welcomed into the highest place
        you have reserved for all your children,
        through your Word and Spirit.
    Amen. (Prayerfully Out in Scripture).

Truth Gets Mishandled and Misunderstood--Christian Tradition Is the Culprit

John 14:6-15 (NRSV)

Jesus said to Thomas, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

One of my favorite movies is Fried Green Tomatoes.  I love the story, the characters, the actors and the twists as the stories unfold.  At the very end of the movie the 82 year old Ninnie Threadgood says: "Truth is a funny thing sometimes."   She said this after she had confided to Evelyn Couch that the man Iggy Threadgood was accused of murdering was killed by Sipsie an African American woman during the 1930's while the man was trying to take off with he and his ex-wife Ruth's baby.  To keep a Sheriff from discovering that an African American killed Frank Bennet for which Sipsie would have  been sentenced to a hanging for sure, Iggy and Big George barb'qued and served up Frank.   Sipsie's famous sentence "The secret's in the sauce" while picking up the empty dish from the Sheriff investigating Frank Bennet's murder is just so hilarious.  Ninnie's phrase: "Truth is a funny thing sometimes" is so applicable to what I am going to write today.

We commemorate today in the Episcopal Church, Saint Augustine of Hippo who lived from 354 to 430.   His writings, sermons, and classics in Western Spirituality have shaped much of what Christians in the Western lung of the Church have believed for centuries.  In the Roman tradition he is said to be one of the Church Fathers.  A great deal of our theology about the Trinity and the Sacraments was given life by the incredible mind of St. Augustine.  As many Christian traditions up to this present day have been working to condemn the physical love of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning and queer people, they have often attributed a fair amount of their moral theology to St. Augustine as one of their references. 

I have already spent a lot of time writing about how the Bible  has been misquoted and misinterpreted to condemn homosexuality.  What we do not really record accurately is that much of early Christian culture did not know or have an appreciation of homosexuality.   A blog article appeared in Alternet this week of how early Christians actually condoned same-sex marriage.  


John Boswell in his book Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality the author wrote:

"It may be objected that the general thrust of early Christian sexual ethics would have precluded homosexual intercourse regardless of the particular objections brought against it.  This argument deserves attention.  It should be noted in the first place that whether or not early opponents of gay sexuality could have deduced the sinfulness of homosexual behavior from the general systems of sexuality, they did not.  Saint Augustine, for example, who more than any other single writer determined that the sexual attitudes of the Christian West, never related homosexual activities to heterosexual ones, and discussions of homosexual acts are conspicuously absent from the treatises in which he expounded his system of sexual minorities."  (Page 161).

Keep in mind that Augustine was converted and baptized into Christianity by Ambrose of Milan in 387.   Ambrose is said to be a convert of one of Jesus' Apostles.  This quote from John Boswell's book gives some evidence of what Gray Temple spoke of in his book Gay Unions in Light of Scripture, Tradition and Reason that the writers of the Bible and the early Church did not have two concepts called heterosexuality or homosexuality.  Sexuality was at that time known as a way of how the strong dominated the weak.   St. Augustine and many of his contemporaries did raise the standard to suggest that human sexuality was mostly about procreation. It is from there that the Catholic church condemns artificial contraception, abortion and homosexuality   In the Episcopal Church we understand that in an economy that is more interested in capital gains than life itself, that raising a child in a society that does not seek to expand public education, health care, personal growth and potential so as to contribute to society, that birth control is far from the greatest of evils.  It is also amazing how many so called "prolife" people who condemn abortion, have no problem with the shooting of an abortion doctor, as well as killing all public funding by which an unwed mother would be able to give birth to and raise a child.  


In today's Gospel Jesus tells the disciples that Jesus is the way, truth and life and that we all go to God through him.  Yet in all that we have read and heard do we really know who Jesus is?  Do we understand that in Jesus, God has called unto God's Self those whom society and the Church considers the throw aways?  The poor, the sick, those who are told they are second class citizens because of their race, class, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression, language, culture, religion, they are the people God seeks through Christ.  Because of God's grace through Jesus, all people are invited and able to approach God and seek salvation and wholeness.  God does not call people to give up the essence of who we are as people.   God does not expect that we will not love people in the unique way God has created us to love.   What we are called to do is recognize that what we do, who we do it with or for is all about knowing, loving and serving God in Jesus by the Holy Spirit.  LGBTQ people can love God in Jesus by the Holy Spirit through our loving relationships with our partners/husbands/wives/significant others


When we distort the truth about who God is by trying to dictate how we think God views people the results are catastrophic.  It is because of such misunderstandings about God's relationship to LGBTQ people that leads to terrible events such as a four year old girl being denied admission to a school operated by the Anglican Church of North America because she has two mommies.   A school district that has seen at least three LGBTQ related suicides,  among youth has anti-gay advocates show up at a school board meeting to oppose tougher anti-bullying policies.  The Presbyterian Church USA voted that a minister who performed several legal same-sex marriages before Prop 8 was voted on in California, that the minister violated the vows of her ordained ministry.  Because "truth is a funny thing sometimes" and gets all messed up by Church traditions that misinterpret the Bible and create policies that really do not exist, people get hurt and abused just because they followed Jesus and loved a little differently.  

Yesterday Susan Russell wrote in her blog:  

Shouldn't our lives, our relationships and our vocations be entitled to equal protection, blessing and respect without our having to justify ourselves? To prove anything? Do we really have to invite strangers into our lives -- our stories --in order to "prove" that we deserve recognition of the full humanity God gave us by our heterosexual brothers and sisters?

Welcome to the kingdom not-yet-come! Of course all those things are true, and yet again and again -- over and over -- hearts and minds are changed when we risk ... when we speak our truth ... tell our stories ... share our lives ... offer ourselves to this Godly work of healing homophobia an inch at a time.

If we are going to talk about Jesus as the way, truth and life in today's Church and society than one of the things we must do is correct the Church Tradition that has been mishandling and misunderstanding the truth.   If we believe and understand that Jesus is the truth then we have to also be willing to ask the Holy Spirit whom Jesus the truth also said would guide us into all truth. (See John 16: 13).  In other words, we do not have it all right, yet. When the Church insists that we have understood all truth and therefore we no longer need to redefine or understand truth, the Church runs the risk of causing Christianity to die.  And sadly, that has already been happening.  Perhaps there can be a new resurrection as the truth gets cleaned up and spoken of in all charity with the desire and wish for an inclusive Church.

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirt, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 16, Book of Common Prayer, Page 232).

Lord God, the light of the minds that know you, the life of the souls that love you, and the strength of the hearts that serve you: Help us, following the example of your servant Augustine of Hippo, so to know you that we may truly love you, and so to love you that we may fully serve you, whom to serve is perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Collect for St. Augustine, Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, Page 545). 

Thomas Gallaudet And Henry Winter Syle: Apostles to the Deaf

Mark 7:32-37 (NRSV)

They brought to Jesus a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

In the Outline of the Faith also known as the Catechism beginning on page 845 of the Book of Common Prayer, on page 862 we read the question: "What is the communion of saints?"  The Answer given is: "The communion of saints is the whole family of God, the living and the dead, those whom we love and those whom we hurt, bound together in Christ by sacrament, prayer, and praise."  The communion of saints consists of all of us here in this life and the life to come.  All of us are saints in God's eyes.   Though all of us have our sins and weaknesses with which we must ask God's forgiveness and work with the Holy Spirit to overcome, God has redeemed all of us in Christ.  Every daughter and son who is created in God's image and likeness as beloved by God, and on in whom God is well-pleased.  Every one of us is uniquely wonderful.

Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle were "Apostles to the Deaf" in the Episcopal Church.  Both of these courageous men took on a ministry to help the church include people who were unable to participate in worship and ministry, both lay and ordained.  The beauty of the work that Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle undertook is to learn about and seek out those who might otherwise not find a place in the church and therefore possibly not get to know the God who loves them unconditionally.  Their work challenged many hearts and minds that were already set that somehow there could not be room in the church for people who are unable to hear.  Gallaudet and Syle took on the task of reminding the church that our ministry and work is not only for those who can do or do everything that perhaps they should do.  If we in the church are to better our work on behalf of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then our doors, pews and hearts must be ready to accommodate everyone.

I read an outstanding article in Metro Lutheran by Rev. Susan Masters entitled: Providing Access is Sometimes Challenging, but Always Right.  In the article Masters discusses the difficulties that people with challenges of all kinds have in finding inclusion in houses of worship.

"When the conversation about access for people with disabilities begins with expense and convenience, it starts at the wrong place." Masters wrote.

At a recent national gathering of pastoral leaders in the Evangelical Lutheran Deaf Association (ELDA), the discussion turned to the biblical story of the prodigal son. The deaf leaders among us shared their shared identification with the son who stayed home, did everything that was asked of him, and then watched incredulously as his undeserving brother walked away with both blessing and bounty.

My colleagues recounted familiar stories of deaf people being denied access to family heirlooms and inheritances, but also something more precious than possessions: communication. One man found out his sister had died — two years previously — when he stumbled upon her grave at the family cemetery. He had long been left out of his family’s communication loop, and now he was excluded again, even regarding his sister’s death.

Sadly, the church has generally perpetuated such exclusion. My own deaf sister sat through 18 years of church services, Sunday school classes, and church camps without an interpreter … and any idea about what was going on around her. Like many deaf people, when she turned 18, she bade the church farewell and never looked back. Like the older brother in the parable, she dutifully put in her church time, but clearly the Good News bounty went to those who could hear it and had access to it.

Our challenge in the church of the 21st Century is to continually seek ways of helping our leaders, Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Vestries and church families to understand that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about including all of God's saints.  As we take on this incredible work, we will be confronted by the hardened hearts of many people, who just do not like change no matter what the reason or cause is.   The most difficult people when it comes to change, can be found among the most devout.

Once when I was working in a large Catholic parish in a northwestern suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota where we had a sign language interpreter for one of the Masses, I found myself in a rather disturbing conversation with the Adult Education and RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, a rite to receive new members into the Catholic church) coordinator.  She made the remark that the sign language interpreter was "a distraction" to other people trying to pay attention to the Liturgy.  I was so stunned by what she said, that I was speechless.   And those moments do not come often.

While worship is suppose to inspire us, worship really is not to make us all that comfortable.  The Gospel challenges us to move beyond our comfort zones to accept others who are different than ourselves and to make accommodations for those who may not otherwise be able to find their way to God.   If we understand that the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, those that we love and those that we hurt, then we must also understand that it is the business of the Christian Church to make room for all of God's saints.

We read in today's Gospel that the interest of the crowd, the inability for the deaf man to hear or speak did not stop Jesus from coming close to him so that God could touch the life of this individual.   Jesus had the compassion to reach out his hands in love and heal the deaf man.  In so doing, Jesus challenged those who had placed the deaf and mute man aside, because Jesus gave this guy the opportunity to know that God still sees him as a wonderful and holy person.

The experience of those who cannot hear, speak, walk etc is not unlike what lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning and queer people have been put through.  "We cannot find room for LGBTQ people in our churches, too many conservative radio show hosts will bash us and threaten our weekly income."  Their fears are not all that unreasonable. Such has happened to many LGBTQ accepting churches in the Twin Cities, because of one anti-gay pastor who shoots off his big mouth on the radio and local cable television.  However, the Gospel action of being inclusive should always be more important than our reputation because of heartless conservative Christians who think of their own capital gains by making horrible statements.  When the churches close their doors and hearts to people they are not willing to make room for, the Gospel becomes another book of fairy tales.   The Virgin Birth?  Oh that is just a mystical story, it didn't really happen.   The crucifixion?  Oh that is just another gory story from the days of the Roman Empire, it has no real value in the 21st Century.  Do I believe these things?  No!  But, if the church is going to continue to proclaim these things and be successful, then we need to be willing to make room for everyone to experience the saving graces of God, through the compassion of really caring Christians.  A person's color, sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression, gender, religion, challenge, culture, cannot be a barrier for us to make them  know that they are welcome to worship, pray and fall in love with the God we all know and love.

A note of reference here, for those LGBTQ people who are also challenged in their hearing, please get to know our friends at the Rainbow Alliance for the Deaf.  RAD has many local chapters that hold social events for LGBTQ people who have challenges with hearing and communicating.

In the Gospel for today's Divine Office Jesus said that "Out of believer's hearts shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7:38).  The Holy Spirit came upon the Church on Pentecost so that rivers of living waters may flow from our hearts into the lives of people who need to drink the waters of compassion, unconditional love and wholeness.   The mission for the church in our time and for all who call ourselves Christians is that we will seek and uphold the dignity of every human person. The result?  Rivers of living water flow out from our hearts into others.  How are we fulfilling that mission today?

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirt, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 16, Book of Common Prayer, Page 232)


O Loving God, whose will it is that everyone should come to you and be saved: We bless your holy Name for your servants Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle whose labors with and for those who are deaf we commemorate today, and we pray that you will continually move your Church to respond in love to the needs of all people; through Jesus Christ, who opened the ears of the deaf, and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Collect for Thomas Gallaudet & Henry Winter Syle, Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, Page 543)

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh, and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for Mission, Book of Common Prayer, Page 100).

Is the Church Open to Continually Learning How to Reach Out?

Acts 10: 17- 33 (NRSV)

Now while Peter was greatly puzzled about what to make of the vision that he had seen, suddenly the men sent by Cornelius appeared. They were asking for Simon's house and were standing by the gate.  They called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was staying there. While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, "Look, three men are searching for you.  Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them." So Peter went down to the men and said, "I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for your coming?"  They answered, "Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say." So Peter invited them in and gave them lodging.
 
The next day he got up and went with them, and some of the believers from Joppa accompanied him.  The following day they came to Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends.  On Peter's arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshiped him. But Peter made him get up, saying, "Stand up; I am only a mortal."  And as he talked with him, he went in and found that many had assembled;  and he said to them, "You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.  So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?"
 
Cornelius replied, "Four days ago at this very hour, at three o'clock, I was praying in my house when suddenly a man in dazzling clothes stood before me.  He said, 'Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon, who is called Peter; he is staying in the home of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.'  Therefore I sent for you immediately, and you have been kind enough to come. So now all of us are here in the presence of God to listen to all that the Lord has commanded you to say."

As we continue to read through the Acts of the Apostles in the Daily Office, the story of the unfolding of the early Church gives us some important insights as to what was going on.  Just as today, the early Christian Church had to learn how to reach beyond what those first members had been previously taught about many things and many people.  Peter was raised as a devout Jewish man.  He had been taught certain things about what he was to do and not do.  Yet, we also know from the Gospels that Peter like so many of us today struggled with his own fears, and human shortcomings.  Here is Peter meeting Cornelius saying: "You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.  So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?" (Acts 10: 28-29).  Peter knows what his tradition has taught him, yet, he is open to God helping him to see that he has to do something new and different because it is what God wants.   What is the result?  God and the early Church reached beyond what they had always been taught and God did something exciting, new and awesome.   


I cannot speak for other religions, because I have spent the last 26 years as a Christian.  Fifteen of those years were spent in the Roman Catholic tradition while eleven of them were spent being involved in Protestant Evangelicalism.  During that time I have worked as a church musician in various churches of diverse worship styles back in New England a couple in New York State and here in Minnesota.  If there is one religion with the most stubborn group of people that resist change even if it is for the better, it is Christianity.  This is why the work toward the full inclusion of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning and queer communities in the Church and even society is so very complicated.   Most Christians including myself were taught about those "clobber passages" from the Bible (ie Sodom and Gomorrah, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26, 27, 1 Cor 6:9, 1 Timothy 10) used to condemn LGBTQ people.  Over the past year and a half since getting out of the ex-gay ministry called Courage (and at the request of a reader, I wish to clarify this is not the Courage group from the UK that is very gay friendly, but the group started by Fr. Harvey), I have been reading some great material about how those Bible passages are erroneously used to condemn homosexuality many of which I have named in previous blog posts.  

Conservative Christianity with it's insistence on keeping Christians rooted in Sola Scriptura (the Bible alone), and a whole bunch of dogmas with all of the life blood sucked out of them, will not allow new air to be breathed into Christians without having a rhetorical war of some kind.  In ever sect of Christianity including many of the more progressive mainline churches, are a group of conservative Christians that do not want the Church to welcome, affirm and love LGBTQ people, affirm the rights of women to be educated make choices about reproduction, or to be ordained.

Like the early Church what we need in today's Church is a renewed understanding of what Christians are really all about.  As Episcopalians we rightfully enjoy our Book of Common Prayer.  It is our single document of what we pray as a church.  We also have others being added to it such as Enriching Our Worship.  Within our Eucharistic Liturgies we acknowledge the Trinity, we recite the Creeds, say the Prayers, participate in the Sacraments, learn the Catechism or Outline of the Faith and all that the Episcopal Church is about.  But what are we Christians really suppose to be about?  I have written this before and I will write it as often as possible.  Christians are as much about what we live as we are about what we pray and believe.  When Christians do not live what we pray and believe, what we believe becomes a dead abstraction, what we pray is just another bunch of words said into the air.  We read a Gospel that says that Jesus Christ came as God's perfect revelation to help bring a new message, and a new era of humankind.  How is the Church of today living out that new era that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?  By participating in violence and yelling hate rhetoric because Muslims want to create an Islamic Center near Ground Zero?   By putting money into the Alliance Defense Fund to defeat marriage equality in California and Massachusetts?  By encouraging the Country of Uganda to debate and enact a bill through which known homosexuals will be put in prison for life or hanged?  If this is where following the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been leading us, then no wonder the Church is dying.  It is amazing anyone reads the Gospels or still goes to Mass.

The Church needs to reread the lessons of the early Church and hear how people once steeped in what they thought they understood were willing to go back to the drawing board and learn all over again from scratch.  Am I saying here that we should stop saying our Creeds or stop celebrating the Eucharist?  No, not at all.  We need those things.  What we do need though is a real and living Christianity through which our lives and the lives of others are impacted because we live what we recite in the Creeds and celebrate in the Eucharist.   The Church needs to be open to continue learning how to reach out, abandoning all preconceived ideas about people we once thought we understood, and realize we possibly have it all wrong.  That is why LGBTQ people still are not entirely sure they should or should not trust the Church.  If we have it all wrong, are we willing to say so?   Are we willing to be open to God the Holy Spirit teaching us as she often does, that we need to rip open our Pandoras Box and see ourselves, others and God in new and exciting ways.  To see in each person the image and likeness of God the Holy Trinity, and to understand that as Jesus is there.  Jesus is calling us to serve her in him and her, and her in him no matter what shape, color, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, gender, religion, challenge, language, culture she or he comes to us in.  

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (Proper 16, Book of Common Prayer, Page 232).

Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, that they may become the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (Prayer for Peace Among the Nations, Book of Common Prayer, Page 816).

Look with pity, O heavenly Father, upon the people in this land who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant companions. Have mercy upon us. Help us to eliminate our cruelty to these our neighbors. Strengthen those who spend their lives establishing equal protection of the law and equal opportunities for all. And grant that every one of us may enjoy a fair portion of the riches of this land; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for the Oppressed, Book of Common Prayer, Page 826).   

What Do We Consider Clean or Unclean?

Acts 10: 1- 16 (NRSV)

In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called.  He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. One afternoon at about three o'clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, "Cornelius."  He stared at him in terror and said, "What is it, Lord?" He answered, "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter; he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside." When the angel who spoke to him had left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks of those who served him, and after telling them everything, he sent them to Joppa.
 
About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray.  He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air.  Then he heard a voice saying, "Get up, Peter; kill and eat." But Peter said, "By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean." The voice said to him again, a second time, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane."  This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

As I read this passage from the Acts of the Apostles my mind drifted to a few events that are about us.  The debate going on in our country over the Islamic Center in New York City and now in other parts of the country continues to dominate the news.  Just yesterday a group in Kentucky refused to allow an Islamic prayer center to move into a strip mall over a parking ordinance.  A local business owner made the remark that the Muslims would not park where they are suppose to, but should the space in question be occupied by Baptists they would do what they are suppose to do.   Such comments lack not only justice but a serious sense of integrity and dignity for others who are different than ourselves.

In today's reading from Acts, Peter is confronted by a sight of animals and foods that in his Jewish tradition are considered unclean.  The final point is not about foods, but about revering all individuals as beheld in the eyes and heart of God. Just because someone does not look like we think they should look, dress the way we think they should dress, act in a way that we find acceptable does not mean that they are any less children of God than anyone else.  And just because a group of people do not worship God through Jesus, does not make them any less devout or any less noble of people.  This debate about the religion of Islam in our nation, is another form or racism dressed up by conservative Christians to look like a crusade to save the nation from an otherwise peaceful and beautiful expression of worship.  


Bishop Mark Sisk of the Episcopal Diocese of New York wrote a beautiful letter about the whole controversy surrounding the Islamic Center near Ground Zero.  I am not going to post the entire letter, but I am going to post the second, third and fourth paragraphs.

The plan to build this center is, without doubt, an emotionally highly-charged issue. But as a nation with tolerance and religious freedom at its very foundation, we must not let our emotions lead us into the error of persecuting or condemning an entire religion for the sins of its most misguided adherents.

The worldwide Islamic community is no more inclined to violence that any other. Within it, however, a struggle is going on - between the majority who seek to follow a moderate, loving religion and the few who would transform it into an intolerant theocracy intent on persecuting anyone, Muslim or otherwise, with whom they disagree. We should all, as Christians, reach out in friendship and love to the peaceful Islamic majority and do all in our power to build and strengthen bridges between our faiths. We should also all remember that the violence and hateful behavior of the extremist are not confined to any one religion. Over the centuries we Christians have numbered more than a few among us who have perpetrated unspeakable atrocities in Christ's name.

I must admit that I also have a more personal connection with this issue. At the Episcopal Diocese of New York we know the leaders of this project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan. We know that they are loving, gentle people, who epitomize Islamic moderation. We know that as Sufis, they are members of an Islamic sect that teaches a universal belief in man's relationship to God that is not dissimilar from mystic elements in certain strains of Judaism and Christianity. Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan are, without question, people to whom Christians of good will should reach out with the hand of hospitality and friendship, as they reach out to us. I understand and support their desire to build an Islamic center, intended in part to promote understanding and tolerance among different religions.

Today the Episcopal Church is commemorating Louis, King of France.  I am a bit reluctant to write much, because he was one of the kings that involved himself and his country in the Crusades.   One thing to keep in mind, however, is that many of the wonderful women and men that we regard as Saints were not people without their sins or grave moral evils.  They may have been people who wrote marvelous theologies and were what the Church and others would call devout.  Given that all of us are human beings, including the Saints that we commemorate, even our greatest devotion and theological knowledge can be short sighted.  Being a Saint requires an interior desire to do the right thing, and yet we can still get it wrong.  We are not asked to get everything exactly right, we are asked to be faithful and do the best we can with what we have.  I certainly do not want to come across as if excusing Louis for the Crusades, especially since we in 2010 have this blown up debate over the Islamic people going on.  What I do want us to consider is that no matter how right we feel we have things, we can always miss a mark somewhere.   A look at Peter in today's reading from the Acts of the Apostles shows how even a man as devoted as Peter, needs God to correct him and show him new and good things.   So it is with us here in the 21st Century.

There are still people who insist that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people are "unclean" because of our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression and or our relationships.   We know from having read books such as Gay Unions in Light of Scripture, Tradition and Reason by Gray Temple and In the Eye of the Storm by Bishop Gene Robinson, that the Bible does not in actuality condemn loving, committed same-sex relationships any more or less than loving, committed relationships of the opposite sex.  "What God has called clean, you should not call unclean."  It is very important for all of us at one point and another to look at what we have always been taught to think, understand and say and consider the possibility that we have been getting it all wrong.   If we have been getting it wrong, that is okay God is here to help us fix it.  God will bring those people and situations into our lives to help us not call what God has made clean, as unclean.  LGBTQ people as well as the Muslims are among God's holy and beloved children.  There is room in the Church and in society for everyone.  We should be working harder at helping everyone to find room to coexist, rather than welcoming oppression, discrimination and violence.   We are called to make peace with people, not oppression.

May today be one more opportunity that we take to move forward in our life and love with God, others and ourselves.
  

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirt, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 16, Book of Common Prayer, Page 232).


O God, you called your servant Louis of France to an earthly throne that he might advance your heavenly kingdom, and gave him zeal for your Church and love for your people: Mercifully grant that we who commemorate him this day may be fruitful in good works, and attain to the glorious crown of your saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for Louis, King of France, Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, Page 541).

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 of Assisi, Book of Common Prayer, Page 833).

 

Saint Bartholomew the Apostle: From Who Do We Find Our Greatness?

Luke 22:24-30 (NRSV)

A dispute arose among the apostles as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. But he said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.

"You are those who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

I am really glad to find this reading today from Luke's Gospel.  There is a lot to be said about knowing our place.  Because we are all human, and live in a time when the goal is to rise above the rest as fast as we can, we sometimes do not see that where we are and what we are doing in the present moment is what is most important.  Once when I was visiting with my old Spiritual Director, I was experiencing a lot of anxiety as I tend to do, because I have anxiety disorder.  I had so many things that I wanted to have done.  I said to my Spiritual Director: "If only I could have this or do that, I will know God's grace in such a wonderful way."  My wise Spiritual Director corrected me.  He said: "God's grace is in the here and now and is already wonderful.  If you cannot accept and see God's grace working in the here and now, you are liable to miss it when it comes later."

God is using all of us right here, right now to do incredible things even if we are not the "greatest" among other people.   If we tend to think that our greatness is measured only by human standards, we will miss one of the greatest of truths.  Our greatness comes from God and the fact that God has placed us in this very moment to do whatever it is that we are doing.  No matter how menial the task seems to us at the moment, God is making something great happen.   In today's meditation from Forward Day by Day we read the following.

All of us have our greatness in God. This is what the disciples in their dispute over who was greatest did not realize. In the sight of God they had a greatness which they needed only to accept and in which they could find joy.

The same is true for us. We may burn ourselves out trying to achieve greatness or status. We may be unhappy because others hold positions of great importance and we do not. We may be filled with envy and jealousy or bitterness because we have not achieved our hopes and goals. We can take heart because we have our greatness in God—in that we can rejoice. We are God’s children, and nothing can take that away from us. (1981)

We give you thanks, O God, we give you thanks, calling upon your Name and declaring all your wonderful deeds. —Psalm 75:1

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates one of the twelve Apostles Saint Bartholomew.   There is not much we know about him, accept that he probably went to India between 150 and 200 and while there he found "the Gospel according to Matthew" which had been left there by "Bartholomew the Apostle"  I know it makes no sense.  Other records tell us that Bartholomew was martyred by being flayed alive at Albanopolis at Armenia.  (Read Saint Bartholomew, Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, Page 538).   While we really do not know much about him, we do know that God did great things through this Apostle.  Just as while many people in the world may now exactly know who we are or what we do, God is still doing great things in and through us.

I want to be clear here that I certainly am not all that happy that the fact that I am gay means that I am considered by so many to be a second class citizen.  I am also not thrilled that me and my partner do not have marriage equality.    The fact that Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act are not yet repealed is very disturbing.  Because Congress has not yet passed an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (END) someone who is lesbian, gay or bisexual can still loose her or his job in 28 States in America, and a transgendered person can still legally loose her or his job in 38 States.  None of these facts are things we should rejoice in or celebrate.  We should not make peace with oppression.  Yet, by being where we are, here in this moment we have the opportunity to live out the Gospel.  We have opportunities to continue to contact our legislators, participate in peaceful protests and vote for pro-equality legislators.  We can know that our greatness as LGBTQ people comes from the wonderful truth that God has made us as we are, and we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139: 14).  And because God "detests none of the things that you have made, for you would not have made anything if you had hated it" (Wisdom of Solomon 11: 24), we exist in the here and now to do the wonderful things that LGBTQ people and those who support us do.  It is indeed a terrible injustice that we do not have equal protection of the laws of our Nation, State, Cities and Towns. But God is very much on our side.  "If God is for us, who can be against us." (Romans 8: 31). God who is on our side is calling us at this moment to be the people God has made us, and to find our greatness in God and let God do the rest.  All we are asked to do, is what God has given for us to do in the here and now and everything that is great will come from that.   

Almighty and everlasting God, who gave to your apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach your Word: Grant that your Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for Saint Bartholomew, Book of Common Prayer, Page 243).

Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (Prayer for Mission, Book of Common Prayer, Page 100).

God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for the Human Family, Book of Common Prayer, Page 815). 

LGBTQ People Are Welcome to God's Banquet

John 6: 52- 59 (NRSV)

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"  So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever." He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. 

I remember sitting at Mass in the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis on Pentecost 2005.  It was a magnificent Catholic Liturgy on the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit.  The message that the former Rector Michael O' Connell had to give as part of his homily was not quite the joyful celebration that Pentecost should be.  The night before Fr. O' Connell and the now retired Archbishop Harry Flynn had a conversation that anyone who came forward to receive Holy Communion wearing a rainbow colored sash was not to be given the Eucharist that day.  Fr. O' Connell was so very angry that he was placed in the situation he was in.  He did not agree with the decision that was made, but because Fr. O'Connell was a Priest who had promised obedience to his Archbishop, he had no choice but to comply. 


Throughout the following week I read in a few newspapers and web sites that Cardinal Arinze who is the Prefect of the Congregation for Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments had told Archbishop Flynn what to do in this situation.  The year before a number of individuals had appealed to Rome about people wearing rainbow sashes being admitted to Holy Communion.  What was the reason?  "The Eucharist is not a political statement." Here again is the Catholic church using hypocrisy in an attempt to show piety.  The church can make a political statement by not serving Holy Communion to people wearing a rainbow sash, but LGBTQ people and those who support us wearing a rainbow sash going to Holy Communion cannot make a political statement.   The logic here is pretty bad, and the actions even worse.


Yesterday we heard Jesus talking about the Sabbath being made for human beings as well as being careful not to get so caught up in the rules that we forget the actual people who come to the Church wanting to experience God's mercy.  God has not gathered the Church together just to worship in our beautiful spaces and sing great music and celebrate doctrines.  God has called the Church together by sending the Holy Spirit so that we may "preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near" (Prayer for Mission, BCP. Page 100).  Within the mission of the Church is not just preaching peace, but being a source of peace so that people can find Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life and the Prince of Peace.  When Christians put themselves in the way of others who want to draw closer to God, but cannot, we turn the Gospel into a legendary fairy tale, the doctrines of the Church into philosophical debates that don't mean a thing, and the Sacraments into meaningless play time.  The Holy Spirit came upon the Church to make us the hands, feet, body and heart of Jesus Christ visible for all the world to draw closer to him and so to "come within the reach of his saving embrace."  (Prayer for Mission, BCP. Page 101).  


We are continuing in our Daily Office to read the Gospel of John chapter 6 in which Jesus is proclaiming himself as the Bread of Life.  The Catholic hierarchy is absolutely correct in their words, but they are most incorrect in their actions.  The Eucharist is not a political statement, and everyone is invited by Jesus to come to him in the Sacrament so that Christ's Presence may be come real in the lives of everyone who encounters Jesus in Holy Communion.  Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning and queer people seeking to know God's unconditional and all inclusive love have every business coming to the Lord's Table, because God through God's perfect revelation in Jesus Christ, the Word of God has invited us there.  In John 6: 37 Jesus said: "anyone who comes to me I will never drive away."  So why is the Church trying to drive LGBTQ people away from the Eucharist?   It certainly is not the will of God.  

In today's reading we hear that Jesus earnestly desires to abide in all of us as he invites all of us to abide in him through receiving him in the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood.  Jesus desires that all of God's children with whom God is well-pleased come to Jesus in Holy Communion so that God can nurture and be with all of us where ever we are at, who ever we happen to be.  This huge discourse on Jesus as the Bread of Life is to help tell us about the yearning that God has to feed all who come to Jesus with hearts hungry for God's love and thirsty for the opportunity to know a love that cannot be expressed in human words.  God has created and blessed us as LGBTQ Christians with the gift of our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression so as to touch and heal us, as we touch and heal a broken world full of bias, darkness and violence.   In the Eucharist God's presence becomes real when we allow God to be real through us, our relationships and our difficulties as we face them.


How are we inviting to others who wish to draw closer to Jesus in the Eucharist and in the Church?  How do we as LGBTQ Christians make Jesus more real in this world?  How do we use what is different about us than any other person whom God has created, to help invite people into a relationship with God through Christ's Presence in Holy Communion?


Let us pray for one another that we will be Christ's Body the Church, with our doors and hearts wide open so that through us God can welcome all people to a more wonderful experience of God's love.  May we be that beacon of light that is different than the darkness of the world.  As we are fed with Christ's Presence may God's Presence be real in and through our lives as we open ourselves to God and all of God's people.

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirt, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 16, Book of Common Prayer, Page 232).

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen. (Prayer for Mission, Book of Common Prayer, Page 101).

O God, the creator and preserver of all, we humbly beseech you for all sorts and conditions of people; that you would be pleased to make your ways known unto them, your saving health unto all nations. More especially we pray for your holy Church universal; that it may be so guided and governed by your good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life. Finally, we commend to your fatherly goodness all those who are in any ways afflicted or distressed, in mind, body, or estate; that it may please you to comfort and relieve them according to their several necessities, giving them patience under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions. And this we beg for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. (Prayer for All Sorts and Conditions, Book of Common Prayer, Page 814).