"Forgive and you will be forgiven." (Luke 6: 37).
This is a real hard week for me to be hearing this Gospel of Jesus. I am angry as hell over the LGBTQ youth who have committed suicide due to anti-gay bullying. As Dan Savage so correctly wrote:
The religious right points to the suicide rate among gay teenagers — which the religious right works so hard to drive up as evidence that the gay lifestyle is destructive. It's like intentionally running someone down with your car and then claiming that it isn't safe to walk the streets."
The suicides in and of themselves are tragic. The Christianists use the event to continue their own bullying via their pulpits, media machines and billion dollars in funding. It is real difficult to think about forgiveness.
The Christianists are not the only one's who help drive the society of heterosexism which gives rise to the sin of homophobia. The Catholic church and even our own Archbishop of Canterbury with his opinions about being gay but not being active and suggesting that "Homosexuality is the wound in the Church's side." Rev. Susan Russell responded to these remarks.
While Rowan Williams is whining about homosexuality "wounding the side" of the institutional church, he remains blind to the cancer of homophobia that is spreading in the Body of Christ. And it's time somebody pointed out the difference.
I'm remembering my experience on an 8-day Ignatian silent retreat with the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. (Yes, really.) The long-story-short is that in working with the sister assigned as my spiritual director, we entered into conversation about vocation – and she invited me to explore whether or not I had a vocation to the episcopate. (To be a bishop.)
I answered quickly and definitively that I was absolutely clear that I was not called to be a bishop because I believe a bishop is called to guard the unity of the church and I didn’t give a rat’s tail about the unity of the church.
She replied – equally quickly and definitively – by asking me which church was it that I didn’t give a rat’s tail about: the institutional church or the church as the Body of Christ.
And I told her I thought our time was up for the day. Because I was busted.
The truth is I care deeply about the unity of the Body of Christ. I care deeply about those members who have been baptized into Christ’s Body and then isolated, segregated, marginalized, excluded and dismissed because they happen to be gay or lesbian. Paul was right about the whole “one member of the body cannot say to another I have no need of you” thing – and yet that is what is and has been said to the Church’s gay and lesbian members for generations. It's what Rowan Williams says when he calls us a "wound in the side of the church." And it is time for it to stop.
And it’s not just time for it to stop because some gay or lesbian folks are called into both ordained ministry and a covenanted relationship with the love of their life.
It’s time for it to stop because when Rowan Williams says “Homosexuality is a Wound in the Church’s Side” he adds more fuel to the fire of homophobia that drives people – especially young people to self-loathing, to despair and – far too frequently – to suicide.
This week’s news has been a horrifying parade of young lives lost to the cancer of homophobia. Seth Walsh. Asher Brown. Billy Lucas. Tyler Clementi. They all took their own lives after being branded as gay by bullies whose abuse convinced them their lives were not worth living.
And while Rowan Williams is busy worrying about the “unity of the church,” the church he’s so worried about is overtly complicit in the spread of the disease that killed these children – the disease of homophobia.
Because here’s the deal with wounds: they heal. They may take a little time, they make take a little tending, they may leave a little scar … but they heal. And sometimes they even make us stronger for having fought the battles worth fighting. And if homosexuality – or more accurately, the fight to fully include homosexual children of God equally in the work and witness of the church – inflicts a few wounds then they are wounds the church should bear proudly as it lives into its calling to be the Body of Christ on earth.
Even Jesus showed up on Easter Day with a few wounds to show for the work he’d been called to do – why on earth shouldn’t the church that purports to be His body – to follow in His footsteps – expect some of the same? “The cost to the Church overall is too great to be borne at that point?’" Give me a break.
I came out of my 8-day retreat still clear I was not called to the episcopate but also clear about the difference between the institution and the incarnation. And so today I’m yearning for Williams to spend a little time with a Sister of the Sacred Heart of Jesus who might challenge him to figure out the difference between the institutional church and the church as the Body of Christ. And might send him out ready to suck it up and quit whining about wounds and get to work preserving the unity of the Body of Christ by healing it of its homophobia. Because the cost to the Church overall is too great for us to settle for anything less.
There is a lot to be angry about within the Church and society for LGBTQ people and many other minorities. One of the things that probably makes us most angry is that over the years we were taught in our Sunday School or Religious Education classes to have great respect and high expectations of the leaders of our churches. I think part of the problem with where we are as a Church today is those high expectations. Dean Spenser Simrill in his own blog wrote:
Love your critics. Can you love them? Don’t ponder others. Everyone is a mystery of God. Don’t believe everything you think. Step back, pray discern, then act. Take stands on Gospel issues and lower your need to have your own way. All institutions made up of people are flawed including us. Love them anyway. It is human to be anxious, afraid, overwhelmed.
Let the love and calling of Christ enter into your heart and head. Feed my sheep; welcome me, the stranger. Love kindness – do justice – walk humbly with God.
The forgiveness that we need to pray for is the ability to forgive those who have hurt us and others whom we love. We must also pray for the grace to forgive ourselves. I don't know about you, but it is often easier to forgive someone else, than it is to forgive myself. We do not have to agree or like what someone has done. We certainly cannot condone the homophobia that is being perpetrated by Conservative Christians. We do have to love them and forgive them. We cannot hold them between us and our relationship with God to the point that our relationship with God is destroyed. Our work to continue to tell our stories and help change the Church and societies understanding of the evil that is afoot in heterosexism must not cease. But neither should what they do destroy the peace between ourselves and God to the point that they win.
O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 21, Book of Common Prayer, page 234).
Dear God,
we spend a lot of time praying--
on bar stools, drink in hand,
at parties, dressed just right,
during fund-raisers, politically correct,
in service organizations, volunteering--
praying for Mr. and Mrs. Right to come along!
Dear God,
may my life become an opportunity for me
to become the right person
rather than simply to look for the right person;
to become all those things I value
in you, God, and in others.
Help me sweep my house clean
to find the lost silver coin within,
as did the woman of Jesus' parable.
May I prove unafraid to use and develop
the talents you have given me,
as did the good and faithful servant.
Don't let me sink back in fear,
either of failure or of success,
Jesus experienced both:
crucifixion, resurrection.
Had he been paralyzed by fear of either,
I might not be praying this prayer.
And finally, dear God,
in looking for the right person,
may I avoid the mistake
of the forgiven servant
who proved unforgiving.
Amen.
(Coming Out to God: Prayers for Lesbians and Gay Men, Their Families, and Friends. Chris Glaser, pages 153, 154).
No comments:
Post a Comment