Bishop Channing Moore Williams: God's Love Speaks in Many Languages, Religions and Traditions

Today's Scripture Reading

Luke 10:1-9 (NRSV)

The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, `Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, `The kingdom of God has come near to you.'

Blog Reflection

There is one song evangelist who's politics and beliefs about LGBT people I strongly disagree with.  Yet, Sandi Patty sings one song that gives me hope.  The chorus she sings contains these words: "Love in any language. Straight from the heart.  Pulls us all together. Never Apart. And once we learn to speak it.  All the world will hear.  Love in any language, fluently spoken here."   The truth in these words cannot be neglected.  They are also applicable to the language of sexual and romantic love that is not heterosexual.


On December 2 The Episcopal Church commemorates Bishop Channing Moore Williams who brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to China and Japan.  Among the many works of Bishop Williams was translating the Book of Common Prayer into the language of the Chinese and Japanese people.  Making the message of God's salvation in Jesus Christ, within the Anglican Tradition available to that part of the world.

Admittedly, I am a bit troubled about this commemoration. 


During this past year I have been writing a great deal about how the Christian religion is not one of supercessionism (ie. all other religious must reduce themselves to Christianity to be valid or saved).  The continued targeting of Muslims, Jewish and other religious traditions by Christians who do believe that all religions must convert to Christianity for salvation, is really not consistent with the Person of Jesus Christ and message of the Gospel.  The people of China and Japan have their own religions and traditions.  Who are Christians to come and tell them otherwise?

Not to invalidate the point in the paragraph above, when Christians come with the message of God's unconditional love and salvation in Jesus Christ, to give people who are searching for a hope they are not experiencing in their present situation, that is the Gospel at work in the world.  When Christians share the Gospel message without unnecessary proselytizing as if we are selling something, we are not disrespecting other religious traditions and/or cultures.  


When people are being oppressed and experiencing injustice, violence and prejudice, the Gospel of Jesus Christ brings with it a message of "love in any language, fluently spoken here."   God's message of salvation is one by which we are forgiven of our sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Those who wish to enter into a relationship with God through the message of the Christian Faith are certainly welcome to do so, without any coercion or feeling of obligation.

It is important to recognize, however, that God's love speaks in many languages, religions and traditions that are not necessarily understood by Caucasian, European/American, male, Christians who are also heterosexual.  God's "love in any language is fluently spoken here."  

That language is also spoken in the culture of Native American's and the Two Spirit experience.  

Dan Pearce recently wrote in an excellent blog article called: "I'm Christian, Unless You Are Gay" :

Check this out, and feel free to correct me if I get this wrong…

According to Christians, Jesus taught a couple of interesting things. First, “love one another.” Second, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (“Her” being a woman who cheated on her man.)

According to Buddhists, Buddha taught a couple of thought-provoking things. First, “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.” Second, “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

According to Hindus, a couple of fascinating teachings come to mind. First, “Do not get angry or harm any living creature, but be compassionate and gentle; show good will to all.” (Krishna) Second, “Love means giving selflessly, excluding none and including all.” (Rama)

According to Muslims, Muhammad taught a couple interesting things as well. First, “A true Muslim is the one who does not defame or abuse others; but the truly righteous becomes a refuge for humankind, their lives and their properties.” Second, “Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first.”

According to Judaism, their scriptures teach a couple remarkable things. First, “Love your neighbor like yourself.” Second, “Examine the contents, not the bottle.”

The greatest spiritual leaders in history have all preached love for others as the basis for all happiness, and never did they accompany such mandates with a list of unlovable actions or deeds. They never said, love everybody except for the gays. Love everybody except for the homeless. Love everybody except for the drug users. Love everybody except for the gang members, or those covered in ink, or the spouse abusers. They didn’t tell us it was okay to love everybody with the exception of the “trailer trash,” those living in poverty, or the illegal immigrants. They didn’t tell us it was okay to love everybody except for our ex-lovers, our lovers’ ex lovers, or our ex-lovers’ lovers. The mandate was pretty damn clear, wasn’t it?

God's language of love and wonder is experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and queer people.

The language of a loving God is shared through Unitarians/Universalists who some of them do not know if they believe in God or Jesus, but do outstanding humanitarian work in their Standing on the Side of Love campaign.


Jesus sent out seventy others in addition to the twelve Apostles in today's Gospel reading.  Among those seventy were individuals of varying degrees of devotion, intelligence, education, wealth status, gender, sexual orientations etc.  Jesus did not tell them to go into each house and convert them from one religion to another. Jesus did not instruct them to go and make sure each person prays the sinners prayer and leaves their old religion, culture etc.   Jesus tells them to go and bring peace to whatever house they enter and to tell them that "the Kingdom of God has come near you."

The reign of God desires to draw close to each of us as we are.   God's reign is not disrespectful of diversity, language, sexual orientation, cultural practices etc.   

The early Christians may have Christianized many pagan rituals and celebrations, but in a way it was God respecting and adapting the message of unconditional and all-inclusive love within the pagan people.   Such does not justify the way Christians made our faith into a supercessionist religion.  On the other hand, it does communicate that God can come into any culture, religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression and make a loving home where there is hospitality and reconciliation taking place.   God never wills prejudice, violence or oppression.  But, God can make use of them to accomplish great and wonderful things in spite of it.

The one argument that so irritates and saddens me is the one by which religious groups and the LGBT communities cannot work together.   

I recently posted in a Facebook page a blog article about Why You Shouldn't Donate to the Salvation Army. The comments below the post are very mixed.  

Never the less, here is my own position as best as I can state it.

The Salvation Army does incredible work on behalf of the poor and destitute.  In that regard, I do wish I could support them.  There may be many Salvation Army posts that receive LGBT people, couples and families.  However, that has not been the experience of myself and/or my partner, and other LGBT people in other places.  The work that the Salvation Army does on behalf of those in need, is unfortunately undone by the amount of money the religion uses to assist organizations like the Family Research Council and other anti-LGBT groups to help write policies that affect the lives of LGBT individuals, couples and families.  Therefore it is my position to recognize the good work of the Salvation Army, but not contribute to their social service programs until their church and all of their social service programs can see God's language of love spoken fluently in LGBT people.   I prefer to donate such money to other organizations that are more inclusive.

One agency that does service everyone is Episcopal Community Services.  

At the same time, I do not think it serves the LGBT communities well, to be assuming that all churches and religious groups are anti-LGBT when we know how untrue that is.  The discomfort over the subject of religion for LGBT people is valid and religious organizations and churches need to exercise the greatest sensitivity and respect to LGBT people if they desire to become agents in healing that relationship.   Nevertheless, the work of LGBT equality is not well-served by an attitude of "all religion is no good, because they all are against LGBT equality."   Hate returned by hate does not accomplish anything good for either side.


As we continue through this season of Advent, may we prepare for the coming of the Lord by recognizing God's language of love "fluently spoken here" amidst many languages, religions and traditions.  May we be open to those who talk the language a bit different.  And may we be willing to talk the language of God's love, the love that invites, not the "store bought brand" that proselytizes.   And may the Christian Faith with all that is terrific about it, continue to deliver faith, hope and love to all who come seeking God's love spoken fluently here.




Prayers

Almighty and everlasting God, we thank you for your servant Channing Moore Williams, whom you called to preach the Gospel to the people of China and Japan. Raise up in this and every land evangelists and heralds of you kingdom, that your Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, page 97).

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  (Book of Common Prayer, page 211).


Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies' sake. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, page 123).

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).

 

Called by Jesus to Justice and Equality. Not Dominionism.

Scriptural Basis


Mark 3: 7- 19a (NRSV)

Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush hi for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, "You are the Son of God!" But he sternly ordered them not to make him known. He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. 

Blog Reflection

In his book: "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism" Bishop John Shelby Spong says of Mark the Evangelist: 

"[Mark]...grasped neither the great philosophical thought processes of his day nor the nuances that lay behind the popular mythology.  He simply accepted the street version of this mythology without question.  He shared without demurrer in the popular conclusions of that time regarding not only demons but also certainty that the earth was flat, the conviction that God dwelt just about the blue canopy of the sky, adn that the sun rose and set as it circled the earth.  The earth, for Mark, was not just the center of the universe, it was also the extent of all that God had made.  To the author Mark there was no reality beyond that which could be seen, and thus no explanations were necessary beyond the supernatural one that explained quite adequately for that time and place what a pre-scientific world could readily observe." (Page 130).

One of the greatest tragedies of Christianity is what Rev. Canon Gray Temple calls "supercessionism" in his book Gay Unions: In Light of Scripture, Tradition and Reason.  The idea that all world thought, religions, morality, world governments etc must supercede into how Christianity defines it.  

The problem with this ideology is what version of Christianity gets to define what?


This past week I came across a blog post in Right Wing Watch.  The article is about Texas Governor Rick Perry who is putting together a prayer gathering.   Among the groups with which he is teaming up with is The Southern Poverty Law Center's Designated Anti-Gay Group: The American Family Association and others who have become part of a movement called The Dominionists.

Among the positions of The Dominionists is that "only Christians have the authority and power to govern in the United States." And among the many so called "rights" that Dominionists have is the right to remove even by violence if necessary anyone who does not reflect their understanding of Christianity.

This kind of thing is the problem that results if people read the Bible in particular a Gospel narrative such as the one from Mark for today's Daily Office without doing some research and critical thinking about what is actually happening in that reading..


If we read today's Gospel at face value and with a literal interpretation it may very well sound as if Jesus is organizing the Apostles to carry out the mission of dismissing demons.  Demons as the Christian Church might decide are destroying the Apostles definition of what is right in terms of the family, sexuality, women, governmental organization and so on.   

Quite frankly, this is the approach that the Dominionists who also call themselves "The New Apostles" are taking in an attempt to scare Christians into believing that everything President Barack Obama and all liberal Christians and other religions might be attempting to do in American politics. 


This kind of organizing is very dangerous in and of itself.  


This does not reflect the kind of actions that brought about Jesus' calling and naming the Apostles in today's Gospel.  That is why "The New Apostles" and "The Dominionists" are missing the mark and creating a "brand" of Christianity, that all Christians should be very concerned and skeptical about.


This criticism is no "religious discrimination."  The criticisms I offer in my blog today are coming from the dangerous roads on which Christianists over the years have been taking the Christian religion.


The results are not only creating a faith made of fear and false understandings of the Bible.  They give the Christian religion and Jesus Christ a bad name.  That needs to be a real concern of all who believe in the Name of Jesus Christ as the Name above all Names, who is the compassionate and merciful Savior.


When Jesus calls the Apostles and names them, he is calling them to be a "companion" of the Lord (Philip Van Linden, C. M. Collegeville Bible Commentary, New Testament Volume, page 911).  The term "disciple" according to Van Linden, also means "learner".   "..and to learn from him it is necessary to be with him." 


"A second part of discipleship is located in the meaning of "being named" by Jesus. (page 912).   Van Linden goes on to refer to God's naming of things in Genesis in the creation story.


Part of being with someone is so that we may learn from that person's example.  The Apostles were named so as to reflect their companionship with Jesus who was teaching from his example and commanding them to do likewise.


As we see through out the Gospel narratives Jesus shows forth God's generous and extravagant love as the poor, the sick, the marginalized and those left behind are brought to the center and given their justice and dignity.  The work of Jesus is not based on a popularity contest.  Nor is the mission of Jesus defined on singling out one group of people to be pivoted against another.  It is also not a matter of claiming a domination of one religion over another.  We would understand the whole work of Jesus better and more accurately if we pay careful attention to not only what Jesus is saying, but also on what Jesus is doing.  Jesus is running from the whole idea of domination and submission as fast as he can.  Jesus came to rescue humanity from the idea that one person, group etc dominates while another is subjugated.  


The evil that Jesus calls the Apostles by name to "cast out" is an all out hatred defined by religious, social and political oppression and violence.  At no time during Jesus' ministry did he ever demand that an individual person be "converted" to his own religion.  Jesus did call people to a repentance of heart and life.  A repentance of the desire to subjugate women, LGBT, the sick, the poor, the immigrant, the Native American, the Muslims, the Jews and others based on religious, social and political bias.  


The problem with the philosophies and maneuvering of The Dominionists and the New Apostles is that they want to push individuals through fear, prejudice and violence masked as Evangelism, as a cult.  Making Christianity into an excuse to scapegoat and destroy what they do not agree with.  This is not the mission Jesus is naming the Apostles to in our Gospel today.  This is a proselytizing through coercion, spiritual malpractice and doctrinal abuse.

I implore all Christians, non-Christians, Atheists and people of good will to work together to call the Dominionists and The New Apostles out for their reckless work of injustice and spiritual violence.   We need to respond to these individuals and groups respectfully and peacefully and take the wind out of their sails here and now.  

Let us write our State, Federal and local Governments to keep in mind that the United States has a separation of Church and State for this very reason.  The United States was not formed to be a theocracy, but a democracy.  Let us state very clearly that we cannot tolerate nor give too much leverage to a group that proposes making America into a country of religious bandits and peace stealing people.  


As Christians, let us all recommit ourselves to the true teachings of our Founder.  Let us pray and ask God the Holy Spirit to guide all of us "into all truth" and to work for peace, justice and equality for all.  Amen.


Prayers

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and may also have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Proper 10, Book of Common Prayer, page 231).

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).