Father Wayne asked me to discuss the XII Lambeth Conference today. Before I do, I want to read to you a passage from our Book of Common Prayer. Those of us at the 8 o'clock service hear it each Sunday. "Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
526 Bishops voted to break those commandments at Lambeth and 45, including our Presiding Bishop, stood by mute and complicit as pain was inflicted intentionally on members of their flocks. Not pain associated with healing, not pain associated with the carrying of Christ's cross, but pain inflicted for partisan purposes to justify prejudice and discrimination. Can prejudice and discrimination ever be loving thy neighbor as thyself?
I won't read Lambeth Resolution 1.10 on Human Sexuality. 571 Bishops declared through their affirmative vote or their abstaining, as summarized by the Rev. Canon Williams of Trinity Cathedral, San Jose :
This resolution and the actions of those Bishops had one immediate effect. Those who (pick your verb) fear, distrust, or hate homosexuals immediately felt justified and vindicated. Those who know that homosexuality is not, for most people, a life-style choice but a God-given condition that one only discovers through an often tortuous self-evaluation process replete with pain and grief, only felt pain.
Consider pain. It's often referred to as the body's warning system. When you feel it, something is wrong and you had better find out the cause. Perhaps a pain that is felt by so many people, a pain that is willingly imposed upon people, not really for what they do, but for what they are, is the Body of Christ's warning system. Something is wrong and we had better find out the cause!
The Toronto College of Bishops Dialogue group is trying to find out what's wrong. Let me read from their provisional statement: "We agree that moral and ethical norms exist in order to nurture healthy human life, within ourselves, with other persons and before the face of God. We also affirm that Christian tradition properly forms our ethical disposition: it helps us by providing a starting point and guidance in difficult situations. However, humans do not exist for the sake of moral and ethical norms. This means that, where we find a large degree of human pain and anguish, we must be willing to reexamine traditional moral norms. We must also be willing to examine the moral norm and either make a compelling case for it or modify it in certain ways."
The pain is there. Listen to the pain imposed by the Lambeth Resolution as reported on the Internet by the Rev. Debra Trakel of Madison, WI. "The week of the vote, a long-time, active and venerable member of the church died. His daughter and I had also been in conversation about the possibility of her partner and her coming to church. We worked together with her mother planning her dad's funeral. When we finished, she asked for a few minutes of my time. Through her fresh grief, she told me that she had really wanted to come back to church. She loved the Episcopal Church. It was the church of her heart. But now, with the vote, she just couldn't and she hoped that I would understand. She didn't want to expose her partner to the pain. I said all the right things. Lambeth doesn't speak for ECUSA. It isn't binding on us^Å.I talked about the need for the whole global church to still be in dialogue^Å.She smiled at me, liking me, wanting to believe, but in the end, hearing my words for what they were: an attempt to make right a sin against her. I fell silent and she said, 'Well, you understand why I can't come back now.' And I did. Oh, I did^Å.I heard that some bishops crowed at the 'rout' of the 'liberals.' I heard that some bishops heckled and harassed those 70 who raised their hands [against the resolution]. I can only shake my head in wonder and amazement. And pray against such evil. Did the majority not know how many hearts would be hurt, how many souls would be damaged? Or did they not care?"
That Internet message is just one example of the pain caused by the 571 Bishops. The pain is real; the pain of unjustifiable exclusion and discrimination. The pain is real; the pain of being told that God and the Church abhors any physical expression of the love you feel for the human being who loves you. The pain is real and it's inflicted in the name of God based on six or seven passing references in scripture to homosexuality. How many references are there to loving your neighbor as yourself? How many references are there to the inclusiveness of Jesus' love, six or seven? Of course not, it's the central theme of the New Testament.
Our Bishop Diocesan Jack Spong and 70 other Bishops understood that theme and its ability to eliminate pain and anguish. They knew that scripture has been used to justify slavery, segregation and apartheid. They examined and rejected the so-called moral norm established on a blind adherence to scriptural literalism that labels homosexuality a sin. They rejected it because of the human pain and anguish it inflicts. Jack Spong wrote a letter to his homosexual brothers and sisters and to us all to eliminate that pain. "^Å [N]o resolution can ever diminish the fact that you are created in God's image, loved by Jesus Christ just as you are and called to the fullness of your humanity by the Holy Spirit^ÅOnce prejudice is examined publicly it is never able to be suppressed or denied again and homophobia and destructive stereotypes about gay and lesbian people are doomed^Å I pledge to you that I will continue to do all I can to make the Christian Church a safe, open and loving community that will welcome and encourage all people in their journey into wholeness. I am confident that the church of Jesus Christ will some day reflect the fullness of God's creation." Of course, one of Jack's Internet theses, those propositions that have made certain segments of the church apoplectic, is that all people "bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is." His 12th thesis is that rejection or discrimination cannot be based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. Who keeps that second commandment of loving one's neighbor as thyself, Jack or those 571 Bishops whose actions or inactions, in spite of their pastoral gestures in the resolution, result in viciousness towards, and repression of, our homosexual brothers and sisters, their mothers, fathers, families and friends? To ask the question is to answer it.
Listen to the pastoral letter of signed by over 100 Anglican Bishops to gay and lesbian Anglicans, but not signed by our Presiding Bishop. "This letter is a sign of our commitment to listen to you and reflect with you theologically and spiritually on your lives and ministries. It is our deep concern that you not feel abandoned by your Church and that you know of our continued respect and support. We pledge that we will continue to reflect, pray, and work for your full inclusion in the life of the Church." Which document reflects and is in keeping with that second commandment to love they neighbor as thyself, this letter or Lambeth Resolution 1.10? Again, to ask the question is to answer it.
As the Rev. Canon Williams said, "On^Åthe eve of the Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord, 526 Anglican Bishops, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, were wrong^Å.Such Biblical interpretation by bishops of the church is wrong." I'll go further. The 45 Bishops who abstained from the vote, including our Presiding Bishop, were wrong. Abstaining in the face of prejudice and hate is intolerable.
Pretty strong stuff from someone up here without a collar or robes, isn't it? Who am I to raise these points with you? Well, I'm just a church member following one of the suggestions of our Presiding Bishop in his otherwise wishy-washy letter about Lambeth. He suggested a "^Åfrank and respectful conversation which will allow different points of view to address and hear one another" on these issues. This is part of that conversation. But, as you can tell, my interpretation of scripture, tradition and reason leads me to only one conclusion - that gay and lesbian people must not only be welcomed in the Anglican Communion and
the Episcopal Church but they must be able to participate fully in the same way that my wife and I are able to participate fully. How else can we obey the following? "Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." I urge you prayerfully to consider the position of Bishop Spong and the other Bishops who reject the position of those who have yet to understand that a moral norm that inflicts pain and anguish with no compelling case for that pain and anguish must be modified.
As you can probably guess, I see no middle road on these issues. Although the Lambeth Resolution and the Presiding Bishop's letter spoke of a conversation, my real goal is conversion because I feel that Bishop Spong's, Cannon Williams', and numerous other like-minded clerics' and laypersons' positions on these issues are right. Yet at the same time, I come before you in a spirit of humility and in that spirit, I'd like to finish with a prayer of my Scots-Irish ancestors. "Lord, grant that I may always be right, for thou knowest how hard I am to turn." Amen.
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