Exploring a New Path to Full Inclusion
October 3, 2010
Bonnie Anderson headlined the “Moving Forward: Exploring a New Path to Full Inclusion” conference at Christ Church Cathedral, in Houston, on October 1 and 2, 2010. The conference was a response to longstanding calls from Church leadership for deep theological conversation about the inclusion of LGBT Christians in the life and ministry of The Episcopal Church. This conference was sponsored by Christ Church Cathedral and included parishes that are “conversation partners” from across the Diocese who may, or may not, support full inclusion, but who do support conversation.
On October 1st, Bonnie delivered the sermon at a service of Holy Eucharist that opened the “Moving Forward” conference. The text of that sermon is below.
Gracious God, open our eyes so we may see your face in each other. Help us to take hold of life that really is life. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
First, thank you. I wish to express my appreciation to the organizers of this event and to all of you present. Thank you for being here this evening. Thank you for making the commitment to this important work.
Moving Forward Together is a good theme for the conference we will experience tomorrow, in fact, it is a good theme for God’s Episcopal Church and even for Christians around the globe. It is a good theme, and it is a challenging theme. “Moving Forward” is a challenge in itself given our human nature which favors maintenance of the status quo and often an active resistance to movement of any kind.
But the TOGETHER part of this theme is the place where we are challenged even further. To be together as the Holy people of God, and to be in community together begins at our baptism and is lived out in our lives through our relationships with other people in our Christian community. As we know from our own experience, this is hard work. and as Henri Nouwen says about Christian Community: “we find ourselves in a Christian Community made up of people we would most likely never choose for ourselves.
It is at our baptism when first we begin moving forward together. In the context of our Christian community and company of the Holy Spirit, we make our baptismal promises and renew them periodically throughout our life. Like Jesus, whose life and ministry was spent primarily in the context of community, we begin our Christian life surrounded by other people and our whole lives are lived in the context of relationships.
As the wisdom of the conference theme reflects, Moving Forward is important, but moving forward Together is traveling the road to wholeness. It can be a bumpy road.
So what does God require of us?
What should we do?
In our reading from the Old Testament, the eighth century prophet Micah helps us grapple with this question: shall I give away my firstborn, shall I bring burnt offerings, shall I bow, shall I give God thousands of rams? We see right away in Gods response through the Prophet Micah, that God asks us to act. Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God. These are acts done in relationship with others. They are not solitary acts, but relational ones.
In Paul’s letter to the Church in Corinth, we are reminded that ALL people of God are provided with gifts of the SPIRIT to do God’s work in the world
Each of us being indispensable to the whole.
There we have it. What to do (act together in community) and equipped to do it (use the gifts we have been given) and finally, the reading from Luke cautions and, at the same time encourages and speaks to us of our own, God-given inherent goodness. “For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks”. Our hearts are abundant with God’s grace. But sometimes we forget that.
I think that as an Episcopalian, and Anglican, as a Christian, being part of a Christian Community is one of the most difficult things we do. But being in Christian community is a core value of our church.
Richard Henry Tawney, famous in his own right, but long time friend of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury in the early 1940s, wrote these words: “Those who seek God in the absence of their fellows find not God but Satan, whose countenance bears a striking resemblance to their own.”
The importance of Christian Community and the hard work it takes to be in community was underscored by Frank Wade Chaplain to the House of Deputies at the last General Convention. He said, “By ourselves we tend to worship ourselves. That is one reason Christianity is a community faith as opposed to a spiritual path one can explore alone. Without the views of others to keep us in balance, our own view of God will shrink and narrow until it is as subjective as our view of ourselves. This means that while the agreement and affirmation we find in others is important, the most significant role of community grows out of our differences. The differences that come from age, gender, sexual orientation, culture, experience, education, perspective and priority, just to name a few, are what we need the most from our faith community. Too often we treat these distinctions as enemies to conquer rather than as books to be read; as challenges to our world rather than enrichments of it; as a mark of weirdness rather than a source of wonder.”
In our Epistle reading Paul responds to reports of dissension and quarreling among the congregation he has founded in Corinth. Paul asks the people of the Church in Corinth to address their ethical dilemmas and resolve their personal conflicts on the basis of their unity as members of the Body of Christ. As you can see, the Episcopal Church did not invent disagreements.
God calls us to be in community, our forebearers have provided church structures meant to strengthen Christian community. Yet it seems so difficult to achieve true community. So what is it, besides being hard work, that keeps us from investing in the diversity of our Christian Communities?
I think it is Fear. Somewhere in our heart of hearts we are afraid of the reality of each other. So we stay away from the intimacy if true discipleship and settle for the safety of the familiar. And by doing that we allow fear to separate us from each other and from Christ Jesus. When our baptismal promise to love our neighbor as ourselves is compromised by fear of each other or fear of how we ourselves might be changed, we are in dangerous spiritual territory.
Bishop Tutu tells us that, “God is smart. He says that it is precisely our diversity that makes for our unity.”
We are God’s beloved and to God’s question, “Do you love me?” we have all answered, “yes”.
God puts us into the context of community whether we like it or not and it is there that we find ourselves transformed. Kicking and screaming, we are drawn by God into new ways of being. Community makes us who we are and who we are becoming.
I am always amazed when people describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious”. What does that mean?
Mostly it means that they do not want to be bothered by the hard work of community. Which means being vulnerable to each other. The ultimate symbol of vulnerability is the cross and that is were we are saved.
And, there is God. There is God right along beside us, bringing us back together whether we like it or not.
There is God. Who will be with us always living and moving and having being among us and within us. Always present, ready for us, waiting for us, always with us. Whether we know it or not.
There is God. Mixing us up together in a holy mess of people who we would never in all our lives choose for ourselves. There is God to putting us so close to each other that we even breathe in the very same air that was just inside the lungs of the person next to us.
There is God. Changeless.
There is God.
Putting us into impossible situations, with impossible people and asking us to do impossible things and then giving us the impossibly amazing gifts to do these impossible things.
There is God.
Always God. WOW.
Amen.
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