Forgiveness for a Hangover
Friday, June 23, 2006 -- Week of Proper 6
"Morning Reflections" is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this link -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
Today's Readings for the Daily Office (p. 971)
Psalms 88 (morning) // 91, 92 (evening)
Numbers 13:1-3, 21-30
Romans 2:25 - 3:8
Matthew 18:21-35
It's good to be home, and back to my morning routine.
My reading of the office lessons is colored by a bit of General Convention hangover. Not the drinking kind, the other kind of hangover from a bad encounter; one that leaves your mind foggy and unsettled, your feelings murky and blocked, and a bad taste in your mouth.
When we came to the most controversial decision time of the Convention, I voted to impose a restraint on our church (and to my thinking, a restraint on the work of the Spirit) for the sake of future conversations with the Anglican Communion, and a hope that the Spirit can intervene in that context to bring about unity in our diversity. My vote violated my own sense of God's will, however. It violated my beliefs and principles. It was a compromise that brings me no peace, but rather turbulence. I didn't listen to the Calebs among us (Numbers 13:30). I said to myself that my vote was one for hope, but I wonder how tinged it was with fear also.
So it is like a thirsty man longing for water that I read Matthew's stories of forgiveness. Jesus teaches us infinite forgiveness. For me today that includes forgiving myself for violating my values. The price of not forgiving myself would be to live a choked, compromised, ever-hungover life, "conscience doth make cowards of us all," as Shakespeare wrote. I've also got some forgiving to do to those who have made us so fearful, those in our Anglican Communion who threaten to separate from us because we understand God's graceful presence differently.
I've got a bit of control over those two forgivings. But I know I yearn for forgiveness from those I feel I have betrayed, especially one friend in particular who will make some diocese a great bishop, but not in these next three years. And the whole gay and lesbian community in the Episcopal Church who once again has been hurt and treated unjustly.
Paul writes today, "But if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? ...But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?" Our hope is in God. Not in the Church or the General Convention or the Anglican Communion. Humans and our human institutions are unreliable, but God is trustworthy. And God uses our human injustice to display God's faithfulness. That's what the cross is all about.
So I am going to take some cleansing breaths today, put this whole mess into God's hands (and my whole mess into God's hands), and start over trying to do the best I can. But I want to protect this sourness in a place in my memory. It is motivation for me never again to make a choice that seems so contrary to my values and my sense of God's will.
Lowell
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The Rev. Lowell Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
posted by Lowell @ 7:45 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Lowell--
Don't beat yourself up over your compromise. I'm sure it was a very difficult decision, much like my decision over whether to stay in a church that supports a glass ceiling for homosexuals. I don't want to raise children (when I have them) in such a church. I want my children to learn to stick to their principles, even if it means serious consequences.
My partner and I will probably visit some Unitarian churches in Denver (we move next week). I can't picture myself as a Unitarian, so we may attend the Cathedral of St. John some too. But not when that lukewarm Bishop O'Neil is there. Maybe we'll find something else more productive than religion to do on Sunday morning. I'll just have to think about it a bit longer.
Josh S.
I support your difficult decision even though I, too, hope for a day when our church can make a different decision. But when I dealt with my daughter's recognition that she was a lesbian, my question to myself and our family was, "How elastic are we and our bonds?" What I discovered about elasticity is that it stretches outward to go round and it also pulls us inward (and pinches sometimes) to keep us together. "We" call for "them" to stretch outward........... "they" call for "us" to pull inward. I think that you accomplished the goal for now -- to state our hope to be elastic enough to stay together. As you said, it will give the opportunity to test whether that is their goal.
The denomination I left 9 years ago is struggling over the question of whether or not a pastor can deny membership to a non-celibate gay or lesbian. I would say that bridge is definitely burned behind me.....I'm here to stay in the Episcopal church.
I wrote my parents earlier this year and said that I thought gays and lesbians would be sacrificed for the sake of church unity---actually, I thought the sacrifice would be much greater. My father wrote me one of his rare letters and said that history was on my side. He said sometimes progress seems glacial...and sometimes we have to heat up that glacier a little.
I was thrilled by Bishop Katherine's election and I really want her to have a place at Lambeth. I hope that she will embolden women throughout the Anglican Communion to speak up and be heard. I am also sure she'll get dissed by the ultra-conservatives, causing our moderates to feel some much-needed outrage. Heat that glacier up.
Your feelings of guilt and responsibility are not my concern. You are responsible only to your conscience and to God. Sometimes people do the right things for totally wrong reasons. Sometimes we can't break the bent reed. Even though I'm gay, I might have voted the same way you did. "We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord, and we pray that our unity may one day be restored, and they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they'll know we are Christians by our love."
Holly P
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