Gamaliel's Testimony
Monday, August 11, 2008 -- Week of Proper 13
Clare, Abbess at Assisi, 1253
Today's Reading for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 979)
Psalms 97, 99 [100] (morning) 94, 95 (evening)
Judges 13:1-15
Acts 5:27-42
John 3:22-36
Many years ago I was on the Cursillo National Committee. The Church was just beginning to become anxious about its gay members who were asking, like black citizens in a previous decade, to be allowed to live as equals before God and the church. One of my favorite colleagues on the committee was a priest from Glendale, California. He was gifted and committed. But he was certain that gay Episcopalians were not to be accepted as equal before God. He was certain that homosexual love was sinful behavior. He convinced a majority of the committee to pass a policy that excluded non-celibate gay Episcopalians from positions of leadership in Cursillo.
The following year two diocesan leaders who were active in Cursillo and who were gay came to address the committee and ask us to reconsider the policy. Each of these leaders -- one lay and one priest -- was active in the Cursillo movement. Each was committed to a disciplined rule of life and to the principles of evangelism and spiritual growth that were at the heart of Cursillo. They knew the Cursillo movement and they were deeply committed to the Episcopal Church. They made their witness to our group.
With a poignancy that bordered on despair, the priest who addressed us closed his words with the argument from Gamaliel. The church is in a place of disagreement and discernment, he said. I tell you that I love Jesus Christ, and I follow him as my Lord and Savior. I do so as a gay man in a committed relationship. I find Christ manifest in my loving relationship with my partner and in my ministry as a priest and as an active leader in Cursillo. I realize that there are others who say that my relationship is a sin, a violation of God's intention, but I experience it as grace from God.
Citing Gamaliel, he said, do not throw us out. Wait and see. Watch us; watch me and my relationship and my ministry. If we are not of the Spirit -- if we are not of God -- we will fail. We will fall of our own weight. But, if we are of God, "you will not be able to overthrow us -- in that case you may even be found to be fighting against God!" Please, he begged us humbly. Do like Gamaliel advised. Just leave us alone. See what God will do. Do not cast us out yourselves. Let God be the judge.
It was a moving testimony. We broke for noonday prayers and lunch. For the noon office, we read the lessons assigned from the daily office in the Book of Common Prayer. As we sat to listen to the reading, it was this passage from Acts 5 -- the story of Gamaliel. Chills went up my spine.
I glanced back at the priest who had just a few moments ago been referencing these very words. His eyes closed. A gentle smile of thanks came to his mouth. He tilted his head up as though gesturing thanks to God. And when he opened his eyes, he blinked back tears. I too felt tears fill my eyes. I heard another in the room gasp. The Word of God had spoken.
That afternoon we reversed the policy. As far as I know, Cursillo never again took a political stand in a church debate.
Lowell
_____________________________________________
Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
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 location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
Lowell Grisham, Rector
Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
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 location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
posted by Lowell @ 10:11 PM
18 comments
18 Comments:
So gay = black.
Are we going to start calling them Gay Americans?
It is always harder to dismiss a group of people on the basis of what you think about them than to dismiss them once you know actual people and can see their gifts and struggles.
Anonymous, why don't we just call them Americans, or Christians, rather than pick one trait and try and define them by it?
I've often remarked how similar the fears are. I grew up in the segregated Bible Belt South. The fears of integration that I witnessed in my childhood seem so similar to the fears about gay people that I see today.
Race and sexual orientation are both given to us. We also inherit learned cultural traditions -- often bulwarked by Biblical interpretations and promoted by earnest Christians -- that teach us that one race is inferior to another, that same-sex orientation is less that opposite sex orientation. These are cultural constructs, prejudices.
The truth is that God creates us in the image of God. Male and female, Jew and Greek, black and white, gay and straight. Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, not call them names and treat them with prejudice.
Lowell
He also tells us that he is the bridegroom and we are the bride.
There is no evidence proving that same sex orientation is inherited.
I don't know why you insist of assuming anything about me.
I have a very close personal friend struggling with this, two aunts and 2 cousins. So your thesis is wrong Doug.
Secondly, they are defining themselves by their own actions.
Lowell, Male and female is a trait, black and white is a trait, Jew and greek is a trait,
Gay and straight is a action or desire. They are not the same.
Why do you think I am afraid. My only fear is for them, not of them.
From the perspective of the symbolism of bride and bridegroom, we are all feminine. God is the actor, and we the recipient of divine grace and favor.
I first researched same-sex orientation in the late 1970's. At that time there was strong evidence of a congenital (inherited) influence and some studies that pointed to possible environmental factors. All studies then found sexual orientation to be something that is pretty well fixed by age 3 and not subject to change. People might repress their orientation or choose their own behaviors, but their fundamental orientation is not something subject to self-definition or change.
In the subsequent thirty years, stronger evidence has emerged linking orientation to our genes and our inheritance. Check the science -- the real science, from peer reviewed publications, not the bogus faith driven stuff like the creationists publish, and you will see. You don't choose your sexual orientation.
Makes sense to me. I can remember an experience of sexual awakening, a surge of emotion an attraction in kindergarten or pre-k. I forget her name, but I remember her blonde hair and dimples. Prompted the first fight I ever got into with my best friend.
I've got a buddy who is gay. He's got similar stories from early childhood. A pretty girl walks by the first graders. "Did you see that?" "What?" He missed it. But he loved the Marlboro billboards.
Sexual orientation is not a choice. Science is pretty settled about this. So are gay people, if you talk to them. I'm pretty sure it was hard wired into me before I made any choices.
Lowell
P.S. For a faithful piece of research that an Arkansas Baptist undertook when one of his members (Louise)asked about her niece, google "Letter to Louise" and you'll see a pretty good, readable outline of the science and the Biblical scholarship from a faith-based perspective. And, you'll be reading a Baptist minister's words.
I am a gay man with many gay friends and acquaintances. I can tell you right from the people's mouths, "in this society,why would anyone want to be gay with all the pain and anguish that is causes the person and sometimes their family. No one in their right mind would choose to be gay. Everyone I know has always known they were gay since about 3 yrs. old. Behavior in heterosexuals as well as gay people can be controlled but the orientation can't. I don't have to wait for science to prove it. I know it like the back of my hand.
Well, all of your science seems to be very convenient. If the science was agreed upon, then there would be NO debate, like bogus manmade global warming or my grampa was as ape.
But lets assume you are right and it is genetic. Answer the following.
1. How do you define orientation?
You seem to be defining orientation as lusting after the Marlboro man.
If God gave the orientation, what is to say He didn't also give orientation to be attracted to young girls, young boys, animals, multiple partners.
By your argument, all that has to occur is the must be some fruit.
A man with 2 wives can have fruit. A man with a ? What is the limit?
There is nothing convenient about science. Science simply uses a method of research and objective critique to discover what can be learned and verified. Your grandfather was a human being, created in the image of God. You, like I, have evolved from primate creatures. That's the way God has created us. It's a fact. The science is completely compelling. Evolution is bedrock stuff for the physical and biological sciences. Anyone who has a problem between their theology and evolution has a problem with their theology.
There is some debate about the varied causes of global warming, but scientific consensus is growing that humans have contributed. Facts are so inconvenient.
My former associate priest taught biology in medical school before being ordained. He taught a 10-class series on "The Biology and Spirituality of Human Sexuality" at our church. He's posted his extensive notes on line. I think the class that dealt primarily with orientation is class 6. You can access it at this address http://www.williamgstroop.com/Sunday%20Classes/Sexuality/HS%20Class%206.htm
and have links to the others if this is something you'd really like to learn more about.
Please don't link pathologies to the holy hope that spiritually healthy and mature gay people have for the church's recognition of their life-long commitments.
Here is the description that the Episcopal Church endorses for a minimal ethical standard for committed loving relationships:
"...we expect such relationships will be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God" and we say further "That we denounce promiscuity, exploitation, and abusiveness in the relationships of any of our members."
73rd General Convention, Resolution D039
Those are good limits.
Lowell
Off topic, The Globe isn't warming, it hasn't for 8-10 years.
Monogamous = Why? Where do you get this?
Is it one in a lifetime?
Or it is one at a time?
If these are the minimal standards, Are there higher standards? Who has to live up to those HIGHER standards?
ARe there any other areas of life where we should settle for "good" limits?
I look forward to your response.
Dear Anon,
Off topic. My son-in-law -- Ph.D. in Ecology from Georgia Tech, post-doc Yale, professor at Florida International -- says you're wrong. He did a lot of his doctoral research in coral reefs; many are stressed and dying because of increased temperatures.
I don't know what you're driving at. For Christians the call is for faithfulness. "...to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death."
That is the vow that gay couples are making to one another in places where they are allowed to. I know many who have lived those vows without their fidelity being recognized -- some for longer than Kathy and I have, and we have celebrated 32 anniversaries.
Lowell
Why monogamy?
Where do you get monogamy? is it Biblical or secular?
Do you still not know what I am driving at?
Why monogamy? That is all I want to know.
Was is the lucky short straw or is there a reason.
Monogamy is not very Biblical, is it. The pastoral epistles require that an overseer or bishop be the husband of only one wife, probably because some weren't.
Ditto for slavery.
When the Church raised marriage to a sacrament, we made a judgment about the need for sexual intimacy to be exercised within a context of faithful commitment and fidelity. The call to faithfulness is an expansion of the Biblical call to love.
Same argument for slavery. Same for representative government rather than an inherited monarchy.
All of these are extensions of the principles of love and community that are revealed in scripture. All are deviations from the specific cultural models we see in the history of the scripture.
Polygamy, slavery and monarchy are all scriptural norms. But when we see a better, more just and compassionate way, we turn toward that new way through the guidance of the Spirit.
Lowell
So you have chosen monogamy even though you claim it is not very Biblical.
Your turning toward a better way thru guidance is how the FLDS justifies polygamy and worse.
I just seems scary to me that you pick and choose from the Bible. It is convenient, it is subject to the societal whims, and it relagates the Bible to a book of stories and ideas.
Another question.
I must assume you believe that the world is Billions of years old.
How can we possibly know the climate change, assuming it is, is anything outside the norms of a planet that old?
We haven't had a thermometer for that many years.
I interpret the Bible within the living community of the Church. The Church pre-dates the New Testament. The community of Israel pre-dates the Hebrew Bible. It is the Church that discerned which Christian writings were to be deemed authoritative. The Bible is the reflection of the experience of God as remembered or reflected by certain members of the community, endorsed and authorized as trustworthy by that same community.
Those of us who are people of the book enter a conversation that is ongoing. We inherit the rich tradition of the Rabbis who try to make holy writ alive and true for each generation. We trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit to help the community in that process.
The conversation about marriage and monogamy happened, if I remember my history, around the seventh century, and Christian marriage became a sacrament and norm. Until the Church spoke authoritatively, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to say that polygamy is not God's will, it was very easy to justify many wives. After all, it was the Biblical norm.
So it is the Church as a community that interprets the Bible, and you and I enter into that rich tradition of conversation and debate.
It took many centuries, but the Church interpreted that slavery is inconsistent with the will of God. The Church based that new interpretation on the revelation of the Scripture about the nature of God's love for all humanity, our having been created in the image and likeness of God, and the great traditions of compassion and justice revealed in the prophets and in Jesus. Christian slave owners disputed that interpretation, pointing to the many Biblical citations that presume slavery to be normative.
There is no such thing as a pure, Biblical faith, isolated from "societal whims" (or the conversation of the faithful).
The Bible is very inconsistent -- we must pick and choose. Polygamy or monogamy? Slavery or equality? Kings or representative democracy? You can find them both supported in scripture.
We inherit a living community of conversation. It is within that community that we seek to discern God's will.
Lowell
P.S. Those darn thermometers. Wish we had them billions of years ago.
Look, I'm not a scientist. I know some scientists, and my son-in-law is a scientist. I'm going to trust what they discover about the physical properties of the planet. That's what they are good at. They are a pretty disciplined and self-correcting bunch.
As a religious person, I don't have a dog in their hunt.
As a religious person, I believe in God, and I believe that all reality emanates from God. God is Reality Itself. So, whatever science can contribute to our understanding of reality is a deeper understanding of the ways of God.
If a preponderance of scientists say that the earth's climate is changing and that human beings are a contributing factor to those changes, I'm going to trust them. They have no reason to lie.
If a group of Biblical literalists or theologically driven folks have calculated the age of the earth based on the myths of Genesis and are afraid that their beliefs will be threatened by science, so they publish non-peer-reviewed articles that "look scientific," I'm less trustful. They have a reason to lie.
Or if Exxon funds and publishes research that is angled to show that carbon emissions are not affecting the earth negatively, I'm less trustful. They have a reason to lie.
Or if there is some legitimate question about the nature of the climate change we are experiencing... Let's say one group tells us it is part of the natural cycle of the earth's warming and cooling. (minority report) And one group says it is not natural, but is caused or accelerated by human carbon emissions. (majority report) I've got a choice.
I can trust the convenient theory of the minority and keep carboning away; it's just a cycle. Nothing we can do about it. Don't want to be further inconvenienced.
Or I can say, "What if #2 (the majority) is right?" There is something we can do about these changes. On the chance that we can help save the planet, we can change our behavior and be better stewards of the earth.
These are potentially catastrophic changes. Do you just let the train run away because you think that's just what trains do? Or do you take the chance of putting on the brakes just in case you've got a possibility of avoiding the crash?
"They have a reason to lie"
I think you are a bit too generous.
example
Pharmacy - Drugs are recalled so often because they are dangerous and harmful. Were they trying to help people? maybe, they were certainly trying to make money.
Also, the Bible talks about polygamy, but does God endorse it?
Being in the Bible doesn't necessarily mean it is rightous.
One of the conflicts the scientists engage is concerns the temptation of their research being funded and co-opted by the funders. When a drug company suppresses some evidence in order get a product approved, it is acting dishonestly. One of the reasons for strong governmental oversight and regulation.
I think it would be very easy to make the argument that God endorses polygamy, if you stick only with Biblical narratives. The story of Jacob/Israel is central to the biblical narrative. The 12 tribes come from several wives (is it 4?). It would be easy to say that if God disapproved of polygamy God would have given Israel 12 children from one mother.
The arguments against polygamy have to do with our growing sense that polygamy is essentially unjust toward women and an inadequate ground for our most intimate human relationship. That's one of those liberal arguments. It comes from the values underneath the scripture, not from the laws or the narratives. It's the same kind of liberal argument that defended abolition of slavery, free market economics (with borrowing at interest), representative democracy, equal rights for women, and now, equal rights for gay people.
People who say "I follow the Bible and only the Bible" must use liberal theology to justify their departure from the laws and social norms of Biblical life.
Post a Comment
<< Home