“Redefining” Marriage?

The concerns that “we are redefining traditional marriage” by extending marriage to same gender couples escape me. 

I have many good friends, well read, intelligent and without a homophobic bone in their bodies who passionately insist that the word “marriage” must be reserved in our society for one man and one woman commitments.  They will often insist that they want same gender couples to have all the same rights and responsibilities in civil unions or domestic partnership as heterosexual couples do in legal marriage.   "Just don’t call it marriage”.   A few will quote the Bible to justify the point as well, which confuses me even more.  Here are my concerns:

Equality        

Same gender couples in states which currently offer civil unions and/or domestic partnerships are not entitled to over 1,100 Federally recognized rights and responsibilities as do those in heterosexual marriages.1 By not offering same gender couples a legal marriage license, we deny law abiding citizens....tax paying, socially contributing, at times members or veterans of our military services....equal protection under the law.

History        

Concepts and institutions of marriage have been “redefined” throughout history.  In European cultures historians record the practice of same gender unions, marriages and their celebrations in the ancient Greco-Roman society up until the Middle Ages.2

Government regulation of the marriage contract between adults is a relatively recent occurrence in history.3 Up until the 1600's marriage was a private contract between two families.  At times church bodies would recognize the vows of the marriage covenant between consenting adults and record it in parish records but this held varying legal authority based on location.

In North America, there are examples of marriage licenses issued by local governments as early as the colonial era in the 1700's, but government marriage registration and licensure was not a nation-wide practice in the United States until after the Civil War.   Along with insuring the rights and responsibilities of each partner, the first marriage licenses also restricted who could make such contracts; race, religion, nationality, age and social class were qualifiers.  The Chinese Immigration Act of 1882 denied the right to marry between people of Asian descent and Anglos.   Mixed race marriages were not nationally legalized until Supreme Court decisions in 1967 (Loving vs. Virginia).

Change

Concepts and institutions of marriage are being “redefined” as we speak.  The changes in our culture’s expectations and norms for marriage have been revolutionary in my lifetime.  Social values regarding pre-marital sex and child birth have been turned upside down.

Procreation has always been assumed as one of the goals of marriage but in modern society is not required. People get married without the expectation of having children all of the time.  Modern science has extended the options of childbirth way beyond "traditional coupling" with IV fertilization and other technologies.

Forty years ago it was shocking to learn of a couple living together prior to the wedding.  Today, in pre-marital counseling, I am surprised if the couple is not already living together and has been doing so for some time.  Mature adults and seniors commonly "couple" without marriage for all sorts of financial reasons.   In 1960 5.3% of American babies were born out of wedlock, by 1992 it was 30%; today for mothers under 30 years old, 53% of their children are born without married partners.4  Our divorce rate in the United States has stabilized in the last ten years but remains the highest in the world.5  

There are many factors redefining marriage today, for good or ill.  Including same gender couples in the legal institution of marriage would certainly change the expected definition but it is not the only thing redefining marriage.

Fear 

Government legislation and a host of non-profit and/or religious agencies have the mission to “defend marriage”.  This implies a threat to existing heterosexual marriages and families by the mere existence of same gender couples and/or families.  "Defense of marriage" agencies suggest that by legitimizing same gender families we would further degrade the moral standards of our nation and risk the wrath of God.  Some would go so far as to blame the growing acceptance of the LGBT community and same gender families as the reason for the divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth statistics cited above.

Unless one is seriously suggesting that hurricanes or global recessions or health epidemics are God's acts upon a sinful nation...and there are those that do...."defending marriage" is simply a code word for history's latest scapegoating.     

According to the U.S. census there were 646,000 same-sex-couple households in the U.S. in 2010, 115,064 with children.6   How does their existence threaten any one? It certainly hasn’t affected my heterosexual marriage of 39 years.

The Bible?    

The Bible as the defining source for the institution of marriage?  Really?

Is it "traditional marriage based on biblical principles" when Abraham begets Ishmael with his slave Hagar because his wife Sarah is barren? (Genesis 16:1-f)  Is it when Jacob and his two wives Leah and Rachael, and the slaves Zilpah and Bilhah, bear him children, including the twelve sons who will become the twelve tribes of Israel? (Genesis 30:1-f) Is the standard King Solomon and his 700 official wives and 300 concubines? (I Kings 11:1-3)  Are we talking about the law requiring the death by stoning of a bride who on her wedding night is found not to be a virgin or the death of those who commit adultery (Deuteronomy 22:13-24).  The Apostle Paul preferred that we would not marry at all (I Corinthians 7).

So what are we talking about when we refer to the Bible as the “standard for traditional marriage”?

My assumption is that the phrase “Biblical institution of marriage” most often refers to Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 19:4-6:

He answered, ‘Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning “made them male and female”, and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’

Jesus is referring to Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 as he confronts the Pharisees' arbitrary use of the divorce writ, leaving women literally in the street without social or economic rights.   Consider how Jesus redefines marriage for his generation in this text.  In a patriarchal society where women were treated as property and marriage was the primary form of regulating an economic exchange between families, Jesus is insisting that it be defined as a sacred bond between two equal persons.7

 

For more than 40 years United Methodists have understood the words of Matthew 19 in their historical context. The Master is concerned about the spiritual consequences of the male use of capricious divorce laws on both parties and the gross injustice levied on women by divorce.  Unlike some other churches, United Methodists have not interpreted this text as the basis for the restriction or exclusion from the life of the church of those who have gone through divorce. Divorced individuals can join United Methodist churches, receive our sacraments, be ordained our clergy and consecrated our bishops.  

Divorce is something to be avoided.  Marriages are worth every effort to maintain and nurture.  Our clergy are trained to assist in all appropriate ways to promote the sacredness of marriage.  Yet we United Methodists have for decades refused to condemn, shame or restrict the divorced from the life of our congregations.

In Matthew 19:9 Jesus equates divorce with adultery, an abomination punishable by death (Leviticus 20:10).  A pronouncement certainly not found in the United Methodist Book of Discipline!  

Consider how Jesus redefines the essential commitment of sexual faithfulness in the marriage contract with his teachings on adultery.  In a patriarchal society where men freely manipulated law, social and economic status to meet their sexual needs Jesus is insisting that "even looking at a woman with lust in your eyes" is adultery (Matthew 5:27-30).   To the men who bring a woman caught in the act of adultery to be stoned Jesus says, "...he who is without sin cast the first stone" (John 8).  When the mob goes away, the Lord says to the woman, "...is there no one here to condemn you?  Then neither can I...go and sin no more."   Jesus radically applies an equality of both sin and grace never seen before in his time to one considered "outcast" in scripture.

The Bible is the living Word of God.  Its truth is not confined to the ink on its pages. We discover that truth again and again in the dynamic journey of faith; in the relationship between the page and the believer’s experience of God.  Today we know that the earth is not flat, the center of the known universe (Genesis 1:1-10).  In North America, Bible verses are no longer used to justify slavery or a second class citizenship for women.  God did not stop speaking in the 4th century when the Biblical canon was codified.  The Bible remains the central springboard for revelation in new and changing times. To insist on a static and literal interpretation of certain verses while ignoring or adopting others is all too convenient for “conservative” or “liberal” alike.  

For United Methodists who welcome and include the divorced, and openly minister to and with today's "outcasts", to then use these same texts as the basis to refuse to honor the committed relationships of same gender couples, even in states where gay marriage is legal, is a capricious and arbitrary use of the scriptures to justify a social prejudice.  Something we have done all-too-many times in history.

Conclusion

I once had a parishioner who married late in life suggest "...if gays can marry it will cheapen my marriage to "Bob", something that I waited my whole life for...."   The comment took my breath away.  I didn't know what to say and still to this day don't comprehend all that means.  This came from a good and faithful church woman, convinced that homosexual people are something less than she.  For them to share the same word..."marriage"...would degrade her own.  The Bible verses suggesting that "we are all children of God" were restricted to people like herself alone.

If that is the underlying concern of the "gay marriage will redefine marriage" argument, then maybe it is time that we did.

1          General Accounting Office cited in "A Primer on Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, Domestic Partnerships, and Defense of Marriage Acts", infoplease.com

2          John Boswell, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, Vintage, 1994, note: Boswell was former S. Whitney Professor of History at Yale University until his death in 1994.

3          "Taking Marriage Private", New York Times, Stephanie Coontz, November 26, 2007 4     KJ Dell’Antonia, “For Younger Mothers, Out of Wedlock Births Are the New Normal”, Motherlode/New York Times, 02/19/2012

5          NationMaster.com

6          CNN.com  05.12.12

7          “equal”: “male and female he created them” Genesis 1:27 in the first creation poem (Genesis 1:1-2:4a) suggests that both male and female are equal creations of God.  To the Pharisees Jesus did not refer to the second creation poem’s (Genesis 2:4b-3:24) hierarchy of gender with the man created first out of the dust of the earth and the woman created second out of the bone of the man Genesis 2:21-23, a clear bias towards patriarchy. Rather by tying these two texts together our Lord is suggesting reciprocity between genders that is unheard of in his times.

Also note; is a homosexual man not “male” or a lesbian woman not “female”? Those referring to this text to justify heterosexual relationships to the exclusion of other sexual orientations suggest that God did not create gay men or lesbian women.   Modern science suggests that sexual orientation can begin at birth, have genetic origins and go through stages of ambiguity throughout a person’s life.  Ambivalent gender differentiation, physical and/or chromosomal, is common enough at birth that medical specialists are called into consult every 1 to 1,500/2,000 births (Intersex Society of North America). 

The entire verse from Genesis 1:27 reads “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.”   The poet suggests that God encompasses both genders in “his image”.    Why then would those born with varying gender identities and sexual orientations not be considered “children of God” if God is both male and female? 

God's Plan Revised

In his recent interview with FOX News’s Sean Hannity (07/19/12), George Zimmerman, shooter of Trayvon Martin, suggested that "it was God's plan" that the unarmed 17 year old die that night in Florida.  People were saying similar things on Christian talk-radio shows following the recent Colorado mass gunman killings, "...it must be God's plan or things wouldn't happen like this...” 

Such notions are not new.

Augustine of Hippo’s (354-430) vision of God has framed both Roman Catholic and Protestant understanding of divine sovereignty.  This God is in control of all events, causing or allowing tragedy for some greater purpose we may never understand, or will only learn about at the End of Time.  There is an ironic comfort in such notions.  The surviving victims of tragedy can take heart that God will use the evil forced upon their loved ones for some greater good.  Believers are called to have faith in that greater, unknown good even in the face of terrible circumstances.  Although God could end evil and suffering in his sovereignty, God allows and even uses our evil for a greater good because God loves us.

This was the theology preached by missionary priests in the conversion of the Bolivian indigenous people to justify their enslavement by the Spanish conquistadors during the 18th century in order to plunder the silver mines and future of that nation. 

It was the same Christianity used by white churches in the United States to resist the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, "people of color should not complain or agitate about the conditions of their living.  Whatever life throws your way, grin and bear it because God will use it for a greater good ‘in the sweet bye and bye’."

You can understand the dilemma.  If God is both “good” and “powerful” the only rational conclusion in the face of the atrocities of history can be deferred justification.  Augustine argued that ultimately there is no such thing as “evil”, for what we experience as such will be used by God for that mysterious greater good.  Augustine would have us trust our lives to a God with the power to stop evil but who chooses not to do so out of love.

 

Most people yearn for a sense of “divinity in control”.  We use that sense to justify the capricious suffering in our lives and in the world.  For example, when we survive the car accident we say “Thank God!” as if God saved us from harm.  But in doing so are we assuming that the person(s) that died in the accident or went to the hospital were not so blessed by the same God?  Did God want, will or allow them to suffer for a greater purpose while sparing us the same?

If God is “good”, “ultimately in control” and choosing to allow the atrocities of history to happen out of “love”, what can “love” possibly mean?

To those who question such logic in the murder of an unarmed teenager, or the slaughter of movie goers or in the preventable deaths of the thousands of children each day of hunger and malnutrition related disease (UN/WFP), evil is no illusion and cannot be rationalized away by “pie-in-the-sky” theologies.

This commonly held definition of God as “all powerful” has direct Christological implications.  Does Jesus’ death on the cross buy our way into heaven?  The doctrine of substitutionary atonement makes this rationalization for a God who plans, allows and implements the death of “his only begotten son” for the ultimate greater good.  Scriptural references in both Old and New Testaments support such conclusions but not without other ways to understand who Jesus is as well.

In the gospel of John, Jesus is considered the incarnation of the God of Creation (John 1:1-18).  A good God with all-controlling power that can only be understood by believers at the End of the World would not proclaim “the Kingdom of God is at hand!” in the present tense (Mark 1:15) or suggest that the promise of God’s eschatological future has been fulfilled in his reading of the prophet Isaiah (Luke 4:16-21).  Nor would the incarnation of a God who says evil is only a tool of his benevolent deity teach “…for God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).

Jesus takes the hand of the dead daughter of Jairus and gives life (Mark 5:21-43).  Jesus raises a widow’s only son from death (Luke 7:11-17).  Jesus weeps at the funeral of his best friend Lazarus and then raises him from the dead (John 11:38-44).  How could this Jesus be the incarnation of a God who could look the parent of a murder victim in the eye, admitting divine authority to stop the slaughter but choosing not to do so, and say “just trust me…I love you…”?!

Maybe our definition of power is misdirected.  God doesn’t cause or allow the evil in our lives.  What if God’s “power” is not the ability to control and determine?  What if God’s power is that which lures us in each and every moment to the best possibility but does not control the results?  What if the future is open-ended rather than determined?  What if God’s love is in the power of inspiration, creativity, relationship and forgiveness…all powerful forces indeed?

Like a loving parent teaching the child not to touch the hot stove, God doesn’t make the child touch the stove but in teaching the child not to do so out of love gives the child the freedom to choose and face the consequences for good or ill.

Then the freedom into which we are created is really free.  And the evil of the world is really evil.  And the God of love that dies incarnate on the cross shares our lot in life (I John 4:8).  Then the God of creation is real love, and not the charade of some promised future to which believers must adhere in order to belong.

Hierarchy of Tragedy?

12 are shot dead, 58 are wounded by a lone gunman in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater on July 20, 2012.  It is front page, breaking news:  "A nation mourns the gun violence of yet another mass killing."  Vigils are held.  Debate over gun control continues.  President Obama orders the nation's flags at half-mast.

During their Sunday worship on August 5, 2012, 6 Sikh men and women in Oak Creek, Wisconsin are murdered by a “skinhead” who also wounds 3 others including 2 policemen who heroically confront the gunman and treat the wounded.  The nation is shocked.  Vigils are held.  The President shares his and the nation’s grief.  The Attorney General of the United States is assigned to represent the President at the Memorial Service. 

14 men, women and children die and 11 are seriously injured in an overcrowded pick-up truck accident, 90 miles outside of San Antonio, Texas on July 22, 2012.  It is suspected they are undocumented workers in the United States illegally.  The reports are in the back pages of the news.  There are no national vigils or debates.  The President orders no flags flown half-mast.

Why not?  Is there a hierarchy of tragedy?

There were 11,493 gun murders in the United States in 2009. (Census)

There were 35,900 auto accident deaths in the United States in 2009. (Census)

There are tragic losses to be sure in both situations, gun murder or car accident, yet why the attention, the nationwide mourning, over mass shootings by a lone gunman?  How is it that auto accident deaths, three times the number of gun related deaths, are not the occasion for national mourning?

Half of all gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides (FBI).  Suicides are barely mentioned beyond the local newspaper. 

Every day on average in the United States 10 people unintentionally drown (over 3,600 each year).  Of those who drown, 20% are people under the age of 14.  Drowning is the fifth leading cause of unintentional death in the U.S., yet unless we are directly affected, we rarely even hear about it when someone drowns (CDC).

Are some lives more worthwhile than others, more deserving of our attention, our mourning?  Is the capricious vulnerability of mass shooting victims our worst nightmare?  Is it because the Aurora, Colorado victims...or the Tucson, Arizona victims (6 dead, 13 injured including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, 01/08/11)...or the Columbine, Colorado High School victims (13 dead, 21 injured, 04/20/99)...these victims are like "us," part of the dominant culture, middle class folk?  Is it because the victims are folks we can relate to, folks we would see at the movies?

Not "illegals" crammed into a truck.  No national mourning for them.

Is there a special grief for the innocent, as if the families of undocumented workers are guilty?

Then why don’t we mourn the over the 30,000 women and children who will die today of malnutrition related disease (UN/WFP)?  There’s rarely a headline about them.

Jesus has a bewildering word to say about tragic death, found only in the gospel of Luke:

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.  He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.  Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’ (Luke 13:1-5)

In a culture which assumed that God punished the sinner and rewarded the righteous these words must have been puzzling indeed.  Jesus is suggesting that we all, sinner or righteous, stand in equal need of forgiveness and grace.  He seems to be suggesting that there are times when bad things happen to good people without any reason at all.

Is there a hierarchy of tragedy?

Jesus would seem to be saying "no."  Any life taken outside the natural order of things is an affront to the God who creates life and who wants nothing more than for each of God's children to have life abundantly (John 10:10).

Was President Obama correct to lower the flags to half-mast for the innocent deaths of movie-goers in Colorado?  In extending recognition usually reserved for those who serve our nation in uniform or office, does this gesture suggest an even larger national unity?

When the innocent suffer we all suffer.  When any of our community is lessened, we all lose.  And if that be the case, how could the boundaries of nation, race or class ever define the limits of our compassion? 

Jesus would seem to be suggesting that they don’t.

Embarrassing Debt

Before a United Methodist clergy is ordained, they are required to answer a series of historical questions posed by John Wesley almost two hundred fifty years ago to those being dedicated as Methodist pastors, missionaries and workers.  In the 21st century such questions may seem quaint or odd.  Yet it is very meaningful to those who seek ordination to think that we stand in the line of saints that have gone before answering these same questions and the call to ministry. 

The process of ordination is arduous to say the least, requiring, in most cases, 4 years of undergraduate study, three years of graduate study, and a minimum of 8 years of probation before full membership in the Conference and ordination is conferred.  When the candidate stands before the Annual Conference Session and answers the historical questions recited by the Bishop, they have passed all the tests, earned all the degrees and proven to their peers that they are ready to be ordained.  Although the questions may seem archaic, answering them is a high and holy moment for the clergy-to-be.

The moment comes as the candidates stand before a Conference of a thousand people.  One of the questions inevitability raises eyebrows and not a few chuckles when it is asked each year; "Are you in debt so as to embarrass you in your work?"  

The question may have been born in the Wesley home as John and Charles grew up when their father Samuel, rector of the Church of England parish in Epworth, England, was twice in debtors' prison.  This caused the family great embarrassment and inconvenience to be sure.

The Wesleys were also keenly aware that clergy financial stress could encourage corruption and theft within the church.  After years of painful lessons, today we keep the ordained as far away from the church's money as we can; in the life of a local congregation clergy may not deposit funds, sign checks or make contracts with vendors.  Each pastor is bonded by the Conference in case of malfeasance.

Today, college and advanced degree graduates come out of school with thousands of dollars of student debt.  Consumer credit has become a standard means of living in our culture and it is all-too-easy to let it become a huge challenge.  The intent of the historical question remains relevant. 

How we manage money says a lot about our spiritual and moral commitments.  That is true for pastors but it is also true for laity, isn't it?  "Are we embarrassed by our debt?  Is it getting in the way of our living?"  We are all called to Christian stewardship of the resources God has entrusted to us, and that includes how we handle debt.

Consider the pervasive challenge of debt today and its impact on our lives:

-Average credit card debt per household with credit card debt: $15,956

-609.8 million credit cards held by U.S. consumers.

-Average number of credit cards held by cardholders: 3.5, as of year-end 2008

-Average APR on credit card with a balance on it: 12.78 percent, as of November 2011

-Total U.S. consumer debt: $2.5 trillion, as of December 2011 (CreditCards.com)

With the Great Recession, these statistics are on the decline which is a good thing on some levels.  But debt is a very personal thing.  Do we feel embarrassed by our debt?  Do we argue with those we are living with about money matters?  Are we honest about our finances especially with ourselves?  Do we feel we have no options other than to stay in our current unsatisfying job because of the money?  Do our bills keep us up at night with worry?

And if we don't consider money issues to be a spiritual matter, listen to Jesus again (Matthew 6):

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Jesus talked about money more than he did Heaven and Hell combined.  Jesus talked about money more than anything else except the Kingdom of God; 11 of Jesus' 39 parables are about money.

If these questions intrigue you, take a Financial Peace University class; the course content, when applied, can be liberating.  If these questions bring you pain, consider working with a non-profit consumer credit agency, such as California Consumer Credit.  They offer classes and individual counseling.  They will also work with you and your creditors to lower interest rates and stretch out payments if you are in trouble.

I speak from experience.  Fifteen years ago I was not only embarrassed about our debt I was ashamed.  Now Bonnie and I have dug ourselves out of a terrible hole and it feels great to be debt free.   

So debt, savings, earnings and charitable giving have everything to do with the spirit.  It’s a significant spiritual question:  are we managing our money or is it managing us?

Why Stay a United Methodist?

John and Charles Wesley started a movement to reform the Church of England in the 18th century that remains a significant institution in the world.  There are over 75 million Methodists of all persuasions, the largest being the United Methodist Church with a declining 8 million members in the United States and a fast growing 4 million members in Africa and Asia.

John (left) and Charles Wesley

The Wesleys wanted to bring their gospel message of personal spirituality and social responsibility out of the confines of England's rigid class systems.  They preached in marketplaces, coal mines and prisons.  They offered Holy Communion to non-church members, non-property owners and people of color.  Women were accepted as small group leaders and un-official preachers.  Methodist music and worship were scorned by the establishment as "enthusiastic," while their embrace of science and natural law, and their scholastic approach to the Bible and church history made them "reasonable enthusiasts."

I grew up in a United Methodist family and was introduced to Christianity in that tradition.  Feeling a strong call to professional ministry as a teenager, it was only natural to pursue such a life-style in the United Methodist institution.  In 36 years of ordained ministry I have been privileged to participate and lead in a denomination that stands for many values I continue to hold essential to the Christian life-style, including:

-In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus we see the incarnation of the One God of all people.  All people.

-We don't take the Bible literally and we don't take it lightly.  This sacred text is best understood within the context of history.  Its interpretation and application is found in the dynamic relationship of faith.  God did not stop speaking when the scriptures were canonized in the 4th century.  It is the "living word of God."

-Our default is grace.  Doctrine and dogma are secondary to compassion.  People are more important than rules and regulations.

-With the conviction that God is at work in our worship sacraments (Holy Communion and Baptism) we offer them to all people, not just church members, not just the pious, not just the "understanding."  Such grace cannot be regulated or restricted by human-created institutions.

-We celebrate, welcome and nurture a diversity of worship expression, theological thought and cultural/ethnic participation.  We do not insist on conformity.

-We are not in this life alone.  The power of spirituality flourishes in community.

-We are a global church, with interests and convictions beyond our own ethnic/nationalist concerns.

-We exist as an institution to welcome and nurture disciples of Jesus, not as an end in itself, but for nothing less than the transformation of the world.  The promised future of God...a society of love, peace and justice...is the spirit that frames our present.  When we pray "...thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" we mean it.  We advocate for and serve in a myriad of social efforts that will contribute to that day.

-The only religion that really matters is the one you live.  How we treat each other is how we treat God.

I have given my professional life to promote such ideals.  The rewards for me and my family have been enormous as a result.

Such principles have motivated me to oppose my denomination's restrictions on the full participation of self-avowed homosexual people in the life of the church since first legislated in 1972.  Publicly affirming members of the LGBT community currently may not be ordained as our clergy nor hold committed relationship celebrations in our church.  They are labeled "of sacred worth" and also "incompatible" as Christians in the confusion of our official language.  (Please note that as long as LGBT clergy stay closeted they are welcomed and honored as our leaders.  There are many such folk doing just that at a great price.)

Such blatant prejudice violates many of the principles that I hold dear about being a Methodist.  The recent General Conference (April 23-May 4, 2012 in Tampa, Florida), our quadrennial governing council, even defeated a proposal "to agree to disagree" over the issues of the full inclusion of the LGBT community in the life of the church.  The majority would seem to be saying, "We don't want to hear from the minority position on this matter, please go away!"

So why do I stay?

Being the "loyal opposition" has been my justification in hopes of contributing to that day of full inclusion, but that won't happen anytime soon, at least in my lifetime.  Oddly, I did not have great expectations for any significant changes during the 2012 General Conference but that a Methodist proposal quoting John Wesley "to agree to disagree in love and grace for each other" was defeated, leaves me stunned.  This pastor won't be so "loyal" in opposition anymore.

I stay to stand in solidarity with my colleagues, Bishops and laity who continue to courageously advocate for the day of full inclusion.  

But I have no delusions about reforming this institution.  It will happen in its own time. 

I stay because thirty to forty years from now when full inclusion of the LGBT community in the life of the UMC is a given, and we look back at this painful time...as we now look back at the days when women weren't fully ordained or the thought of electing an ethnic minority Bishop was an impossibility...I want my grandchildren to know that at least I wasn't silent.

I stay because I am privileged to serve the precious people in my congregation and community and I will continue to do so as God gives me the grace and strength to do so.

Christmas Morning: April 17, 2012

Cracking the door of a ceramic kiln is a moment of high expectation, anxiety and joy. 

A potter works for days, if not months, to form and glaze the work that will fill a kiln.  Learning how to do such a process can take a lifetime or the rookie frenzy of a "Pottery 101" class.  Novice or master, for the potter, opening a kiln, gas, electric or wood for that matter, big or small, is a moment of transcendent surprise.

Now, one would expect such romantic projections from a 40 year pastor-potter.  I tend to find the "spiritual" in just about anything and unapologetically confess that I am looking for it.  With that kind of presupposition any conclusion of mine is biased.  Yet upon opening "The Flying Z" wood burning, Tamba kiln of Dick Mackey at Canyon Creek Pottery in Northern California I sensed "something more than..."

There was something more there than the results of 40 hours of stoking, wood chopping and air-to-fuel-to-heat ratio adjustments by three life-long potter-friends.  There was something more than the hard and heavy labor it takes to prepare the kiln, its shelves and fuel before even lighting a match.  There was something more to discover on the initial view of the pots, mugs, bowls and jars that glistened in the heat as we opened the first section of the main door.

An engineer would deconstruct the chemical interaction of the clay and glaze properties as they interacted with heat and time that results in 'such-and-such' effect on a piece...or not.  A chemist could explain why metallic crystals are formed in the surface of the glassy silica under such conditions as oxidation and reduction in a kiln environment.  A novice potter could describe to a visitor the general process that results in a small work of functional art out of a lump of clay.  But none of that information... knowledge...truth.... really begins to express what one sees as they open the door of a kiln for the first time.

There is "something more than" at work.  There is a transformation in the fire that goes beyond mere rationality and logic, although both have directly contributed to the process from the start.  All of the varying inputs made to that moment, or that one single piece of pottery, can't explain the transcendent creativity of the fire.  Reducing it to numbers and formula doesn't describe beauty.

The modern mind has reduced truth to what we can measure and weigh, what we can reproduce in controlled conditions.  As important as the scientific method is there is "something more than" at work.  That's true of an art process, a relationship, one's sense of self, whatever.  Reducing life to the evolution of the chemical/biological interactions of self-conscious beings may be completely accurate but it doesn't begin to define the moments of our living.  There is "something more than" at work.

One can dismiss such a conclusion as the self-justification of a theologian.  But the next time you stand in awe of a sunset, or the giggle of an infant, or the helping hand of a friend take a breath and suspend that logic that seeks to limit such moments with what you and I can understand.

 

And. Be. With.

Our potter crew uses the affectionate term for the moment of cracking a kiln door as "Christmas Morning"; as like the joy and excitement of a child rushing to open Christmas presents under the tree in the warmth and affection of a family.  Whatever ideal you may hold for the surprise of transformation, for the unexpected discovery of "something more than" at work in your life, may such moments be many and full.