a word for my congregation
Jan. 31st, 2010 06:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
memelainaLast September my church, the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) did something that I have been waiting for and praying for my whole adult life - they opened ordination to homosexuals who are either celibate or in a committed relationship (the same restrictions made of heterosexuals). It was a time of deep rejoicing for me. I had watched for ten years as this resolution was discussed, dissected, rejected, and yet, always, it came back - and each time it did more church members, albeit some very reluctantly, opened themselves to support it.
I went to church that Sunday in September looking to share my joy with the members of my congregation whom I know, from personal experience, are loving and giving Christians. I was disturbed, let's openly say I was horrified, to find my beloved pastor telling us sadly but calmly that he did not agree with the church's resolution. I was ashamed when I found that my congregation was agreeing to allow, even encouraging, members to withhold their contributions from the church at large and to donate funds only to our little congregation. The shame built into anger. I was, and am, tempted to leave the congregation.
And yet I do not think that is the solution. These are not bad people. I have seen them act with amazing love and charity in the more than fifteen years that I've been part of this congregation. But they are so AFRAID that it astounds me. They huddle in a corner with their eyes closed and their ears covered while the very breath of God moves through the room where they are cowering.
The apostle John said, somewhat sadly it has always seemed to me, "Little children, love one another." He didn't give a categorical list of times and conditions under which to love one another. He just said "love", knowing that in the final analysis that was the only solution. We, as Christians, as Lutherans, are privileged to live in a time when the Holy Spirit is actively moving among us. How unbearably sad if when we finally meet our God the only explanation we have for our lack of love is "I wanted things to be like they always used to be."
I went to church that Sunday in September looking to share my joy with the members of my congregation whom I know, from personal experience, are loving and giving Christians. I was disturbed, let's openly say I was horrified, to find my beloved pastor telling us sadly but calmly that he did not agree with the church's resolution. I was ashamed when I found that my congregation was agreeing to allow, even encouraging, members to withhold their contributions from the church at large and to donate funds only to our little congregation. The shame built into anger. I was, and am, tempted to leave the congregation.
And yet I do not think that is the solution. These are not bad people. I have seen them act with amazing love and charity in the more than fifteen years that I've been part of this congregation. But they are so AFRAID that it astounds me. They huddle in a corner with their eyes closed and their ears covered while the very breath of God moves through the room where they are cowering.
The apostle John said, somewhat sadly it has always seemed to me, "Little children, love one another." He didn't give a categorical list of times and conditions under which to love one another. He just said "love", knowing that in the final analysis that was the only solution. We, as Christians, as Lutherans, are privileged to live in a time when the Holy Spirit is actively moving among us. How unbearably sad if when we finally meet our God the only explanation we have for our lack of love is "I wanted things to be like they always used to be."
no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 09:55 pm (UTC)From the MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
"Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of Harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an 'I-it' relationship for an 'I-thou' relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful."
What are they afraid of? More and more it seems to me that those opposed to gay marriage simply draw their strength from a definitional argument rather than an empirical one.
-Minds are like parachutes...