July 1: the Seventh Day: Why I Voted Yes

By now I am certain you know.  You know the Episcopal Church has passed a resolution to provide Marriage Rites for all couples--gay or straight.  You know the Episcopal Church has passed a resolution to change the canon to provide for Marriage in the Church for all couples---gay or straight.  Marriage is marriage in the Episcopal Church, not gay or straight, just marriage.

First of all, let me acknowledge that this is very painful for some of our brothers and sisters in Christ---perhaps some in your parish, my parish, and for certain, some in our Diocese and the greater church.  I regret their pain. It saddens me, and I deeply wish it were not so. But, as someone who voted for both resolutions to pass, and as someone who spoke for these resolutions to pass, let me explain why. 

While we in the Episcopal Church lean heavily on Scripture and Tradition to create our understandings of God and our relationship with God, sometimes we arrive in different places.  And the two opposing views about Scripture and Tradition on this issue have been conversing for 40 some years, and there is still a gap between our understandings on this issue.    

First of all, I take Scripture and Tradition both very seriously. And I have faith that those who disagree with me take both seriously as well. However, I do not think we will close the gap between our understandings on this issue through Scripture or Tradition.  I don't know if it will help the conversation, but here is how I got to where I am.

• In Genesis, God declares all of Creation to be very good.
• God declares Adam (which means humanity in Hebrew) should not be alone; we were made to be in relationship.
• God made a complementary partner for Adam---as Adam says: "Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone!"  Adam remarks that it is their humanity made in the image of the divine which makes them meant for one another. (Complementarity comes in many forms--not simply gender)
• The first covenantal couple we have in Scripture was a male and female.
• They were told to be fruitful and multiply.  I am certain at one time, the context of the people meant for this to be understood as: make more babies!  But with a world population that is out of control, too many children without parents or families, and a world beset with hunger and poverty, I truly do not believe that the God of life is still calling us to make more babies for the sake of the life and sustenance of God's people.  In our context (with poverty, drought, and the number of children neglected and orphaned), I believe God still calls us to multiply, but to multiply in building disciples who will care for these we are leaving behind.  
• In Leviticus, the admonitions against homosexual acts were spoken in a context of ritual behavior.  When we discuss marriage or relationships between same-gendered couples, we are not talking about a ritual behavior, but a relationship.  When we talk about other admonitions in Leviticus: planting two different kinds of seed in the same field, wearing a garment of two different materials, lying, eating raw meat (with blood in it), or "rounding off the hair on your temples," we recognize that these no longer apply for the context in which we live, and so we do not think that if we actually do one of these things (even the lying that is also found in the big 10) that we should be denied the ability to live out our true and full personhood. 

One piece of Scripture that isn't always taken in consideration in this debate is found in 1 Samuel, chapter 18.  Here we have another covenantal couple to consider: Jonathan and David.  "Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul." ---1 Samuel 18.

• And then we have Paul.  He is against homosexual acts---acts that, in his time, were about subjugating one person for another person's pleasure.  Now, I happen to be against those types of sexual acts as well---and they come in heterosexual and homosexual varieties.  But Paul wasn't considering covenantal, sacramental relationships; Paul was dismissing harmful sexual acts.
• Jesus said (in Matthew and Mark): “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’?  
• In fact, one of the Bishops brought this passage up in the House of Bishops' discussion the other day before they voted on the resolutions.  And then the Bishop said (and I paraphrase): That is what Jesus said. If he wanted to include other types of relationships, if he wanted to include same-sex relationships, he could have done so.  But he didn't.
• Here is where the Bishop who spoke (not my Bishop, by the way) and I disagree. You see I believe that Jesus has spoken, in particular, about this issue. I believe Jesus has spoken to our misunderstanding of this issue through our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. If they are Living Members of the Body of Christ (which we believe baptized people are), then they are speaking to their experience of what it means to live out a full and authentic personhood as a person who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer/questioning. I can't speak to that; I am not a lesbian or bisexual or transgender or queer/questioning. So I/we must listen to them.  When those of us who are not a part of this section of the Body of Christ speak to it, we are only speaking of our understanding, our belief. They are speaking to their lived experience.  They are telling us what it means to be the "LGBTQ" member of the Body of Christ. Yes, God is revealed in Word, but also in the incarnation---God made flesh. Our LGBTQ brothers and sisters are the Living members of the Body of Christ telling us that they too are called to live in covenantal, sacramental relationships. 
• So in the end, it comes back to Genesis (doesn't it always?).  God believes all of Creation and all God's created to be very good.  God made us to live in relationship; holy relationships with one another.  God asks us to multiply---I believe to multiply these holy relationships.  Because the more and more of God's created who live in covenantal relationships--which call us to turn outward toward the other rather than inward in self-centered love--the more and more this becomes God's Kingdom Come, God's will be done.
• I give thanks to God that the Episcopal Church has taken the necessary steps to tear down the obstacles that have prevented so many of our brothers and sisters from fully experiencing the grace of these Holy relationships.  
• I pray for our brothers and sisters who are hurt/angry/saddened by these actions.  I pray that they will not leave.  They are a member of this Body of Christ as well.  We need them, and they need us.  "Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone!"

These are my thoughts and beliefs as I can express them right now.  I may change my mind at some point; I may be wrong.  The best I can do is to continue to listen and discern, to grow and to change, and to leave my heart and mind open to the movement of the Spirit. If I am to err, I try to err on the side of inclusion in hopes that my acts and beliefs will draw more and more people to their rightful place in the Body of Christ instead of leaving someone behind. The good shepherd leaves the 99 in order to bring home the one.

So now, my friends, let us continue to be about the work of God in our world.  Let us turn our hearts and our minds, our gifts and our resources toward the continued healing of the world: rebuilding Black Churches that have been burned, providing clean water to our African brothers and sisters who live in drought, unoccupying Palestine and finding peace in the Middle East, feeding the hungry/sheltering the homeless/clothing the naked/caring for the sick everywhere.  Let us love God and love our neighbor and change this world as we know it. Love Heals Every Body (www.thistlefarms.org) One act, one word, one prayer at a time.

Peace and blessings, Mother Jane