General Convention 2003: Doing What is Right in Our Own Eyes
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 18) - September 7, 2003
By The
Very Rev. James Hubbard, Dean Interim
- Isaiah 35:4-7a
- Psalm 146:4-9
- James 1:17-27
- Mark 7:31-37
(From The Lectionary Page)
Our world continues to reel following the decisions made around the issue of same sex relationships at the General Convention in August. Those decisions both accepted the same sex relationship of Canon Robinson of New Hampshire and his partner as a relationship befitting not only a bishop, but a Christian and they gave recognition, subject to the diocesan bishops, that other such relationships may receive the blessing of the Church.
I wish to address three matters in this homily. The first is my own understanding, the second is reflection on the implications of these decisions for the wider church, and third, how we proceed as Christians without agreement on this matter.
First, my own understanding of Holy Scripture. From the beginning God made man and woman. It was suggested in that early Hebrew understanding that woman was made from the very bone of the man. They were created in tandem, if you will. The shape and construction of their bodies were complementary and one of their chief functions was reproduction. From those beginning understandings marriage of a man and woman was understood to reflect the image of God. That is, one without the other was not a full reflection of the love and nurturing care of the one God. In the Christian testament this was understood, accepted and expanded so that marriage of a man and woman reflects the union of Christ and Christ’s Church in the world. That is the basis of the Judeo-Christian understanding of acceptable sexual relationship. It was not because every other possible permutation was not present. They were present and they were clearly and decisively rejected (Gagnon, 2001, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, p. 358). We see it as far back as Genesis (18:22 and probably Genesis 9:20-27; Genesis 19:4-11) Leviticus 18:22 and reflected in Paul (I Cor 6:9) and in other authors (I Timothy 1:10) of the New Testament. We see it in Christ’s clear affirmation of marriage and his rejection of the putting away by men of their wives without giving them a writ of divorce. We see it in Paul’s mention of homosexual sex as being unnatural and unacceptable (Romans 1:26-27) as was all sin as defined in scripture. Adultery, greed, bullying, kidnapping free people to sell as slaves, the putting away of the wife of your youth, the worship of false gods and much more was seen as unacceptable. It is from these Judeo-Christian writings, not least the ten commandments, that we have every notion of sin. For us to begin to change the nature of that understanding because of personal experience, sympathy, empathy or cultural pressure is a matter of grave concern for in so doing we begin to call ‘not-sin’ what has been revealed by God as ‘sin.’
It is axiomatic that God cannot contradict Godself. Either God’s standards are revealed in scripture or they are not. If God’s standards are found there, then our personal ideas which contradict scripture are simply wrong. If the scriptures are just another collection of writings, or a collection of writings which you and I personally must sort out, then it is anybody’s guess as to what is right and what is wrong. Yes, the scriptures must be interpreted, but in doing so that interpretation takes into account what the scriptures say for themselves and what the Church has said for 2000 years. It has been years since I have heard in the Episcopal Church, any discussion of our present topic from the scriptures, taking with seriousness the witness of writers from both the Hebrew and Christian testaments. If God is revealed in scripture and God through Moses, Jesus and the apostles declare what sin is, then no vote in Minneapolis carries any weight in changing that. In declaring such behavior, and remember we are talking about sexual behavior, not sexual orientation, in declaring such behavior as acceptable before God we are saying that this vote by a few hundred lay people, priests and bishops is to be regarded as overriding what most Christians regard as the clear witness of scripture. Stephen Carter in his novel The Emperor of Ocean Park writes a telling line. “The Episcopalians…don’t understand…that the church is steward and custodian of moral knowledge, not its originator! They think they are free to change whatever they want to fit the fashion of the moment!” [p. 56]
We take what has been revealed as sin and create the fiction that it is not. In so doing we take from the sinner the possibility of repentance, forgiveness and loving wholeness in the presence of God for which purpose Christ died. What each of us longs for is to be lovingly accepted by God through Jesus Christ. The sadness I feel in preaching this sermon approaches my grieving in needing to preach it in a Christian Church. But like Paul who addressed incest in the Corinthian Church (chapter 5) it is now necessary. In over twenty years of Christian ministry, and loving ministry with homosexual persons in every place I have ever been, it has never before been necessary. Let me now be quick to say, that I do not expect every Christian to agree with me. Wonderful heterosexual and homosexual Christians do and will continue to disagree with this understanding of scripture. I may not understand how that can be so, but I do understand that it is so, and I respect them as Christian brothers and sisters.
Second, what are the implications of these decisions for the wider church. Someone told me three weeks ago of a group of black Baptist pastors on the steps of City Hall here in Kansas City praying and protesting the General Convention’s decision for Canon Robinson’s consecration as a bishop of this Church. What? What is this about? It is about the fact that all churches have been touched and affected, have been called into question in the minds of their own people and in the public mind by this action.
Many years ago, it may well have been in 1981, I was privileged to visit the home of Henri Nouwen, the well-known Roman Catholic priest and writer, who later, by the way, wrote of his own homosexual leanings. Fr. Nouwen had invited that evening an Eastern Orthodox seminary student to make a presentation about his Church to the gathered class made up of people of several Christian groups—Roman, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant. The young man gave a wonderful view of his church and then Fr. Nouwen invited questions. It was in the heyday of women’s ordination and a young Lutheran woman asked the Orthodox man why his church refused to ordain woman. I will never forget the gist of his response. “Oh,” he said, “the Orthodox Church has no problem with the ordination of women." “What do you mean?” the questioner shot back. “I mean” said he, “that when the Church again meets in Council and approves women’s ordination, the Orthodox Church will have no difficulty with that.” That the Church has not met in Council since the fourth century was only indicative for him of the Church’s sinfulness in its divisions. It also said what a high view of the Church he and presumably the Orthodox Church holds and the need we have to address serious theological and doctrinal matters together. Division is one thing; redefining the faith with the rest of the Church in absentia is another.
We are a small church. We claim only 2.3 millions in this country and knowing the state of membership numbers in every Episcopal congregation I have ever served, I would be shocked to think we had more than a 1.5 million members in reality. We are smaller than the official definition of a sect. Using either figure we are an insignificant body numerically in our own Anglican communion to say nothing about in the Church in the U.S. and in the world. But like George Bush going to war in Iraq regardless of UN opinion, regardless of world opinion, regardless of half or more of this country, regardless, as is clear now, of the facts of its necessity, George Bush went to war. So the Episcopal Church in the United States has pressed ahead without careful consideration of the Roman Catholic, the Orthodox, the broad mass of Protestants, and sad to say our own Anglican brothers and sisters views on these matters. Obviously, those at General Convention thought it was worth it. The majority of the Christian world does not agree, including many in our own Episcopal Church in the United States, and yes in this congregation. People are in pain, old abuses have come to the surface, there is a loss of a sense of being firmly rooted in Scripture and therefore ‘doing what is right in our own eyes.’ The implications for the wider Christian communion have only begun to be seen.
Finally, how we go forward as Christians without agreement needs consideration here at the Cathedral as well as in the wider Episcopal Church. First of all, I beg of you do not leave. It is only together that we can work out our salvation. Believing as I do, still scores of times I have taken communion to gay and lesbian individuals and couples. I am at the moment remembering two elderly ladies who were pushed side by side in their perambulators by their mothers. They were life long friends and lived together as lovers for all of their adult lives. One was Roman Catholic, the other Episcopalian. They received the sacrament from me on many occasions, the Episcopalian sometimes spilling out her agony as to whether she was acceptable in the eyes of God. Of course she was loved by Christ. At the deepest level of her being that is who she was, and in the sacrament they received nourishment, healing and hope. The Episcopalian was hospitalized and I went to their home and took the Roman Catholic partner to see her in the hospital, moved to tears myself at the joy and sadness in their eyes as they embraced each other over that hospital bed and knew that their time together was coming to a close. It is not my place to judge another human being. I am personally convinced about what the Scriptures say. Beyond that understanding it is neither incumbent upon me to judge or excuse. I leave that in God’s hands and yours. I must preach and teach the truth I have been given; I cannot be responsible for its being lived out except in my own life.
I remember the young transgendered person who lived with my family, my wife and my children and me, for, I guess six months or more working out his salvation in the church and in relationships. I was with him when he poured out his humiliation and fear when on the job he was discovered in the men’s room with no male organ. I knew his confusion, his torment and his sincerity. For the Christian our identity must first of all be Jesus Christ; gender identity or any other identify must follow in obedience to that. This is a hard word. We all remember from Luke 18 the rich young ruler coming to Jesus asking what he must do. Finally, Jesus says “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have…Then come, follow me.” That was a hard word. To each of us at some point comes the hard word from Jesus. To follow Jesus will cost us everything. Whatever it is that we wish to hold on to, and that is true for every person in this room, that we must leave behind to follow Jesus. And Jesus will leave us to it. That is, as with the rich young ruler, Jesus leaves the person free to decide. There is no coercion, no berating, just a very clear choice. The young man, Luke reports, was not angry, nor defensive, just sorrowful as he trudged away, for he was very rich.
We are in this together. Every person no matter what his color, her financial background, his sexual orientation, her educational achievement is welcome in this parish church. If there is backlash over the General Convention decisions, as it appears there is in other places, let it not come here. Let us find a way to support each other, to respect each other, to seek Christ together in repentance, for forgiveness and in conversation as a community which expresses the joy of redemption. I don’t have the answers for working out such acceptance, but our God does. Each of us alone and together must find those answers in prayer and loving through and beyond the barriers of our differences. Each o us has the tendency to want to talk with those who agree with us. It is so very difficult to have open conversation with someone who disagrees with us.
In the past the Episcopal Church has been a large house accepting great diversity with considerable respect. Whether we can now proceed with that same civil spirit remains to be seen. In the movement toward this decision over the past 15 or 20 years civil disagreement and real dialogue have not proved possible. Perhaps now that these decisions have forced these differing views into the public arena more dialogue will be possible. What is very clear is that the decision made in Minneapolis, civil or no, has not settled this issue in the Church. I extend the plea that each of us together find the way to go forward into a future filled with the grace and the love of God, not hiding our differences, nor berating others for not accepting ours, but always with open arms accepting those with whom we are in communion in Christ. For what does being loved by Christ mean if we cannot love in return? Civility may have been enough in Minneapolis. In this place we must go beyond civility to loving, caring respect. Am I saying that sin does not matter? Oh, no. It matters. But so does the sinner, and that person is first of all me, and if you are honest in your heart each of you will recognize the sinner in yourself. Let us not hide our own sin behind words of attack or denial, but confess it and find welcome in Jesus Christ, whose arms are open and never closed. Amen.
