Enough Excuses!

Ever wish you had the power to blast a village to smithereens?  One minute everything is peaceful and quiet, the next, boom, There goes Athabasca, or whoops that was Smith, or kablam Boyle, whomp so much for Colinton, and maybe if it’s been a particularly rough day, what the heck, let’s do away with Edmonton altogether.  Who needs them, right?  Or maybe set our sights really high and boom! Toronto is no more.  Good riddance, right?  Who needs them?

There certainly is biblical precedence for such things – Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed in fire, according to the Genesis story because their citizens were angry at the thought of having foreigners in their midst.  Elijah destroyed the messengers of a king he didn’t like, and slaughtered the prophets of Baal when he won a prayer showdown.  So it wasn’t like Jesus and his disciples didn’t know about holy smiting, dare I even say holy hand grenades, but Jesus rebuked his disciples and hurried on.

There are enough stories of Jesus encountering the Samaritans that ended more positively that I wonder why this time had such a negative reaction.  Remember the Woman at the Well?  Some bible scholars think it was Jesus focusing on getting to Jerusalem, and it was this urgency that led to the Samarians rejecting him.  They too worshipped using the Torah, and the teachings of Moses were very important to them.  However, they disagreed vigorously on where to worship.  Jews worshipped at Jerusalem, while Samaritans worshipped at Mount Gerizim, where Joshua was reported to have crossed into the Promised Land with the followers of Moses after their escape from Egypt.  So it could be that the Samaritans were open to Jesus teaching until he turned his face to the Holy City.  Then their gloves came off.

And the disciples, used to warmer welcomes or maybe feeling resentful and scared at having to go ahead of him to a Samaritan village, lost their tempers.  Were they afraid of the Samaritans?  Were they frustrated that their preparations were wasted?  Were they mad that Jesus spoiled it by talking about Jerusalem?  Were they feeling snubbed by not being treated with dignity worthy of rabbinical disciples?

Whatever they were feeling, they certainly weren’t feeling loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle or self-controlled.  And they certainly didn’t feel like loving their neighbours.  ‘If we hate them, God must hate them too’.  They were feeling quite human!

Haven’t we all been there?  Had those moments of thinking, ‘darn I wish I had something witty to say that would have put him or her right in their place’, or ‘I’ll show them!  Don’t know how, but I will.”  And in a small town, it’s really tricky.  As I only half-jokingly said to Tim when we first drove up to Athabasca, ‘be nice to everyone you meet, they might be related to someone at the grocery store who is packing your eggs for you.  Last thing you want is to find your egg carton under a sack of flour because you were rude to a waitress the night before.”

Small towns are challenging when you are angry at someone.  If you passionately love the River Rats Festival, for example, but can’t stand someone on the board, what do you do when their family works at BuyLow?  Often in towns, people don’t try to work things out, they just quietly stop going to the club or the committee.  They might grumble behind peoples’ backs to their friends but they won’t try to work things out.  They drop out of the Bowling league or the Golf tournament, and never say why.  And sometimes the resentment builds.

It’s a very human reaction.  Unfortunately, it can have some terrible results.  Toronto’s Gay Pride celebration was marred when some people decided to attack others because they felt they had the right to do so, wearing t-shirts with slogans like “read the Bible, repent and be born again”.  And in Hamilton too, there was a deliberate intent to inflict harm during the Pride event.  How people can bring a baseball bat to a parade in the name of Christ who taught us to love our neighbour, forgive our enemy, and pray for those who hate us, is a mystery I am bewildered by.  But it happens.

There have been surveys and studies done suggesting that the average high school student is less empathetic than they were a few decades ago.  That there is a sense among immigrants and minorities that they are less safe in Canada and the USA than they once thought they were.  There are children and infants living separated from their parents in appalling conditions in the US. 

One black pastor wrote that if there was even the slightest whiff that he had approached someone in a sexually inappropriate way, he would lose his job, yet the President of the United States is on record as saying horrible sexist things, has court cases pending against him and still has a high enough approval rating from his voter base that he might get a second term in office.

It boggles the mind.  So many excuses are given as to why we let such bad behaviour go.  It’s especially heartbreaking when it is done by Christians.  Jesus wasn’t calling us to insult our neighbours, judge our neighbours or even attack them.  Yet all too often we fall into an us vs them attitude and have a ready excuse to blow our tempers, get angry, yell or sulk or pout.  These are not gifts of the Spirit.  They are not what we are being called to.

We are called to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus.  We are called to be open to the Spirit’s transforming power that builds love, joy, peace and gentleness and generosity and kindness and self control in our lives.  I don’t know about you, but I’m still working on it, and I humbly pray that it will grow in me and in each of you as well.  Athabasca, Boyle, Smith and even Toronto need us now more than ever before.

Healing thoughts on Canada Day

On Canada Day, it’s appropriate to reflect on where we’ve been, where we are, and where we are going.  What vision do we have for our country?  What do we lament, and how do we move forward?  When we look at our lives through the lens of scriptures, what are we called to in our Christian journeys in this land?

The one phrase I hope we never use to describe Canada is “Oh how the mighty have fallen.” I Always thought this came from a Shakespeare play, and didn’t realize that David used these words to lament his friend Jonathan’s death.  What heartbreak he was speaking.  And if we read this scripture in context, in 1 Samuel 18, we can see a family dispute over David’s loyalty.  Saul was struggling with mental illness and David would play his harp to calm Saul.  Then Jonathan met David and the verse says, “When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”  Saul got jealous, started to plot how to kill David and at a memorable family party, Saul swore at his son Jonathan and tried to kill him in front of everyone.  He used his political power to bully and control not just his people, but his own family as well.

When we have families that don’t know how to talk to each other, when we use our power to push people like David and Jonathan into conforming to society norms, when we don’t admit our frailties and our mistakes, things can erupt into civil wars and broken lives.  Countries become full of suspicion, tension, prejudice and hate.

Jesus lived in a country like that, one where temple officials seemed out of touch with ordinary folks.  Jesus could have reacted negatively to the people who asked him for help.  He was approached by both a rich and famous man named Jairus, head of a large household and a poor, unnamed woman full of desperation.  Both came with a humble heart to ask for help.  Both had to be vulnerable in the face of a crowd.  Jairus, despite his status in the community, fell at Jesus’ feet and admitted that he needed help that only Jesus could provide.  The unnamed woman admitted that she, a woman seen as cursed because of her hemorrhaging., had done the unspeakable by touching a Rabbi in public, making him unclean.  Interestingly enough, Jairus, even though he knew Jesus had been touched by the woman, still allowed Jesus into his house to heal his daughter.  Somehow on that journey, Jairus forgot to worry about that, was more focused on being a parent than a temple official.  And maybe just maybe, the unnamed woman came with him on the journey.  Maybe, just maybe, they became a community of faith on the Way.

I wish I could heal people the way Jesus did, especially when I see someone in the hospital who is young and sweet and gifted and loved by many dying of cancer.  The truth is that I can’t, we can’t heal physical diseases the way Jesus did.  Doctors can cure, but not heal.  They too will say that there is no telling who will respond to treatment and who won’t.  Nurses will tell you that they can’t predict whether a patient will live for days, weeks or even months with the final stages of cancer.  But what we can do is come like Jesus did, not to point fingers at sick people, but to be with them and accompany them as best we can, forgiving them if such needs to happen, like Jesus forgave the unclean woman, and hear them when they are vulnerable, like Jesus did with Jairus. To go to them like Jesus did with the young girl, and treat them with respect and love.

In the end, only God heals.  God gives us tools and skills that we can learn and practise.  Those skills of listening, gentle presence, kind actions, prayers and thoughtful touches can bring healing that may indeed be more important than the physical healing we so desperately crave.

 A professor of mine says that the greatest part of suffering is often mental, and that people can endure a lot of physical pain if they have worked on healing their minds, their emotions, their relationships and their community.  Let us remember that our presence can help with the suffering when we open ourselves humbly. In the days ahead, may we be strengthened by God to be bearers of healing presence to the pain we see in our world, our community and our country.

Dissecting cats

(John 9:1-41)

What do we do with the Gospel of John? It’s a challenging book with many bold stories that sound more like fairy tales than history.  There are times when Jesus seems completely unbelievable to modern minds.

Some preacher remarked recently that scripture is supposed to be uncomfortable, complicated and even frustrating.  We’re supposed to wrestle with it and ponder it in our hearts.  Each time we read or hear scriptures, we are bringing our new experiences and understanding to it.  Yes it’s confusing but when we wrestle with its message, we hear what God is saying to us today.

One of my profs had a favorite analogy that is very helpful.  He said that we can learn about the bible like we learn about cats.

How do you learn what a cat is? You dissect it of course.  You find out what muscles are attached to which bones, where the internal organs are and make sure to measure everything.  Once you have described and drawn everything down, you will know what a cat is.  And that’s exactly how bible study was taught for many years. 

My prof continued to say that while dissecting a cat is one way to get to know what it is, we really don’t know it.  We have only gotten to know a dead cat.  If we really want to know what a cat is, we should take a few kittens home, play with them, feed them and find out where they like to be scratched.  Discover what its like to have a purring cat on our laps.  Discover that no two cats look or act the same.  That’s how we’ll learn what a cat is.

Having said that, when our cats are sick, we want to find someone who has dissected a cat to help us figure out what is wrong.  Preferably one who knows what it’s like to have a purring cat on their lap so they have an understanding that our cat is not to be dissected but to be healed.

The bible has some similarities to a cat.  I have studied how to dissect it.  There was a lot going on in John’s world when he wrote his gospel.  He recorded Jesus not as a new Moses for Jews or an amazing Greek Hero for the Gentiles.  He saw Jesus as an intrinsic part of God, the great “I am”.  “I am” first came from Moses talking to a burning bush about the Hebrew people living like slaves in Egypt.  “Who shall I say sent me, oh fiery bush?” he asks and the voice replies, “Say ‘I AM’ has sent you.”  I am is often translated as Yahweh or Jehovah. 

So John is full of Jesus saying 'I am'.  I am the vine, I am living waters, I am the bread of life.  John loved his metaphors and examples.  Jesus is the light of the world, he wrote, and here’s an example.  Once he healed a blind man this way...

So we have dissected the cat a little but we want to make sure it stays alive.  We want it to sit on our lap and purr.  So we ask ourselves what part is annoying?  Who do we relate to the most?  Are we like the blind man, minding our own business, complacent and accepting of our life limitations?

Are we like the Pharisees, wanting to dissect and dismiss the evidence of their own eyes?  Do we want to dismiss Jesus as he disrupts assumptions, disregards rules and runs roughshod over our understanding of who God is?  Do we forcibly reject anyone or anything we don’t understand?

Are we the townsfolk and parents, confused and bewildered at the dramatic changes they’ve seen in this man they know so well?  Wanting a simple explanation that will take away their fear that the world might be more complicated that they thought?  That they were wrong in thinking that the blind man and his parents were sinners who were being punished for doing something God didn’t like?

And what does this story tell us about God?  God brings healing not to someone who deserved it or even asked for it.  The blind man did not repent or even accept Jesus as his personal lord and savior into his heart!  He didn’t ask to see!  He got healed not because he was holy or prayed hard, but to show the world how much God loves the world.

God loves the whole world, even you and me when we’re the blindest, most knit-picky, most rule-bound folks.  God loves us even when we are so blinded by our lives, our childhood, our anger, our fears, our pain our culture that we cannot see past the end of our noses.  God loves us so much that God brought us all together this morning.  God reminds us that we are already healed.  We are not alone, we live in God’s World!

What’s Prayer Got To Do With It?

What’s Prayer Got To Do With It?

You know, there are a lot of dead souls out there, wandering through life living with obsessions and fears and grudges and resentments and depression.  They do not know how to feel joy, but boy, they are good at keeping a grudge going.  Ask them if they are nice friendly people, they would probably agree they were, but if you let them talk, you may find they are fixated with the horrible person who stabbed them in the back or who is a terrible neighbor or just rubs them the wrong way.

They are in the habit of criticising their neighbors, usually behind the neighbors’ backs, and it is not nice to hear them go after someone.  And yet it is so easy to do.  Just ask me about the last time we replaced the fence between our house and the neighbor’s house, and how we ended up solving our dispute about what kind of paint to use.  I’m no saint, and I can still foam at the mouth at the thought of the ‘latex vs oil’ debate that never did get resolved.

So when I hear the disciples grousing about the guy down the road from them who is casting out demons in Jesus’ name, something that earlier in the chapter, they were not able to do, I can really relate.  Especially in a town with lots of different churches.  It’s so tempting to think that we do church better than ‘them’ whoever ‘them’ might happen to be.  But annoyingly, Jesus doesn’t join their side in the resentment match.  “We’re better than he is,” doesn’t cut any dice with Jesus.  And he launches into a long lecture to remind them to keep their minds on the business at hand.  Don’t forget that you are to be salty, and undistracted from what is important, helping children not to stumble, helping community come together to make a difference in the world.  Be flavorful, zesty, tasty, seasoning for life.  Be the sparkle that makes others around us go, “Wow, I want some of that.”

That’s a big tall order.  How do we be zesty when we’re living the average life with the average challenges from family, neighbors, acquaintances and church community?  How do we be sparkling when we’re in the presence of that annoying so and so who goes out of his or her way to be deliberately annoying and vexatious?

That’s where I think the James reading is important.  What are we to be doing? Calling on Jesus name.  Reminding ourselves to pray.  Prayer?  Yikes!  I don’t know about you, but prayer is one of those things we don’t talk about, right up there with talking about sex, our bank accounts, politics and what kind of computer or phone is best.  Dangerous stuff.

And prayer is so nebulous.  It has a huge ‘ick’ factor for many people, who think about prayer as something a ‘holy roller’ kind of guru does.  I must admit that I never gave prayer much thought when I was growing up.  Wasn’t that something that kids were supposed to do on their knees in their nightshirts right before bed?  What if the floor was cold? What if my knees were bony?  So pretty much as soon as I was old enough to get an understanding that there was something called prayer, I was rejecting it as hard work.  Then there were the gurus that apparently could sit cross-legged in the lotus position chanting ‘om’ for hours at a time.  Boring!  Why do that when there was so much more interesting stuff in the world like root beer floats or ice cream sundaes or even boys?

Then there were the embarrassing people who went on and on about how their prayers fixed their lives and made all their dreams come true.  The people who put ads in the paper, like one I remember reading in the 1980’s, “Thank you God for my Mercedes”, or the athletes who thanked God for their Grey Cup touchdown, and so on.  Really?  God gave you a Mercedes?  Why? 

Couldn’t God give the people on Boyle Street a ham sandwich then?  Wouldn’t 5 thousand ham sandwiches do more good?  So praying for stuff seemed pretty silly or selfish or some combination of that.  And it doesn’t help that James makes it sound like all our problems will be solved if we pray.  Jesus prayed that he might not be crucified, and look at how that turned out.

So how do we look at prayer with modern eyes?  The neuroscientists are doing some interesting work on the power of our thoughts to impact our brain chemistry.  They report “The practise of Gratitude produces the same brain chemical as the antidepressant Wellbutrin, dopamine as well as doing what Prozac does, it boosts the neurotransmitter serotonin.  It’s not finding gratitude that matters most; it’s remembering to look in the first place. One study found that it actually affected neuron density in both the ventromedial and lateral prefrontal cortex.”

They have also found that labelling our negative emotions can lessen their impact.  When participants in a study were asked to name their emotion, the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activated and reduced the emotional amygdala reactivity. In other words, consciously recognizing the emotions reduced their impact.  “Dear God, I am so angry at such and such” may actually calm us down.

Even the decision to turn something over to God can help our stress levels.  One of the most powerful prayers we can make is to say, “Oh God, this problem is too big for me.”  But James wants us not to pray just for the sake of ourselves but for our own community.  He wrote, “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” And the you he used in Greek was plural.  Pray for each other so that your congregation, your fellowship, your community, your town will be healed. 

What would Athabasca really look like if we all prayed for every single person in it?  A wonderful place where every flavorful, salty person would be at peace with everyone else in one wonderful circle of love and fellowship.  Let us work and pray for that day to come.  Amen. 

Special Comment on Gay Marriage

This is a very moving clip of a special comment by Keith Olbermann on November 10, 2008 in response to Proposition 8 repealing the rights of Gay couples to marry.

Script:

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love."

Sermon by Rev. Dale Irving on our Affirming Service

Breaking Barriers
Reign of Christ Sunday, November 26, 2006
Scripture: Revelation 1: 4-8, John 18: 33 - 38

Is anybody puzzled by the use of the scripture from John’s Gospel this morning? It actually seems like it is better suited to Good Friday, or Passion Sunday, doesn’t it? However, today is the last Sunday in the long season after Pentecost that is often called “Reign of Christ Sunday” or “Christ the King Sunday”. When I first looked at it, it didn’t really seem appropriate to our celebration of becoming an Affirming Congregation; but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to be exactly the right lesson for today.

Jesus is before Pilate. Here we see the meeting of two empires. Pilate the procurator embodies the power of Rome. Jesus, the prisoner, embodies spiritual power. Pilate, powerful in his official capacity, is personally a weak and insecure person. Jesus, a prisoner without any political or official power, is entirely in control, not only of himself but of the entire situation.

“Are you the King of the Jews?” asks Pilate. The reply he receives must have been startling. "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” It shows no sign of fear or subservience. The question is from equal to equal. The conversation goes on and then Jesus says: “I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” “What is truth?” asks Pilate.

“What is truth, indeed?” Since the earliest days of the Church, the Spirit has continued to teach the Church, and to empower it for witness to the Gospel in a changing world. Once, we accepted slavery, concluding from the Old Testament that people of colour were clearly the sons and daughters of Ham, destined to be hewers of wood and carriers of water. But the Spirit had more to teach us, and that which we once justified from Scripture, we now repudiate. “ What is truth?”

When Sharon and I were at St. Andrew’s United Church in Sydney, there was an honorary elder, who used to tell me whenever he got the chance that the church started to go downhill on the day that women were permitted to become elders, members of the session. There was a day when women were not permitted to attend Church meetings, and most certainly not to hold office and their exclusion was justified on the basis of biblical teaching that the man was to be head of the woman as Christ is head of the Church, and that women are to be silent in church. The Spirit had more to teach us! “What is truth?”

For centuries the Church required in marriage that wives obey their husbands. But the Spirit had more to teach us. Similar justification was later used for the exclusion of women from the Order of Ministry until Lydia Gruchie was ordained in 1936. But it was more than 20 years later that married women were permitted to be in active ministry and be married. The Spirit had more to teach us. And today we welcome women to all aspects of Church life. “What is truth?”

In 1980, the Division of Ministry Personnel and Education of The United Church of Canada was in a panic. Rumour had it that a candidate for ministry was planning to ‘come out’ and declare his homosexual orientation during the final interview leading to Ordination. How would the church respond to this announcement? I, along with seven others, was invited to become part of a Task Group that was to study this matter on behalf of the church and report to the General Council at its meeting in Morden, MB in 1984. It took until 1988 when the church decided that all persons, regardless of sexual orientation were eligible to be considered for ministry. The Spirit had more to teach us. “What is truth?”

We continue to try to discern what the Spirit is saying to the Church in our context and in our time. In 2003, the General Council spoke strongly in favour of supporting equal marriage in order that loving relationships between same-gender partners could be considered as legitimate as heterosexual marriage. Do we accept the Scriptural texts as being both relevant and binding, or does the Spirit have yet more to teach us through modern science and the cries of yet another minority longing for full inclusion in the body of Christ? “What is truth?”

We need the Spirit to remind us of our history - of the trials and struggles that brought into being that part of the Church we have come to know and love. We need the Spirit to teach us that we are now a multicultural family of independent Churches, and that that calls for respect for a variety of responses to the Gospel in different contexts. We need the Spirit to help us understand how the love of God in Jesus Christ is revealed for our time through the record of Scripture. “What is truth?”

Back in the 1980s homosexual people who were part of the United Church of Canada began to ask that they be considered full members to whom all the offices of the church, including ordered ministry, were open. While most people in The United Church would not admit to having anything against gays and lesbians and it was generally agreed that they were perfectly welcome to sit in our pews, maybe even sing in the choir, as long as they didn't draw attention to themselves and make trouble.

When people who are a part of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Communities decided they would no longer settle for this kind of "don't ask, don't tell" toleration, our benevolence was severely tested. We ought never to forget what it cost many people to force us to think about what we did not want to think about and act when we would rather have done nothing.

Gradually the church has started to recognize that the social conventions of the Biblical ages are not the unchanging Word of God. Throughout the years, whenever we have discovered new possibilities for human liberation and for more abundant life, we have eventually embraced them. The Bible prohibits lenders from charging interest, assumes that government is led by kings and that slavery is part of the way things are, that women should be silent and obedient, and that divorce and remarriage are forbidden. But we've seen new possibilities of grace and over time we have been able to change our traditions; however, it has not been without struggle.

We've had conflict and disagreement at every step. Good, sincere, faithful Bible-believing Christians have lined up on both sides of these issues -- Can Gentiles become Christians? Can eunuchs be baptized? Can we allow economic activity fueled by borrowing at interest? Do only kings have a divine right to rule? Shall slaves be free? Shall women serve on Sessions, read the lessons in church, become ministers? Can divorced people be remarried? Shall black people be equal? Can people of diverse sexual orientations be fully a part of our churches?

I believe that the full inclusion of gay people in the life of our church and our society is as inevitable and as God-energized as the full inclusion of the uncircumcised, slaves, women and people of color has been. I believe it is the work of God’s Spirit and it is ultimately irresistible. “What is truth?”

I look forward to the day when children who are different are no longer teased, but are accepted. I foresee a time when all people can date and fall in love and give themselves to another person regardless of their sexual orientation with the full support of their church and an understanding society. I look forward to living in a society when we no longer oppress lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people and people of other sexual identities, so that they feel they must live in closets. I look forward to a day when we draw a wider circle and cross a line that will allow all people regardless of their sexual identity to commit themselves to the church's values and participate fully in all aspects of the church’s life.

Today, in Mill Woods United Church we have crossed a line. Today, old barriers lose their power, old wounds lose their sting. Today, as we gather our collective courage and our good will, healing is possible because we gather to celebrate something larger than ourselves.

Today we celebrate not only that Mill Woods United Church has become an Affirming Congregation within The United Church of Canada, but the love of our God that invites us all to cross the line, to stay back no longer, to step into healing, and into hope and into joy.

Today, we cross that line. Yes, the Spirit still has more to teach us. We will continue to struggle with Pilate’s question “What is truth?” and in so doing we will open ourselves to the possibility that even more barriers can come down and we can more fully become the people God intends us to be in our time and place.

Study of Gems

Here is my first example of a Gem that I don't want to lose track of:

MostlyMike,

Thank you for sharing the study pdf. It has helped me put the commonly quoted sections of the Bible into the proper perspective. For reference, this document discusses:

"There are six Bible accounts that have been used in recent years in reference to homosexuality. These include:

Genesis 1-2 (Creation Account)
Genesis 19:1-9 (Sodom Account)
Leviticus 18:22, 20:13 (Holiness Code)
Romans 1:24-27 (Letter of Paul)
1 Corinthians 6:9 (Letter of Paul)
1 Timothy 1:10 (Letter of Paul)"

(taken from http://truthsetsfree.net/study.pdf)

I have heard Corinthians, Leviticus and Romans used.

It is a bit surprising that Jesus doesn't speak directly to this issue.