I was following, almost as a tangent last week, the story of the latest convocation of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in their decision to put off a decision on same-gender couple marriages for another two years of study (no big surprise there: large denominations tend to make canonical change at glacier speeds.) What was most surprising, though, was that the church DID approve the ordination of (outwardly) Gay-Lesbian people to the ministry in that church (no notes made for Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer.)
My thoughts went immediately to the ongoing hemming and hawing of the Anglican Communion sic following the 2003 installation of V. Gene Robinson+ as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. That was a point in the ongoing life of the Episcopalians when the canonical Manna hit the fan.
What followed was years and years (and still going on) of schismatic sand-kicking as rogue bishops pulled entire dioceses away from the Canons of the Episcopal Church. Separated the church in the United States from the Archbishop of Canterbury and turned many large chunks of Africa against us.
The Anglican Church of Canada joined in proclaiming the ordination of Lesbi-Gay ministers, and opened arms to the legalization of gay marriage in Canada. And for that stand, they took their place with the American church on the spanking stool. Fights became ugly and personal.
I had that moment of “Instant Discernment” when I heard an NPR interview with one of the opposing Bishops, Bob Duncan in Pittsburgh (since removed himself from the Episcopal Church) who was my chaplain at University in North Carolina. The words he spoke of American Episcopalians being a “broken people” cut so deep into the marrow of my bones that I (literally) stood up from my desk, shouted “Oh the HELL no!” at my speakers, as if the man was sitting in front of me, and, dusting off my neglected religion, my butt was in a pew at my home church the next day. And there I stayed until the cancer and the chemo kept me at home, worshiping from afar.
That moment was a deciding moment for me. Already ordained years earlier, and sort of put to the side while I had to do what I now see as my “growing up time,” I jumped into church, I jumped into graduate school, and continued studying and studying more, as long as my health would allow. I made it (just barely!) through two Doctoral programs: the first in Divinity, specializing in Hymnody (the study of hymns and church music as a non-musician) and in Preaching and Pulpit Communications. That last one was very tough, for as the chemo drugs got stronger and stronger, it took away my skills at public speaking, short term memory, and instead gave me a bad time of losing my place in mid-sentence.
Nobody wants a preacher who cannot speak.
You’d think that would be a depressing moment, as I had to step out of my Third program: an advance psychology program over 2 years in the field of Spiritual Direction. The travel involved in the program kicked me out. However – after a couple of Divinity degrees and a psych degree at University, and experience with nearly every possible religious / spiritual slant, and dealing for years with angry LGBT people who are totally anti-church, I was set to get into the field and run with it.
Who knows – maybe it’s time to re-enroll in the program!
Which brings me around to the Presbyterians, and the sacrifices that lay ahead. And about my old buddy Dietrich Bonheoffer. Please note that what follows has nothing to do with my own thoughts on the ordination of Lesbi-Gay folks (duuuh! I think you could figure that one out!) but about the ‘bigger picture,’ so you can’t read this as my preaching either for OR against the decision.
The Presbyterians and nip and tuck with the Episcopalians for which is the smallest mainstream Protestant denomination in America. Worse: as of 2006 data, the Presbyterians were LOSING ground in membership, while the Episcopalians were just barely inching up. I doubt that is still true, given all the problems within the Episcopal church.
The leadership and the laity of the Presbyterian church had to know about all the problems their Anglican brethren had, and must have realized that to allow the ordination of Lesbi-Gay ministers could trigger a schism within the church. To do so could splinter the small denomination, and (potentially) mean the end of the Presbyterian Church (USA) as we know it today.
Yikes!
If you were a voting delegate on that day, beyond your own conscience on the issue (and that of your congregation and your Presbytery, who you’d be representing), how would you feel making that vote, if the possibility was there that it could destroy your church?
One of the most often cited ideas in Dietrich Bonheoffer’s THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP is his concept of CHEAP and of COSTLY grace.
- “cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance,
- baptism without church discipline.
- Communion without confession.
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”
“costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.“
Late in my career working with business groups an doing goal setting training, and teaching them how to compose (or fix) their corporate mission statements, I introduced the concept of the “Sacred Goal.”
This is a tough sell to hard-shelled business people who don’t want to mix words like “Sacred” into their profit and loss, their corporate growth, and building highly- productive work teams. And the goal itself is the antithesis of growth, profit, and productivity. And it makes them stop and think outside their own sales pitch.
The sacred goal is:
If everything around you fails. If your business model fails, if you lose all your money, if they padlock the doors, if you lose all your employees, even if you get busted and go to jail, then what is it that you want to attain with your company (your group, your team, whatever) that is positive?
Asking folks to face ultimate destruction of their company/work team and find something (anything!) positive is tough. As Bonheoffer says, the walk of grace is not easy.
I thought about Costly Grace when reading the stories about the Presbyterians. It’s very possible that the folks who voted in favor of gay folks’ ordination could be signing a death sentence for the viability of their entire church. And yet…
Where is our grace without discipleship? Where are we without the cross? And where are we if we chose to take the Easy Way Out and not go the full pathway of our covenant? Where would we be if we chose to step around that Yoke, and ignore that Burden just to play it safe?
To the determent of some of our fellow Christians, we are often called to the ministry of God.
Whatever happens in the future (and two years from now when the Presbyterians re-consider permitting the blessing of same-gender marriage) is out of our individual hands. It’s left to the discernment of that denomination. It’s up to the providence of the Maker.
When it comes time to make that Sacred decision of what to do, even if it means the loss of that which is close to us, in that moment, in the silence of our meditations we find the tough grace. We find that what we pay for the costly grace is nothing, compared to the Good we have done for the rest of the world.
Had it not been for that (former) Bishop and his ugly Saturday morning statements, I would not have jumped up from that chair and been in a pew the next day. All those Growing Up Years would have been (spiritually) wasted.
Often when facing oblivion, we find the true peace: the grace we need to move on to the next step.
Keep the faith!
- Amen
Tags: Christians, compassion, discipline, grace
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