At the start of the conversation: Where Sacramental Marriage Equality will place the Episcopal church...

The Episcopal Church has gone about the inclusion of the LGBT community in its own curious way. As we are a prayer book people our process of inclusion has been about allowing the inclusion of LGBT individuals into our prayer book rites. While at some point a hurdle has been placed before every rite in the Book of Common Prayer the two major hurdles for the LGBT community have been that of entering into the rite of Ordination and the rite of Marriage. There might have been better paths we could have taken but I am not sure if, given our strengths and weaknesses as a church, we were actually capable of any other. This path does, however, have ramifications that, on account of our perspective, I am not sure we recognize.

What has been asked from the LGBT community is that the Grace manifested in their lives be recognized and named as such by the Church. That the inward invisible grace alive and well in the LGBT community be placed in the context of the Church’s outward and visible signs. The struggle we have been taking up is that of bringing the church to a point where it is capable of discerning, openly and honestly, the fruits of the spirit that manifest themselves when Christ’s Crucifixion is Proclaimed within the LGBT community. This is the basic struggle the church has encountered throughout history as outsider groups have begun to openly make such proclamations and in so doing call into question things taken for granted by the church.

A trap that we have fallen into repeatedly, in these discussions and others, is speaking about access to the sacraments as inalienable rights. This is simply bad theology. When we are dealing with matters of Sacrament we are dealing with matters of Grace and no individual has an inalienable right to Grace. Grace is the fundamental reality of God’s creating, redeeming, and sustaining us from which the natural order flows and it is upon that foundation that arguments of inalienable rights are then built. One simply cannot build a functioning theology of God’s Grace thats foundation is the inalienable rights of individuals.

The problem is that while the grace denoted within Ordination and Marriage might be the ones that we are most prepared to discern and able to facilitate they only engage the tiniest fraction of the fruits of the spirit manifesting themselves in the LGBT community and the greater LGBTQ+ community. The Q+ signifying individuals whose reality simply is not readily contained within the terms Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender but is also contained neither within heteronormative nor cisnormative contexts. Discussions of Ordination and Marriage allow us to engage and work with members of the LGBT community whose lives generally conform to our preexisting concepts of ordained clergy and married couples. Individuals who are as close to white european heterosexuals as one can be and also be LGBT. It also means that we are primarily focused on LGBT adults.

Now these are good conversations to have, we have to start somewhere and on account of our context as a church these were the conversations that we were going to fall into before all others. The problem is that the church, even at points the LGBT individuals in the church, think this is THE conversation with the LGBTQ+ community. That a church with LGBT individuals being ordained and married is a church inculturated and aware of the Grace of God manifesting itself within the LGBTQ+ community. This is simply, and overwhelmingly, not the case.  

This summer we will be continuing the conversation around wether we will recognize the grace manifest in many same gender couples for what it is, Marriage. Some want space to keep the conversation percolating on local levels, some want local levels to be able to name the grace for what they know it to be, some want the time for this conversation to be over and the recognition of this grace to be Marriage throughout the church. There is a chance that, on the national level, the conversation will be closed. Regardless, however, the local conversation will be far from over.

In some places an end to the conversation on a national level will make the conversation easier on a local level and in some cases it will not. That is the case with any of the outcomes above, and I think what will make the final decision at the end of the day is which of the three possibilities before us will best facilitate further honest and open conversations with the LGBTQ+ community that lead, as we have found them to do, towards the inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals. It is, in my mind, the perpetuation of those conversations that is of utmost importance, far beyond the actual pronouncement around marriage.

What the LGBTQ+ community has within it to transform the Church in regards to its witness about the Grace of marriage is huge. The LGBTQ+ community inherently moves us towards an understanding of Marriage outside of the oppressive gender norms inherent to its use in our history. As the church fumbles towards an understanding of the Grace of Marriage that is not determined by patriarchy it is the queer voice that will be key in the subversion of this gender oppression and the undermining of patriarchy. This is, however, only the smallest of ripples that the LGBTQ+ community has to offer a church willing to be transformed by the grace manifesting itself in our midst as we proclaim Christ Crucified. 

The conversation so far towards the inclusion of the LGBT community in regards to Ordination and Marriage is not THE conversation the church needs to have with the LGBTQ+ community. It is the conversation we needed to have so that we could have in our midst those able to facilitate the actual conversation between the church and the LGBTQ+ community. The LGBTQ+ community is truly diverse, way beyond the spectrum of those individuals whose lives and patterns, like my own, can readily fit into the expected norms of the church. For those of us from the LGBTQ+ community who fit in It is rather easy to forget that the rest of the LGBTQ+ community exists and has overwhelming value for the church. It is easy for those whose only experience of the LGBTQ+ community are the LGBT individuals who readily fit into the church to even know that we are not all that there really is to know. It is easy for us to fall into an echo chamber and think that because we all are hearing the same thing the full conversation is taking place. 

No matter what happens this year at General Convention the conversation will be extraordinarily far from over. The conversation to include the LGBTQ+ community that can readily conform to our general expectations within our norms is the easy one, it is the minor one. The actual conversation is the one ahead of us, the one were we begin to ask not how can the church readily include the LGBTQ+ community in its midst but how can the church be transformed to a deeper and greater understanding of God’s Grace through the unique proclamation of Christ Crucified by Queers. The conversations will be like unto those that tore through the church after the early Jewish followers of the Rabbi Jesus began to be transformed by early Greek followers of the Way of Jesus. It is for those that we must prepare ourselves, more than anything else. 

Will the Body of Christ Proclaim the Crucifixion as One Body? LGBTQ+ Sacramental Equality and the hallowing of the Episcopal Church

A perfect sacramental storm has begun to brew in the Episcopal Church. The various fronts are all meandering towards General Convention where we will discuss, and hopefully reach a resolution, on the issue of full sacramental marriage equality in the church. Meanwhile, however, a local storm is brewing off the coat of Florida, where over the past week the leadership at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Orlando sought to reschedule an infant’s baptism on account of his two fathers. As some are battening down the hatches and others hoping to surf the waves, I find myself reflecting on how this reveals the heart of sacramental theology.

The issue is that sacramental marriage equality is not the same thing as civil marriage equality. The writing of one’s name into the Book of Life at baptism is not the same thing as getting your name in the county records at birth. In cases of civil marriage and one’s name in the county records one is dealing with a situation where the primary reality is that of individual rights and freedoms. There is a corporate reality to it when it comes to access of services, and any undocumented worker or couple seeking the rights and privileges of marriage can fully explain how necessary that corporate reality is, but the argument and focus is on the rights of the individual in pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.

The sacraments of marriage and baptism are different creatures. They are corporate affairs of the Body of Christ. Though the arguments towards respecting the dignity of the individuals involved is an inherent one to our baptismal covenant it is, indeed, a secondary one. When approaching why it is that we should recognize the sacramental nature of an individual in baptism or a couple in marriage the onus of the argument is that of the community recognizing God in their midst present in such. To be clear the sacraments in these cases are about the revealing of the already existing Truth within the individuals to the community of believers for the sake of transforming the community. This is hallowing, the transforming process of sanctification.

In Baptism the community is transformed in the revelation that a member that it did not know was keenly missing is found. In Sacramental Marriage the community recognizes the outpouring of Gods grace within a couple so that they are known as an Icon of the greatest commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself. The community is then called upon to be transformed by these revelations and to consistently support the individuals involved such that they remember that which they are known to be.

The issue that arises is what happens when a community cannot handle the revelation of such an Icon in their midst. This is the earliest of Christian controversies. What occurs when a woman, or a slave, or an uncircumcised proclaims Christ Crucified and names themselves, to a group of freed circumcised men to be an equal part of the Body of Christ. The answer is chaos, strife, argumentation, the breaking apart of the accepted societal norms that were maintaining the peaceful running of the community. Our call as Christian community, however, is to enter into this place of contention and work its way out. To break the rules, as the Episcopal Church is want to do, first and figure out how the Holy Spirit makes it work later. The strife of a community grappling to recognize an unknown revelation of Christ’s love is inherently preferred over the strife that occurs when a community refuses to grapple with the proclamation of Christ Crucified from those it deems unworthy so to do. The onus of the other’s cross, the burden of strife, should always be taken up by the Christian community and never placed upon those seeking to bring a new revelation of Christ’s love.

Gamaliel’s wisdom to the Jewish elders about Christianity holds true to this day for the church. When we hear those proclaiming Christ Crucified we must not burden or silence them but allow them to be for “if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them-in that case you may be found fighting against God!”. (Acts 5:38b-39) The reality is that the Episcopal church has spent over half a century observing the proclamation of Christ Crucified by the LGBTQ+ community within and outside its midst. During that time we have had radical moves of welcome, when St. George’s Episcopal, New Orleans, was the only church to open its doors for a memorial service after the UpStairs Lounge Arson in June of 1973, to the more common acts of rejection such as the recent resending of a baptismal date at the Cathedral in Orlando. What we have found, again and again, is that Christ is with us in the midst of being transformed by the proclamation of Christ Crucified by members of the LGBTQ+ community.

As this storm continues to brew and the fronts collide in Salt Lake City in two months time the question before us is not whether same sex couples have the right to sacramental marriage. It is not whether the children of same sex couples have the right to be baptized in the church. The question before us is whether the Episcopal Church is open to being transformed by the Grace of Christ as revealed in the proclamation of Christ Crucified by the LGBTQ+ community. 

The messiness of the situation, the strife, the pain is not going to go away anytime soon... what we will be deciding is wether we as a church are willing to take up that messiness, that strife, that pain together as one Body in Christ or will we enter into full Proclamation of Christ Crucified with our LGBTQ+ members... or will we continue to persecute in oh so many ways those in the LGBTQ+ community who wish to proclaim Christ Crucified in our midst and in so doing place the onus of the mess, the strife, the pain upon them. My continued prayer is that come July we will be one Body in Christ proclaiming Christ Crucified, sharing our mess, our pain, our strife together as one in a great act of hallowing each other into the new heaven and new earth.  

What is Your Fruitiness Factor? The basis of ethics and morals.

Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
                                                John 15:5-6

A recurring theme, for many, in the realm of morals and ethics is a code of actions, some good but many bad, to which we need a disciplinarian. This is a reoccurring theme in many cultures, Christian ones as oft as any other if not more so. Which is odd because Paul specifically marks that Christians are not to be subject to a disciplinarian. (Gal. 3:25) Perchance this is a verse many have chosen to ignore in the text but for me it is always a rather prominent one.

There is a tendency to hold that a lack of a disciplinary rule leads only to the concept of outright hedonism, “do what you will shall be the whole of the law’. It is the absurd idea that the only reason Christians are good is that they have a stern disciplinarian who will burn them eternally if they do not do what is unnatural and inherently problematic, follow the disciplinarians rule book. It is the absurd idea that those who do not have the carrot of eternal paradise would, for some reason, become hedonistic, self-serving, perpetrators of evil if the carrot disappeared. The only reason for “goodness” is a God with a rod.

There might be a worse place to start a foundation for ethics and morals but an entire doctrine based on shame and threats of violence is decidedly not one of them. Shame never teaches any one anything, at best it halts problematic behavior for a short while but it never changes underlying behavioral norms. Violence, or threats of violence, is an equally bad teacher, as it does not prompt any internal change from within but forces complacency for the sake of survival.

Which is why in one of the earliest surviving Christian texts we have Paul clearly repeating a known truth of the Jewish scripture, now made fully known in Christ, that the point of the law is not that of a shaming and violent disciplinarian and that, indeed, in Christ there is no more need for any disciplinarian. Without a disciplinarian, in Christ, we should recognize that “the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’”. (Gal 5:14) What we should recognize, as Christians, is that abandonment of disciplinary law is not a call to hedonism of self but a mutual call to fullness of self and other in love. Indeed, disciplinary law must be given up because of how readily it prevents us from entering into this mutual call.

If not upon a disciplinary law with shame and violence than on what should be base our morals and ethics. Does this mutual call motif have any form of litmus test? I believe that intrinsically it does and that the scale by which we gauge it is fruitiness, specifically seeking a high fruitiness factor. John notes that Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it abundantly… and that such life in Christ will bear fruit while life away from Christ will be barren. So the questions of morality and ethics are answered by looking at a situation’s fruitiness factor. 

To be clear, as one must, fruitiness factor is not hedonism. It is not about feeling good, being ephemerally happy, having what one wants, material possessions, etc.. Fruitiness factor, abundant life, is about a life that is centered and grounded, a life that leads a person to be aware of their own dignity and the dignity of others, a life with trials and pain but inherently growth and joy as well. It is a life built on mutuality with each other in the love of Christ. When we find that mutuality of living into the whole of the law we encounter Christ’s fruit in the world. When we do not find it we encounter the dried up reality that is life without the love Christ’s has brought to us all.

This is the nature of grace, this fruitiness, a grace that abounds across creation on account of Jesus’ actions. This grace is not contained to those who have been baptized, or had a moment of being saved, or can profess a certain creed, but is a great remaking of the underlying fabric of reality by the Word of God. It is by the work of this Grace, this love that triumphed beyond our warped conceptualizations of morality based on a violent and shameful disciplinary law, that is the foundation of Christian ethics.

So when we look at a situation we no longer ask, does it fit into the laws of the disciplinarians rulebook. We should indeed look at the rulebook, for the rules there are supposed to point us towards the summary of the law, but that is only a place to gauge what is often the case of a situation. The true ask is wether or not there is fruitiness in the situation or bareness. The true ask is does the situation bring a person to a grounded and centered place where they encounter love in Christ, or does the situation bring a person to a place where they feel shame, an absence of God, and the threat of violence unless they conform. We have to put aside what we think makes a grounded and centered place where a person can encounter God's love and actually survey wether or not such is being experienced by the person and those around them. It is only when we allow that mutuality of discernment and recognition of dignity in the others that we truly recognize the Grace of the Word of God in the world and those around us and abandon the rulebook to which we cling in our idolatry of the god of the rod.