Letter to the Editor of the Layman
Responding to: Stockton Presbytery Joins John Knox Complaint
[Re: Ordination of Scott Anderson]
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
Not too long ago, the receptionist at our church called me late at night. There was someone in our foyer in hospital garb, slippers, and a catheter hanging from his arm. We came to find out that he had been in a local hospital for detoxification from alcohol and somewhere in the process simply disconnected himself from the IV and walked out, leaving everything behind. It was a cold night and he came directly to the church. He was pretty disoriented, but we got him some clothes from our clothing distribution room, food from our pantry, contacted the hospital, and got him help in removing the catheter from his arm. We kept him company, making little sense of his ramblings, but after a while, we convinced him to go to a local shelter and get some rest.
He is one of the hundreds we serve each month in our worship as outreach.
A few days later, I saw the gentleman at our weekly dinner program, where we serve almost 100 people a week who have either no food, no company, or no other place to go. I asked him how he was doing, and in conversation asked him what made him come to us when he left the hospital. Without missing a beat, his answer was: "It was where I knew I could find God." For him, on that night, God was a welcome, food, clothing, and help in finding a place to rest. His faith did, indeed, set him free.
It didn't matter that as the pastor of the church I am gay. In fact, being gay in the PC(USA) no longer matters any more than being straight does. People will argue about that, but we, as a church, have already deleted G-6.0106b. It's gone in our hearts and in practice. True, some still find comfort in the same kind of teachings that once held women and people of color to be second-class in God's eyes. However, the reality is that we already work together and serve God as a community of great diversity that includes gender identity fully.
I honestly do wish to continue to dialogue with those who disagree, because I believe they are being faithful in their own ways and we need to pray and talk together. However, those who are unable or unwilling to accept the truth that this artificial division between us is no longer valid cannot be allowed to prevent others who believe differently from full inclusion in this church. The lives of faithful people cannot be divided along gender identity any more than they can along the lines of the sexes or color.
In a short time, we will all gather in Minneapolis for our General Assembly. We will worship together, work together, share meals, cabs, and conversations. We will pray and seek God's will. And, the "we" will include many of us who identify themselves as gay, whether spoken aloud or not. We will agree and disagree. Sooner or later, it will be apparent that, in fact, G-6.0106b has been deleted in the way God has moved this church and its people. Sooner or later, the constitution will catch up. In the meantime, none of us can be held hostage by what we know in our hearts to be wrong.
Like the gentleman who found us on that cold night, there are too many people "seeking God" for us to deny any qualified candidate from ordination based on G-6.0106b.
Scott Anderson is clearly qualified to be ordained. To hold G-6.0106b against him or anyone else is to hold this church hostage to an aberration in our constitution. We no longer allow the few who still hold onto prejudices against women and people of color to hold us hostage to their beliefs, nor should we allow those who have yet to embrace the gay community to marginalize or exclude us.
It is no longer about G-6.0106b.
Sincerely,
Ray Bagnuolo, Minister of Word and Sacrament
Serving Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House
New York, NY
Friday, May 7, 2010
Dear God: Namasthe
I hope today is a little different. I hope I am a little different. I pray that I slow down from the start. That's one of the reasons I write.
I ask that no one be invisible to me; that I don't move so fast; that I don't miss the presence of others; and the ways in which I might be able to help or just smile.
It never ceases to amaze me at the power and impact of a smile.
A little patience, more patience I should say, would also be appreciated.
Let nothing today have to be done so quickly that I miss remembering that you, in all the ways we know you, are in each of us. Let our spirits greet one another, and let us in return smile.
I ask that no one be invisible to me; that I don't move so fast; that I don't miss the presence of others; and the ways in which I might be able to help or just smile.
It never ceases to amaze me at the power and impact of a smile.
A little patience, more patience I should say, would also be appreciated.
Let nothing today have to be done so quickly that I miss remembering that you, in all the ways we know you, are in each of us. Let our spirits greet one another, and let us in return smile.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Dear God: About Arizona...
To pray this morning and think that there are others who will be targets of legal and social marginalization because of how they look - must really cause you to wince.
I wonder if you wonder how long it will take for peoples and nations alike to see one another as the great creation of your Love: equal and part of the great fabric you have woven.
I wonder, too, how you consider the performance of your places of worship in speaking out against this and other forms of marginalization and oppression that serve no purpose except to satisfy the perverse satisfaction of fear-based control.
My prayers are with the people of Arizona, this morning, all of them - and for all of us, who need to put the pressure on - always - to eliminate such blatant forms of discrimination.
How could you have us do otherwise...
Appreciate your help in guiding us...
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Life presevers and flare...
Delivered at Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House
Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 2, 2010
(c)2010 Ray Bagnuolo
How would you Email God?
Recently even Dell has gotten an Email address. So I figured for sure, if Dell had one – God had one, too.
What would God’s Email address be?
Maybe more interesting would be the conversation…
and The Reply!
Annie Dillard [on the front cover of the bulletin] suggests that there might be reason to run for the hills:
“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return." (Teaching a Stone to Talk)
The author of today’s Unison Prayer, Aaron Zeitlin, suggest that it doesn’t matter whether you praise or curse God in your Emails or sing out God’s graces or revile God. Either way, God will know you love God. Based on what Zeitlin says, what you most need to be concerned with is:
…if you sit fenced off in your apathy, says God,
If you sit entrenched in, “I don’t give a hang,” says God,
If you look at the stars and yawn,
If you see suffering and don’t cry out,
If you don’t praise and don’t revile,
Then I created you in vain, says God.
Well, Annie and Aaron are not God’s spokesperson’s but they do make us think. What is the relationship we are to have with God, what does it mean, what does it call us to do, and what of being here in worship?
Michael Lindvall, who is the Senior Pastor at The Brick Presbyterian Church, says the following about worship in his book, The Geography of God:
Worship that does not make you anxious once and again
Worship that fails to stretch your mind and spirit to the edge of discomfort
Is something other than worship.
A little later on, Michael says,
“If you and I enter worship facing anywhere but toward God, the experience may please us, it may inform us, it may comfort us, but it will hardly transform us.”
Transformation, emerging…a NEW JERUSALEM.
There are so many books written about the transforming and emerging churches in the modern, post-modern, information age…
It’s almost like we are trying to get somewhere. If we just get the right formula: Done! Finito! Time to sit back.
Truth is we are not going to be emerged or transformed until we are stunned to one degree or another. Stunned into a moment of clarity and a psychic and spiritual change that is often referred to as the Aha! Moment. However, even that pales in describing what John of Patmos gives us in his visions.
Think of Picasso, Chagal, deKooning Van Gogh…think of Picasso’s Guernica, of Chagall’s American Windows, de Kooning’s Spoletto, or Van Gogh’s The Starry Night…
Visions of art, music, sound, cosmos, eschatological forbodance – all wrapped up in one series of dreams…
All emerging through the discomfort and unease of a Babylon and beast to the NEW JERUSALEM – now on Earth.
“The focus is now on Earth, since this heavenly city has descended to Earth. It is no longer necessary to raise one’s eyes to the sky to see God. Yes, to see a manifestation of God as in all creation, but God is now on Earth.
Where? Look around. This should make us a little uneasy…
And the emergence of God the touch of God is not in the temple – note: no temple has descended. Jesus is the temple. No building required.
Hold on, because the ride has changed. The rise and risk of transformation is happening…just as it has been from the day that out of his grace, not sacrifice, but out of his grace and fulfillment Jesus didn’t give up his life – he gave it away.
What are we giving away in this NEW JERUSALEM? Please keep your donations coming for our mission, because we need depend on it…but for a moment put the money aside. What are you giving away of you as worship in this place and presence of God?
Last night, I worked the desk. As I sat there, getting ready for today and directing folk to wherever they needed to go, a woman came in who could not get down the few steps into the foyer but not up the steps to the meeting she wished to go.
Another woman who was on her way to the meeting stopped to help her. Sat down, took out her meeting book, helped her find a more accessible meeting, asked her again if she would like to get some help to make it up the steps, and when the woman declined…the person helping her walked her outside, keeping her company as she went off to another meeting.
The person who helped the other gave away: her plans, her movement, her momentum, her thoughts of the moment to help another who needed some help. I cannot be convinced of that as being anything other than worship.
Recently, I was reading about Solomon’s Temple and his decline. The author spoke of how later in life, Solomon continued to acknowledge God as beyond human comprehension, but for Solomon and those who followed him, God because too identified with a place, made of human hands, a dynasty, and ultimately a city of oppression and injustice.”
Revelation. God is. God cannot be kept. Look around. Find worship, be worship.
John’s Gospel this morning goes further. Find the seek the relationship that Jesus had with God and enter into it as a disciple. Forget about perfection. Jesus acknowledged that betrayal was no reason for expulsion. Judas was not the only one who betrayed Jesus. While most dramatic, perhaps, so did Peter and so did all those who were not at the cross. And, still, the relationship between Jesus and God understood.
Sing out My graces, says God.
Raise your fist against Me and revile, says God,
Sing out graces or revile,
Reviling is also a kind of praise, says God.
Love one another as I have loved you…
Praise Me, says God, and I will know that you love me.
Curse Me, says God, and I will know that you love me.
Praise Me or Curse Me.
And I will know that you love me.
Love one another as I have loved you…
Email that to others…and hold on for the ride!
Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 2, 2010
(c)2010 Ray Bagnuolo
How would you Email God?
Recently even Dell has gotten an Email address. So I figured for sure, if Dell had one – God had one, too.
What would God’s Email address be?
Maybe more interesting would be the conversation…
and The Reply!
Annie Dillard [on the front cover of the bulletin] suggests that there might be reason to run for the hills:
“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return." (Teaching a Stone to Talk)
The author of today’s Unison Prayer, Aaron Zeitlin, suggest that it doesn’t matter whether you praise or curse God in your Emails or sing out God’s graces or revile God. Either way, God will know you love God. Based on what Zeitlin says, what you most need to be concerned with is:
…if you sit fenced off in your apathy, says God,
If you sit entrenched in, “I don’t give a hang,” says God,
If you look at the stars and yawn,
If you see suffering and don’t cry out,
If you don’t praise and don’t revile,
Then I created you in vain, says God.
Well, Annie and Aaron are not God’s spokesperson’s but they do make us think. What is the relationship we are to have with God, what does it mean, what does it call us to do, and what of being here in worship?
Michael Lindvall, who is the Senior Pastor at The Brick Presbyterian Church, says the following about worship in his book, The Geography of God:
Worship that does not make you anxious once and again
Worship that fails to stretch your mind and spirit to the edge of discomfort
Is something other than worship.
A little later on, Michael says,
“If you and I enter worship facing anywhere but toward God, the experience may please us, it may inform us, it may comfort us, but it will hardly transform us.”
Transformation, emerging…a NEW JERUSALEM.
There are so many books written about the transforming and emerging churches in the modern, post-modern, information age…
It’s almost like we are trying to get somewhere. If we just get the right formula: Done! Finito! Time to sit back.
Truth is we are not going to be emerged or transformed until we are stunned to one degree or another. Stunned into a moment of clarity and a psychic and spiritual change that is often referred to as the Aha! Moment. However, even that pales in describing what John of Patmos gives us in his visions.
Think of Picasso, Chagal, deKooning Van Gogh…think of Picasso’s Guernica, of Chagall’s American Windows, de Kooning’s Spoletto, or Van Gogh’s The Starry Night…
Visions of art, music, sound, cosmos, eschatological forbodance – all wrapped up in one series of dreams…
All emerging through the discomfort and unease of a Babylon and beast to the NEW JERUSALEM – now on Earth.
“The focus is now on Earth, since this heavenly city has descended to Earth. It is no longer necessary to raise one’s eyes to the sky to see God. Yes, to see a manifestation of God as in all creation, but God is now on Earth.
Where? Look around. This should make us a little uneasy…
And the emergence of God the touch of God is not in the temple – note: no temple has descended. Jesus is the temple. No building required.
Hold on, because the ride has changed. The rise and risk of transformation is happening…just as it has been from the day that out of his grace, not sacrifice, but out of his grace and fulfillment Jesus didn’t give up his life – he gave it away.
What are we giving away in this NEW JERUSALEM? Please keep your donations coming for our mission, because we need depend on it…but for a moment put the money aside. What are you giving away of you as worship in this place and presence of God?
Last night, I worked the desk. As I sat there, getting ready for today and directing folk to wherever they needed to go, a woman came in who could not get down the few steps into the foyer but not up the steps to the meeting she wished to go.
Another woman who was on her way to the meeting stopped to help her. Sat down, took out her meeting book, helped her find a more accessible meeting, asked her again if she would like to get some help to make it up the steps, and when the woman declined…the person helping her walked her outside, keeping her company as she went off to another meeting.
The person who helped the other gave away: her plans, her movement, her momentum, her thoughts of the moment to help another who needed some help. I cannot be convinced of that as being anything other than worship.
Recently, I was reading about Solomon’s Temple and his decline. The author spoke of how later in life, Solomon continued to acknowledge God as beyond human comprehension, but for Solomon and those who followed him, God because too identified with a place, made of human hands, a dynasty, and ultimately a city of oppression and injustice.”
Revelation. God is. God cannot be kept. Look around. Find worship, be worship.
John’s Gospel this morning goes further. Find the seek the relationship that Jesus had with God and enter into it as a disciple. Forget about perfection. Jesus acknowledged that betrayal was no reason for expulsion. Judas was not the only one who betrayed Jesus. While most dramatic, perhaps, so did Peter and so did all those who were not at the cross. And, still, the relationship between Jesus and God understood.
Sing out My graces, says God.
Raise your fist against Me and revile, says God,
Sing out graces or revile,
Reviling is also a kind of praise, says God.
Love one another as I have loved you…
Praise Me, says God, and I will know that you love me.
Curse Me, says God, and I will know that you love me.
Praise Me or Curse Me.
And I will know that you love me.
Love one another as I have loved you…
Email that to others…and hold on for the ride!
Sunday, April 4, 2010
There is no compromise…
These comments were offered today at our Easter service at Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House.
The article referred to by Bob Herbert is from The New York Times, April 2, 2010 and can be found here:
Earlier this week in the New York Times, Bob Herbert wrote about a speech The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave on this day, April 4, 1967.
As Herbert describes it:
The great man was moving with what seemed like great reluctance. He knew as he climbed from the car in Upper Manhattan that he was stepping into the maelstrom, that there were powerful people who would not react kindly to what he had to say.
“I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight,” said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “because my conscience leaves me no other choice.”
King entered the Riverside Church and addressed more than 3,000 people gathered, telling them that silence in the face of the horror that was taking place in Vietnam amounted to a betrayal.
He warned: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Perhaps, in fact I think it is mostly true, that this is a silence of two places that are likely one: a fear of doing the wrong thing and the fear of being accused of doing the wrong thing.
So, we sometimes look elsewhere to more comfortable place, finding ourselves suspended in silence or engaged in protracted processes that postpone any chance for courage and change. We look back too far, too much. We look forward too far, too often. And we end up between the two – making distinctions that make no difference. Frozen, dismayed, discouraged; turning more and more toward isolation, observation, and inaction. In a word: fear.
I do believe Jesus must have had fear, but it did not drive him. He was guided by something more powerful.
In this morning’s gospel, when the women, the faithful women came to the tomb, the angel, the heart, the one who stood there said,
“I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here…”
In all the readings and worship that will take place around the world today, among the many messages one I think is clear: “Jesus is not in the tomb. Not then, not today. Don’t waste your time looking for him in such a place.”
As the women ran toward Galilee to tell the others what they had been told, suddenly Jesus was among them, “there in their path.”
The horror of silence that The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed has been long shattered by this risen Jesus. The question is, do we believe that? And, if so what risks are we willing to take? How are we willing to speak out and act for others.
What drives us?
All week long, I have been meditating on a comment in Michale Lindvall’s book The Christian Life: A Geography of God in which he says that Jesus faced the choice of compromise or crucifix.
That lay heavily upon me all week, through Maundy Thursday and into Good Friday. On Friday, I had a chance to sit here in meditation from 12 – 3. I pretty much sat still all the time. I kept thinking that if Jesus could hang on the cross for those hours, it’s not such a big deal to sit here.
I let the thoughts come and go…and the “compromise or crucifix” came to mind. I knew Jesus didn’t compromise, but I am also not ready to be crucified. I kept thinking that in a world of negotiation are we supposed to compromise, when folks are hungry, out of work, marginalized, oppressed, and dehumanized.
Then the thought occurred to me that maybe it’s not we who are supposed to compromise.
If love is unconditional, and we come from the Love that we believe is God and Jesus in God and Spirit – that is enough to take this all to a new level, out of a place of negotiation to love.
It also occurs to me that love is a resurrection from a places of divisiveness and oppression – and is not compromisable. I may not always do it right – but that doesn’t change the truth – love can never be a compromise.
It is a path we follow. It is the one that Jesus led us to and promises to be beside us as this morning’s gospel reminds us.
There can be no place for silence when such joy is in our lives. “For were we silent, even the stones would call out!”
Love is a joy that surpasses the easy and the hard times, rooted in the Good News. It is the well of courage and action and, yes, God. But then, you know all that!
Mr. Herbert says later in his article on Dr. King, which by the way is titled, “We Still Don’t Hear Him…”
[Dr. King’s] bold stand seems all the more striking in today’s atmosphere, in which moral courage among the very prominent — the kind of courage that carries real risk — seems mostly to have disappeared.
Be that as it may, moral courage is not for the prominent. It is for us all. It is the balm that heals the horror of silence and leads us to the Risen Path of unconditional love.
May you find such Jesus, such God, in all the ways you know God – now!
Yes, he is risen indeed.
The article referred to by Bob Herbert is from The New York Times, April 2, 2010 and can be found here:
Earlier this week in the New York Times, Bob Herbert wrote about a speech The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave on this day, April 4, 1967.
As Herbert describes it:
The great man was moving with what seemed like great reluctance. He knew as he climbed from the car in Upper Manhattan that he was stepping into the maelstrom, that there were powerful people who would not react kindly to what he had to say.
“I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight,” said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “because my conscience leaves me no other choice.”
King entered the Riverside Church and addressed more than 3,000 people gathered, telling them that silence in the face of the horror that was taking place in Vietnam amounted to a betrayal.
He warned: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Perhaps, in fact I think it is mostly true, that this is a silence of two places that are likely one: a fear of doing the wrong thing and the fear of being accused of doing the wrong thing.
So, we sometimes look elsewhere to more comfortable place, finding ourselves suspended in silence or engaged in protracted processes that postpone any chance for courage and change. We look back too far, too much. We look forward too far, too often. And we end up between the two – making distinctions that make no difference. Frozen, dismayed, discouraged; turning more and more toward isolation, observation, and inaction. In a word: fear.
I do believe Jesus must have had fear, but it did not drive him. He was guided by something more powerful.
In this morning’s gospel, when the women, the faithful women came to the tomb, the angel, the heart, the one who stood there said,
“I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here…”
In all the readings and worship that will take place around the world today, among the many messages one I think is clear: “Jesus is not in the tomb. Not then, not today. Don’t waste your time looking for him in such a place.”
As the women ran toward Galilee to tell the others what they had been told, suddenly Jesus was among them, “there in their path.”
The horror of silence that The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed has been long shattered by this risen Jesus. The question is, do we believe that? And, if so what risks are we willing to take? How are we willing to speak out and act for others.
What drives us?
All week long, I have been meditating on a comment in Michale Lindvall’s book The Christian Life: A Geography of God in which he says that Jesus faced the choice of compromise or crucifix.
That lay heavily upon me all week, through Maundy Thursday and into Good Friday. On Friday, I had a chance to sit here in meditation from 12 – 3. I pretty much sat still all the time. I kept thinking that if Jesus could hang on the cross for those hours, it’s not such a big deal to sit here.
I let the thoughts come and go…and the “compromise or crucifix” came to mind. I knew Jesus didn’t compromise, but I am also not ready to be crucified. I kept thinking that in a world of negotiation are we supposed to compromise, when folks are hungry, out of work, marginalized, oppressed, and dehumanized.
Then the thought occurred to me that maybe it’s not we who are supposed to compromise.
If love is unconditional, and we come from the Love that we believe is God and Jesus in God and Spirit – that is enough to take this all to a new level, out of a place of negotiation to love.
It also occurs to me that love is a resurrection from a places of divisiveness and oppression – and is not compromisable. I may not always do it right – but that doesn’t change the truth – love can never be a compromise.
It is a path we follow. It is the one that Jesus led us to and promises to be beside us as this morning’s gospel reminds us.
There can be no place for silence when such joy is in our lives. “For were we silent, even the stones would call out!”
Love is a joy that surpasses the easy and the hard times, rooted in the Good News. It is the well of courage and action and, yes, God. But then, you know all that!
Mr. Herbert says later in his article on Dr. King, which by the way is titled, “We Still Don’t Hear Him…”
[Dr. King’s] bold stand seems all the more striking in today’s atmosphere, in which moral courage among the very prominent — the kind of courage that carries real risk — seems mostly to have disappeared.
Be that as it may, moral courage is not for the prominent. It is for us all. It is the balm that heals the horror of silence and leads us to the Risen Path of unconditional love.
May you find such Jesus, such God, in all the ways you know God – now!
Yes, he is risen indeed.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
A Reponse to Scott Anderson's interview...
The following is a response to a recent interview of Scott Anderson by Janet Edwards on her blog A Time to Embrace:
Dear Janet,
Thanks for this interview and thanks to Scott for his dedication to the radical message of the gospel, made even more radical because we have moved so far from it in so many ways. I couldn't agree more about fighting, especially over Scripture. Still...
... if Jesus could flip the tables of the moneychangers on end...how much more might he respond in the face of our sisters and brothers paying the price of exclusion and bearing the brunt of the complicity of a church in its teachings? Teachings that impact the broad society, and in this instance, foster marginalization and violence toward our sisters and brothers who are LGBT, all done in his name? I think the tables, at least, would fly again.
As I see it, for a church to be relevant, it must take the same risks that Jesus did, risks which ended up having him executed. We're not there, maybe never will be in taking such risks. But the path to such steadfast love is too often littered with the selfish needs of others. In this case, the needs seem to include a requisite comfortability with the LGBT community before we are fully embraced. So, the church accepts, as a matter of course, the destruction of others' lives until enough people are comfortable for a church, this church, to finally say, "Welcome."
I believe that it must be the church that leads the way, and not for the benefit of you, Scott, or me, really, but for all those who see this church as unwelcoming. For those we are turning away. How can we be who we say we are and continue such practices? How can our leadership from the local congregations to the moderator's office do anything other than publicly and unequivocally call for change now, letting others hear the voice we follow in so many ways? What on earth or in the heavens are we afraid of? Maybe, better question, what are we afraid of losing for speaking out with such conviction and risk?
This is not just about polity. It is about witness and about execution: an execution now being done by some in the name of Jesus.
That's got to be enough to turn some tables over...
Ray Bagnuolo, Minister Word and Sacrament
Ordained and openly gay in 2005
Serving Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House
New York City
Board Member of More Light Presbyterians, speaking only for myself.
Dear Janet,
Thanks for this interview and thanks to Scott for his dedication to the radical message of the gospel, made even more radical because we have moved so far from it in so many ways. I couldn't agree more about fighting, especially over Scripture. Still...
... if Jesus could flip the tables of the moneychangers on end...how much more might he respond in the face of our sisters and brothers paying the price of exclusion and bearing the brunt of the complicity of a church in its teachings? Teachings that impact the broad society, and in this instance, foster marginalization and violence toward our sisters and brothers who are LGBT, all done in his name? I think the tables, at least, would fly again.
As I see it, for a church to be relevant, it must take the same risks that Jesus did, risks which ended up having him executed. We're not there, maybe never will be in taking such risks. But the path to such steadfast love is too often littered with the selfish needs of others. In this case, the needs seem to include a requisite comfortability with the LGBT community before we are fully embraced. So, the church accepts, as a matter of course, the destruction of others' lives until enough people are comfortable for a church, this church, to finally say, "Welcome."
I believe that it must be the church that leads the way, and not for the benefit of you, Scott, or me, really, but for all those who see this church as unwelcoming. For those we are turning away. How can we be who we say we are and continue such practices? How can our leadership from the local congregations to the moderator's office do anything other than publicly and unequivocally call for change now, letting others hear the voice we follow in so many ways? What on earth or in the heavens are we afraid of? Maybe, better question, what are we afraid of losing for speaking out with such conviction and risk?
This is not just about polity. It is about witness and about execution: an execution now being done by some in the name of Jesus.
That's got to be enough to turn some tables over...
Ray Bagnuolo, Minister Word and Sacrament
Ordained and openly gay in 2005
Serving Jan Hus Presbyterian Church and Neighborhood House
New York City
Board Member of More Light Presbyterians, speaking only for myself.
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