Ah, if only it were so easy for all of us to wave our hands dismissively at nearly two million people as it apparently is for Jay Akasie, the ironically named David Virtue, and Rob Kirby. To read their reporting on the just concluded 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, you would think that everyone who stands steadfastly with that denomination - as I do - is going straight to hell.
How dare we consider restructuring the hierarchy to make it a more grassroots-driven denomination!
How dare we develop a budget that focuses on strengthening our capability for effective mission in the world!
How dare we pass a resolution authorizing the development of a provisional rite of blessing for same-sex unions!
How dare we ... LOVE?
Yes, Mr. Akasie, Mr. Virtue, and Mr. Kirby, the point you have missed throughout all of this is that we are a denomination of love. While you have gone in and selectively focused on the crozier carried by the Presiding Bishop, on whether to sell the church headquarters building in New York, and even on your continuing vitriolic (and horribly uninformed, Mr. Kirby) attacks on Bishop Gene Robinson, you have in your mad, blind rush missed the entire point.
Everything - EVERYTHING - accomplished by our deputies and bishops in Indianapolis has been done out of a sense of God's abiding love for everyone (yes, even you, Mr. Akasie, Mr. Virtue, and Mr. Kirby, your best efforts to display your true lack of understanding of who we are and what we stand for to the contrary).
Why pass a resolution authorizing this new rite? Because the Episcopal Church - as Mr. Akasie, a professed member of the denomination, should know very well - has a sign hanging by the door saying "All Are Welcome". Why would the church not take an action to live into our advertising? For that matter, why do we allow women to serve as priests and bishops? (Thank God that we do!) Why did our church both walking with Dr. King and supporting the Civil Rights Movement? (Mr. Akasie, Mr. VIrtue, and Mr. Kirby - any of you ever heard of Jonathan Myrick Daniels?)
Because we Episcopalians love - we accept - we welcome.
Christ's love is unconditional - he loved because he IS love - and it never misses the mark. The love of the Episcopal Church is unconditional, and it never misses the mark.
Sadly, the absence of love - even the word itself - in some of what we're reading is full of conditions and misses the mark completely.
So, Mr. Akasie, Mr. Virtue, Mr. Kirby, and others of your ilk - please stop reading everything with a hand over one eye. Stop finding what you want to see instead of looking for what's really there. And remember that, disagree with the Episcopal Church or not, disagree with our actions or not, you're missing the point.
It's not dollars and cents. It's not resolutions and budgets. It's not walkouts or sell-offs.
It's love.
1 comment:
Jesus lives His created humanity so much that He hung on a cross and bled and suffered to pay the price for the sin that transgresses God's established law as written in the Holy Scriptures. We cannot love the sin that put Him on that cross. But we can love the human He did it for (including ourselves ). But to endorse and support what He has clearly defined as sin and wrong is not really truly loving people. I don't want to love people into hell I want to love them into life and redemption.
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