RCL Palm Sunday
1 April 2012
Saint Faith's Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
The summer
of 1995 marked a turning point in the life of our family here in Canada. In May of that year Paula was ordained to the
diaconate and began her curacy at Saint Philip’s Dunbar. I was finishing my second three-year term on
the national Doctrine and Worship Committee.
On a whim I accepted a nomination as a clergy member of General Synod
and, to my surprise, I was elected.
So off I
went to Ottawa in June unaware of the change that was about to occur. The first indication that something unusual was
afoot was a telephone call from Paula telling me that my office had been
emptied and had just been blown up --- for a movie shoot. I knew that I had agreed to the use of my
office for the movie, but no one had said that the plan was to empty and then blow
it up!
The second
indication was the sudden bout of laryngitis that afflicted the rector of the
parish who had agreed to host a group of Synod member, including me, for The
Sunday. I was drafted to preside and
preach in a three-point charge in the Ottawa Valley --- on Pentecost --- with
little time to prepare.
But the
third tremor occurred after that Sunday during a televised session of the Synod
on the place of gays and lesbians in the Anglican Church of Canada. During the hearing I found myself jotting
down some notes and then walking to a microphone, something that I had not
really planned to do.
Those who
were watching the telecast in Vancouver expected me to express my support for
the continued sanctions on the
ordination of gay clergy and the blessing of gay and lesbian
relationships. That, however, was not
what they were to see and hear.
In the days
leading up to Pentecost and to the hearing I had come to believe that the
continued sanctions denied the human dignity of gays and lesbians. Given that the sanctions, in my opinion,
denied the dignity of gays and lesbians, these sanctions were unjust. Since I, as a baptized Christian, had
repeatedly committed myself to ‘strive for justice and peace among all people,
and [to] respect the dignity of every human being’, the final commitment of our
baptismal covenant, I had no choice but to challenge the sanctions. This is what I said and this is what I still
believe.
In two
minutes at a microphone I lost friends and colleagues. Since 1995 a fair portion of my professional
life has been associated with the movement to include gays and lesbian
disciples of Christ more fully into the life of the Anglican Church. There is still much to be done and there are
faithful Christians whom I respect who do not share my views.
God’s
peace, what the Hebrew Bible calls shalom,
is not possible without justice. God’s
peace, shalom, can only be
experienced when human beings live in equitable relationships where no person
is used for another person’s gain and when human beings acknowledge our
dependence upon God and upon each other.
Justice,
however, is not possible without respecting human dignity. Human dignity is based upon the conviction
that every human person whether villain or hero, whether abuser or abused,
whether male or female, whether believer or non-believer, is imprinted with
image of God. Our task as Christians is
to strive towards a world in which every person can live in the likeness of
God, so that her or his life reveal God’s stamp upon us.. We can obscure God’s image in us. We can suppress God’s image in us. We can deny God’s image in us, but it remains
in all of us. God’s image in us is a
seed that awaits the gentle touch of the Spirit’s rain and Christ’s warmth so
that it can burst forth from the soil and reveal God’s life hidden in each one
of us.
But human
dignity requires an environment of
respect rather then mere tolerance.
Respect means that I acknowledge the presence of God in you and invite
you, by my words and actions, to experience that same divine presence in
me. If we can respect each other and
experience how God makes the divine presence known in each of us, then perhaps
the whole of our relationship may exceed the sum of its parts. From this respect for our shared dignity,
justice many arise, and from this justice we may experience shalom.
Notice we
commit to striving not achievement.
God’s permanent shalom remains
just beyond the horizon of our world, but we can experience moments, some
brief, some longer, where that shalom
embraces us. But just as Jesus rides
into Jerusalem Palm Sunday after Palm Sunday, so do we strive, day by day, week
by week, month by month, and year by year, to ‘draw the circle wide’ and extend
our respect for human dignity wider and wider.
There are
people living in Metro Vancouver whose dignity is not respected. But here at Saint Faith’s and everywhere the
baptismal commitment is made to strive for justice and peace their dignity will
be respected. Some people may question
our wisdom and may consider foolish.
Some people may actually claim that we are acting politically. But we will continue to strive for justice
and peace so that ‘all God’s children may be free’ and taste that shalom for which pray and for which we
wait. Amen.
