The year I graduated from seminary in 1972, a classmate of mine, Bill Silver, had the temerity to ask the question of the New York City Presbytery whether you could be gay and be ordained to ministry. He didn’t ask whether you could be called to ministry, he already knew that he was called; he only asked whether he could be ordained. The presbytery asked the General Assembly the same question, and thirty-some years later, here we are still, many policy statements, authoritative interpretations, overtures, proposed amendments and G-6.0106b notwithstanding, here we are still.
We have knocked, and the door did not open. We have prayed, and the door did not open. We have studied the issue, and re-studied it, and the door has not opened. We have demonstrated on the floor of the General Assembly, and in the hallways, and testified and educated and labored at both the assembly and presbytery levels, and the door has not opened.
Some Presbyterians say why don’t you people just go away? And the answer is that justice will not be denied. It may be delayed, or postponed or beaten up and left by the roadside from time to time; but it will not be denied.
This year I believe God is moving the Presbyterian Church forward. There are two promising actions before the Assembly both of which offer very different approaches to moving closer to the time when the Presbyterian Church, perhaps even in spite of itself, may look a bit more like the commonwealth of God, a place where those who are included are not the people of our choosing but the people of God’s choosing.
As you know the board of the Covenant Network has urged the commissioners of this assembly to pray, and read the Theological Task Force Report, and read the report again and pray again as they discern where the Spirit is leading us at this Assembly through theTheological Task Force Report. We learned a lot by the Task Force’s work, its spirit of unity and its remarkable unanimous approval to make its recommendations to this Assembly. To get any group of Presbyterians who have been board members and in some cases moderators of such widely divergent groups as Presbyterians for Renewal, More Light Presbyterians, the Presbyterian Coalition, and the Covenant Network, to agree on a plan, to a person, is a sign of God’s grace and perhaps God’s sense of delight in the ironic. If nothing else we should all get out our cell phone cameras and take a picture of just that much alone! On top of that, to get all the presidents of our seminaries and practically all living moderators of past Assemblies to endorse it is another remarkable thing.
I had barely gotten here to Birmingham when a commissioner I know pulled me aside and said she felt very torn about whether she should be supportive of the Task Force Report or the Heartland Overture. What did I think?
I found myself telling her about being in Israel this past February and talking to both Jews and Palestinians about the prospects for peace. Both sides agreed on two things. One; neither Jews nor Palestinians wanted their children to live with the bloodshed and heartbreak that they have. The second was that they knew what is the end point: to find some way to live together as neighbors, sovereign, separated by many things, even scarred by a painful and divided history, but united by a need to share the land. One rabbi even went so far as to say, my people have a right to this land. God gave it to us. But for the sake of peace, it can be shared. Beyond that realization, neither side had a clue as to how to move forward from their locked-in positions.
If the end point were the only consideration, the Covenant Network would have probably written something that looks a lot like the Heartland Overture. In fact, several of our board members did write a number of the overtures! It is, I believe, the end point where we want to be after these past thirty-some years.
And that end point is; examination and ordination based on an individual’s faith, experience, sense of call, gifts for ministry, discipleship, and character of life. Sexual orientation would not be the en of the discussion, but rather only a part of how a person lives responsibly with all the gifts of their life.
But from the point of view of all of us getting to that end point more together as a church than not, the Task Force Report tries to draw together as many as possible from the broad middle of the church. In practical terms, thirty years of waiting and working to batter down the door has taught us that if we are all to arrive at the end point we must join hands and walk through the door together.
And, while the Task Force Report may not be full justice at this moment in time; not immediate inclusion, the door will no longer be closed. Many candidates for ordination realize that that is the case, and that the Task Force Report provides them an opportunity for their day to be heard, not two years from now, not ten years from now, but now.
We will work with our progressive partners to get Heartland through the committee and to the floor of the Assembly for a vote. We labored hard to get 22 presbyteries including my own, to endorse the Heartland Overture. And we believe that even if the Assembly were to approve an un-amended Task Force report, [as Cynthia has suggested,] Heartland could still come to the Assembly for a vote, and should.
This is an historic moment in the Presbyterian Church and I believe we are in the process of seeing the Spirit of God work in a profound way. Not an either/or moment, but a both/and moment. A moment of God’s shaping more than our own, a moment when justice will be done. And if we pay attention to one another, we will get there; at long last, together; we will get there, especially if we pay attention to one another.
