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Spiritual Gifts and Hard Choices
Part of the argument for ordaining sexually active homosexuals, the ELCA Task Force Recommendations tell us, is to make use of the genuine gifts of the Spirit given to these persons. Once again, as one good point is made, the correlating point is lost...
Part of the argument for ordaining sexually active homosexuals, the ELCA Task Force Recommendations tell us, is to make use of the genuine gifts of the Spirit given to these persons.
“Advocates for change note that the gifts of the Spirit can be seen among us, not only in the lives of heterosexual Christians, but also in those who are lesbian or gay, including same-gender couples who are leading godly and commendable lives within the framework of lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships. Further, they note that partnered gay and lesbian members of this church experience God’s call to rostered ministry, demonstrate gifts for such ministries, and often have been affirmed in those calls and gifts by ELCA individuals, congregations, and synodical candidacy committees.” (187-191)
“Many advocates for change express deep concern about the harm done to Christians when they and their gifts are rejected by this church and the loss to this church’s mission when these gifts are not used.” (202)
Once again, as one good point is made, the correlating point is lost. As an “opponent” of this proposed change, I couldn’t agree more that it is a loss to the church when the Spirit-given gifts of homosexuals are not put to use in the church. I recognize that the Spirit does in fact give gifts to homosexuals. I hope that those on the other side realize how firmly I and others on this side believe this.
But this tragic loss can be seen from another angle—one not here acknowledged. The barrier to the use of these gifts in ordained ministry is not in ordination practice but in sexual practice. Ordination becomes possible for these candidates when sexual activity is given up. Which means that the bestowal of spiritual gifts on a homosexual is in fact a burden.
I think we have lost the burdensomeness of ministry in our theology and public talk about it—though certainly not in lived experience, as high rates of clergy burnout, poor health, and familial strife constantly remind us. You see this even in the literature given to people considering candidacy. The whole process praises and encourages them for joining the star league of the church, only to leave them utterly unprepared for their real work of being lambs sent to the slaughter and sheep among wolves.
Consider these words of Jesus in Matthew 10:
When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
And later in the same chapter:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Such biblical passages inspired Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship, which we all read and loved at seminary, with little sense of the real, painful, even devastating demands it would make on our own lives.
The whole conversation we are having about the ordination of homosexuals troubles me among other reasons because it assumes that there should be an easy, happy solution. I see nothing in the Scriptures to make me think this would be the case. I see promises of persecutions; also promises of rewards for those who can endure; but nothing to indicate to me that I should be absolved of the need for hard choices, genuine sacrifices, real heartbreak.
It would be obnoxious of me to say lightly to a gay colleague that the ministry requires celibacy, as if that weren’t a big deal, and I wouldn’t let him in the club otherwise. But I don’t say it lightly. I say it as someone upon whom the burden of gifts of the Spirit have also been laid, with sacrifices required in my own life. I won’t get into a competition over whose sacrifice is worse. Many clergy have sacrificed a greal deal more than I have, and the sacrifice of sexual intimacy is an excruciatingly difficult one. But I cannot suppose that such sacrifice is in itself at odds with the gospel or the call to the ministry of the gospel. It troubles me that this whole conversation is conducted with the assumption that no sacrifice or heartache need ever be necessary.
What is What, and Who is Who, and Why...?
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There is much hidden sacrifice to conceive, learn, to recognize, become accustom to, and accept, which we have yet to deal with completely as a couple, in service of GOD. It is truly a “25x7” experience. Moving among the Ministers, I have seen the emotional and physical wear, and their loneliness. Ministers who not only look worn in their appointed time, but are worn down to the point that the "one time gift" has transformed into a yoke of burden they unknowing and outwardly bear a different fruit with. This shines most extensively observed after sessions with their colleges. One would think the opposite might be the norm.
While being addressed, I have often thought, “Why are you asking me?” when a parishioner directs concerns and questions. I note that some men have difficulty expressing themselves to female Ministers, some female to female, some female to male, some men to men issues, and so on, in "traditional" venues. The husband and wife, male and female, are a ministry team to an extent that surely is unrecognized from any official supported office of the bishop. Unmarried Ministers have different issues as well I would venture, even differing single as male or female. I wonder about the enmeshed life relationship a congregation can successfully experience in such a proposed era and condition we have been expressing ourselves to. A new era in which continues to exist a traditional condition wherein a married male Pastor being “removed” from the pulpit for an adulterous affair exposed with a female married parishioner of his congregation, or the opposite. Surely I understand we are all sinners. That sin exists as we are born of it. And that intentional sin is something else then again. Where is the line between good and not good, and very good, if we continue allowing society to interpret the change of God?
There is much resistance in one’s own local congregation to ideas from a common member to a council person, from a council person, to the council group, and from within the group of receiving or giving ideas (gifts) to and from one another. Let alone your local mission district, to local Synod, to National Synod. I have always wondered why that is? Why one cannot accept ministry from another who is not of the same human made status. There is a Pastor I know who blurted, Why do they need to come to me to approve a service ministry idea? Go ahead and do it!!! I suppose the human condition at every station in our lives has built its own hierarchy of who can talk to who, and who is authorized to do what, and at what level. Is that trust? Perhaps a man made class system of peoples, are demanding what they believe is rights. Rights others reserve to the “authorized.” Or did I mean ordained and consecrated, as a special class of common people of the ELCA? Or perhaps best served by that "Special Seminary."
I do not be so quiet as to think that it is not the sinner Jesus immediately shuns, but that it is the sin, and the conscience human action of knowingly performing “it,” and that not we as humanity, but the Lord should mediate everyone, to their time and place, to know GOD through his Son, and listen to Him. And not add words to the Word. I danno. I’m just a common congregation member, who is growing sick of this, all.
Thanks for the reminder
During this Lenten season, I thank Pr. Wilson for this reminder of what I am called to be about as a Pastor, and what my expectations should be for such service. This is a welcome antidote to the "pastoral success" literature that I am weekly encouraged to imbibe in the mail.