Intercession: A Meditation for Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 … He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity… and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Mark 14:26-15:47 … When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, ‘Listen, he is calling for Elijah.’ And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.’ Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last…

As we hear the story of the violence perpetrated on Jesus Christ, my heart is compelled to write about some of the violence in the world today. The work of Good Friday is painful, but if it becomes overwhelming for you as a survivor or sufferer, you are welcome to step away for some quiet. I am available for conversation and pastoral care if you need it. With that sincere offer made, I ask you to pray with me.

Living God, keep us breathing here with you. Help us to keep awake, to watch and to pray. Amen.

Christine is a friend of mine from divinity school who went to get another Harvard degree, this time in public health. For the last year or so, her posts on social media, when not about the grace she feels as a survivor of open heart surgery, are about her work at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute. This week, she has been sharing the story of her friend Wayland, who is on a hunger strike at MCI-Norfolk. According to the Boston Globe, the prison has been cited multiple times for providing toxic, tea-colored drinking water to inmates there.[1] Wayland was working with Christine and others to buy and distribute bottled water to inmates. That action, however, violated prison rules against stockpiling, and corrections officers placed Wayland in solitary confinement for the nine days since.

When I think about Jesus on Good Friday, a prisoner on the cross, offered only sour wine to slake his thirst, I think about Wayland in his cell at MCI. I think about the families in Flint, Michigan, who still cannot drink their tap water. I think about folks in housing projects around the country with chipping lead paint and the housing policy that keeps them out of better neighborhoods. I think about the racism that leads to lead poisoning the water and the walls, the lead poisoning that causes Black children to lose impulse control, the discipline issues that lead police officers to believe Black people are more likely to commit crimes, furthering racist policies.

I feel the shame that keeps people silent about sexual abuse, a silence that perpetuates shame. I feel the sense of hopelessness and worthlessness that causes people to turn to substance abuse, destroying their bodies, their families, and their hopes along the way. I think about the logic of violence that teaches poor Whites and poor Blacks and wealthy politicians that safety can be found at the end of a gun, or the trigger of a bomb, or hung from a cross.

These tangled webs of sin leave marks on the perpetrators and on the survivors. And we would be rational to try to erase those marks, to cover them up, to speed quickly past the violence of Good Friday to Easter for the hope of someday being freed from travail in the by-and-by.

But we would be wise to stay here at the cross awhile. Because the utter helplessness of one for whom stars shone, who faced down demons and healed even death – in that helplessness is the work of redemption. The cross reminds us that there is nowhere we might go where God’s love will not follow us. There is no sin we can suffer that Jesus refuses to understand.

So when we say that Jesus dies for our sins, I do not believe that means God demands retribution for our failure, perpetrated on the Savior. I have faith in a Jesus who was obedient even unto death on a cross because he refused to allow us to suffer alone. He refused to allow us to believe in the power of our isolation and despair. And if that is so, the teaching of Good Friday is to weep with hopelessness. To cry out in need and anger. Jesus did.

The reading I shared from Isaiah above is known as the Song of the Suffering Servant. In the words of one of my favorite biblical scholars, “these texts have integrity as Jewish scripture, but…it’s no wonder that Christians have seen Jesus in them.”[2] We read, He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity… and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. A traditional Christian reading of this passage is that God would damn all of us sinners to hell if it were not for Christ’s intercession. But that word intercession reminds me of Paul’s letter a few centuries later, which reminds us that when we are too overwhelmed to even know what to pray for, the Holy Spirit “intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”[3] Understood this way, intercession is not the savior standing between the bully and the victim to take the punch, because that would make God the bully. Instead, intercession is witness. Intercession is giving word and deed, voice and action, to the suffering of another. Jesus bears witness to the suffering caused by the world’s sin, including our own suffering, and our own sin.

That kind of intercession is no less painful. In John’s gospel, after Jesus receives the sour wine, he gasps the words, “It is finished,” breathing his last. Much is made in the biblical commentaries of the word “finished” having the sense of “accomplished,” “complete,” Jesus having fulfilled the writings about the suffering servant’s death. But I think there is something simpler here, too: the pain and humiliation of dying are done with, thank God.

But for the women at the foot of the cross, for us as witnesses, the grief is not finished. The work of picking up the tables and keeping the robbers from returning is not finished. The cleanup of palms and the feeding of children who cry, “Hosanna! Save us!” are not finished. The daily struggle to survive sexual assault or war or addiction, and to witness to that struggle, is not finished. The thirsty still thirst.

But even in this, there is redemption. Jesus, as our witness, cries out to God, and is heard. And yet he struggles still with us. Our painful, human limits keep us from saving the world, from protecting our loved ones, from meeting each lofty goal. And our savior, who lived for love and justice, died because of sin and the status quo. And so we must not crucify ourselves for our inadequacy. The cross is occupied; there is no room on this hill. Our savior died in solidarity with the human struggle. In the light of that love, we keep on with the work unfinished. We do not turn from the pain, but cry out with it. We keep vigil, trusting in the one here with us, always.

---

[1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/03/24/protest-foul-water-prisoner-starts-hunger-strike-mci-norfolk/2Axz4tDLY9zB9A9Cdaya3H/story.html

[2] Barbara Blaisdell, personal communication, 28 March 2018.

[3] Romans 8:26

A Christian response to gun violence?

A Conversation Guide

Scriptural Foundation: Psalm 20, Matthew 26:47-52

Goals:

·         Express and process feelings about violent events.

·         Make the connection among forms and contexts of violence.

·         Discuss how God is calling us to respond to violence

Guided Meditation (2 minutes)

Prep & Materials: None

Say:[1]

Let’s think about Saturday’s March for Our Lives as we take a few deep breaths … slowly … deeply … in … and out … in … and out … in … and out …

And let’s think about the reasons people marched … marched in the “March for Our Lives” … young people … adult allies … students … their teachers … in Washington, DC … in New York City … and other parts of the U.S. and world …

If you were at one of the marches … what was it like? … what feelings did it bring up? … who were the other people marching with you? … And if you didn’t participate in any of the marches, consider the reasons why … What did you see about these marches … hear about these marches … read about these marches? … What thoughts and feelings did it bring up for you? …

And as you’re continuing to breathe slowly … deeply … in … and out … in … and out … let’s also look at the images placed in our center piece … take your time … take them in …

Who was represented at the march? … who wasn’t? …. consider the words on the signs people carried with them … think about the reasons why so many people decided to march … Take a few more breaths as you get ready to talk about Saturday’s March for Our Lives in our circle today.

Reflection (10 minutes)

Prep & Materials: Place images of protest signs[2] in the center of the room where everyone can see.

Ask students to respond, passing around a talking stick or whatever you use.

1.      Share your thoughts or feelings about the March for Our Lives that took place on Saturday, March 24, 2018.

2.      Share your reasons for having joined, or not having joined, the march.

3.      Based on the images in the center piece, what other reasons do you think motivated people to join the march?  How do you feel about that?

Video Discussion (20 minutes)

Prep & Materials: Queue the New York Times video “We Are the Change”[3]

Ask students to respond to the following questions,[4] passing around a talking stick or whatever you use. It may be helpful to start the conversation in pairs and then move to the larger group.

1.      What about the video resonated or stood out for you?  Why?

2.      Reflect on how the students in the video talk about gun violence in their Chicago neighborhood.  How is this the same or different from the experience the Parkland students had with gun violence?

3.      What are your thoughts and feelings about the meeting between the two student groups in Chicago the week before the March for Our Lives?  Is it important for these students to share their experiences with each other?  Why?  Why not?

4.      How might a meeting of this sort affect the movement the students are seeking to build?

5.      How do the students in the video talk about the March for Our Lives and activism around gun control?  How does that connect to your own experience (or lack of experience) with the March for Our Lives and the movement around gun control?

Bible Study (20 Minutes)

Prep & Materials: Hand out Bibles or copies of Psalm 20 and Matthew 26:47-52, paper /the back side of the scripture/index cards, and pens.

Psalm 20

Read Psalm 20:7 aloud: Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.

Read the following quote:

Here the Psalmist is offering up two ways of being in the world, but to get to them we have to understand a little bit about the place of horses and chariots in the Ancient world... Chariots were implements of war and violence that were of course led by horses. We might today say that some trust in tanks and others in rifles, but we praise the Lord. The Psalmist is making the case first of all, that whatever we trust in is what we worship. Secondly, I think he wants to say that you cannot trust in weapons of violence as well as God.[5]

Ask:

·         Do you agree with this perspective?

·         What do you think the psalmist means?

If the season is appropriate, make the connection to Palm Sunday as well.

Violence in the Bible

Say:

Like many things in the Bible, this teaching seems contrary to the fact that the Bible is really violent. But that same author points out that a lot of the Bible subverts the common wisdom about violence.

Ask for definitions of “subvert,” and clarify: To subvert undermine the power and authority of an established system or institution, especially with irony or mockery.

Paraphrase the following, explaining stories as necessary for your context:

It would be easy to be confused by this since so much of the Old Testament is stories of violence, but if you look closer, so often they subvert the common ideas of violence. The future king David accepts the challenge of Goliath and so King Saul gets David his armor and his sword. Israel at this time, didn’t really have swords because they hadn’t mastered working with iron yet. So, they actually had to buy them from the Philistines. This is why Saul had to arm David with his own sword and armor, not a lot of others could afford that stuff. Yet the armor doesn’t fit and both it and the sword are too heavy so David goes out with just a slingshot and the clothes he came from Bethlehem in. Then he actually manages to defeat the armored giant Goliath with his sling and his trust in God.

God downsized Gideon’s army multiple times before battle. The walls of Jericho fell because of horn blasts. All of this subverts the ideas that if you want to beat an enemy you have to meet their violence with an equal violence. All of this subverts the trust in the sword. It subverts the way of living that depends on anything other than God for protection.[6]

Read Matthew 26:47-52 aloud:

While Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, came. With him was a large crowd carrying swords and clubs. They had been sent by the chief priests and elders of the people. His betrayer had given them a sign: “Arrest the man I kiss.” Just then he came to Jesus and said, “Hello, Rabbi.” Then he kissed him. But Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you came to do.” Then they came and grabbed Jesus and arrested him. One of those with Jesus reached for his sword. Striking the high priest’s slave, he cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put the sword back into its place. All those who use the sword will die by the sword.

Ask students to respond to the following questions, passing around a talking stick or whatever you use. It may be helpful to start the conversation in pairs and then move to the larger group.

1.      What do you notice? What interests you? What questions do you have?

2.      What do you think Jesus means when he says, “Those who use the sword will die by the sword”?

3.      How do you think these teachings connect to violence today?

4.      Are the forms of violence faced by the students in Parkland and in Chicago the same or different? Is gun violence and the violence faced by those in the Bible the same or different? How do they connect?

5.      What do you think the Bible would say about the violence in our time?

Intentions

Provide students with quiet time to answer the following question: How do you think God is calling you today? How will you answer that call? Invite them to write down their responses on their paper to take home, or on an index card to place on the altar.

Closing Prayer (3 minutes)

Ask if anyone would like to offer anything up for prayer. Read Psalm 20 together.

Psalm 20

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!

May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!

May he send you help from the sanctuary,

and give you support from Zion.

May she remember all your offerings,

and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices.

May he grant you your heart’s desire,

and fulfill all your plans.

May we shout for joy over your victory,

and in the name of our God set up our banners.

May the Lord fulfill all your petitions.

Now I know that the Lord will help her anointed;

she will answer him from her holy heaven

with mighty victories by her right hand.

Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses,

but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.

They will collapse and fall,

but we shall rise and stand upright.

Give victory to the king, O Lord;

answer us when we call.

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[1] http://www.morningsidecenter.org/teachable-moment/lessons/reflecting-march-our-lives

[2] http://www.morningsidecenter.org/sites/default/files/documents-pdfs/March%20for%20Our%20Lives%20center%20piece.pdf

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000005806457/chicago-parkland-washington-march.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[4] http://www.morningsidecenter.org/teachable-moment/lessons/reflecting-march-our-lives

[5] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2018/02/26/god-for-guns/#uACRRovhmyZDIeGx.99

[6] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2018/02/26/god-for-guns/#uACRRovhmyZDIeGx.99

Hot Cocoa with a Dash of Dread: How to Avoid Causing Existential Crisis This Holiday Season

All over the country, high school seniors are dropping their pencils on their last scantron of the semester. College kids and grad students are hitting send on their last final paper or lab report. And everywhere, the stress over exams and final projects melts away, only to expose a looming dread: the question.

At family holiday parties and church services and community prayers and dinner tables, every one of these young people will be asked at least once, and more likely a thousand times, a seemingly innocuous, pleasant question – one that inspires existential dread.

The question takes a number of forms. For the high school senior, it’s more and more often, “Where are you going to college?” For the college or grad school student, it’s “What do you want to do with that degree?” For anyone finishing up, it’s the fundamental, dreaded “What are you doing next year?”

The questioner, in my (very recent) experience, is always just trying to be kind, to demonstrate interest. You want to know what they’re interested in, what their hopes and dreams are. You want to understand a path that’s different from the one you took, or maybe feel confirmed in your own life choices. You want to know that they’ve thought about it, that they’ll be able to earn a living – that all the hopes you’ve invested in them will be borne out.

But those are not the sentiments the young person in your life hears.

The high school senior hears, “Were you good enough to get into the best school? Or are you a failure?” She hears, “Shouldn’t you have heard by now?” And if she’s not planning to go to college – she’s taking a gap year, or going to vocational school, or just trying to figure out how to be an adult for awhile – she hears, “What’s wrong with you?”

The college or grad student bears this wider kind of dread. Before, it was just which college. Now, it’s the whole yawning universe of possibilities, each one feeling like a permanent choice. He read Death of a Salesman in high school; he knows what happens to people who choose unfulfilling careers. In your kindly-meant “What do you hope to do with that?” he hears “You don’t have your whole life mapped out? You’d better get on it!” 

But all is not lost. You do not have to leave the young person in your life stewing alone in the corner with their increasingly fragile psyche. As alternatives to the questions that cause panic to creep further up with each iteration, I want to offer you some conversation starters:

• What project have you learned the most from this year?
• What book or thing you’ve learned has made the biggest difference in how you think?
• Are there any books or classes you thought were worthless at the time, but later you realized you’ve learned a lot from them?
• What are you most excited about for the next semester? How can I encourage you in that?
• What are you most nervous about? How can I be supportive as you go through that?
• How have your career hopes and goals changed over the last few years?

Resist the temptation to give advice without asking, but offer reassurance that indeed your career plans changed over time, that change is good and normal. And remind them that there is a thoughtful person inside them, and your love of that person is not pegged to their GPA.

In short, aim for conversations that don’t require them to measure themselves against our cultural milestones of personal adequacy. Instead, ask questions that encourage them to reflect on learning and growth – after all, aren’t those the point of education? 

On Your Feet

Isaiah 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” 

I think sometimes we forget we have bodies. We live the life of the mind, we Harvard people, so we power through the caffeine jitters and the muscle fatigue, undeterred by the weight of our books and our laptops, preoccupied with the weight of the world on our shoulders, the sure knowledge that there are ideas to be thought up, by us, right now. 

And some theologies teach that we are better off escaping the will of the flesh, rising above our sinful, hungry, lustful bodies to some higher plane of prayer and spirit. But I am reminded that the miracle of Jesus was that he chose to live in a body. 

We are midway between seasons in the church: In December we remembered that love came down into a tiny, fragile baby body, the beloved son of an unwed mother. And this week we began Lent, the long walk to Easter, of remembering that Jesus’ choice was so painful. It hurts to live in these achy, fretful, shivering bodies. These bodies are violable, susceptible to attack by viruses and humans both. Even our love, our holy love, stretches us, as the harder and more joyfully we love another person, the deeper the ache when the body we love is with us no more. 

But in a market that offers us a thousand ways to distract ourselves from the pain of these bodies, there is something to be gained by paying attention, by listening carefully to the flesh and bones that make up so much of what we are. Knowing the value of my own body opens my eyes and my mind to the needs of the bodies around me. Loving the warmth of my body reminds me to offer a coat or a dollar to the person outside these doors struggling to keep his body warm. Taking pleasure in the strength and stretchiness of my sinews allows me to feel for the hotel worker whose back aches from lifting too many heavy beds, too quickly, and so I seek her justice. Caring for my body with rest and food and medicine strengthens my heart for the work of caring for my neighbor, who has no access to healthcare, because our politics have gotten in the way of our humanity, our egos in the way of our hearts.

We need these bodies, well-loved and well-cared-for. We need to know what a cared-for body feels like so that we can honor and care for bodies of every shape, size, color, and ability. As a friend recently reminded me, Jesus’ sacrifice of his body on the cross is a call to live as he lived, not as he died. For we cannot be the body of Christ if we treat the body as disposable. 

I confess this has been a difficult truth for me to live. I have had cause to learn the damage that can be done by trying to live as though my body were but a painful nuisance. For many years I have lived with a constant background of deep, bone-shaking anxiety, and I taught myself to ignore it, to tamp down the ache in my shoulders and the lump in my belly. But this body would not let me get away with that. When I ignore it, this body offers me explosive reminders, panic attacks that only subside when someone helps me to breathe, to inspire my body and slow down my mind. 

So I want you to breathe. To slow down. To slow down. To make space in your mind for the still small voice, for the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

Because she will come a knockin'. You will know her breath by yours, her stirring of the waters by the stirring in your beloved body, the rise of energy that tells you this moment of healing, of creation, is your calling. I am here as her harbinger. I am here to remind you to breathe, so that you are ready. I am here to stand sentinel on the hilltops of Zion and proclaim that the spirit of God is upon us, to declare peace with our bodies, to preach their salvation, in joy and in pain. I am here to live my way into some beautiful feet.

Water

The crisis in Flint, Michigan, is unconscionable. Two years ago, someone made a suggestion and a group of people voted and someone allowed a decision not to provide people with the most basic service of government: safe water. They decided to go part-way – perhaps three-fifths of the way – toward allowing people to live. That decision was despicable, and people will die because the government carried too great a burden with too few resources and too little conscience. 

The crisis in Flint is the result of a decision, and we must hold that policymaker responsible. But this crisis is more than one person’s crime: the poison in Flint’s water is a manifestation of a poisoned culture that cares too little about black bodies. Amidst all newborn America’s great dreams for a democratic Garden of Eden, sin slithered in, and we have been compromising ever since. 

This crisis is horrifying, but its causes are not shocking news. Our racial politics are made visible every day in school suspension rates and in black bodies shot dead in the streets. What shocks me is that those of us who know better, who know that black lives matter and that we will not be whole until our society reflects that, are still compromising. Somewhere along the lines, we have decided that just for now, we will fight for black bodies, and deal with the brown ones later. And we are poisoning those bodies still. 

The ABC affiliate in Flint is reporting that undocumented residents only learned that Flint’s water was poisoned “a couple weeks ago.” Increasingly isolated by ICE raids explicitly targeting families, people living undocumented in Flint for decades never knew that the well had soured. And now they are afraid to seek safe water because they fear they will leave their house for a bottle and never come home. 

The Bible is full of reminders to be kind to those who come from a foreign land. Perhaps those reminders are so frequent because in crisis it is easy to compromise the lives of those unlike us. It is easy to balance the broken budget on black backs. It is easy to give our beleaguered president a few wins on homeland security at the expense of brown families. It is easy to deny the water of life to a stranger for our own convenience. Justice will be harder.

Thanksgiving Prayer

Gracious God, as we gather around Thanksgiving table and communion table, teach us to revel in every joy, great and small. Make us lively to the giggle of children and the laughter of old friends. Light our lives with love like a candle from within. Amid deadlines and datebooks, help us to be teachers of the ways of your love, foremost by living into that love: patient, kind, generous, humble, and steadfast.

Redeemer God, make all these waters living waters, whether baptismal font or sink full of dinner dishes. Cleanse us of the worry that dims our vision of your creation. Bring the waters of healing alongside the waters of life that will scour us free of our sin, painful and hard and deep. Rain your mercy down on those who grieve, for at this time when we remember the incarnation of your spirit into a baby boy, our sadness is sharp for the ones who made love incarnate in our lives. May those tears of love wash us of fear, secure in the knowledge that love lives on in our life and eternally in you.

Sustainer God, make your presence known to us when the days are hard. Heal us so that we may be healers of hearts broken by sin, by terror, by war; by gunshots in city streets and in homes. Pour out your spirit on our leaders that they might find the quiet of their humanity amid each new crisis. Keep their hearts from being hardened by the enormity of the world’s suffering and their nations’ pain, but instead make them full of hope, for you are in the world.

Abundant God, may our practice of gratitude make us generous.

May our love make us gentler.

May our joy keep us from fear.

May our hospitality to family remind us of the pleasure and duty of hospitality to one another.

May our family bickering remind us how to disagree with open hearts.

As we glory in plenty and grieve in loss, may we be mindful of the humanity, the suffering and promise, of everyone we meet.

May we be mindful of your presence, your peace, your hope in all to come. Amen.

Standing Out

Bringing someone new to church has always required preparation. I have the ambivalence shared by many folks in my tradition toward extending the invitation. Outing myself as a churchgoer, let alone inviting someone into my sacred space, feels like a perilous adventure in a world where people sometimes hear "bigot" or "backward" or "bully" when I say "Christian."

I also have a particular reason to be nervous about bringing someone to church for the first time: the receiving line. You see, I am a ministers' kid. That's right -- ministers', plural. Mom and Dad were my pastors as early as they were my parents. So when I invite someone to join me at Mom's or Dad's church or in the churches I have served, I have learned to give the visitor a warning: "At the end of the service, don't stand next to me." They won't realize the significance, but I know, standing at the back of the church, I am in the receiving line. I am standing where just about every single person in the congregation will want to shake my hand and ask me (or tell me!) about the news of my life. That's a lot of small talk, especially for someone new to the community.

Being a ministers' kid follows this pattern in other ways. I have the joy of having communities of faith all over the country. I have stood in other churches' receiving lines and told the minister my name, only to have them say, "Chuck and Barbara's daughter? How are they?" Any congregation they have touched has grown in its theology and its sense of purpose, and so its members will show me love and gratitude I could not hope to earn.

That love also means that my beloved fellow churchgoers, even the ones to whom I have not spoken for years or decades, feel a sense of participation in my life. I am their goddaughter: they hug and they fuss and they worry about me. They pray with me, and when I am gone, they pray for me. And as my life enters the prayer chain, it becomes very public, and sometimes as overwhelming as the receiving line. Because even with the best of intentions, prayer for one too long distant can become gossip.

So I have been hesitant in sharing a piece of myself with this beloved community. I am bisexual.

This news will be startling to some because I have never felt the need to come out. My attraction to people across the gender spectrum has felt so fundamentally a part of me as to not need a separate declaration.

But there is a darker reason: I have benefited from appearing straight. In a world just now coming around to accepting gay ministers and marriage equality, bisexuality is still a bit weird for most people. I have mostly dated men, and so I haven't needed to open conversations about the news of my life with a discussion of my sexual orientation. I have avoided telling folks who might pass the news of my dating a woman down the prayer chain. Because I know that we bring our best selves to prayer, but also our worst, most desperate, most broken ways of seeing ourselves and the world.

Even deeply prayerful folks, people I love, harbor the deeply broken understanding that bisexual people are confused, or unable to settle down, or unwilling to choose a real orientation. In a close conversation, or an intimate prayer, I could clear that up. I am not confused: I am very clear about who I am called to be, and as clear as anyone about the part my sexuality plays in that call. I am not only able but overjoyed to settle down; commitment to someone, body and soul, is where I find the peace of God on earth. This is my real orientation: I delight in the possibility of love with someone, regardless of their gender.

But it is hard to have a close conversation or an intimate prayer with each of the people I'm privileged to have as godparents. So it is hard to know how they will hear this news. I am anxious about what my sharing it will mean for my relationships, and for my calling in the church and in the world.

And yet I have decided to share it. I can no longer show fidelity to my love while being silent about the ways that love has made me grow in joy and in humanity. I can no longer be true to the calling God has placed on my heart without being clear about this way God has shaped me. 

I seek to honor the godparents I have been given in my parents’ ministry, and I seek to honor my own call to ministry. What shape that calling will take is its own long conversation, but I know that it will be just as public and intimate and chaotic as the church receiving line.

My choice to be out is political, it is pastoral, and it is prayerful. So I invite you to church, and to pray with me.