Opinion or Bias?

Our nation and our churches are divided right now... including The Episcopal Church. We are all asked to “reach across the divide” and try and engage with those who hold differing positions than we do. We are being asked to engage in graceful dialogue with those with whom we have significant disagreements. We are all asked to try and understand the positions of those on the “other side” of the positions we hold.

I don’t have any problem with engaging with those who hold different positions than I do. I don’t have any problem reaching across a divide. I don’t have any problem with engaging in respectful dialogue for the sake of our faith, for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are all called to that as followers of Jesus.

I am growing increasingly disturbed at being asked to reach across a divide when the difference is identified as an opinion. Opinions relate to whether we prefer Rite I or Rite II. Opinions relate to such points as hymns or readings or Psalms. Opinions relate to concepts where we are simply choosing between options. We like A over B. Our opinion supports X over Y.

What seems to be overlooked is that some issues are not opinions. My sexual orientation as a gay man is not a matter of opinion. It is a fact of who I am as a child of God. A person’s race is not a matter of opinion. It is a fact of an individual’s heredity and genetic make up and earliest origins. A person’s gender or gender identity is not a matter of opinion. Gender and gender identity are either a fact of birth, namely cis-gender or a fact of realization, namely transgender. I cannot and will not engage in an “across the divide” discussion with someone who claims a different opinion about my sexual orientation. Nor can I envision someone doing the same with regard to their race, gender or gender identity.

We are not engaging in differences of opinion when it comes to issues of race, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Facts of existence are not opinions, regardless of who claims otherwise.

I will not engage with someone who is racist, sexist, gender or homophobic. They are not operating on opinions but on prejudices and biases. And hence, we have such a terrible divide in our society and to some degree in our church. Bias cannot be masked, hidden or excused under the guise of differences of opinion. Until we understand that truth, we cannot hold meaningful, redemptive, productive, and holy conversations.

Our current political climate is mired in non-productive and harmful discourses (not discussions) about biases being trotted out as opinions. We will remain at a stalemate, a harmful and potentially deadly stalemate as long as we cling to these fantasies.

As Episcopalians, we should also keep in mind that our canon laws forbid discrimination based on gender, gender expression/identity, race, sexual orientation, etc. Those are not opinions. Those are our canon laws. Continuing to debate as if they were opinions is both hypocritical and demeaning to both sides of the discussion. Let’s use a very simple example: If you have white skin or identify as Caucasian, is that an opinion or a fact? If you are honest you know it is not an opinion but a fact. So why would we treat someone who is Asian or Black or Latino/a as if that aspect of their identity was an opinion? Some will certainly attempt to cast sexual orientation and gender identity/expression as an opinion in their discussions. I see such as the last grasping at straws to support individual and/or corporate discrimination. Perhaps a good question to such folks is: “Is your sexual orientation as heterosexual your opinion or is it a fact of your existence?”

Who we are as children of God is not opinion. What we believe as children of God can be an opinion. Yet what about our baptismal covenant vows? We regularly renew our vows to respect the dignity of every human being, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. Are those vows offering an opinion or expressing our commitment to the concepts? Do we really believe or do we simply give lip service? Or do we just plain lie?

Opinion or bias? We have work to do before we can have a meaningful conversation.

On a different but related note, I offer a recent item below from “Perspectives Journal” about how our society treats guns. We, as a group, have been among the victims of gun violence, the shootings in Orlando are permanently etched in our psyches. Dick’s Sporting Goods just took a very bold position in ending their sales of assault weapons. Ironically, gun violence and gun control are one area where we can engage in discussions involving opinions.

As we continue our journey through the wilderness of Lent, may we reflect on these issues that have such an impact on our lives and seek grace-filled ways to discuss and address them.

Bruce Garner, President

Integrity USA ... The Episcopal Rainbow

The Great Equalizer: You are dust and to dust you shall return

Ash Wednesday was just two days ago and at every service there was the haunting phrase hanging in the background: You are dust and to dust you shall return, as ashes were smudged on the foreheads of the faithful.

The words were oddly out of place when the recipient was a child, even more so for a baby. The words were poignant when the recipient was mature in years. Yet no matter the age, the words are the great equalizer. And no matter the station in life, the wealth or poverty, gender, gender expression/identity, sexual orientation or other characteristic, we all return to the dust.

The words used when ashes are imposed are from Genesis 3:19, based on the words spoken to Adam and Eve after their sin and eviction from the Garden of Eden: you are dust and to dust you shall return. No one escapes this fate. All of us eventually return to the dust. Obviously as “Easter people” we look to the resurrection, however and whenever that occurs. But that is on the “other end” of Lent.

I wonder how often (or even if) those in power, political power or otherwise, ever ponder those words that spell out their ultimate fate. I wonder the same of those who treat others so callously or badly. The great equalizer will be the fate of those who try to remove the safety nets from the poor - however meager those safety nets might be. The great equalizer will inflict itself on those who practice racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and yes even on those who perpetrate sexual assault - no matter how long or how hard they try to hide what they have done. The great equalizer will prevail.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., warned us that we must learn to live together as siblings or we would surely perish together as fools.

A former bishop of Alabama, whose name long ago escaped from my memory, was also brutally direct when he said: If we believe what we profess, we had better learn to get along because we will be with each other for eternity. Ponder that for a moment, both from your perspective and then from that of those who would treat us as second class members of the church and society. Eternity. Together.

The great equalizer: We are all subject to its declaration that we are dust and to dust we shall return.

If you have taken on my challenge to make your Lenten discipline contacting all who represent you in secular government and those who have been charged to be your pastor(s), you might, perhaps as an ice breaker, remind them that they, just like you, are from dust and they, like you, will return to dust.

Yes my kindred, there is indeed a great equalizer and all are subject to it.

Amid the somberness of Ash Wednesday, we endured yet another poignant example of our inhumanity to each other with the Parkland High School (Florida) mass shooting. Pray for the all the victims of that senseless tragedy: the dead, the wounded and even the perpetrator. And pray that we will come to our senses and stop allowing perversions of the intent of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution to cloud our judgement about controlling guns whose only purpose is to kill the children of God. I don’t think this was the time intended for the work of the great equalizer… it was far too soon, at least in my mind.

I wish each of you a blessed, holy and productive Lent.

Bruce Garner, President

Integrity USA ... The Episcopal Rainbow

Lent Approaches

This is the last Friday before Lent begins on February 14. As we approach the Lenten season, I am reminded of how Lent was viewed decades ago in my youth and young adulthood: The question was always “What are you giving up for Lent?” I sometimes did give something up for Lent. On the occasion of several Lents I vowed to give up profanity. Well that generally lasted barely until the Second Sunday of Lent. The colorful language just managed to slip in despite my best efforts.

At some point I became aware of another nature of Lent, namely that of taking on some discipline or activity for those forty days. It could be daily prayer, self-improvement, reading specific literature or pretty much any activity that could be considered productive and helpful for the season. I got “hooked” on the value of the Daily Office after a Lent when I took on the discipline of praying Morning Prayer each morning. It stuck.My day begins with prayer following that model.

We seem to be living in a time of little discipline, at least on the part of our elected leaders. Accountability seems to be a “nice idea” rather than something that should be expected and demanded. The wind blows and the position changes. The wind blows and another change. Little thought is given to the impact of such “flexible” thinking on the lives of millions of people.

I urge you to take on some discipline(s) during the upcoming Lenten season. I urge you to make one of your disciplines to be contacting your elected representatives on a very regular basis sharing your thoughts and ideas and how you honestly feel about some of their positions on issues that have a direct impact on you as an LGBTQ+ follower of Jesus Christ. And I urge you to use that language. Make sure they know that you are a person of faith, part of the Jesus Movement.Be persistent. Lent has 40 days. Contact your elected representatives at least one fourth of those days. (Each of the 40 days would be great, but hey, I will take what I can get!)

Elected officials do not hear from nearly enough of their constituents. Often they only hear the harsh meanness of the religious right. Let them hear a more moderate expression of faith. It helps those who need reinforcement. It might convict others to change their thinking. So get out your personal devices, laptops, and desktops and email, tweet, text or whatever form of communication gets you going. Who knows, some might even write an actual letter and mail it!

Don’t forget to include your religious leaders as well. If you are in one of the infamous non-marriage eight, contact your bishop during Lent and point out the pain his position is causing for you and those close to you. Make it a part of your discipline for the season to be in regular contact with your bishop… maybe even your commission on ministry or standing committee… whoever it is who needs to hear from you. Make it a discipline.

I wish each of you a blessed, holy and productive Lent.

Bruce Garner, President

Integrity USA ... The Episcopal Rainbow

Into the Cloud: Transfiguration Liberation

A homily preached in the Episcopal/Anglican Fellowship at Harvard Divinity School 

Readings for Transfiguration Sunday, Year C

Monday, February 11, 2013

Transfiguration greetings from inside the cloud.  I say this not simply because of the fog that envelopes us here in Cambridge as rain melts our record snowfall, not only because of the in-between place the Diocese of Massachusetts diocese has entered in the wake of our bishop’s retirement announcement, or even in honor of the strange possibility that, as the Anglican News Service explains, "a new Archbishop of Canterbury and a new Pope may be enthroned in the same month."  I say this inspired by Luke’s unique observation that all of those present on the Transfiguration mount were not only “overshadowed” by a cloud but actually, terrifyingly, “entered into it” (Lk 9:34).  In some way, Luke seems to do more with the Transfiguration, to link the very paschal mystery to it, and to make that mystery accessible to his readers—to all of us.  In the hands of Luke, all of us are delivered into the mysterious liberation that is transfiguration.

This cloud-envelopment is not the only unique gift brought to us by the Year C in our liturgical/lectionary rotation.  Only Luke, among the synoptic witnesses, gives us a window onto the summit conversation between Jesus, Moses and Elijah.  All three accounts tell us that Peter, John and James see these towering figures of the Law and the Prophets.  But Luke alone explains that “they appeared in glory” and, most importantly, that “they were speaking of [Jesus’] departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”  The term for departure is ἔξοδον, a word that evokes the Exodus of the Israelites from their Egyptian captivity.  Already the gospel story draws upon Moses’ shining encounter, as our first reading reminds us.  But Luke’s window onto Jesus’ mountaintop discourse gives us more on which to chew.  Jesus was about to embody Exodus.  Think about what that might mean.  Think of what we know about the journey that lay before him:  the downward slope into Jerusalem, the crucifixion, the resurrection and ascension.  The shorthand Luke uses for this, the frame through which he wants us to read it is ἔξοδον.  It is liberation from oppression. It is the transformation of an individual body—suffering and death followed by resurrection life—as the transformation of a collective body.   Does this relationship of collective to individual embodiment not shift how you might read Jesus’ words of agency? Do you not hear the notion of “accomplishing” this paschal mystery in a different way?  It is not simply a matter of deciding to suffer and to die (which, of course, is not simple in and of itself).  This “accomplishment” is about the exodus of a people, or as Paul puts it in our reading from 2 Corinthians, freedom, which flows out from “the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor 3:18).

Both in written reflection and in iconic depiction, the Christian East has long honored the Metamorphosis (as it is often called, after the term with which Matthew and Mark describe Jesus’ transformation), and has seen in it a deep connection to the mystery of Easter itself. Transfiguration is not only something that happened to Jesus on Mount Tabor, as our unnamed peak is often called.  It is also the effect of resurrection power in our lives here and now, as well as at the end of all things, when that power will lift us up from the grave.  Transfiguration is the transformation “from glory into glory” to which Paul speaks in this breathtaking vision: “all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18).  This is not an effect reserved for the end.  It is with us now.  It is why, “we do not lose heart” as we carry forward in our ministries (2 Cor 4:1).  The present, pervasive reality of transfiguration allows us to discern the holy in this cloud in which we stand.

The idea that to be transfigured is to be changed, to be transformed, to be metamorphosed first drew me to the theology of transfiguration-- as someone who has transitioned, it spoke powerfully to me.  The complexity of my gender identity also gave me a particular appreciation for its liminal placement in the liturgical year.  But surely I am not alone in my love of the uniquely clear way in which the transfiguration (and more specifically Transfiguration Sunday, placed here, at the threshold of Epiphany and Lent) makes the heart of the gospel-- the good news of God’s transforming, healing, reconciling work -- available to us, a prism through which to see our own lives as in some way part of this larger collection, these stories of salvation history.  This combination of liminality and transformation should prompt us to see not only the obviously-set-apart places, the mountaintop locales, but also the more mundane interstices, the in-between spaces of our lives, even the painful ones, as places of transfiguration. 

These thresholds can be temporal, spatial or both.  What if we considered the context of divinity schools and seminaries, of universities and of higher education  more broadly through this lens?  Such contexts are crucibles—as you surely don’t need me to tell you—spaces of intensive formation,  carrying the anxiety of next-steps, for students as well as for faculty and staff.   And so from that crucible, from this cloud, I want to invite us all to consider here and now:  What is the ἔξοδον you are about to accomplish, or rather, that God is about to accomplish in you?  How are you being called to embody the paschal mystery in all its incorporation of death and new life?  Stand on this verge today and know that by virtue of your membership in the body of Christ, you too are being transfigured.  You, dear friends, are caught up in the mystery of metamorphosis, you are poised to leap up from the sacramental waters of your baptism. In the least likely spaces of your life, you are being “changed from glory into glory,” invited to grow like the engrafted olive shoot you are into the very heart of the living God.  The death Christ died and the resurrection life through which creation itself was recast—these fundamental tenets of our faith our not simply mental exercises, but spiritual realities with deeply concrete implications.  As we move toward the dust-filled return of Ash Wednesday and the wilderness territory of Lent, think on this mystery.

Luke’s vision of the Transfiguration frames our entry into Lent and Easter like no other gospel.  To be sure, the placement of this day at the end of the season of Epiphany, as the bookend to Jesus’ baptism (another iconic favorite in Eastern Christianity) works similarly in all three years of our lectionary.  Transfiguration stands as the mandorla, the holy hinge on which the cycles of Incarnation and Pascha swing into one another. But Luke’s version alone gives us a prism through which to read the paschal mystery itself.  Luke alone truly uses Transfiguration as the key for interpreting the cross and the empty tomb.  Luke alone refracts our very body/ies through the lens of Exodus (for an Easter preview, see Luke 24:1-12).  And so again I ask you, what is the ἔξοδον that God is seeking to accomplish in you?  How are you being called to embody the liberation that is the Paschal Mystery?  Amen.

Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge is the Episcopal Chaplain at Boston University and a Lecturer and Episcopal/Anglican Denominational Counselor at Harvard Divinity School.