At the end, finally?

I would not have guessed it, if I had been asked, but yesterday at the meeting someone mentioned that we Presbyterians had been debating this issue for the last 33 years. For almost as long as I have been a minister, we have been arguing over who is eligible for ordination. I certainly hope this is the last time we see this issue.

We have spent 33 years arguing, voting, debating, fussing over whether or not gay and lesbian people might be ordained to the offices of Deacon, Elders, and Ministers of the Word and Sacrament. That is a lot of time invested in one very small issue. During that same time we were living through a huge economic bubble that was fueled primarily by GREED. In that same period of time we have developed a national health care problem of obesity, which seems to speak of GLUTTONY. As a nation we have strutted around the world in hubris and arrogance, which is PRIDE. We have great evidence that there is still horrible slave traffic in young women for sexual activities, which is LUST. And the Presbyterian bodies have been focused on the sin of homosexuality and have tended to remain rather silent on the other sins.

In the old questions and answers of the confessions, sin is "any want of conformity or transgression of the Will of God." And the Bible does list Homosexuality as a sin. So lets not argue about that. Even if we believe they were born that way, we are all supposed to believe we were all born into sin. So calling homosexuality a sin is not a great help in moving the discussion along.

The real question is always what do you do with the sinner. We have lots of divorced people who have remarried who are ordained and accepted as leaders, but the Bible calls them adulterers. And we do not demand that they divorce again. We have many aggressive business people who might even say they were greedy, but we do not prohibit them from holding office. One would hate to ask how many people in a congregation have looked at a Playboy centerfold with admiration. But we do not exclude them from ordination if they are selected by a congregation.

We just need to stop wasting our time, our energy, our passion on this tiny part of the population and get on with larger issues of loving justice, doing mercy and worshipping God.

I hope this is the last time we vote.