Why should the church ordain openly gay men and lesbians?
By Allen V. Harris

http://www.disciplesworld.com/

- Reprinted by permission of DisciplesWorld -

I remember a critical moment in my life when I was a teenager and on the youth council of my home region. Each summer at our leadership conference, time was set aside just after lunch one day for a pastor to talk with young people who felt in some way called into the ministry. On a whim I decided to stay and chat. I told myself that my intended career as a minister of music certainly qualified me at least to have a brief conversation with him.

After talking with the pastor for a while, he asked me, “Why aren’t you going into ordained ministry?” As I hemmed and hawed for a moment, trying to explain that such an extreme measure really wasn’t necessary for what I wanted to do, he announced, “Allen, you’ll discover sooner or later that you are being called into the ministry.”

I panicked and excused myself.

To this day I cannot tell you whether or not I was agitated because I was afraid of the level of commitment to which ordained ministry would call me (I should have been!), or if I subconsciously knew that I was gay, and being gay would either prohibit or at least complicate the path to ordained ministry (and it certainly has!). So, I mentally disregarded the pastor’s counsel and, heading to college, pursued a degree in music ministry.

But the same guidance came again and again, now from many other people in various circumstances. Even as I became more certain that I was attracted to men and not to women, the call to ministry became clearer and clearer. Then, in a moment of life-giving surrender, I acknowledged to myself and to God that I was gay and I was called to ordained ministry. To this day I live in a whirlwind in which spiritual and sexual honesty are fused together in a mystical combination that brings me deep pain but even greater joy.

Why should the church ordain openly gay men and lesbians? Because God has called us into ministry.

Why should the church ordain openly gay men and lesbians? Because we were baptized into membership in the Body of Christ, and the church must live up to the calling explicit in that act.

Why should the church ordain openly gay men and lesbians? Because God has gifted and graced many of us for ministry.

At my ordination at Park Avenue Christian Church in New York City in May 1991, Paul’s words to the church at Corinth were read from 2 Corinthians 4:1–2:

Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.

For far too long the church has forced lesbians, gay men, bisexual, and transgender persons to hide what the church deemed “shameful” but what is, in fact, beautiful and Godly — our sexuality. How we live into that divine gift of sexuality remains a challenge for all of us. It is time for the church to “renounce the shameful things that one hides” — that is the spiteful cruelty it has shown its non-heterosexual members. Frequently, this includes overt or covert exclusion from the community; far too often, it extends to the point of the church turning its back when unspeakable violence is committed against us. It is time for the church to “refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word” by contending that “gay ordination” is the issue that is crippling the church, rather than the arrogance of the biblically and biologically misguided who cannot honestly deal with the greater, more elusive challenges and changes in society and spirituality.

But we do not lose heart. In commissions on the ministry around the denomination, more and more transgender, bisexual, lesbian, and gay candidates for ministry “refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word” either by feigning we are straight or asexual or by pretending we are not called by the living God into full-time, fully ordained ministry. Likewise, at my ordination, and at the ordinations of more and more of God’s beloved gay and affirming children called into ministry, we “by the open statement of truth … commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.” We proclaim that no longer will the biases and fears of humanity define whom the church shall ordain for its transforming mission in the world. The church’s ministry can only be viable for the world when we are open to the Holy Spirit, who continues to seek wisdom afresh for our time. This ministry and mission will reflect the wideness of God’s grace and imbue the deepest hopes and most profound faithfulness of God’s people.

In another letter to the church at Corinth, Paul boldly affirms:

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God … as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor 1:27–31)

I do not boast in my own call to ordained ministry, even after an incredibly rewarding 10-year ministry in New York City and now well into my seventh profoundly meaningful year at Franklin Circle Christian Church in Cleveland, Ohio. I am well aware that it is the grace of God and the hard and faithful work of many people — lay and clergy alike — that allows my ministry, and the ministry of all the members I have served alongside, to have any consequence in Christ’s church. God truly does choose the lowly and despised of the world to make this ministry happen. May we — and I — always boast in the Lord, who is the source of this calling.

Why should the church ordain openly gay men and lesbians? Because we Disciples do not take the Bible legalistically, literally, or thoughtlessly, but faithfully, humbly, and carefully. We understand that just as Jesus reminded his listeners, “You have heard it said … but I say …” we, too, are called to make real scripture within the moment, location, and circumstance we are living. If we took the Bible literally, we would have walked smugly past the woman caught in adultery, politely ignored the man beaten by the side of the road, been aghast that Jesus was talking to a Samaritan woman in the middle of the day at the town’s center. But we don’t take scripture word for word, but as the Word. And so we hope that if we had been present, we would have thoughtfully reevaluated the texts of old and joined Jesus, learning from him what it means to live the scriptures.

How do I know gay persons are called into ministry? Because, in contrast to the rigid purity and ritual laws of the Hebrew scriptures and the stringent mandates for leaders in the New Testament, individuals who were complex and ostensibly wrong for the job were still called to service and lifted up for leadership — Moses stuttered, Esther was a foreign woman in a mixed marriage, Jeremiah was too young, Cyrus was Persian, Matthew was aligned with the Romans, Paul was unmarried, the Ethiopian was a eunuch, Lydia was a wealthy businesswoman, and Jesus was certainly an outsider to the established leaders of his time.

The pastor who so firmly urged me to consider myself called by God to ordained ministry at leadership camp that summer would later resolutely oppose my ordination on the grounds that I was gay. In the end, I have found that nothing will truly convince folks like him except experience. My ministry has not been perfect, but I believe ultimately and wholeheartedly that “we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us” (2 Cor 4:7).

May that be enough to let the church honestly and faithfully consider all of God’s children as candidates for ministry.

Allen Harris is senior pastor of Franklin Circle Christian Church in Cleveland and one of the founders of the Open and Affirming Ministry Program of GLAD Alliance.




 

Copyright 2008 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096