Kirkepiscatoid

Ok, I confess. I've been smarting over this statement for three days and it wasn't even aimed at me. It's the bomb Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul dropped when he called for Bishop Gene Robinson's resignation, when he said, "Gene Robinson has to be away from the Anglican world and be a normal Christian,” then basically states that a so-called "normal Christian", if he were a gay bishop, would resign for the good of the Church.

Why am I so inflamed by this statement? Hey, I'm straight. He's not talkin' to me. I don't even KNOW Bishop Gene (Ok, but I admit I'd like to b/c he is my newest hero....). Well, two reasons...

1. When he disses Bishop Gene, he disses every GLBT person I have had the pleasure to know and call my friend. I was sitting around thinking about my "circle of friends" the other day on my one day self-designed retreat, and I realized about 10-15% of my friends are either gay or lesbian...well DUH...just like the demographics in society. All of the people in my "inner circle" bring the light of God to my life in their own unique, indisputable way. Does this mean that Archbishop Deng is discounting my experience of God's light and love shining through 10-15% of "my posse?"

2. When we start defining "normal" vs. "abnormal" or "deviant" Christians, who's next????? Chicks in stoles, passing out blessed wafers? Acolytes with liturgical color-correct cowboy boots? Communicants with big tattoos? People who wear shorts and t-shirts and flip-flops to the rail? Folks who dye their hair purple? That is huge dangerous slippery slope there, and it runs the risk of us becoming the Pharasees that we loathe in the Gospel stories. It runs the risk of us becoming biblio-idolaters. It runs the risk that, in the name of Jesus, we become what Jesus railed against.

I have just one thing to say to Archbishop Deng, and I now call it the "Doxy test" in honor of Doxy of Wormwood's Doxy. "Archbishop, would you take communinon if Gene Robinson and I were kneeling at the same rail with you?"

If your answer is "yes," well, then, I will trust in God to sort out the details, and I hope you will too.

If your answer is "no," well, then, shake the dust from your feet, buddy and move on. You are, in my book, a GOOMCR ("Get off of my communion rail"...a play on GOMER (get outa my emergency room) from the novel "House of God".)

I was thinking about this in the words of Eucharistic Prayer A...

"We celebrate the memorial of our redemption."

Now, take a listen to those words...emphasis on the concept that God has already redeemed us. There is nothing we have to do to make things happen in this regard. We don’t have to crawl down the aisle blubbering and asking to be “saved.” In fact, it’s quite the opposite!

Take, for instance, the fact that writing my version of my “12 aspects of praise” in Psalm 118, at times, as I wrote it, make a lump come to my throat, and caused me to fight back tears. That tearfulness was not because I had to come to God with my head hanging, all browbeaten, but because of the sheer JOY that God has saved me without my asking or having to jump through hoops! We should not be dragging our asses up the aisle blubbering tears of remorse for our sins because we are disobedient children in the eyes of hard-assed "Daddy God", we should be standing in the sunshine with the wind in our faces, crying tears of joy for our redemption that has already occurred. If we are doing that, our sins will come to light in their own way and will be sorted out between us and God.

I believe in the memorial of my redemption. Does Archbishop Deng?