Yesterday the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) formally adopted
a change to its constitution, the Book of Order, clearing the way for
same-gender couples to celebrate their Christian marriages in the context of
worship in a Presbyterian church.
That’s a wordy way of saying that my church just embraced
marriage equality.
I was baptized in a Presbyterian congregation in Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, more than a half century ago, and was ordained as a minister of word
and sacrament (in the term of art of the day) more than 15 years ago. I’ve been
connected to this little part of the body of Christ for a long, long time.
Today I am proud of my church, and even more so proud of my
small congregation which has been out front on full equality, inclusion,
empowerment – that is to say, radical welcome – for gay, lesbian, bisexual,
transgender, queer folk for decades. Clarendon opened its doors to support
groups for people with AIDS in the mid-1980s, while the Reagan Administration
twiddled its thumbs and the band played on. Faithful women and men at Clarendon
have been engaged in this struggle far longer than my time here.
I’m smiling today, in particular, because this decision
comes on the eve of the anniversary of the first state-sanctioned same-gender
wedding I had the privilege of conducting, last March, when Ron and James
finally tied the knot after 26 years of living in sin!
Even as I smile, though, there is an ache in my heart for
those friends who did not live long enough to see this day. Doubtless, many of
the people in those early AIDS support groups are held in sacred memory – names
stitched on swatches in the quilt. More personally, I am thinking of friends and colleagues
in ministry who lived their professional lives in the closet or who did not
serve the church professionally because they were forced to choose between love
and vocation.
The arc of the moral universe is long. I have lived and
worked this far with the strong conviction that it bends toward justice. Doing the work of love bends it a bit further, but I
know that many hearts are broken along the way. So while I celebrate the
bending that I have been so richly privileged to participate in, I also hold a
space of mourning in my heart for those grievously wounded by justice denied.
It is possible to dance with joy and with sorrow, and to trust in
the lord of the dance.
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