After years of talking, debating, fighting, leaving—we made a decision on same sex marriage at General Convention. Two resolutions passed—one provided a trial liturgy for marriage, another changed the canons to incorporate gender neutral language--maybe there was an inevitability in that, maybe not. But what was sure, was the relief. We were no longer spinning our wheels in the mud, getting everyone dirty. Now we could begin to move forward, pour new wine into new wine skins because the old skins had been bursting for some time. But in this moment of celebration for some, we cannot lose our pastoral stance.
For the most part, General Convention #78 delighted me, an event where a true spirit of unity and congeniality pervaded the floor of the House of Deputies. Following a standard rule of order, agreed upon by all the deputations at the start of the legislative sessions, assisted that delightful spirit. Our chaplain, The Rev. Lester McKenzie, who led us daily in prayer and singing, “We are one together—Yo, Yo, Yo,” also nurtured that spirit.
Often, those words would be sung by various deputations who spontaneously broke into song at various times over the course of the convention. Even though we knew we all didn’t agree on everything, those disagreements did not feel like rivalries or a classic "winning vs. losing" scenario. (Though, yes, I am aware that there were those deputations who, in not having the vote go their way, felt that they had lost—especially in the marriage vote.)
Now, more than ever, we must come to this new thinking on marraige with compassion and concern for those who continue to struggle with same sex marriage—especially those whose context is vastly different from our own. So, it was with some degree of empathy and frustration that I watched as the deputation from Honduras attempting to read a “minority report on marriage resolutions”, run out of their allotted time frame of four minutes to speak on the floor. In keeping with the Rules of Order, their microphone was cut off by the President of the House. The report signed by twenty bishops voiced their dissent with the recently adopted resolutions.
After so much movement forward in the face of so much angst and challenge, our momentum became too great to stop or turn and we barreled into the iceberg. We allowed legalism to once again silence the minority. Maybe the rules didn't allow for it, but I wonder when compassion, especially in the face of dissension, became defined as fairness and equability?
Jesus walked this earth to remind the Jews—and by extension us—that there is nothing more worthy than compassion, which is the only transformative agency we can participate in with God. I do not sit in judgment over the President of the House of Deputies—goodness knows what decision I would have made in her place. And I credit her with admitting that she may not have made the best decision in the way she handled the situation. She apologized to the deputation from Honduras and told the House where to find the dissent on-line. But I wonder, had she to do it all over again, would she stick to the rules, or allow for their suspension?
Jesus drew the bottom line: People matter more than law, compassion more than reasonableness. I grow weary of dissent and division, but I am more and more aware that weariness is no excuse and legalism cannot be acceptable, even in the governance of our church, if we truly desire to be part of the Jesus movement. To be part of that movement, sometimes and maybe even most of the time, we’ll just have to suspend the rules.
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