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Grace to you and peace.
I did not plan to join the protesters. Most certainly, neither Diane nor I
intended to be jailed in Cleveland during the General Conference. But the
Holy Spirit moved us and here I am in the Cleveland jail for the second day
in a row.
You are probably asking the same question I have asked myself; namely: Why?
While I do not pretend to understand fully my response to the Spirit's
nudging, the following insights are emerging in my soul. I offer them as
confession, not as argument.
I am where I am because I could not in Christian conscience be elsewhere.
The outcome of the votes on issues of homosexuality at General Conference
was no surprise. Any thoughtful analysis of the composition of the General
Conference told the story of the decisions made far in advance of our coming
to Cleveland. This was not going to be the General Conference that would
initiate change on this or other thorny issues. Hence, the protests were not
attempts to "get votes." The votes were determined, already.
Rather, I experienced the protests (the SoulForce ecumenical witness on May
10 and the United Methodist witness on May 11) as expressions of pain so
deep in the souls of those once again excluded by the church that words
could not express their anguish. They decided to enact what mere utterances
could not convey.
Thus, I decided that it was essential that a Bishop needed to be present
with those who were hurting terribly. Their pain demanded response from a
person or persons in authority. I had and I have no question where Jesus or
Martin Luther King or John Wesley or Dorothy Day or Caesar Chavez or
Sojourner Truth or other saints would have been on May 10 and 11. I went
where Jesus could be found, and I have seen the Risen Christ in the faces of
jailed protesters, the wonderfully supportive police -- especially the
officers of color -- and in the words and hospitality of the judge before
whom I stood.
I am in jail with the picked on and driven out as a pastoral act of
empathetic solidarity. I long for the isolated outsider to be welcomed home
by the 99 insiders, and until that occurs, I know where Jesus calls me to
be, at least some of the time.
For me, being here is part of a seamless garment. It occurs within a 40-year
pastoral-prophetic fabric of
Standing in the name of Jesus with the excluded, hurting and marginalized
has been the essence of my ministry from its beginning. Being here in the
Cleveland jail is not the result of a newly discovered commitment. Rather,
it is part of an old, old story, which was well-known when I was elected and
consecrated a Bishop. I have long been called to stand with and for those on
the outside longing to be inside. I am here because I could do no other and
remain faithful to my calling.
I find this scholarship to be faulty at best and the conclusions drawn
heartbreaking because they are as murderous of gay and lesbian Christians as
prior mistaken interpretations were to people of color, women and divorced
Christians, including many pastors and some Bishops. Not surprisingly, most
of the voices in the past against people of color, women and divorced
Christians and now against homosexuals in this culture in the United
Methodist Church are the voices of Anglo males. Sometime their anger and
rhetoric appear to be more a game of power than an exercise of ministry. I,
for one, refuse to play that evil game.
I was profoundly disappointed that the Council of Bishops did not choose to
address this issue during this quadrennium and then speak clearly to the
Church of our own many differences and composite pain. I cannot fathom a
leadership group refusing to face head on, not the most important, but, the
most vexing issue before the Church today. My soul aches in remembrance of
our sin of omission.
Despite my love and abiding respect for individual Bishops, I confess that
sometimes I feel like a motherless child in the Council of Bishops, which is
my Church home. But I did inform the Council of Bishops of what I intended
to do May 10 and 11, short of being arrested, which I had not planned. And,
to a person, the Bishops supported my decision, applauded my candor, even if
most appeared to disagree with my conclusions and intended actions.
They are my brothers and sisters and I affirm them as family even as I
remain disappointed with what feels to me like extreme reluctance to grapple
openly and candidly with the very matters that our positions of leadership
demand we face, however painfully and vulnerably.
Please:
Perhaps, dear readers, allies and adversaries alike, the question is not why
I am in jail but why more of us are not constantly present where the hurts
are greatest, the pain most intense and the Risen Christ majestically
present.
Believe me, I have seen Jesus here in the Cleveland jail. And I am grateful
that when I leave, I shall emerge sadder but more peaceful, contemplative
but more committed, disappointed but more hopeful because I have seen the
Risen Christ and I am not nor shall I ever be the same again.
Your brother in Christ,
Copyright © 2000 by the author
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Maurine C. Waun Witness : Gay and Lesbian Clergy Report from the Front Dann Hazel
Websites:
Affirmation: United Methodists for GLBT Concerns
Also In This Issue:
Gay Catholics Saddened by Methodist Vote
Mel White Replies to the Critics
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