Lambeth Day 14 – 7/31/2008

Sex. (Sorry, no photo today.)

Today’s Indaba topic was Listening to God and Each Other – The Bishop and human sexuality. I am not sure what you are imagining, but I suspect it is not very close. The Indaba, however, was very productive and bore the fruits of our having labored together for over two weeks now. After viewing a 10 minute film in which people from across the Communion spoke frankly and personally about how the Church’s varied stances on and responses to homosexuality affect them, we gathered in our Bible Study groups and talked with equal openness about how the Communion’s engagement (and some would rightly claim, non-engagement) of issues of human sexuality has influenced the ministry and mission of our dioceses and provinces.

In our group it was not an easy conversation, though there were no surprises. Because we have been clear all along with each other about our perspectives and theologies, both certain and uncertain, we were able to get beyond the usual roadblocks and, with some mutual encouragement, imagine not so much what we might need from others to move forward together, but what we could each give. The most interesting thing to me is that it was not a list of what we could give up. It was indeed things we could give. Room. Respect, both for divergent understandings and diverse cultural realities. Companionship. A model, by how we live as a Communion, for the people of our own dioceses as they struggle to live with many great and difficult differences.

Our Bible Sudy group is not made up of like-minded Christians, though I am convinced that for each of us, our convictions about human sexuality and sexual behavior come from a deep and genuine intimacy with Jesus Christ. It is amazing, given that common relationship, that we are so different. Among the eight of us, we have both conservative and liberal bishops from England, Australia, and North America. We have both conservative and liberal bishops from Africa. We have bishops who ordain gays and lesbians in committed relationships, bishops who will not, and a bishop in whose native language there is no word for homosexual. It sometimes astounds me that we can even have these conversations, and then it astounds me that for so long we have not. What most astounds me is the prevalent fear that we will not be able to figure out how to stay together.

I am wondering if that really is our job. Mightn’t our job at this moment be simply to want to stay together, and then to muster both the humility to bring that genuine desire to God and the trust that God will know what to do with us? “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9) I’m counting on that, God. And I’m praying that the rest of us, all of us, will have the grace and patience to learn your thoughts, whatever they are, together. Just as our topic today suggested: Listening to God and Each Other. We never seem to get very far learning them apart.