One of the challenges of the Episcopal Church is to live up to our slogan: "The Episcopal Church welcomes you." Part of our ongoing work - in Constitution and Canons and resolutions, in processes and structures, in our own hearts - is to live into the deep and life changing hospitality and invitation of the Gospel. It seems to me that General Convention 2009 has taken one more step on the way. In a calm and reasonable way, we tried to describe where we believe God has led us, to say that the Church is made up of all kinds of people - including gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender people - and God just might call any one of us into one of the orders of ministry or into a committed, loving relationship. As the bishops added: "ain't it a mystery?"* As we heard on the First Sunday After General Convention, also known as the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost: "in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us." The life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus has overcome our deeply human tendency to try to decide who's in and who's out, who is worthy and who isn't, who's in the wrong group. Whether it's a matter of circumcision, or race, or sexuality or gender identity, the Church has struggled to live into that new reality. The struggle isn't over, but at least we've taken another step.
*not a direct quote
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