Standing Resolution Adopted by Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference, June 2007
Written by JKnepper
Monday, 02 July 2007
TO BENEFIT THE CHILDREN OF SAME-GENDER RELATIONSHIPS The 2000 Census established that same-gender couples are raising children in 96% of all counties in The United States. Children of same-gender parents often experience economic, legal, and familial insecurity when their bonds to non-biological parents are not legally recognized. Moreover, legal recognition of same-gender relationships increases the ability of adult couples to provide and care for one another and fosters a nurturing and secure environment for their children. Because scientific data overwhelmingly demonstrates that there is no relationship between the sexual orientation of parents and any measure of children’s emotional, psychosocial, and behavioral adjustment [Pediatrics, July 2006]; and because The United Methodist Church believes “the family to be the basic human community through which persons are nurtured and sustained in mutual love, responsibility, respect, and fidelity” [Paragraph 161A, page 99, 2004 Discipline]; and because The United Methodist Church “encourage[s] social, economic, and religious efforts to maintain and strengthen relationships within families” [Paragraph 161A, page 99, 2004 Discipline]; we conclude that civil marriage, civil unions, and legally recognized domestic partnerships are beneficial to children, regardless of the gender of the parents, because they strengthen families and help foster financial and legal security, psychological and social stability, and an enhanced sense of societal acceptance and support. We support efforts to legally recognize same-gender relationships and claim that laws which ban the legal recognition of same-gender relationships actively harm the health and well-being of children all over the nation.
Co-Pastors: Jeanne Knepper and Marcia Hauer Volume 7, No 25 Editor: Jeanne Knepper July 1, 2007 4775 N. Lombard, Portland OR 97203
Church, 503-289-7843;
Jeanne, 503-709-4107; Marcia, 503-349-4245 www.upumc.net CONNECTIONS UPUMC • Unbinding the Gospel, Adult Sunday School meets Summer Sundays, 11:30pm, Errol Stephenson Hall. • Education Committee will not meet today. • Jeanne’s Birthday Party, Monday, July 9, 7pm, Errol Stephenson Hall. • Short Administrative Council Meeting, if needed, Monday, July 9, 8pm, Errol Stephenson Hall. • Finance Committee meets Tuesday, July 10, 7:30pm. • UMW Bake Sale, Sunday, July 15, after church. • Volleyball Camp for Mariah Herbach, July 15-20, Suttle Lake Camp. • Lunch Bunch, Old Spaghetti Factory, Tuesday, July 17, 12:30pm. See Bev Read for reservations. • Trustees meet Tuesday, July 17, 6:30pm, Errol Stephenson Hall. THE LARGER CHURCH • Creation Vacation, June 30-July 4, Camp Magruder. • Sing Across the Walls: 2007 Oregon-Idaho School of Christian Mission, July 12-15, George Fox University, Newberg, OR. Registration Deadline is June 29. • UMW Young Women’s Event, July 13-15, George Fox University, Newberg, OR. • Oregon-Idaho Reconciling United Methodists [RUMS] Summer Picnic, Saturday, July 14, Champoeg State Park, 11:30am.
THE COMMUNITY • Game Days, First and Third Sundays, 2-5pm, University Park Coffee Shop, including today. • Portsmouth Neighborhood Association Event, Walking the Neighborhood, Tuesday, July 24, 7pm, Clarendon Elementary School.
FUTURE EVENTS, FOR YOUR CALENDAR • Orientation meeting for Cruise, Wednesday, August 1, 7pm, Errol Stephenson Hall. • Nature Detectives Camp for our Sunday School Children, August 8-11, Suttle Lake Camp. • Third Annual North Portland Pride Festival, Sunday, August 12, Noon-4pm, UPUMC. • UPUMC FUNd-raising Cruise, September 16-23, 2007. Talk to Betty Cruson to sign up.
WEEKLY AT UPUMC • Choir practices Sundays at 9:30am, Tuesdays at 6:30pm, Sanctuary. • Men’s Group, Tuesdays, 10am, Narthex. • Alcoholics Anonymous, Narthex, Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays at 8pm, weekly. • Overeaters Anonymous, Wednesdays at 7pm. • Morrison Center Program, Thursdays 5-9pm, beginning June 21. STAYING IN TOUCH Edna Riddle, Sunrise Adult Care Center, 11945 SW Butner Rd., Portland OR 97225; 503-841-1295.
Harriet Bonhorst, Pioneer Tower, 515 P Street #202, Sacramento, CA 95814; phone: 1-916-446-4863.
Erica Martinez, 182 E Nevada St. Ashland, OR 97520. Cell phone: 1-503-791-3680.
Jeanne Pulliam, 8603 SE Causey Ave, Apt 202; Happy Valley, OR 97086-2604, Telephone 503-594-2539.
Aleena Sologar, 6611 NE MLK Blvd Apt. 101, Portland, OR 97211. 503-285-4761.
HOLDING IN PRAYER Dana Brandt—cancer, chemo—at home. Jerry Culver—medical testing—at home. Carolyn Hammett—cancer, chemo—at home. Bev Heginbotham—chemo—at home. Phil Herbach—awaiting hip replacement—at home. Aleena Sologar—recovering from a fall.
THE NURSERY IS STAFFED DURING WORSHIP FOR CHILDREN YOUNGER THAN SCHOOL AGE.
PLEASE DON’T GO HUNGRY. WE HAVE FOOD IN OUR PANTRY, LOCATED IN THE HALLWAY LEADING TO ERROL STEPHENSON HALL. TAKE WHAT YOU NEED.
PENCILS FOR KIDS Remember last summer, when we collected thousands of pencils for the North Portland Readiness Fair, a project of the Caring Community of North Portland? Well, our own Lisa Horne is chairing the collection of school supplies, our community effort to make sure that every child in North Portland starts school with all the necessary supplies. Our part of that grand adventure is to collect as many pencils as we can. Watch for the back to school sales and start to collect those pencils. Bring them to the altar as our gift to God and to the kids of our community. Let’s show ourselves, once again, that we are the church that can, and does. We will collect through July and the first part of August.
BEQUEST RECEIVED Years ago, members Helen O’Hearn and Harriet Bonhorst took up a challenge put to UPUMC by then District Superintendent Ray Balcomb: start an Endowment Fund and the initial investment would be enhanced by a gift from the district. Between them, they approached members and enlisted subscriptions to the new endowment fund, a decision that led over time to a fund of nearly $60,000 which provides an income of about $3,000 each year to the church budget. In 1990, Helen O’Hearn lived out her devotion to UPUMC by devoting income from the sale of her house to the UPUMC endowment fund. At some point, payments from that sale stopped coming in. Last summer, the new owner wanted to clear the title, which meant researching what was due to the church according to the will and bill of sale and then pursuing payment. A subcommittee drawn from the Trustees and Finance Committee has been at work on that project for about a year. This week, the process ended, and Dick Burdon picked up and deposited a check for $22,273.52 in our account. It was Helen’s intent that this money become a part of our endowment fund. Members of the Finance and Trustees Committees will be determining the best way to do that in the near future.
SUNDAY CONCERTS IN MCCOY PARK McCoy Park, in New Columbia, is a new, attractive and accessible park within walking distance of UPUMC on N. Fiske between Trenton and Fessenden. During July, there will be free Sunday concerts at the park, 6-8pm, with activities for children beginning at 5:30pm. The schedule is: July 8—Jacob Michael, blues July 15—Son Trio, traditional Cuban July 22—The Fabulous Essentials, classic rock July 29—Portland Festival Symphony Orchestra
WALK AND WIN AN IPOD The Portsmouth Neighborhood Association will host a Neighborhood walk on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 7pm. Residents will walk through the neighborhood to discuss our community assets and what we’d like to see improved. Walkers will be joined by City Commissioner Sam Adams, Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder, County Commissioner Jeff Cogen, State Representative Tina Kotek and Crime Prevention Coordinator Havilah Ferschwilder. Afterwards, There will be a drawing for an IPOD Nano for a Portsmouth resident. For more information, talk to Scott Jensen.
PICNIC WITH O-I RUMS It’s a tradition, the annual summer picnic of Oregon-Idaho Reconciling United Methodists. This year, we will gather at Champoeg State Park between Portland and Salem at 11:30am on Saturday, July 14 for a potluck picnic lunch, fellowship, stories and activist activities.
A BIRTHDAY PARTY Everyone is invited to gather for cake and ice cream to help Jeanne celebrate her 60th birthday, Monday, July 9, 7pm, Errol Stephenson Hall. Please, no presents, although a donation to UPUMC in honor of the occasion would be much welcome. And, by happy coincidence, it’s also Barbara Herbach’s birthday, same day, different number.
THE FRUIT TREE PROJECT We have an abundance of fruit growing on trees in residential areas of Portland. But every year, thousands of pounds of this delicious organic food drops without being harvested, turning into a sticky mess in yards and sidewalks. The Portland Fruit Tree Project organizes people in the Portland community to gather fruit before it falls, and make it available to those who need it most. We register fruit trees around the city, coordinate harvesting parties, and offer workshops in pruning & fruit preservation. For more information, send an email to
or call Katy at (503) 939-4914.
Co-Pastors: Jeanne Knepper and Marcia Hauer Volume 7, No 24 Editor: Jeanne Knepper June 24, 2007 4775 N. Lombard, Portland OR 97203
Church, 503-289-7843;
Jeanne, 503-709-4107; Marcia, 503-349-4245 www.upumc.net CONNECTIONS UPUMC • Outreach Committee meets today, after the potluck, Narthex. • Unbinding the Gospel, Adult Sunday School meets Summer Sundays, 11:30pm, Errol Stephenson Hall, resuming next Sunday. • Education Committee meets Sunday, July 1, 12:45pm, Errol Stephenson Hall. THE LARGER CHURCH • Creation Vacation, June 30-July 4, Camp Magruder. See Marcia for more information. • Sing Across the Walls: 2007 Oregon-Idaho School of Christian Mission, July 12-15, George Fox University, Newberg, OR. Registration Deadline is June 29. • UMW Young Women’s Event, July 13-15, George Fox University, Newberg, OR.
THE COMMUNITY • Game Days, First and Third Sundays, 2-5pm, University Park Coffee Shop. • Portsmouth Neighborhood Association Event, Walking the Neighborhood, Tuesday, June 5, 7pm, Clarendon Elementary School.
FUTURE EVENTS, FOR YOUR CALENDAR • Third Annual North Portland Pride Festival, Sunday, August 12, Noon-4pm, UPUMC. • UPUMC FUNd-raising Cruise, September 16-23, 2007. Talk to Betty Cruson to sign up.
WEEKLY AT UPUMC • Choir practices Sundays at 9:30am, Tuesdays at 6:30pm, Sanctuary. • Men’s Group, Tuesdays, 10am, Narthex. • Alcoholics Anonymous, Narthex, Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays at 8pm, weekly. • Overeaters Anonymous, Wednesdays at 7pm. • Morrison Center Program, Thursdays 5-9pm, beginning June 21. STAYING IN TOUCH Edna Riddle, Sunrise Adult Care Center, 11945 SW Butner Rd., Portland OR 97225; 503-841-1295.
Harriet Bonhorst, Pioneer Tower, 515 P Street #202, Sacramento, CA 95814; phone: 1-916-446-4863.
Erica Martinez, 182 E Nevada St. Ashland, OR 97520. Cell phone: 1-503-791-3680.
Jeanne Pulliam, 8603 SE Causey Ave, Apt 202; Happy Valley, OR 97086-2604, Telephone 503-594-2539.
Aleena Sologar, 6611 NE MLK Blvd Apt. 101, Portland, OR 97211. 503-285-4761.
HOLDING IN PRAYER Dana Brandt—cancer, chemo—at home. Jerry Culver—medical testing—at home. Carolyn Hammett—cancer, chemo—at home. Bev Heginbotham—chemo—at home. Phil Herbach—awaiting hip replacement—at home. Aleena Sologar—grieving the death of her sister Elmina.
THE NURSERY IS STAFFED DURING WORSHIP FOR CHILDREN YOUNGER THAN SCHOOL AGE.
PLEASE DON’T GO HUNGRY. WE HAVE FOOD IN OUR PANTRY, LOCATED IN THE HALLWAY LEADING TO ERROL STEPHENSON HALL. TAKE WHAT YOU NEED.
A NEW WAY WITH CHURCH NEWS The Administrative Council of University Park is made up of the chairs of all the acting committees that carry out the business of the church. It meets once each month, usually on the second Monday. At this month’s Administrative Council meeting, we decided that we wanted the congregation to know more about the business of the church. We start that process today by including the minutes of the last meeting in UP-words. In the future, we will include committee reports on the Sunday before the next council meeting. Doing this will free up meeting time for visioning, dreaming, discussing, planning, and getting excited about what we can be doing together, and it will make the work of the church more transparent for everyone in the church.--Jeanne
ADMINIATRATIVE COUNCIL MINUTES University Park United Methodist Church (UPUMC) Administrative Council Meeting Minutes June 18, 2007
The meeting was called to order at 7:50 p.m. by chair, Scott Jensen. Attendance: Scott Jensen, Lisa Horne, David White, Betty Cruson, Dick Burdon, Rev. Marcia Hauer, Dottie Swensen, Karen Ripka, Stephen Hicks, and Rev. Dr. Jeanne Knepper. Scott offered an opening prayer.
The May 7, 2007 minutes were reviewed. Stephen made a motion to adopt the minutes as presented. Karen provided the second, and the motion carried 5-0-1.
Pastor’s Report: • Jeanne gave brief updates about health and other concerns of church members, and distributed cards for people to sign. • 2 petitions that were endorsed by UPUMC, 1 authored by Jeanne, and 10 that were submitted by the Oregon-Idaho Reconciling United Methodists were passed at the Annual Conference. • Jeanne and Marcia were re-appointed to UPUMC at the Annual Conference. • Jeanne spoke of a church attendance concern. • Marcia mentioned membership numbers and their potential affect on equitable salary funding.
Trustee’s Report: Dick and Lisa reported that the parsonage has been rented since May 18th. The door handle in the garage was repaired. The parsonage stove needed replacement. Lisa submitted for reimbursement of the new stove cost. The O’Hearn property/Linda Hansen contract is near resolution. We are awaiting a call from the title company to pick up our check, which will release the deed that we submitted to the title company. The trailer was sold to a local business owner for $250.
Finance/Treasurer’s Report: Karen reported that we are behind one month for Jeanne’s salary/housing allowance. We need to pay the guest musician and day care person, Marika Siebertova. Lisa reported that we need to pay the prior tenant’s security deposit, and she forwarded a spreadsheet to Karen with exact figures.
Outreach Report: Shower of Stoles service was held June 10 from 10 until 4. A family karaoke night is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Saturday, June 23rd. UPUMC may host an event for National Night Out, August 7th. The North Portland Pride Festival will be held August 12th. Current sponsors include Equity Foundation and Portsmouth Neighborhood Association.
Open Discussion: Jeanne read excerpts from The Passion Driven Congregation with a focus on committees/meetings of the church. Discussion included taking care of ministry and mission with a mix of business and fellowship. Encouraging a connection with each other. Scott suggested that committees summarize their report in an electronic format before Ad Council that is distributed the day before. Idea: Conversation and coffee sign on a Friday or Saturday night with members available and the door open to Errol Stephenson Hall.
The meeting adjourned at 9:15 p.m. following a closing prayer by Marcia. The next meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. July 9th. Committees’ summaries need to be submitted by July 1st.
Respectfully submitted by Lisa Horne
You shall love the Lord with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the rest is commentary.
PENCILS FOR KIDS Remember last summer, when we collected thousands of pencils for the North Portland Readiness Fair, a project of the Caring Community of North Portland? Well, our own Lisa Horne is chairing the collection of school supplies, our community effort to make sure that every child in North Portland starts school with all the necessary supplies. Our part of that grand adventure is to collect as many pencils as we can. Watch for the back to school sales and start to collect those pencils. Bring them to the altar as our gift to God and to the kids of our community. Let’s show ourselves, once again, that we are the church that can, and does. We will collect through July and the first part of August.
HEARING GOD IN THE SILENCES 1 Kings 19:9b-12; Psalm 42; Galatians 3:23-29 June 24, 2007
It was many years ago. Someone whom I thought of as a very close friend had made choices that hurt me deeply, catastrophically, painfully, turning my life upside down. I cried; I fumed; I complained to others. I felt betrayed, angry, self-righteous, and tremendously justified in my continuing fury. I wanted everyone to see it my way, to tell me I was the wronged party here, to agree that I had done everything I could . . . I wanted to have my fury and my self-righteousness as well. And yet it wasn’t enough. I needed more affirmation; more people on my side; more feed-back that I was absolutely justified in my continuing anger. And so, one day, feeling out of balance and unsettled, I prayed, “God, why did you let this happen? [Silence.] Why did she do this to me? [Silence.] What did I do to deserve this? [Silence.] What am I supposed to do now???” And then, I heard a small voice, definitely not my own, in my head, and a one-word answer: “Love.”
Well, it took me years to figure out what that could mean. I knew right away what it wasn’t—it wasn’t plan to do things together or be best buds or try to reconstruct a friendship, although I thought about or attempted all of those things. It wasn’t obsess or try to know all I could about what was going on or try to get my former friends to see that I was right—although I thought about those things. Over time, and not at all in any easy way, I came to my own peace, and in it I recognized what “Love” meant, as a word from God. It was more like, “Find compassion, for my friend and for myself. Choose peace, for myself and for my feelings towards my friend. Stop hugging the grievances. Set down the pain. Learn to wish for the best, for myself, and for my former friend. Heal. Seek what is good, for my friends and for myself.”
It wasn’t easy, and I can’t say, to this day, that I accomplished the challenge set before me that day. But, I think it was a word from God, a word offered out of silence and stillness that came to me in my pain and pointed me toward a better way.
And the word of God came to Elijah, hunkered in his cave, and said, “Leave off your frightened crouching and stand”—and stand—not like some wounded animal hiding in a cage, ready to snarl at and attack anyone who might come by, not like someone who feels so hurt, so used, so victimized that any striking out is justified—and stand, like the strong, resilient, beloved person I have created you to be. “Leave off your frightened crouching and stand, because the Lord is passing by.” The Lord is here, passing by where you are, meeting you in this space of pain and confusion, calling upon you to remember, now, in your pain, that you are not a victim, not abandoned, not alone, that you are a child of God, beloved.
Isn’t that what we all want to know, most of all, when life has hurt us and we wonder why we deserved such pain? Isn’t that what we want to hear when we’ve been mistreated, even more than we want to hear, “Yeah, it was all her, it was all his fault! They really ripped you off. You’ve got a right to be mad!” Of course, if we have been injured, we have a right to be mad—but madness doesn’t heal our wounded souls or restore strength and balance to our lives. Even when we are thrashing around, wanting everyone to agree that we have a right to be mad, don’t we know, underneath, that we really want something much greater than that—we want to know that, even if we did mess up, even if we did goof or not see something coming, or try too hard or not try hard enough, even if all of these things are true at once, even if all of this is so, . . . still, somehow, we want to know that we are still beloved, that we still belong.
It comes down to this, does God love us because we have done it right, because we have it together, because we are such stellar human beings, or does God love us because it is the nature of God to love? When we’re feeling all full of ourselves, it’s kind of fun to pretend that we believe that God loves us because we are so very good. Why, we might say to ourselves, I keep all the commandments, and I give to the church, and I never speak ill of others, and I’m always a good person—of course God loves me. But you see the danger in that, don’t you? That life might go badly wrong for a while, and we might get out of balance, angry, spiteful, striking out at others, depressed, mean, vindictive, hard-hearted—but always, of course, because “they” deserve it—and then, and then what? Then, when we are out of balance and out of sorts, when everything else is already going wrong, does God stop loving us, too? Wouldn’t that be adding injury to insult—just when I am the most unlovable, God gives up on me too? Oh, that would be so hard, and we know so many people who think that is the way it is.
But, in our reading, Paul argues, “No!” That is the worst perversion of the faith, he shouts our through his letter, to imagine that we can make God love us, can claim our place in the gathering of God’s beloved, because of our righteous behavior. We can’t make God love us by what we do, or don’t do. We can’t make God stop loving us because of what we do, or don’t do. God love us and has claimed us, always, because that is the nature of God. Remember the greeting we have used sometimes: “God loves you, and there’s NOTHING you can do about it!”
Although I’m quite fond of today’s reading—claiming our unity without respect to being Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, I had no idea of what powerful stuff this is until I started digging into the bigger story, trying to understand the context of the book so that I might better understand the meaning of this passage. Right off the bat, what I learned was that this book was at the heart of Martin Luther’s rebellion against the Catholic church and therefore instrumental in making us all Protestants. This little book, only 6 chapters, has undergirded the fight to end apartheid in South Africa, has spoken to the question of the ordination of women, and is very relevant in our world and church today.
So what’s the story? Paul, reformed persecutor of Christians who became the great evangelist, taking Christianity to the Gentile world, had begun several churches in Galatia, an area in what is now Turkey. They’d gotten off to a good start, new congregations made up mostly of Gentiles, non-Jews, who had received the story of Christ as their own story. Paul had gone on his way, off to preach to new areas. Meanwhile, in the rest of the new Christian Church, a controversy raged, one every bit as big, and of similar passions and depth as the current controversy in many churches about whether sexual orientation has anything to do with being a Christian. The question then was this—did a Gentile man who converted to Christianity need to be circumcised, coming under the Torah, Jewish law, or not? Christianity had started as a gathering within Judaism. Its first adherents were Christian Jews, keepers of the law. Could Gentiles become Christians without becoming Jews? Paul believed, yes, absolutely. But he’d gone on, and some new Missionaries had come to Galatia, men who were teaching that the gentiles needed to be circumcised to be real Christians. See, part of the problem was that Christians shared one table, the communion meal, and observant Jews never ate with Gentiles. So, the question was, would there be one table, with everyone circumcised, or two, one for Jews and one for Gentiles. The new Missionaries were arguing that the way to unity was through conformity—that all should become Jews, keepers of the Law, so that they could come to one table.
Well, Paul just roared his disapproval, calling the new teachings perversions of the Gospel—PERVERSIONS—and laying out his arguments in the strongest possible terms. Paul’s argument is at the heart of Christianity, and goes like this:
God is the initiator of all connection between God and God’s people. God first selected Abraham’s descendants as God’s chosen people long before Moses received the Law. What was important, then about the first covenant with Abraham was not the keeping of Law, but the way that Abraham lived in faith, putting all trust in God. Through Moses, God gave the Law to the God’s people to be a paidagogos, a slave who functioned like a nursemaid, taking children to and from school, seeing that they behaved and keeping them out of harm, but never a member of the family. Adults do not need a Nanny—to try to impose that kind of control imprisons and confines the human spirit. It is the same with the Law, Paul argued. Although the Law had served its purposes in the interval between Moses and Jesus, it now functioned to confine and imprison people. Through his faithful life and death, Jesus had burst Law’s hold, setting people free from its captivity, and redefined the nature of human community. In Christ, people became children of God, brothers and sisters to one another, living without distinctions that would separate them, that would cut them off from one another.
These distinctions—of race, economic status, gender, wealth, nationality, sexual orientation, education,--these distinctions so often lead to just the sort of dynamic that Paul was confronting in Galatia—a cultural imperialism that insists that you can’t be Christian unless you become socially like the ones who have power in the faith.
You know, I love Hawaiian shirts, their vibrant color and life—as well as their comfort. But when I wear them I am also aware of their role as a tool of cultural imperialism. You see, when Christian missionaries, many of them from cold and stony nineteenth century New England, went to the Hawaiian Islands, they found a people well adapted to a warm and generous climate, a people who wore little and lived easily. This would not do. If these people were to become Christian, the missionaries taught, they must dress like proper Christians. The missionaries manufactured simple work shirts and made wearing them a sign of conversion. The Hawaiians wore the shirts—but decorated them to express their own vitality, giving us Hawaiian shirts, still a symbol of an easier, more relaxed life. It’s a simple story perhaps, but still, an example of the tendency to insist that converts must become like us, socially. That dynamic played out in the U.S. when missionaries insisted that Native Americans, to be Christian, needed to learn to farm, wear “normal” clothing, and leave their native languages and heritage behind, a cultural imperialism that nearly destroyed a people. We see the same dynamic all the time—in the suggestion that to be Christian you must speak English, support capitalism, be heterosexual, act “white.’ Paul is saying “NO!” to all of this. To be Christian, he says, you must trust the faithfulness of Christ, of God, reaching out to love and receive you, there before you do anything to deserve that love, there because God and Christ are faithful and have acted to love you, not because you’ve done anything to make God love you. God loves you because it is God’s nature to love. Period. PERIOD! And—this love empowers us to resist anything that would separate us, not just individually, but corporately, from the love of God or neighbor.
And here is the tickle, the kicker: the same broad love that empowers us to resist all injustice, whether it is aimed at ourselves or others, also calls us, when we are at our most unbalanced, when we are cowering in the cave of our own despair, calls us to stand up and know that God is nearby and that we are called to live by the still, small voice that whispers in our hearts and souls, “Love.”
It isn’t easy, sometimes, but it is God’s word, for our lives. And we know, in our deepest heart of hearts, we know that it is true. Amen.
Vanity Fair’s Africa 7/2007 issue features an interview of South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu by Brad Pitt. The engaging article can be found in the July 2007 issue of Vanity Fair on page 96. An excerpt on gay rights:
Brad Pitt: So certainly discrimination has no place in Christianity. There’s a big argument going on in America right now, on gay rights and equality.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu: For me, I couldn’t ever keep quiet, I come from a situation where for a very long time people were discriminated against, made to suffer for something about which they could do nothing–their ethnicity. We were made to suffer because we were not white. Then, for a very long time in our church, we didn’t ordain women, and we were penalizing a huge section of humanity for something about which they could do nothing–their gender. And I’m glad that now the church has changed all that. I’m glad that apartheid has ended. I could not for any part of me be able to keep quiet, because people were being penalized, ostracized, treated as if they were less than human, because of something they could do nothing to change–their sexual orientation. For me, I can’t imagine the Lord that I worship, this Jesus Christ, actually concurring with the persecution of a minority that is already being persecuted. The Jesus who I worship is a Jesus who was forever on the side of those who were being clobbered, and he got into trouble precisely because of that. Our church, the Anglican Church, is experiencing a very, very serious crisis. It is all to do with human sexuality. I think God is weeping. He is weeping that we should be spending so much energy, time resources on this subject at a time when the world is aching.
University Park United Methodist Church (UPUMC) is located at 4775 N Lombard, Portland Oregon 97203. UPUMC is small, diverse, growing, laughing, committed, caring, serious, warm and REAL! We are a community that encourages each other as we grow in faith, in knowledge, in service, and in love of self, God and neighbor. At University Park we not only respect but welcome diversity in race, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical and mental ability, economic status and profession. We believe all people are equal before God and entitled to Gods grace and abundance. Pastors: Rev. Dr. Jeanne Knepper & Rev. Marcia Hauer http://www.upumc.net
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