Gordon Dosher’s comments in favor of Amendment 10-A

My dad, Gordon Dosher, led off the pro-10A comments at the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area meeting on Tuesday, May 10, which eventually ended in the 87th presbytery to vote in favor of the amendment, solidifying its addition to the PC(USA) Book of Order. He shared his comments with me, and said I could post them publicly, so here is what he said:

After I was elected by this body to be a commissioner to General Assembly, I prayed hard that I would not be placed on the committee dealing with ordination standard. The issue has been too contentious for too long and I did not want to be part of another cycle of divisiveness in the church I love. I was even willing to be on the committee dealing with the Israel/Palestinian conflict. But when I got my committee assignment, it was indeed on ordination standards At that point, I prayed that God would give me the direction to know what I was to do on that committee. And God did give me that direction.

My point here is that God calls us to do things that we may feel unwilling or even unqualified to do. But, if we are living in God’s Spirit, we will follow that call. And, no matter what roadblocks are thrown up, we are compelled by the Spirit to do God’s work.

For me, this amendment is not about allowing a group to be ordained. For me, this is getting us back to our Reformed roots – to be people who are ordained by God and to live faithfully to fulfill that ordination.

The wording of this amendment calls for us as presbyteries and sessions to be discerning bodies. We are to listen for whether a person is motivated by the call of the Holy Spirit or motivated by something else, like guilt or sense of duty. We are to be open to God’s working through a wide variety of people. On the other hand, we must discern that otherwise qualified people may not be truly called for a particular office.

I am aware of churches that, even though a majority of the members were opposed to ordination of GLBT persons, still ordained a gay or lesbian because they felt so strongly that it was the right thing in that circumstance. I am also aware of churches that, even though a majority of members embraced such ordination, still rejected ordination of someone because the church didn’t feel the person was truly called. To me, this is listening for God’s will.

I realize the deep feelings that run on the various sides of the subject of sexual orientation. I don’t think that this amendment is going to erase the contention among those sides. I don’t think that this is going to eliminate the fear or hurt that is often associated with this subject. Whatever the outcome is of this vote, I urge all of us to be respectful and sensitive to the people who have strong feelings on this and to Christ’s love to one another, no matter what our beliefs.

Finally, I believe that we need to trust in God to do the calling, work to discern God’s will in our church, and then get out of the way and let God’s people do God’s work. For me, this amendment gives us the direction to do just that. I urge passage of this amendment. Thank you.

Redemption Song

(This is not part of the Ephesians Project. This is a co-post with the blog site Two Friars and a Fool. Their site also has commentary on this blog post.)

Almost two years ago, in my last semester of seminary, I preached my senior sermon for our capstone preaching class. It was a beautiful and flawed piece that dealt with the also beautiful and challenging description of Christ in Colossians 1:15-23. The passage challenges our imaginations by telling us that Christ is the “image of the invisible God” and “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together,” and “in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” These are things we seem to grasp in an emotional way, but are difficult to wrap our heads around. Then follows the more personal and painful truth of the passage, the message of hope and redemption in verses 20-22:

“and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him…”

As I wrote my sermon news from my hometown of Seattle kept begging for my attention. We were waiting for the sentencing of two teenage boys in relation to a beating that had led to the death of Seattle’s beloved “Tuba Man” a couple months before. The act shocked and horrified people in Seattle who had seen the Tuba Man outside sports events for years, sitting and playing his tuba as people milled into stadiums, stopped to listen, make requests and even do a little dancing. After his death no one who had ever heard him play was surprised to learn that the Tuba Man, Ed McMichael, had a classical musical education. However we were stunned that anyone as gentle and friendly as Mr. McMichael had been could possibly be the victim of such a random and violent act.

Though the sentencing of the two teenage boys was not scheduled until after I would actually preach my sermon, the text and circumstances screamed to be included in my message. I asked the question of what hope we could find for these two young men. In some ways they were lucky. There were mitigating circumstances that prevented them from being tried as adults and for the full extent of their crimes, so though the sentencing had not yet been handed down, we knew they could only receive a maximum of 18 months in a juvenile facility. People, including some of my own friends, were upset at the outcome and screaming for justice. I took all this in with a heavy heart. On the one hand the sheer destruction and evil of the act left me heartbroken for the Tuba Man and for our community. On the other hand, the people calling for justice didn’t really believe in the justice of the system. They wanted these two youths to be given a harsher sentence because they didn’t believe in the possibility of transformation that the juvenile system is supposed to offer. Yet, what hope of transformation would a harsher sentence offer, either?

I spoke of the circumstances of Paul’s writing this letter to the Colossians. It is believed that he himself was in prison as he wrote, with no idea when he might find freedom, yet he writes the Christological hymn that forms this passage. In a situation with little to no hope, Paul finds hope and redemption in Christ. As we read this and other Christological hymns in Paul’s letters we are reminded of Paul and Silas singing in their prison cell in Philippi. And who was going to sing a song of hope and redemption for these young men and their terrible act?

The bitter irony of this tragedy was that they had caused the death of someone who might have played a song for them. Ed McMichael had played for everyone else in Seattle, and in playing for us, he was playing for them, too.

I prayed that even in their little time away, they might be able to receive some seed of a different life. But it seems that we tossed those boys away, forgetting about them for the 18 months they had to serve and forgoing any possibility of transformation. We forgot about them, at least, until a couple weeks ago when one of them was arrested again. It was something minor, but as he was arrested he was heard to brag about the beating of Mr. McMichael and that he had gotten away with a slap on the wrist. It was sad and frustrating and, unfortunately, unsurprising.

No one really believed the punishment the two youths received would transform them, and the broken record of our broken justice system played again. Over and over we speak of how ineffective the justice system is, and yet we keep pouring money into jails over schools even as we strip away money from the courts to even attempt to do their job. Cases pile up, prisons fill up and we are worse off than we ever have been. And no one in this vicious cycle believes in the least possibility of redemption, only in punishment.

I say all this not merely as an indictment of the justice system, which has indeed failed, but also as a symptom of the general lack of belief in redemption. We go around saying that Jesus Christ died for our sins, but we don’t really think he died for anyone else’s sins. We don’t really believe that “in him God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself.” Think of the power of that statement. Not only is God working to make everything right and righteous, to mend what has been broken, but to draw us into God’s own life, to not merely mend but to once again receive the breath of life that changed clay to human. And Paul says that God has done this through Jesus Christ, a human being, and a human being within whom God was “pleased to dwell” who “holds all things together”. As humans who are held together in Christ, we are participants in the reconciliation plan. And we are not simply participants in receiving redemption, but as those who are part of Christ, that reconciliation is supposed to happen through us, through the very sinners who need saving.

Then comes the even tougher part. Though Paul has already stated that God is bringing together all things into wholeness, we are reminded that included in ‘all things’ are those who have been estranged from and against God, those who have done “evil deeds”. So this plan for salvation that we are not merely receiving, but also supposed to be giving away includes even two young men who beat up innocent bystanders for fun and then brag about it. It includes people who hate homosexuals and people who hate NRA members. It includes older people who want the church to stay the same and the young people who want to burn the church down. It includes the Pharisees and Saducees and betrayers and deniers and persecutors of Christians. We have to believe that it is possible for all of these people to be transformed by sharing our hope in Christ. I, too, get frustrated with old people who don’t want to change and young people who don’t want to learn. I get frustrated with people who carry guns or don’t recycle or who think the King James Version is the only correct version of the Bible. But if I give up on them without listening, challenging and loving fiercely, I abandon the hope of the Gospel. I am saying that Jesus really didn’t die on the cross for all of our sins, just some of ours. I don’t believe that the Kingdom of God is come near.

We can’t simply sit at home and hope that our broken systems and our broken homes and our broken selves will suddenly be able to mend themselves. We have to actually go out there and say that we believe it can be different. We have to do ministries no one believes in or understands. We have to be willing to step into dangerous situations to prevent abuse and persecution and oppression, instead of walking by. We have to believe that two punk kids who beat up harmless street musicians can not only change their ways, but become lights to the world themselves. And then we have to help them see that for themselves.

~Megan

A word about methodology for The Ephesians Project

I wanted to give y’all an idea on how I am going about approaching this project and where I am in that process.

When I do exegesis (critical interpretation/explanation of a text) on Biblical scripture I tend to start with reading the text itself. For this project I started by reading the whole book of Ephesians. For my future posts I will read it again, only in smaller sections, and I will probably take up some word studies as they strike me in the text. I will also be doing some reading on Ephesians to learn more about the history and people’s thoughts. This is a more casual approach overall than if I were writing a paper for a class or even, perhaps, a sermon. However, I would like to approach it much as a layperson would approach a prayerful reading of the text, yet not neglect that I do have some extra knowledge gained in my seminary studies. And some extra books.

I also hope to bring a conversational aspect to my reflections through my reading of other scholars’ and project members’ writings.

Now for some brief overall reflections on Ephesians from my initial reading. The author of this letter (whether Paul or another) seems to mainly be concerned about the souls of the Christians in Ephesus. The spiritual life and wholeness of the Ephesians is seen throughout the letter, and it is expressed through concern over relationship – with God, with other Christians, with family and with their former pagan ways (needing to sever those relationships). In order to guard the soul and the delicate relationships, they are urged to guard their spiritual lives, to don spiritual armor. In donning that armor, they are to ward off the things that would harm those relationships and to hold together this new body. We hear about old and new life, old and new ways. These new ways and life are to be protected as one protects the new life of a baby. It is as if in this new life their very skin is new and easily damaged. Spiritual armor includes prayer and discipline, built through structures at home, church and staying away from their old ways that came with damaging consequences.

I will go into more detail about this new life/old life and the protection of the new life as I dive deeper into Ephesians, but for now a comment on a major concern for women in many of Paul’s Epistles – the so-called ‘Household Codes’. The household codes are the sets of rules regarding the home life of Christians. In the epistles, Christians are urged to maintain a particular order and structure within the family, often comparing the relationship of husband to wife as that of Jesus to the church. Since this project is being undertaken by an all-female cast, I look forward to what we all have to say on the household codes in Ephesians. I plan to address both the challenging aspects of the proposed structure as well as some possibly hopeful interpretations of the text.

Blessings as we explore this project together, tackling both the challenging and the elating pieces of the text. Peace ~Megan

Hello world!

I seem to be collecting blog sites like some people collect stamps. Or stray pets. Yet each one has its own unique purpose and place in my life and heart. This one will begin as a dedication to The Ephesians Project: http://ephesiansproject.wordpress.com/ started by my twitter friend, Laura. It will probably become the place I post other Biblical musings and whims. I’m excited to be part of this Ephesians project, so thanks to Laura for her gracious invite.

Peace ~ Megan