Gay marriage

Acts 5:12-26

          The story is not new at all, the power is with the people. There are grass root uprisings, demands for democratic participation in the government. It happens all over the world. It is not so different in the church. Not too long ago there were groups formed within the Catholic church demanding more transparency and greater participation in decision making. I recall the power of Voice of the Faithful. Very often the objects of these demonstrations seem immune from understanding just how wrong they are and that they will be shown to be on the wrong side of history. Politically, leaders hold onto power right up until the point the are dragged out and shot, hung or brought to an international court of justice. Religiously, as in this reading, the leaders were afraid they would be stoned by the people. I don't think there is any risk of that happening within the Roman Catholic church but there is a large disconnect between what the people know (in their hearts) and believe and what the church is telling them to believe.

          They say that the percentage of Americans that are accepting of Gay marriage has grown exponentially in recent years especially within the ranks of the Catholic faithful. I am not sure what the reason for this is. I would like to say it is because scripture scholars have come to a much better and more faithful understanding of scriptures that were once used to pummel gays into submission and into a closet. Pundits say it is the 'powerful gay lobby'. Others say it is that people see the gay people who live in their own lives and see how good, decent and normal they are. Why should they be denied the same happiness that everyone else has? I would add that I have even heard someone say, let gays marry, why should straight people be the only ones suffering? All joking aside, The growing acceptance is a welcome.

           I am personally praying for that enlightenment of the religious leadership. Perhaps I am asking for a miracle on par with the parting of the Red Sea. I know that such a revelation will involve more than a mere tolerance of gays, it will result in a wholesale reevaluation of all sexuality. From the slavery of celibacy (for many) to gay marriage, to birth control, to the sacramentality of marriage. I pray for all aspects of healthy sexuality. Please include in that list embracing the joy of sex as well. Our sexuality is a gift of God as distinct as any other of God's many gifts.

            When gay marriage becomes normative in the secular world, accepted and an example of how good marriages can thrive, straight or gay, I pray the church will not be afraid to speak out for fear they will be chastised, verbally stoned if you will, for their ignorance and failure to see the truth that the Spirit is trying to reveal to them.

            Perhaps this kind of change is bigger than the fact that the earth does in fact revolve around the sun. In addressing changes in sexuality, the church must recognize the strength and surety of the Spirit in the faithful, must address the fact that tradition alone is not a valid means of moving the church forward as the Spirit reveal and demands.

     I pray and I give thanks to God.

Now many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. None of the rest dared to join them, but the people held them in high esteem. Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by. A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured.

Then the high priest took action; he and all who were with him (that is, the sect of the Sadducees), being filled with jealousy, arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors, brought them out, and said, ‘Go, stand in the temple and tell the people the whole message about this life.’ When they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and went on with their teaching.

When the high priest and those with him arrived, they called together the council and the whole body of the elders of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the temple police went there, they did not find them in the prison; so they returned and reported, ‘We found the prison securely locked and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside.’ Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were perplexed about them, wondering what might be going on. Then someone arrived and announced, ‘Look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people!’ Then the captain went with the temple police and brought them, but without violence, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people.