Posted on 06/21/2006 12:53:53 PM PDT by lightman
COLUMBUS, OH: Bishop Katherine celebrates transgender Jesus
By Hans Zeiger VirtueOnline Correspondent www.virtueonline.org
COLUMBUS, OHIO (6/21/06)-While addressing a morning Eucharist at the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop-elect Katherine Jefferts Schori declared, "Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation. And you and I are His children."
With Jefferts Schori as the leader-to-be of the Episcopal Chuch, it seems that the church will move beyond gender-inclusive language to transgender-inclusive language.
Yesterday however, the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops refused to even consider a resolution that would affirm the exclusive Lordship of Jesus Christ as "the only name by which any person may be saved." The Rev. Canon Eugene McDowell of the Diocese of North Carolina explained, "This type of language was used in 1920s and 1930s to alienate the type of people who were executed. It was called the Holocaust."
Perhaps Episcopalians would be more receptive of a resolution affirming the supreme transexuality of
SERMON BY THE RT. REV. KATHLEEN SCHORI, PB-ELECT.
June 21, 2006
Last Sunday morning, I woke very early but it was still dark. I must have been thinking about something. I wanted to go for a run, but had to wait for enough light to see. Ran by back of Hyatt. The men working by the dumpster were startled.
I saw a man from convention center and we said a quiet good morning. Then I found a quiet green park in the middle of this city. There was a man standing there, in an orange reflective vest standing by orange cones. I said good morning; he responded in kind. Then there was the bleary-eyed fellow with several bags. Said good morning to him, too but when past him on street, not the sidewalk.
A rabbit was hopping along the sidewalk. It looked at me and we shared a moment of greeting. A woman delivering Sunday papers, getting out of the car and delivering the paper to doorsteps. She didn’t get out of the car until I was well past her.
On the other side of the freeway, I found two guys, just going to work. They, too, looked weary.
There was some degree of weariness in all of them. Trying to greet each other, but the sense of relationship, whether out of fear, or caution, meant that we had a long way to go.
Can we dream of a world where all creatures, human and not, can greet each other without fear? Christ said his kingdom was “not of this world.” His willingness to go to the cross is so radical that fear has no import. The love that he invites us to imitate has no possibility of reactive or violent response. His followers didn’t fight back.
He calls us friends not agents of fear.
If we are going to grow to full statute of Christ, our growing will need to be rooted in a soil of internal peace, confidant and planted in the overwhelming love of God. Given so abundant, so profligate, that we are caught in similar abandonment. The full measure of God, cast down and overflowing, drives out our , self-interest. That is what fear is. A reaction; an unconscious response. As if we are saying, “that’s mine and I can’t go on living without it.”
Whether its my bank account or my sense of control. Unless we can make sense of the blood of the cross, we will live in fear. That bloody cross brings new life into the world. That sweaty, bloody, tear-stained cross bears life. Our mother Jesus [yes, folks. That is what she said.] gives new birth to a new creation and we are his children.
We have to give up fear. What did the godly messengers say when they turned up to the shepherds: fear not. You are God’s beloved and he is well pleased with you. When we know ourselves beloved of God, we can respond in less fearful ways. When we realize this, we can response to the homeless man; seek and reach beyond the defenses of others.
Our job as we go out from this convention is to go out without fear and lay down our sword and shield; fill the hungry and set the prisoners free. Lay down our self-control and serve God’s image of the beloved in the weakest, poorest and least included. Not to squabble over our heritage.
But to share that name of the beloved with the whole world. AMEN
Ping, please.
Wow. It's just one thing after another with this bunch.
Do you hear that? That's the sound of denominational schism approaching at mach 20.
Why do these people even pretend to be interested in God.
How did the corruption in the Episcopal church ever get so deep?
Yes, God loves you. And it saddens Him that you will spend eternity in Hell. Perhaps if you were more fearful, things would be different. But He is a jealous God, and He resents the fact that you worship other people's genitals more than you love Him.
That quote deserves to be committed to memory!
Because to their parishioners, they make God look like He agrees with them.
That lets them, on behalf of their selfishness, trump anyone else who also believes in God to keep their attacks at bay.
That's a great quote.
There is actually some theological basis for what she said, but it still sounds very strange. Jesus is both mother and father to us. I think it was Julian of Norwich who wrote something classic about this. It's more about his role than about his gender. Though for all I know she was trying to make a gender point. She sounds pretty nice, but its still dumping on conservatives.
"How did the corruption in the Episcopal church ever get so deep?"
It started with all the draft dodgers going to seminary in the Sixties and went downhill thereafter. Ditto for the other Drainline denominations.
Was Niebuhr part of the Confessing Church in Germany during WWII? The church of Bonhoeffer?
I like the "moment of greeting" with the bunny. I usually say hello to cats and rabbits when I'm out for a walk.
On the other side of the freeway, I found two guys, just going to work. They, too, looked weary. There was some degree of weariness in all of them. Trying to greet each other, but the sense of relationship, whether out of fear, or caution, meant that we had a long way to go.
Is she always this garbled, do you think, or was the transcriptionist stuned?
It's OK to talk to the bunnyrabbits, Kate ... but when they respond, it's time to lay off the tequila.
The beebering got lost in the translation.
I've now have that darn song by Jefferson Airplane stuck in my head.
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