Exploring the Connections

An invitation to an inclusive Church

by Paul Bresnahan

Heaven and Earth ('blog), October 21, 2009

We have now received an invitation from Catholicism to return to the Mother Church. For those unhappy over The Anglican/Episcopal Church’s “liberal” stance on the ordination of gays and their inclusion in our leadership and membership, there is room in Rome. For those unhappy about the ordination of women, there is spiritual refuge in the purview of the Holy See. Curiously enough, the church that brings you celibacy, will allow married Anglican/Episcopal Church clergy to return as well.

I must respectfully decline that invitation. While I am only one Episcopal Priest, and retired to boot, I find it a curiosity that this invitation comes as it does at a time when it is becoming more apparent than ever that folk are folk; whether gay or straight, male or female, rich or poor, black or white and so on. How startling that something as obvious as this would be such a matter of controversy. Alas, this is not the first time when the church has been a safe refuge for bigotry. (sorry for the harsh language; but I cannot find another word for the behavior

Even in Biblical material we are “one in Christ” as the blessed Apostle put; it without respect to classification by sex, gender, orientation, class, or ethnicity. In his very own words, he put it this way, “for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26-28)

This is not at root a liberal/conservative issue it is a biblical one. It has its traditional dimensions as well. For instance, we figured out 600 years ago that it is a good idea to allow the clergy to marry. This is a splendid way to channel clerical libidinal energy. It is no assurance of rectitude, but the instances of clergy misconduct are far more likely to be held in check if there is a marriage within which to practice intimacy than if there is celibacy with no such outlet. Terrible things can happen to a church with celibacy as the only libidinal outlet as we well know, and the Anglican/Episcopal Church figured that out a long, long time ago.

The great question before us is this; are we a house of prayer for all people or not? Jesus made it clear by his courage in seeking out the lame, the halt, the blind, the prostitute, the tax collector, the leper and all the other outcasts that his church was to be a house of prayer for all people. This he did when he overturned the tables in the Temple in a radical revolution that continues to reverberate throughout the church.

There was a special place in his heart too for the “eunuchs” of his time. I wonder what he meant by the following startling saying; But he said to them, "Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can." (Matthew 19:11-12) You can define that term as you like, but they clearly were not a threat to folks of the opposite sex. There is considerable evidence that when the biblical material refers to “eunuchs” we were talking of folks whose interests lay with folks of the same sex. We now refer to this group as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgendered, LGBT for short. And isn't it interesting to note that even Jesus realized that there were those who would find this teaching a hard one to accept. The radical love of Jesus is often hard to take because it includes our enemies.

I believe that Jesus stood up for this crowd too as he stood up for us all, and I am convinced that is why they put him to death on the cross. Jesus was not a liberal. He merely loved everyone! That’s why God died. That’s why God is Risen. That’s why God will come again!

Therefore, I would like to extend an invitation to all you fine folks who have wondered all along why Rome won’t allow her priests to marry. You might find an Episcopal Church to your liking. We have bishops, priests and deacons, and the sacraments to boot, and the clergy can marry and all of us have to have background checks from an outside agency to be sure that we can comfortably call ourselves a “safe church” for children and others. We also figured out that women could take their place at the highest places of the church as bishops, priests, and deacons. Our Presiding Bishop is Katharine Jefferts Schori! Now we are more and more convinced that ordination and membership transcends sexual orientation as well. There are those who differ with us and cite passages in Leviticus and Paul that prescribe such a teaching.

I can cite passages in the Gospel, in Paul, in the Prophets that support a much more compassionate and loving interpretation on the faith tradition. Why anyone would use the bible to exclude people because of gender and orientation is puzzlement to me. But race, was used at another time to justify slavery and the bible has been used to thwart scientific advance as well. The same folks who want to exclude gays refused to look into Galileo’s telescope for about 600 years as well. Many still refuse Darwin's help in advancing us toward fuller understanding of the nature of human nature. They refuse to encourage scientific advancement in stem cell research that could help lead to important cures for so many diseases and ease human suffering. You can add to the list as your leisure.

So, by way of rejoinder to Rome, and some others who have parted company with us; allow me to invite you here; namely to the Episcopal Church; “A House of Prayer for All People”. We have lost quite a few members because of our love for the outcast. So there is plenty of room in most of our churches. More importantly there is plenty of room in God’s heart for you here too. The church has sent out too many chilly messages lately. The church has said terrible thing to gay folk and women. I thought you might like to hear one that proclaims the Good News of God in Christ...the news of a loving compassionate and inclusive church. 

Revolving Doors and Economic Justice

In last Sunday morning's conversation on how The Episcopal Church has handled social witness in the past (cf. Christian Social Witness. Harold T. Lewis. Cowley Publications, 2001), I (MT) referred to a recent Bill Moyers Journal episode (PBS, Oct 9, 2009) that looked at the immense economic power of health insurance lobbyists as the Congress goes about trying to reform health care delivery in this country. Since we are reading Lewis's chapter on "Economic Justice" for this Sunday's conversation, I promised to put something in the 'blog about Moyers' program.

There are two sources here. One is a posting to Moyers' 'blog (by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship) titled: "Wall Street vs. Reform?" As you would expect, this provides only a summary of the conversation between Moyers and his two guests: Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D) of Ohio and Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and currently a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Some of the more telling moments - one especially at 6min 19sec into the video where Kaptur recounts her exasperation in trying to get the attention of JP Morgan-Chase on behalf of foreclosure victims in Toledo, Ohio — are missing from the summary.

As you can gather, I'm hoping you choose to watch the video. It is a much more vivid and down-to-earth presentation of what is, after all, a very human story.

See you on Sunday

God is Love

Today's Reading for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 960)
Psalms 26, 28 (morning)        36, 39 (evening)
Daniel 4:28-37
1 John 4:7-21
Luke 4:31-37

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.  ...God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them."  1 John 7-8, 16b

God is love.  Simple but encompassing.  Wherever love happens, that is the active presence of God in the world.  Whenever anyone acts in love, that one is acting in communion with God.  This is an embracing vision that can transcend the divisions or religion and tribe.  Whoever loves is revealing the presence of God (the activity of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity) and living in the Spirit of God (the Third Person of the Holy Trinity).  Muslims, Hindus, pagans and atheists all love.  As they live in love, they live in God the Holy Trinity.  As anyone lives in love, we live in God.

We say that Jesus reveals God as love.  Jesus lived a life motivated entirely love.  He performed the same saving, loving miracles and offered the same compassion to the Gentiles as he did to the members of his own religion and nation.  When attacked and crucified, he offered only love and forgiveness in return.  "God's love was revealed among us in this way:  God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him." 

"No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.  By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit."  The Spirit of God motivates and energizes our living and abiding in love. 

It all starts with God's love for us.  God is love.  God reveals God's love for us by sending God's Son Jesus, who loves us to the end.  God lives in us through God's spirit, which abides in us in love.  It's all about love.

God's love is infinite, eternal and unqualified.  God's love is perfect.  God is perfect love.  Perfect love, and only perfect love, casts out fear.  When we know ourselves to be perfectly and completely loved by a perfect and infinite love, we can live fearlessly.  This is the essence of our relationship with God.  God loves us, therefore we are safe.  Be not afraid.  Be free!  Free to love, even as God loves us.

The only commandment we have is to love.  Jesus summarized the law in love:  Love the Lord your God (who is love) with all your heart, mind, soul and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.  The new commandment is "Love one another."  John's epistle says, "The commandment we have from him is this:  those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also." 

It's all pretty simple.  It's all about love.  When faced with the question, "What should I do?" the answer is always, "Love."  What does love draw us toward in the present moment?  What does love look like in the present circumstances?  Do that.  All else is secondary.

What if acting in love would violate some important rule, tradition or commandment?  Love always triumphs. 

We see that in today's story from Luke.  Jesus speaks in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and he astounds the listeners.  A man with "the spirit of an unclean demon" cries out in challenge.  Jesus exorcises him, cleansing him of his oppressive spirit.  To some, he has violated one of the Ten Commandments, "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy."  Jesus' conflicts with the religious authorities have begun.  Between love and law, Jesus chooses love.

Between love and power, Jesus chooses love.  Between love and nation, Jesus chooses love.  Between love and money, Jesus chooses love.  Between love and family, Jesus chooses love.  Between love and religion, Jesus chooses love.  Between love and Bible, Jesus chooses love.  Between love and reputation, Jesus chooses love.  Between love and safety, Jesus chooses love.  Between love and life, Jesus chooses love.  Between love and fear, Jesus chooses love, and perfect love casts out fear.

To live in love is to live with complete and fearless freedom.  To trust love and love's power is to trust God.  Love is the most powerful force in the universe.  Love will triumph and prevail.  Therefore we can relax and just be, in love.  To be in love is to be in God.

~~Lowell

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

MORNING REFLECTION: Bless What There Is For Being

Today's Reading for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 991)
Psalms 61, 62 (morning)        68:1-20(21-23)24-36 (evening)  
Ecclesiasticus* 43:1-22
Revelation 14:14 - 15:8
Luke 13:1-9

* found in the Apocrypha; also called the Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach, or just Sirach

Today Ben Sira praises the whole of the created universe, in which, by God's word "all things hold together."  In Revelation the Son of Man fills the earth with Eucharist, his sickle gathering the ripe grapes which are "trodden outside the city" (an allusion to the cross) where the wine of Christ's sacrifice covers the wholeness (the symbolic number 200 miles = 1,600 stadia = the whole earth).  In Luke Jesus reflects on the suffering of the innocent and says they were not punished because they "were worse offenders."  Then he calls all to repentance.

These themes remind me of a passage from David Steindl-Rast's book "Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: An Approach to Life in Fullness."  He writes:

Our heart's most comprehensive vision shows us that all is gift -- blessing.  And, in response our heart's most spontaneous action is thanksgiving -- blessing.

But here my ...question arises.  What if I cannot recognize the given as a blessing?  What if it is not sunshine that pours down on us, but hailstones like hammer-blows?  What if it is acid rain?  Here again, the gift within the gift is opportunity.  I have the opportunity, for example, to do something about that acid rain, face the facts, inform myself about the causes, go to their roots, alert others, band together with them for self-help, for protest.  By taking each opportunity as it is offered, I show myself grateful.  But my response will not be full unless I respond also to the ever-present opportunity to praise.

W.H. Auden has helped me see this by his poem "Precious Five," especially by its last stanza.  " I could," says Auden there,

Find reasons fast enough
To face the sky and roar
In anger and despair
At what is going on,
Demanding that it name
Whoever is to blame:
The sky would only wait
Till all my breath was gone
And then reiterate
As if I wasn't there
That singular command
I do not understand
Bless what there is for being,
Which has to be obeyed, for
What else am I made for,
Agreeing or disagreeing?

To bless whatever there is, and for no other reason but simply because it is -- that is our raison d'etre; that is what we are made for as human beings.  This singular command is engraved in our heart.  Whether we understand this or not matters little.  Whether we agree or disagree makes no difference.  And in our heart of hearts we know it.

No matter how hard you strike a bell, it will ring.  What else is it made for?  Even under the hammer blows of fate the heart rings true.  The human heart is made for universal praise.  As long as we pick and choose, making praise depend on our approval, we are not yet responding from the heart.  When we find our heart, we find that core of our being that is attuned to reality.  And reality is praiseworthy.  With clear vision the heart sees the ultimate meaning of all:  blessing.  And with clear intent the heart responds with the ultimate purpose of life:  blessing.  (p. 80-82)

Bless what there is, for being.

~~Lowell

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Getting distracted

Morning Reflection

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Prayer Book, p. 961)
Psalms 105:1-22 (morning)        105:23-45 (evening)
Exodus 24:1-18
Colossians 2:8-23
Matthew 4:12-17

There is a caution today in Colossians.  The author is writing about an unknown heresy or an early form of Christian or Jewish practice.  We can only speculate about the nature of this competing philosophy from the descriptions we get from these complaints.  It may have been some form of mystery religion, or less specifically, some religious threats from the general culture.

At issue were some claims that people should adore or worship some of the powers of the cosmos, "insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions," Colossians says.  There were also claims involving ritual practices, such as "food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths."  Although we have only a sideways glance at the conflict, it seems that the writer is troubled by some ascetic and ritualistic practices that are competing in some way with Christ-centered worship.

It is easy for the church today to become distracted by lesser things.  Our practice and theology has evolved.  We have many things that intend to enhance our relationship with God in Christ and to deepen our faith.  But when they become objects of our exaggerated concern above and beyond their intention to point to the divine and draw us nearer into union with God and one another, they can become distractions and even divisive.

I served a church earlier in my ministry which was the most focused and intentional worshiping community I have ever lived in.  You could feel the energy of their worship in their liturgy.  But that was also the fault line whenever they fell into squabbles or disagreements.  Every congregational fight seemed to go back to how we worshiped.  Sometimes people became so focused on doing worship "right," that it became a performance sport instead of an expression of adoration of God. 

Whole branches of the Christian faith have made the bible the object of their faith rather than a lens through which we approach the mysterious and holy God.  They will insist that followers believe exaggerated things because of their particular reading and interpretation of scripture, sometimes turning off their hearts or minds in the name of the Bible.

Most of us most of the time find that ritual and scripture, prayer and study are the foundations of our relationship with God and our understanding of ourselves as a people.  Our dedication to a rule of life or to forms of religious practice support our intention to turn to Christ; our reading of scripture forms our minds and hearts with the story of God's people in relationship with God. 

But it is easy to get distracted about the accoutrements of religion and be deflected from the focus of religion;  it is easy to make "human commands and teachings" absolute.  Only God is absolute. 

It is helpful sometimes to be discerning.  What piety and traditions draw us closer into communion with God?  What practices and teachings enhance our duty to love our neighbor as ourselves?  When do we let the things of faith divide and distract us from God and one another?

-- Lowell

The Rev'd Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Learning to spot a fading pleasure

by Giles Fraser
Church Times, December 21, 2007

What is going to happen to all this stuff we are buying [have bought] for Christmas? Here’s a clue: the company Safestore started in 1998, and now has more than 80 huge self-storage venues throughout the country. Business is booming.

Its chief executive, Steve Williams, reckons that, on a conservative estimate, the self-storage market is set to expand by between ten and 15 per cent per year, for a number of years to come. There are already more than 20 million square feet of space to rent in this country. In the United States, there are 1.6 billion.

All this space is for stuff we cannot throw away, and, apparently, cannot do without.

These new lock-ups often hide the flotsam of some personal sadness or failure: a broken marriage, a bankrupt business. But, alongside these and other reasons, the rapid growth in vast personal-storage warehouses is also evidence that our eyes are bigger than our belly. These places are temples to the bloated stupidity of the acquisitive society.

“Look at the birds of the air,” says our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount: “they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns.” This business of not gathering into barns is a theme that runs throughout the scriptures. There is the story of manna in the Sinai wilderness. Those who gather too much and try to store it up will find that, by morning, it has gone rotten.

This clear teaching — that we ought to take enough, but no more — contrasts sharply with the attitude of the Pharaoh, who seeks to insure himself against risk by hoarding grain in large barns. It is a foolish policy. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt . . . but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”

It does not take a moral genius to know that shopping cannot satisfy the deepest reaches of the human heart. Yet we keep on buying more and more stuff. It is the saddest of ironies that, at this time of year, when we are called to reflect on the simple miracle of a child in a cow shed, we of fancy things.

Shopping can be as addictive as drugs: a cheap thrill — no, an expensive thrill — masses of waste, and then the need for more. This addiction powers Western economies, so we are discouraged from acknowledging it. But it has its victims just the same.

Is this column just another riff on the well-worn point that we are overly materialistic? Too right it is. Some stuff lasts, and some stuff does not. The point of being a Christian is to appreciate the difference. Solid joys and lasting treasure none but Sion’s children know.

The Revd Dr Giles Fraser is Team Rector of Putney.

From Holland, a refreshing notion

Editorial
National Catholic Reporter, December 14, 2007

American Catholics should take note of what is happening in the Netherlands. Not that it will result in sudden, dramatic change in the church, or that it needs to, but because it reveals a different, much freer way of being church than American Catholics are normally used to. Dutch Catholics have been facing all the same church issues we find here: a priest shortage, a leadership vacuum, an official preference for the temple priesthood over the pastoral, while the world races toward an unknown future like a crowded bus without brakes or headlights. They have some ideas.

Ah, those postmodern Dutch, so far ahead of us, with their eclectic and chaotic social liberalism, their blunt talk, bold experiments, utopian impatience with rules and tradition. What a refreshing notion they have: that because the Eucharist is the essence of Christian community, that community therefore has a right to it. And if the hierarchy fails to bestow that right from above, local communities can claim it from below: “Where two or three gather in my name,” share scripture, break bread, pass the cup, there is Real Presence, holy Communion, the freedom of the Holy Spirit to give charisms with or without official permission.

How generous and even true this all seems, yet how different for us, loyal American Catholics, waiting patiently for the hierarchy to give us Communion and the other sacraments only they can bestow. The logic goes like this: “No male, celibate priests -- no Eucharist; no Eucharist -- no church.” The vocation crisis threatens the existence of the church, we are told: Give us your sons or we will be forced to close or merge your parishes, substitute Communion services for Mass, crowd you into regional megachurches.

The Dutch aren’t buying it. There is no vocations crisis and no priest shortage if you count married men, women, former priests willing to serve. There is ample historical and theological precedent for models of ministry other than the one tied to clerical celibacy. Even the Vatican’s emphasis on the original Twelve as the only template for priesthood edits out the fact that most were probably married, that Jesus included women in his inner circle, and that Paul’s house church Eucharists were presided over by women.

If it is true that without Eucharist there can be no church, then how does Rome justify making preservation of the current clerical model more important than the survival of thousands of otherwise viable parishes? Where is the crisis of conscience among individual bishops, vicars of Christ and shepherds? How will they give an account of  their stewardship of a church in which the baptized were increasingly denied the Eucharist, except on their rigidly limited and theologically unjustifiable terms, why the faithful died without confession and anointing because there was no priest who could come, and why other sacraments were by appointment only and often unavailable to the flock? What were they thinking?

Our Dutch Catholic brothers and sisters have been thinking long and hard about these questions. They know that for our church to be relevant, it must exist in the real world, the modern world it is committed to engage and serve. Serious problems challenge us: rapidly changing technologies, global demographic patterns and economic shifts that both enrich and despoil, wars and rumors of war, generational rifts that are fueling both religious fundamentalism and rootless secularism.

They are seeing the future with courage and welcoming it as eucharistic people. And we can learn from them about how to be church from below, with or without permission from above.

Spiritual Windowshoppers

Spiritual Windowshoppers

These spiritual windowshoppers, who idly ask, How much
is that? Oh, I'm just

looking. They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping. But
these walk into a shop,

and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment, in
that shop. Where did did you

go? Nowhere. What did you have to eat? Nothing much.
Even though you don't know what

you want, buy something to be part of the general exchange.
Start a huge, foolish project,

like Noah. It makes absolutely no difference what
people think of you.

Rumi (as rendered by Coleman Barks, The Soul of Rumi 
(Harper SanFrancisco, 2001)

Hospitality challenges our restricted vision

by Deirdre J. Good
Ekklesia News (U.K.), November 22, 2007

Earlier this year, on a trip to the UK, I participated in a talk on hospitality at St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace in London. I thank them for their gracious welcome. That talk and the subsequent discussion got me thinking about ways in which we speak about and practice hospitality - and how it challenges us in different ways.

Any discussion about hospitality needs to be hospitable. How is a space welcoming? This particular discussion was conducted in a circle, which for many indicates inclusion. But people may choose to participate from beyond the circle for various reasons and we need to provide for that. We need to focus on the people to whom a welcome is shown, anticipating and facilitating their degrees of involvement in the event.

We can all agree that hospitality is a Christian virtue. But why are we thinking about hospitality at all? Hospitality is central to other religious traditions. Abraham's offering of food and protection to the three messengers of the Lord in Genesis 18 becomes the paradigm for ancient Israelite, Jewish, and early Christian hospitality. In fact, hospitality to strangers is a mandate in most non-Western societies. I've been welcomed into the houses of complete strangers in Matere Valley, Nairobi and in the favellas of San Paulo in ways that I would never be welcomed into the apartments of strangers in Manhattan.

Openness to strangers reflects a mindset most of us who are Western don't intrinsically possess. Is this why our discussions of hospitality can dwindle to stories of our hosting (non-Western) strangers in our homes? But if our discussions and practice of hospitality become questions of whom we welcome into our homes (and for how long under what conditions), then we have lost the dynamic of exchange that hospitality presupposes. Hospitality has become a one-way street. We determine who is invited and who is excluded because it is our home, our castle.

Such an interpretation is not about welcoming anyone - it is about control. Welcoming someone has become secondary to an assessment-a judgment by me as host about the kind of stranger that is welcome and the type of welcome that is appropriate. If we reduce hospitality to an arbitration of who is and who is not welcomed by us as hosts into our homes, and under what conditions, is this not a diminution of God's hospitality to the point of distortion?

I believe this is also true of debates about conditions and circumstances under which people may approach the communion table. If we enter into such debates, we have already decided that there is such a debate about who is welcome and who is not. I myself believe that on this question, the evidence of the gospels is univocal: Jesus practiced open table fellowship with respect to God's hospitality. It wasn't his table. He was received as a stranger, welcomed as a guest, and gave hospitality at the tables of strangers or acquaintances. Sometimes he learnt from others about brokering God's limitless inclusion.

The practice of hospitality is not about being a good host: it is about participating in a continual exchange of the roles of stranger, guest and host. It presupposes a network of relationships-an awareness of interdependence. We can see this best in the story of the two disciples encountering a stranger on the road to Emmaus. That stranger walks and talks along the road with them about recent events in Jerusalem. They offer him hospitality at the end of the day whereupon, invited to stay as a guest, he assumes the position of host and is identified by them as he breaks bread.

On the road to Emmaus and in a place that is not his, a homeless, resurrected Jesus moves fluidly between roles of stranger, host and guest. Luke's Jesus offers Westerners the challenge of receiving and giving hospitality "to go." In Luke's gospel, journeys characterize and shape ministry; Jesus journeys to Jerusalem for most of the gospel while in Acts, disciples and apostles travel from Jerusalem to Samaria, to Europe, and eventually to Rome.

Hospitality facilitates and defines Jesus' journey to Jerusalem; it identifies followers and disciples who listen and extend welcome (Mary and Martha, the mission of the Seventy, the Good Samaritan, Zacchaeus) and solidifies opposition (some Pharisees and scribes).

When we relocate the practice of Christian hospitality from who is and who is not welcome in our homes to the recognition that hospitality is offered and received in other places along the way, a different more permeable dynamic opens up. But changing the location of the welcome is only half the solution. Offering someone food in a soup kitchen, while it is a good thing in itself, is not actually hospitality because it is not rooted in an exchange of roles.

In post-biblical tradition, Abraham, the paradigm of hospitality, moves out of the familiarity of his house. He pitches a tent at the crossroads so as to welcome more strangers, according to the Testament of Abraham. Philo says Abraham ran out of his house and begged the strangers who were passing by his home to stay with him because he was so eager to extend hospitality to them.

Abraham and Jesus confront our restrictive notions of hospitality, encouraging us to think about our human interdependence in giving and receiving hospitality on the way.

----------

(c) Deirdre Good, Professor of New Testament at The General Theological Seminary, New York, USA, specializes in the Synoptic Gospels, Christian Origins, Noncanonical writings and biblical languages. Her latest book is Jesus' Family Values. She grew up in Kenya, has a UK background and loves marmite - which may explain certain features of her weblog, On Not Being a Sausage. With special thanks to Episcopal Cafe, on which this piece first appeared. 

Now Playing at the Greenway Theatre: … FOR THE BIBLE TELL ME SO

Can the love between two people ever be an abomination? Is the chasm separating gays and lesbians and Christianity too wide to cross? Is the Bible an excuse to hate?

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Seattle International Film Festival, Dan Karslake's provocative, entertaining documentary brilliantly reconciles homosexuality and Biblical scripture, and in the process reveals that Church-sanctioned anti-gay bias is based almost solely upon a significant (and often malicious) misinterpretation of the Bible. As the film notes, most Christians live their lives today without feeling obliged to kill anyone who works on the Sabbath or eats shrimp (as a literal reading of scripture dictates).

Through the experiences of five very normal, very Christian, very American families -- including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson -- we discover how insightful people of faith handle the realization of having a gay child. Informed by such respected voices as Bishop Desmond Tutu, Harvard's Peter Gomes, Orthodox Rabbi Steve Greenberg and Reverend Jimmy Creech, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO offers healing, clarity and under- standing to anyone caught in the crosshairs of scripture and sexual identity.

NOTE:  For the Bible Tells Me So  is showing at the Landmark Greenway through November 8. For Showtime listings go here