I walk and remember the migrants and immigrants I met in Oregon eight summers ago, during a weeklong walk for justice with labor and religious activists. For some, Spanish is a second language; they speak Mixteca and Zapoteca. In their bodies are layers of exile. I think of today’s migrants in Sudan, displaced by war and stalked by violence and hunger. My life is a palace compared to theirs.
From struggling through Paradise Lost in freshman English, we “know” that the worst sin is overweening pride. . . . The time I have spent listening to women’s stories, however, has convinced me that there are distinctly feminine patterns of sinfulness, and pride is not their besetting sin, even though many readily accuse themselves of it. . . . Far from being pride, women’s distinctive sin is self-contempt. . . .
I just ran into Bishop Martin Barahona, the primate of Central America in the café downstairs. I asked him his impressions of this afternoon’s hearings. “The Windsor Report,” he said. “It’s just a report. When did it become like The Bible. The Covenant. Why do we need another covenant? We have the Baptismal Covenant. We have the creeds. What else do we need?”
The Windsor Continuation Group today called for “the swift formation of a Pastoral Forum at a communion level to engage theologically and practically with situations of controversy as they arise or divisive actions that may be taken around the Communion.”
I expect that the group, composed entirely of opponents of gay ordination, will urge the Episcopal Church to continue its de facto ban on the consecration of gay bishops. I don’t know how the Episcopal Church’s bishops will respond either in the moment or later in the week when the bishops convene for additional hearings.
Where before being a Christian could get you killed, now it could get you promoted; Constantine had, in effect, created the nominal Christian. Monasticism was, in part, a reaction against this laxity and to maintain the urgency and discipline required to hold the faith in the days of martyrdom. Rather than seeking the minimum required to acquire the title, the hermits and monastics sought to embody the maximum.
What kind of kingdom will this be? It will be a kingdom where, in accordance with Jesus’ prayer, God’s name is truly hallowed, his will is done on earth, human beings will have everything in abundance, all sin will be forgiven and all evil overcome.
After the farmer discovered the buried treasure and the merchant found the unique pearl, their lives became genuinely different. All that they had was seen in a new light, and there was a joyful rearrangement of things. Suddenly, there was a willingness to let go of what one did have in order to acquire something that was obviously better.