Praying for faithful Commissioners
"...I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for the condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude 1: 3b-4)
Sacramento Presbytery needs a lot of prayer. Of course we all do but this is for a particular reason. We will be voting for commissioners to General Assembly this Saturday and we have a problem. So far we only have two Elder Commissioner candidates. But that’s not the problem. I am sure others will be nominated from the floor.
But to backtrack, as many people know the former pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church resigned after an Administrative Commission was placed over his Church by our Presbytery. In fact he eventually renounced Jurisdiction of the PCUSA. There have been a lot of rumors and half truths in the papers over the last six months. It always amazes me how wrong news reporters can be on some issues nonetheless something in one of the papers I just read really surprised me.
I had heard, right after PUP was passed by the General Assembly, that the past pastor of Westminster, David Thompson, had ordained two practicing homosexuals. Now I have read an article in the Bay Area Reporter, a gay online paper in the bay area, that he ordained three practicing homosexuals. I think that number is not true but the important part is that one of those ordained is one of the person’s running for commissioner.
As the paper quotes Daniel Roth, "One of his [Thompson] first acts was to speak out for Muslims in our community, and since the war began he's called upon the congregation to pray for the occupied people of Iraq," said Daniel Roth, one of the gay men ordained as a church elder by Thompson. "He's a very popular and beloved pastor."
That ordination should have been challenged when it first happened, now we just need prayer and steadfastness.
In the book of Revelation Jesus gives John instructions to seven churches in Asia Minor. In reading these we see that God knows all about the churches and what is happening in them.To most of the churches he says, I know your deeds. To one church he says I know your tribulation. To another I know where you dwell. These last two are where Christian faithfulness-taking a stand for the Lordship of Christ has brought death. Christians in leadership must stand for the truth of God's word. (Revelation chapter 2 & 3)
Up-date
Since I asked for prayer I should write about the day. The commissioner was voted in because there was no one else-he loves the Presbyterian Church because we can believe in our own version of God he said- But still he is going. He is a very young man and needs a lot of prayer. That is our next job, praying for him that he might find the true God who can transform and redeem. There was one particular good thing that happened today. I will write about it after Sunday's posting.
18 comments:
Speak the truth, stay faithful and keep up the great reporting, sister!
To elect this man to be GA commissioner would be an egregious violation of not just our constitution, but also our entire covenant with one another in this denomination.
There is another way of looking at this.
Jesus was quite willing to break the law for a just cause: healing the sick on the Sabbath.
I see ordaining GLBT human beings as a just cause and so, breaking the law, is justified in this situation as far as I am concerned.
+ Love + John A Wilde + Whitesboro NY + The John A Wilde Blog + "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer." -- Rainer Maria Rilke
John, healing on the Sabbath was not breaking the law. Read the Old Testament again including Exodus 20 Where does it say that no one can heal on the Sabbath. Jesus quoted scripture about the Ox remember. It is a historical fact that Jewish leaders had expanded on the Law. Jesus went back to the original text not the additions.
Did you know that Bonheoffer disliked the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke? : )
Viola Larson
Sacramento, Ca
"It is a historical fact that Jewish leaders had expanded on the Law."
Of course, that was Man's law, and Jesus' response in that case was a just one.
There are many, including myself, who believe our cultural bias has kept and is still keeping many of us from seeing the truth in Scripture as it pertains to faithful GLBT persons. Many of us have recognized and repented of our sin of exclusion of our faithful GLBT brothers and sisters in Christ.
Martin Luther, a well known homophobe, believed that homosexuality was a product of the Roman Catholic Church! The Scriptural references he used to justify his homophobic beliefs are actually quite interesting, considering he didn't believe Lev 18 or 20, or 1 Cor 6, or 1 Tim 1 were referring to homosexuals. It's truly amazing what our cultural biases lead us to see in Scripture.
We will continue to work to change Man's unjust laws by whatever non-violent means we believe are necessary.
Kattie
Huntsville, Al
Viola
You are walking on thin ice.
You begin with verses from Jude: “ for certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for the condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.” Was this a reference to Daniel Roth?
We elect our leadership hopefully led by the Hoy Spirit. I am sure you know the words from Mark 3: …‘Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin….’ The real sin against the Holy Spirit is refusing to recognize a work of the Spirit taking place before our very eyes. This should give us all pause when making judgments about others.
John McNeese
Ponca City, OK
Kattie,
It was a just response because it went back to the text of God's inspired word. The words that in reality belong to Jesus who is not only man but also God.
Kattie could you give me your references for what Luther had to say about homosexuality? Sounds interesting.
viola Larson, Ca
John,
If thin ice underneath are the everlasting arms.
The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the rejection of the forgiveness of Christ which includes the Lordship of Christ. That is because it is the Holy Spirit that leads us to Jesus and calls us to repentance of sin. When we deny the work of Christ on the cross we are denying the work of the Spirit.
Calvin understood that sin to be happening when someone knew that Christ could transform the sinner but refused the transformation.
The transforming work of Christ is met for all sin and should cause us all to keep repenting and asking for the goodness of Christ in our life.
I am wondering what you think I am rejecting since you have not actually said.
Viola
By your selection of scripture are you inferring that Daniel Roth as one of those “certain persons have crept in unnoticed?” Yes or no?
“I am wondering what you think I am rejecting” Maybe indeed the Spirit is leading the Presbytery to the election of Daniel Roth. I also don’t accept your interpretation of Mark’s blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Could I be wrong? Sure. How about you?
May God’s will be done at your Presbytery meeting. Not your way or my way.
John McNeese
Ponca City, OK
How do I say this- but I must. It is unscriptural for a practicing unrepentant homosexual to be ordained to ministry. To encourage him to go on to be a commissioner would be a sin. Just as encouraging an unrepentant adulterer or fornicator would be a sin. The Holy Spirit does not lead people or the church of Jesus Christ to do what scripture forbids.
I do not necessarily blame Daniel Roth for where he is at as an ordained elder but I do blame others in leadership who took that action or looked the other way when someone else did it. I think that verse from Jude is fitting.
"It is unscriptural for a practicing unrepentant homosexual to be ordained to ministry."
Nonsense!
Ordination itself is not scriptural, but an invention of the Church.
But to then claim that the Holy Spirit is bound by alleged scriptural prohibitions of your own invention...
Is there even a word for that?
Just FYI, when Jesus caught the Pharisees doing what you just did, he called them "hypocrites", and 'white washed tombs'. All pretty and clean on the outside, but filled with putrid rot on the inside.
Get off you high horse, lady.
Viola,
Look at Luther's Commentary on Genesis (Gen 19:4-5) to see that he believed homosexuality migrated to Germany via the Carthusian Monks, and didn't exist there prior to that.
As far as references to his understanding of the passages in Leviticus, 1 Corinthians, and 1 Timothy are concerned, just go to his German translations of the Bible.
Jodie,
I agree with your "hypocrites", and "white washed tombs" comment (maybe Viola won't delete it). Our cultures have made up all sorts of "truths" in the Bible to justify our superiority to those who are different from us.
Kattie
Huntsville, Al
Viola,
You said:
"It was a just response because it went back to the text of God's inspired word. The words that in reality belong to Jesus who is not only man but also God."
I agree, but that response has been bothering me a bit. I'm wondering if you actually thought that wasn't my point.
Kattie
Huntsville, Al
I suggest that if we read the passage about sin against the Holy Spirit in context we find that Jesus is referring to those who say that the healings that he did were of the devil.
Bob,
This is from Invitation to Mark by Paul J. Achtemeier. (Yes he is the father of Mark Achtemeier)
"Verse 30 is the key to the meaning of verses 28-29. The one limitation on God's limitless forgiveness of sin is to insist that Jesus' authority is from Satan rather than from God, as the scribes had just done. That means that if Jesus incarnates God's forgiveness of sin (cf. 2:17; 10:45), then the unforgiveable sin is to reject that forgiveness by rejecting Jesus. To refuse Jesus is to refuse God's forgiveness. For such a refusal, obviously no forgiveness remains. The key, therefore, is Jesus. To accept him is to be accepted (forgiven) by God. To reject him is to reject God (and his forgiveness) as well."
I think that not feeling that we need forgiveness might play into that.
A favorite quote of mine as we disagree about things like this is this:
"The spirit of liberty is the spirit of not being too sure you are right.” – Judge Learned Hand
+ Love + John A Wilde + Whitesboro NY + The John A Wilde Blog + “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” – Mohandas Gandhi
"That is our next job, praying for him that he might find the true God who can transform and redeem."
Shame on you Viola that you would presume that he has not!
Maybe you should change your condescending wording a bit and say that you pray that he has found the true God.
Kattie,
Huntsville, Al
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