Loving each other and our duty to the poor
I have long since gotten to the point where I neither know nor care if
homosexuality is sinful or not because I believe that it is God's
prerogative and not mine to identify a sinner. In any event we are
all sinners and I don't believe in a hierarchy of sin. Sin is sin is
sin, in God's eyes, I believe.
I believe it is my responsibility to love people as i find them. To
the very best of my ability to see the face of Jesus in every person
and strive to love them unconditionally. I can do none of this
without God's help. What I think this world seriously lacks are more
people affirming the good in each other. So many of us seem to spend
our time looking for what is wrong, rather than what is right. Ok, so
maybe I have gotten in trouble a few times looking at only what is
right with some people, but it's only been a few times.
I realize that my denomination may be in schism after this next
General Convention here in the USA. And the dividing issue will be
homosexuality. It breaks my heart to think we might split, but there
we have it and I am enjoying the Episcopal Church for what it is now,
rather than what might happen in a month or 2.
What I'd really like to know is this: if we assigned a dollar value to
every bit of time, energy and effort invested in arguing about
homosexuality in the church, the cost of airplane tickets hither and
yon, the cost of paper used to write one way or the other, the amount
of Internet time and space, person hours etc etc etc, how huge a sum
would that be? I suspect it would be an indecently obscene amount of
money and would have been enough to end poverty on a global scale.
I do not recall Jesus every telling us to root out or shun the
homosexuals in our midst. But He sure had a lot to say about our duty
to the poor. The whole Bible is filled with our duty to the poor and
i regard the world-wide debate over homosexuality to be a diversion
from our plain duty to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the
sick, provide for the disenfranchised among us, visit the prisoners so
that they do not despair, make disciples of all nations and to
celebrate the Jubilee year of the Lord. And i can only think how the
Enemy must rejoice in this diversion.
Hitting send while donning head to toe asbestos protective clothing.
homosexuality is sinful or not because I believe that it is God's
prerogative and not mine to identify a sinner. In any event we are
all sinners and I don't believe in a hierarchy of sin. Sin is sin is
sin, in God's eyes, I believe.
I believe it is my responsibility to love people as i find them. To
the very best of my ability to see the face of Jesus in every person
and strive to love them unconditionally. I can do none of this
without God's help. What I think this world seriously lacks are more
people affirming the good in each other. So many of us seem to spend
our time looking for what is wrong, rather than what is right. Ok, so
maybe I have gotten in trouble a few times looking at only what is
right with some people, but it's only been a few times.
I realize that my denomination may be in schism after this next
General Convention here in the USA. And the dividing issue will be
homosexuality. It breaks my heart to think we might split, but there
we have it and I am enjoying the Episcopal Church for what it is now,
rather than what might happen in a month or 2.
What I'd really like to know is this: if we assigned a dollar value to
every bit of time, energy and effort invested in arguing about
homosexuality in the church, the cost of airplane tickets hither and
yon, the cost of paper used to write one way or the other, the amount
of Internet time and space, person hours etc etc etc, how huge a sum
would that be? I suspect it would be an indecently obscene amount of
money and would have been enough to end poverty on a global scale.
I do not recall Jesus every telling us to root out or shun the
homosexuals in our midst. But He sure had a lot to say about our duty
to the poor. The whole Bible is filled with our duty to the poor and
i regard the world-wide debate over homosexuality to be a diversion
from our plain duty to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the
sick, provide for the disenfranchised among us, visit the prisoners so
that they do not despair, make disciples of all nations and to
celebrate the Jubilee year of the Lord. And i can only think how the
Enemy must rejoice in this diversion.
Hitting send while donning head to toe asbestos protective clothing.
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 12:12 PM
9 Comments:
At 5:25 PM,
Anonymous said…
It seems to me that many people think it's much more fun to persecute TEAPOTs than to feed the poor. And since grounds for TEAPOT-persecuting can be prooftexted, one can tell oneself that one really is doing the will of God - see, it's right there in the Bible!
Sigh.
*TEAPOT: those evil, awful people over there
At 7:21 PM,
Cathy said…
Makes the heart sad to see the division in the Episcopal church over this. It seems that we cannot seem to not have something to have division over, whether it be a "new" prayer book, the ordination of women, and now this - what is sad is that people place people on the ballot just because they are of a certain persuasion, or color, or gender, instead of whether they would make a good bishop. All of this gets away from what Jesus wanted us to do - to love one other with all of our heart mind and soul.
How long will this issue last until another one comes down the pipe to argue about?
Thanks for the timely post. I pray that we can come out of General Convention in one peace/piece.
At 11:52 AM,
Anonymous said…
Amen, sister!
What could we achieve if the time and energy we currently spend excluding - whether overtly or through our lack of compassion - was spent including them in the family of God?
I became an Episcopalian specifically because I thought the Roman Church excluded too many - to think my adopted church is following a similar path makes me quite sad.
At 2:44 PM,
Anonymous said…
TEAPOT!!! I love it! Obviously, I don't blog enough. GMA, it would be so nice if you could honestly say it was only a few times that you shunned or looked askance at homosexuals. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and try to believe that your new found sisterhood is going open your mind to the many, many times you condemned people for nothing more than disagreeing with your beliefs, and daring to voice them. I sincerely hope that you're in the process of learning tolerance.
At 7:41 AM,
Gloriamarie Amalfitano said…
To Anonymous who thnks I have shunned or looked askance at homoisexuals, I am sorry you have chosen to interpret my words this way. At the same time I am astonished that you did. I couldn't care less what a person's sexual orientation is. What I want to know about a person is if their heart is set on the Lord.
And since I am also sick and tired of people who seem to divide the world into "them" and "us", I am interested to know if someone is an "us" person or a "them-er".
At 12:57 PM,
Anonymous said…
GMA, hmm, I'm willing to debate on the subject of 'them' and 'us'. Before treading into the debate room though, I need to have a definition of 'them' and 'us'. BTW, I'm the anonymous that talked about the homosexuals and your past intolerance of their sexual orientation. I base what I said, on statements that you have made, before you became a sister.
Oh. How did you manage to fast track into sisterhood? Doesn't that usually take more than a few years?
At 3:13 AM,
Eleanor Burne-Jones said…
Good to find your blog. We speak on the Franciscan forum!
At 9:18 AM,
Gloriamarie Amalfitano said…
Dear Anonymous,
First of all, I don't engage in conversation with anonymous people. If you would have to have a conversation with me, please have the courtesy to provide your name out in the open.
Secondly, if you know me well enough to have known me before I became a religious, then you must also be aware of a certain sensitivity that I have to the various things people do to my name.
Thirdly, it did take years.
At 9:19 AM,
Gloriamarie Amalfitano said…
Dear By The Bay,
As you can see, I am a most infrequent blogger!!
I am really glad to have found the Franciscan list.
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