Comment on Diocese of Florida Episcopal Election Results

My comment on the results of the most recent episcopal election in the Diocese of Florida after a day of reading, marking and inwardly digesting various letters, comments and reactions.

Yes, there's plenty of pain to go around. And it grieves the heart of God when there is polarization and division. And there is much work to do by all of us who love, tend and seek to call this church to become the Beloved Community it strives to be. But let's not perpetuate the false equivalency between feeling discriminated against because you're disagreed with and being discriminated against because of who you are. One of those things is categorically not like the other.

This is not about who we like, love, or tolerate. This is not about engagement across difference or -- God forbid -- "imposing a litmus test of secular politics on the sacred life of our Church." This is about the end of a long, sad process that was demonstrably hard-wired to disenfranchise Episcopalians who disagreed with their bishop about how to live out our call to be Episcopalians -- a particular people of God who have since the 16th century valued striving to live out the value of Anglican comprehensiveness. And this is about the DM that continues to echo in my heart this day from a long time member of the Diocese of Florida who wrote: "For so many years we felt alone and forgotten. This process has shown us that we are neither."

And the fact that the Episcopal Church has spoken -- through its historic polity -- and refused to consent to the election of a bishop who refused to commit to address the systemic marginalization of God's LGBTQ beloved in the Diocese of Florida is for many -- including me -- something to be grateful for.

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.