Ethiopian Searching Has Found What He's Been Looking For

It's so hard to understand which struggle to embrace. Are they
exclusive? Can they be integrated? Which part of my existence do I
fight to defend with the scriptures? You see I'm finding that the
embracing of all that I am--an African American, gay male--a heavy
bag to hold when I have to think about how my ministry will be
affected by fighting this fight within Presbyterianism. It is
amazing to me that the patriarchal and privilege issues within a
denomination that prides itself in moving and growing in the
direction of "Spirit led Reformation" doesn't get that this issue of
gay ordination, inclusion really, feels like such a slap in the face
of my reality as a Black man and the struggles I have had to come to
grips with being a part of any tradition in religion that uses the
same style of argumentation to justify the buying, selling, killing,
legalized oppression of my ancestors and my people as it does to
exclude those who are also my people from the church.

God has called me. There is no other way to explain how God's work
through me keeps happening despite the oppression unto which I refuse
to cleave. I am glad to be here. I am blessed to be able to share
this space with this awesome group of God's children. Much of this
battle I fight is within me as to where does my allegiance lie? Am I
a black man, a black Presbyterian, a black gay man, a black gay
Presbyterian, a gay black male Presbyterian? Well, the folks I am
sharing this phase of the journey of my life with have only ever
looked at me as a child of God. I am not divided and do not have to
choose. God's love has been evidenced to me as so massive that I can
be all things within that greatness. I want to live my life that
way, the totality of my experience in service and ministry to a joy
that washes over me as I walk in the brilliance of God.

Whether or not the institutional chariot driven this man will stop
and pick up this Ethiopian and let himself recognize this ultimate
reality of sexuality as part of totality remains to be seen. But
where would the church be if those like the Ethiopian (don't confuse
me with a eunuch in this analogy!) hadn't seen the power of the
resurrection and demanded baptism? Indeed I say the Spirit of the
Lord would have rained a holy baptism down anyway.

I have a word to speak, a song to sing, a joyous human life to live.
God has ordained it so. We have ordained it so this weekend.

There's only one place left to seek it.