Together on the Journey: A Weekly Blog from Fr. Andrew Sheldon

Her name was Jan. We were two of a number of new employees in an organization that worked with teenagers, and we were driving overnight in a bus to Rockford, Illinois for two weeks of training. We were up most of the night while Jan went up one side of me and down the other, deconstructing my antediluvian views of women. I started out the trip as sexist and ended it as a budding feminist. I didn’t know I was sexist but I was. And I will always be grateful to Jan.

His name was Victor. As a young evangelical man, he came out to me about his gay sexual orientation. Over a number of discussions, he helped me to understand that this was how he had always experienced himself, that this was certainly not a choice, and that he felt so lost, marginalized, and afraid. I started those discussions as a homophobe and ended them better informed, understanding, and tolerant. I didn’t know I was a homophobe but I was. And I will always be grateful to Victor.

Sadly, we live in a world where people continue to be discriminated against. And this on the basis of colour, race, religion, gender, sexuality and so on. Sadly, we also live in a world where the church has been, and in some cases continues to be, complicit in this prejudice.

Yet on this Pride weekend when we celebrate diversity, let us not forget the one who ate with outcasts, touched the leper, first announced his resurrection to a woman, called a despised Samaritan good; who made the last first, the meek and humble blessed, and who included all in the arms of his mercy. We at St George’s will not welcome, include, and embrace inclusivity because it is a politically correct thing to do; we will do it because we are a Christian church, and it is a Christian thing to do.

And how will we fully live into this identity? As individuals or as a congregation\ we may be compelled by a reasoned argument in a blog or a sermon, but I hunch it will more likely happen through encounter with another. Through relationship. Through a Victor or a Jan. May we be open enough to let them in.

Andrew+