Someone is royally pissed with David

Bathsheba, after whom David lusted when seeing
her bathe naked, thus getting his ass in a sling.

Coming back from a doctor's appointment (what else?), I noticed a new sign in front of Pilgrim Covenant Church (next to St. Stephen's Lutheran Church) on Park Avenue in South Plainfield.

I called my sister, who belongs to the Evangelical Covenant Church (more about them here, and here), to ask if the denomination had adopted a new logo as the sign seemed somehow changed.

"No," she said, "I'm certainly not aware of any change."

"Maybe they just decided to get a new sign," says I.

Then she added that her congregation was searching for a new minister (theirs had accepted a call in California) and that she was "staying on through the search" but then planning to leave the denomination.

I was stunned.

You should understand she has been active in this congregation in Connecticut since her kids were little. She has held just about every position of responsibility for lay people there.
What on earth was this about?

"It's about the direction the denomination seems to be taking on human sexuality," she said, "and they don't seem to be coming down on the right side."

The flash point is whether ministers may perform, and congregations host, same-sex weddings.

Not only that, she added that she didn't like the way the denomination was proceeding with a top-down approach out of character with the denomination's tradition of tolerance for a variety of opinions on church practice.

(The Evangelical Covenant Church grew out of the intense spiritual awakening among some Swedish immigrants in the late 19th century and has a long tradition of agreement in essentials and tolerance in inessentials.)

We talked about the matter for some time.

There is a network of members who want to see the denomination be totally inclusive of LGBTQ people and she is in touch with them, but she seemed to me to have firmly made up her mind to quit.

That is a principled stand I said, but what do you do then?

No other congregation you ever find will be just like this one you love so much and have served so well.

And no place you go will be totally without tensions over this issue.

My own Episcopal Church just went through a stressful debate at last month's triennial General Convention over this exact issue and -- typical of the denomination -- worked out a compromise which allows priests to conduct same-sex marriages and bishops who object not to have to approve of the practice. Guaranteed to make no one perfectly happy.

The United Methodists are set to take up the matter at a special General Conference in February in St. Louis, with this as the only matter on the agenda.

There is some fear that the denomination may see defections depending on the outcome.

With all this in mind, I have been given a reading assignment for Sunday's liturgy at Grace Episcopal Church.

The lesson is from II Samuel(11:26 - 12:13a) and details the Lord's being royally pissed with David over maneuvering to get Uriah the Hittite killed in battle in order to have his wife, Bathsheba (who was already pregnant with her and David's child).

I pointed out to my sister that the Lord seemed far more vexed with David over the Bathsheba business than with David's famous -- and perhaps homoerotic -- "friendship" with Jonathan about which there is no mention of divine condemnation.

Perhaps the Lord knows something mere mortals do not?

Grace Episcopal Church is at East 7th Street and Cleveland Avenue. Worship on Sundays is at 10:30 AM. Visitors are always most welcome.

Parking available in the street or in the public parking lot across from the front of the church. You will also enjoy the weekly playing of our 46-bell carillon, one of only four in the state of New Jersey.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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