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Good morning, everybody. A warm, warm welcome this Sunday morning for this wonderful service, the celebration of 50th anniversary of Godfrey Wilson's groundbreaking sermon. I am Reverend Anne Cater. I am the priest in charge here at Saint Peter's Willis Street and is my utter privilege to be presiding here this morning. Um, at this point, I'd just like to introduce some of our guests who [00:00:30] I am sharing the space with this morning. It's absolutely wonderful, very packed up here. So we have the lovely Bishop Rema, who's come down from Auckland. Martin and I have someone who for some of you might find a bit familiar. It's Bob Scott. We've got him over there. Neil's going to guide him through, and it is wonderful to have you here with us this morning. Our service [00:01:00] begins on page 456 of the New Zealand Prayer book and the name of God, creator, redeemer and giver of life, Grace to you and peace from God, our creator, the love at our beginning and without end in our midst and with us. [00:01:30] Pulpits have been the place of history making since the earliest Christian times. The pulpit or pulpit to give it its proper name was the place for speaking, inherited from our Jewish origins and throughout the church. The ancient Greek beer means both platform and steps [00:02:00] and was used for a variety of secular, raised speaking platforms in both ancient Greece and Rome. And from those times to today, the central raised platform in both Jewish synagogues and in Christian churches is the place for the word, though nowadays our sermons and our addresses are often from the ambo or the lectern, whichever name you want to give it. [00:02:30] I'm rather pleased that this pulpit remains here because this, too, is a place of history making. On the 26th of June 1967 a startling sermon was preached from this platform by the then vicar, the Reverend Godfrey Wilson. It was history making because [00:03:00] it may well have been the first sermon of its kind in the country. It probably was, and certainly the first sermon of its kind to be broadcast live on national radio, and it shocked it, shocked because it used an almost forbidden word 50 years ago. Homosexuality, not an eyebrow raised today. [00:03:30] But then Godfrey was good at shocking people. What Godfrey preached was delivered in the certainty that it was and is the church's job to take the Gospel to the margins to break open God's word. That the challenge is and always will be to articulate [00:04:00] gospel principles consistently and implement them compassionately. For we must preach that human flourishing is a primary goal far more important than the protection of our institutions. Preaching is part of the paradox of worship. God works within us [00:04:30] and within worship, something that never absolves us from the responsibility of making our responses. Worship is the mutual giving and receiving of worth, for that is what the meaning of worship is worth and preaching is, or at least it should be, part of that. It is not simply a means to an end. It is not about making better informed [00:05:00] Christians. It is not just about teaching, and it is not just about ethical instruction. It is part of our worship as a whole, and thus it must be inclusive. Worship, then, is liturgical action that helps us to see the world transformed, and a sermon must be part of that. [00:05:30] There you go. Good sign of a solid pulpit. You can give it a good healthy thump now and again, just like a desk in Parliament Grant. They come from the same origins a few weeks ago, and it reminded us that the core of what is often referred to as Good Shepherd Sunday is the unmistakable message that we are all both [00:06:00] leaders and followers. Over several decades of varied ministry, I have been humbled by those who have pursued a life of faith in a church that has not always welcomed or valued them for their worth. The gay and lesbian and intersex members of our Church, of the Church as a whole and as one of the sheep, I have been constantly [00:06:30] reminded that we need to hear their voices time and again and take seriously their experiences. They show us continually show us a valuable expression of mercy in CA. In calling the church to be more inclusive, more Christlike, despite being given so many reasons to walk away. [00:07:00] So very sadly, so many have done just that and walked away. It was once said of Godfrey Wilson, following one of his numerous controversial sermons. He bleats like a sheep, and I hope that he heard that that he took it as a compliment. 50 years on. It is an [00:07:30] immense honour and privilege to repeat Godfrey's sermon and to reflect on the pastoral leadership of one who was so often thought of as a black sheep in the bigger flock, the church. And so to that sermon, Godfrey's text was from the epistle of John from both Chapter three and four [00:08:00] Little Children. Let us love not in word or in speech, but indeed. And in truth, if anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen cannot love God, who he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him that he who loves [00:08:30] God should love his brother, also love people, times without number. He's pondered the use and the abuse of that familiar and ambiguous word, and now the prison chaplain has used it, sitting there in his office, listening to John's story. John has been three weeks in prison. Perhaps [00:09:00] the three blackest weeks of a life already overburdened with shadow put him in a group of other men of say, around 30. You would see nothing to mark him as different. He is able, intelligent and well thought of in the bank where he once worked. But he is different. John is a homosexual. It is his own sex that he is attracted to. [00:09:30] And it is with men that he seeks to make those loving relationships on which any full life as a person depends. I don't know. When John first realised he was different, his mother, to whom he was very close, had sometimes commented on the lack of interest in girls. But that was earlier. He was a born bachelor, he said, not wanting to hurt, and in time [00:10:00] she recognised and accepted. When he left home to work in Wellington, he was trying hard to come to terms with his condition. He led quite a full social life and made friends, particularly in the amateur drama group that he joined. But he kept telling himself, This is as far as I can go. Just friends he knew only too well what society thinks of homosexuals. [00:10:30] After all, didn't he read the newspapers and hadn't he overheard the land lady telling her friends with some disgust that she thought she had a queer among the borders. It was like background radiation, the attitudes, the things you read and heard. John tried, but he only seemed to become more and more aware of something vital, lacking of a growing emptiness [00:11:00] at the centre of his life. He wanted to give himself to love and to be loved. But how could he? The way he was? Well, John did fall in love with a young man. He met on a night in a coffee bar and got talking to him. Colin was his name. They clicked, as we say of men and women who fall in love, and after some months of courtship, they moved into a flat [00:11:30] together. John took these steps in fear and trembling. It wasn't altogether satisfactory. There were tensions, quarrels, sometimes jealousy over friends, as in other human relationships. But there was also love, genuine care for each other and a fulfilling experience of faith in life. In partnership, [00:12:00] John couldn't imagine the return to his solitary. They had been together for nearly a year when their landlord gave them notice. Apparently another tenant had complained to him about having queers for neighbours and about the pack of pansies who came around visiting. He was sorry, but he didn't want to upset his fellow tenants. There was no use making a fuss [00:12:30] after all, as far as they were concerned, he had the whip hand. John and Colin quarrelled over the upheaval, and the relationship ended on a sour note. To cut a long story short, John went back to his solitary boarding house existence, but now he was getting bitter. He felt more deprived and frustrated than before. [00:13:00] And it was this coupled with the desperate desire to regain something of what he had lost, that drove him from one casual relationship to another and finally into the arms of the law. He got probation for the first offence, but the second time it was 12 months imprisonment. What's the use? John said to the chaplain. [00:13:30] I've tried to fit in. I've tried to live my life and find happiness like everyone else. I didn't ask to be homosexual. I didn't choose to be different. And yet you've made me an outsider, a criminal, a greater threat to society, apparently, than the adulterer who breaks up a home or the man who gets a girl pregnant and leaves her holding the baby [00:14:00] and look. If you fall in love and marry, that's fine. But if I fall in love and want to share it, that's perversion and must be persecuted and punished. Do you wonder that I've thought of suicide? What, then is there for me? Who cares about me? Yes, who cares? [00:14:30] Well, I'm glad I'm not that chaplain. I wouldn't know what to say to someone in John's position. I mean, hearing about John, I suddenly realised how easy it would be to take for granted the love and affection and care and friendship that I enjoy. I'd better try imagining how I'd feel if people whispered behind my back every time I took a girlfriend home. Or even worse, if I'd been evicted because of what other tenants [00:15:00] said when I tried to settle down with my wife. More reason than for for helping men like John just to see what they lack to see that God intended human nature to find fulfilment in marriage and the raising of a family. Yeah, but but not everyone gets married, but some choose not to look for various good reasons, and sheer force of circumstances prevents others. Mm. And what's this force of circumstances that prevented [00:15:30] John from getting married? He simply wasn't born the way so much of society still treats us normal. Whatever that means. A born bachelor? Is that what you mean? That's what he told his mother, you remember? But they both knew it wasn't true. Even if that's what they would have liked to have. Now, Now, you know as well as I do that our sexual tendencies become fairly set at an age when we are too young to have much influence on what happens. John [00:16:00] could no more have prevented his sexual outlook than you could. Yours or I could be, No matter how rich you're objectively speaking, yours might be. Ah, So you do agree that it's better not to be a homosexual. You're missing the point. You're missing the point. You're You're still assuming that John had some choice in his sexuality when in fact, he didn't look, Surely you must have had some. Well, you ask yourself. Did you choose your sexual [00:16:30] outlook? Did you well put it like that? I suppose a person can't help being born left handed, but the scripture tells us that it might be at the worst. Unhealthy. Is it a sin if a person grows up with a different kind of sexual personality? We know it's not a sin to be left handed. So why should a homosexual be a be a sin? Mm. I must admit, I never thought of quite [00:17:00] like that before. I suppose what you mean is that it's not sinful to feel affection for one's own sex. Oh, everyone does that up to a point. I suppose it's a sexual behaviour which results from letting these impulses run away with you. That's the really the sinful thing. I guess you could say that. And of course, in the same in the case of heterosexuals, right, it's those who abuse their gift of sexuality. Who sin? Yes, [00:17:30] I see that clearly enough. But there is another side to the picture. Hm. Surely the rest of the community has the right to ensure that this sort of behaviour doesn't get out of hand. Isn't it just as much for their own good as let some restraint just put on them. But can the community really restrain them? Well, there is the law. And if you break that you must be. But by condemning [00:18:00] him, the community hasn't solved his problem. In fact, it's made it worse right. In the end, the community's worst fears will be confirmed, and this will be taken as conclusive proof that prison is the only place for him. It's that old excuse for ignoring the problem. Oh, thank God we've moved on from that theory. Wow. But we've got to keep coming back to the same fundamental problem. Saint Paul [00:18:30] denounces homosexual sin. But haven't we learned a great deal about sex since those days? Paul and the Old Testament writers had the mistaken idea, which we've already been into. That homosexual choose what it is to be. It doesn't help me to see what John's supposed sin is. Now you're making unnecessary difficulties. I thought we'd already agreed that his [00:19:00] sin was his abuse of God's gift of sexuality. No, not at all. John is a homosexual. Take his relationship with Colin, But was he abusing his gift of sexuality and therefore sinning? I'm I'm sorry, II. I don't quite follow it. Well, is it like this? Much of Christianity continues to condemn homosexuality, for it represents the denial of what is the good life. Saint Paul, for instance, talks about deeds [00:19:30] prompted by love. And although it's an old fashioned word, it does at least help us what he, uh, think about what he thought sexual sin is. And he says, it's a lack of respect for yourself or for other people and sexual relations. It's a sort of disrespect or abuse that leads to deliberately establishing a sexual relationship simply for what you can get out of it. You know as well as I do that we have. If we have that sort of attitude to sex, then it's not long [00:20:00] before the whole meaning gets destroyed. Sex is part of a creative relationship in which two people can exchange, exchange, love, affection in which they share a common life and common interests and responsibilities. Outside of this commitment, sex becomes a destructive force. You get tension, jealousy, instability and decay. Yes, but isn't this a different situation where one kind of marriage and having Children isn't a possibility [00:20:30] simply because the couple are homosexual and yet their love is genuine? They are committed to each other and they want to make a life together. Is it really necessarily sinful for sex to come into this Well, if you put it like that, but why I'm not so sure. But go on. I feel John has been made a victim of his sexuality. He is aware of his outlook, but he's told it's not a gift but a curse. He's [00:21:00] aware of its potentiality for good and for bad, perhaps more aware in a way than we who take our sexual gifts for granted. But he is told that however he expresses them, he is sinning. He wants to use his gifts in a creative way, but he has warned that he must inevitably destroy. He wants us to share an ordinary give and take of love and affection. He wants to have this sort of relationship with another person, without which all but the exceptional few find [00:21:30] life dull and empty. But he is told to repress his evil urges, just like you and me. He finds it perfectly natural to want to fulfil the physical side of his nature, not for what he can get out of it, but for what he can give into it. But he is told that this is condemned Now. I don't find any destructive work at force at work. In this particular case, I see no exploitation, [00:22:00] no denial of personal worth, only the needs and limitation of a human being trying to find fulfilment in ways that will be rewarding and enriching. But if you believe this, then it's impossible for us to say whether John is sinning or not. You would need to know so many things about his personal, his inner life to be at all. And why should we? Why should we decide that question? Is it our place to delve into anyone's personal life? Surely [00:22:30] only God sees the heart and the soul, and it is in a position to weigh up a person's worth. Hm? I am beginning to see what you mean. You mean we've all sinned in some way or another, haven't we? And if we don't constantly remind ourselves of this basic fact about human nature, we're in grave danger of putting ourselves in God's place. Now. What it amounts to is this that it's not our place to judge and condemn exactly. [00:23:00] But it's something so much more positive than that. For me. The whole meaning of Christianity boils down to God's concern for all people, no matter who they are or what they have done. We are all made in God's image. God accepts us all, not just in word and his speech, as the reading put it, but indeed, and in truth, God got so deeply involved with us that he even became one of us and died for us and all this so that we could [00:23:30] stop merely existing and begin living life to the full acceptance is the key word, and you can't accept unless you love, love, Christian love the sort of love God has for us and to offer us. It isn't a transient feeling we enjoy while it lasts, but a demand to accept all people as God accepts them with no reservation, unconditional love. It's the idea that rigid black and [00:24:00] white distinctions are possible that I want to reject. Isn't that the lesson we learned from John's story? We know that times have changed dramatically in half a century. We know that 30 years ago there was a law reform that decriminalised homosexuality. Sadly, an act of parliament doesn't change everybody's minds or [00:24:30] lives. The legacy of Godfrey's sermon is a reminder that we still have a long way to go in caring for the marginalised of our society. Sure, we don't lock people up anymore, and we don't necessarily reject certain lifestyles we might decide are unhealthy before we inquire of our own minds. What would be the reaction of Jesus? [00:25:00] But that is where we have to start the reaction of Jesus not in the court of Parliament. Through that secu, though, that secu route may sometimes be a help. But here, at the heart of the Christian family, God's house is where we start and in private conversations with God in our prayer life, no matter who we are, [00:25:30] unconditional means exactly that it means unconditional. The infinite value of human life is to be both Touchstone and foundation for determining the morality of a given act or issue. Christian morality should be more concerned with the well being and the dignity of each [00:26:00] and every person than with the rules, norms or canonical commandments. That is the teaching of Jesus. I cannot deny the faithful scholarship of Bible loving, truth seeking Jesus loving and unbiased scholars who find no other alternative but to conclude [00:26:30] that the Bible is actually affirming of LGBT Q I and all the rest people I cannot condemn where there is certain certainty but an undeniable history of wrongful judging, disapproving and damning things later proven to be benign. Even Duba. I am learning never to trust [00:27:00] a conservative church that demands I love conditionally. Surely it should be the desire of us all to live life beyond condemning, discriminating and sin labelling mantras of any church that crucifies first and consults Jesus. Later, I leave you with these few words [00:27:30] of blessed Thomas Merton. The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all living beings, which are all part of one another and all involved in one another. Oh man, caring God. [00:28:00] We thank you for your gifts in creation for our world. So for our land, its beauty and its resources, we pray for those who make decisions about the resources of the Earth, possibly for those who work on land and sea, in city and in industry. [00:28:30] For artists, scientists and visionaries, the creation curator God will lay before you the last 50 years of slowly moving understanding of the love relationships [00:29:00] between those who are accepted and those who are not. We give thanks to you for the witness of Godfrey and Mary Rose their ministry in this place, we give thanks for those during the last 50 years who've ploughed through the intolerable conferences, [00:29:30] commissions, reflections for 30 years and still not reached a common decision. We pray for your forgiveness of this institution in that matter. [00:30:00] We remember the thousands of people whom the church ignored sometimes hastened the time when people committed suicide because they felt lost and un cared for. We pray for the families [00:30:30] of those people whose agony continued for years and years. And so now we pray clearly that our church, in its meetings and its reflections at the local level, may see new light may see new energy [00:31:00] may claim some joy in our determination for joy and for love. Our prayer is that in the next few years we we may continue to march forward seeking new truths, new commitment in the name of love. [00:31:30] Instead of waiting for yet another commission, we ask this in the name of Jesus who taught us how to love. I mean, I no [00:32:00] [00:32:30] yeah, [00:33:00] [00:33:30] [00:34:00] [00:34:30] most loving god creator and redeemer We give you thanks for this foretaste of your glory through Christ and with all your saints, we offer ourselves and our [00:35:00] lives to your service. Send us out in the power of your spirit to stand with you in your world. We ask this through Jesus Christ, the servant, our friend and brother. Amen. Um, I'm going to take liberties. Uh, one of the things we'd like to do today is bless our beautiful rainbow banner. Um, you can see it draping artistically in the corner over there. Um, it was [00:35:30] created for a gathering spiritual gathering last year. Um, and we would like to take today as an opportunity to bless it. Um, and because of the nature of today's celebration, I wanted I couldn't help myself. I had to be part of it, too. So you'll see. There's a bit of a rainbow banner on the lick. Turn over there with a cross on it. My parents were members of this congregation 50 years ago, and Godfrey Wilson was their vicar, and they were married here in 1969 by [00:36:00] Godfrey and my mother. One of the things that she has given me is She's a person who makes vests for clergy and priests and deacons around the country. And as a result, she's got a lot of fabric. Um, So I said to her, What I'd like to do is create a banner to remember and recognise this 50th anniversary. So all the fabric from that banner as pieces that was set aside for investments for clergy in this country. [00:36:30] And I thought more than appropriate that we use that for our banner here today. So I get to, um, have a little bit of something here, um, and weave my story further to the wonderful story and legacy of this parish and all that it stands for and all that. I hope that it stands for in the future. Yeah, Alright. So in that spirit, [00:37:00] for all those rainbow banners and and flags that we have in this vicinity right now, um, we know that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in it. And God said, it is good, all of it. And so in that spirit, may these banners be a symbol of that all encompassing, generous, amazing, unending love for all that all [00:37:30] who see it may be overwhelmed by the power of that love and know God, that you are a god of love. And we bless these banners. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I'm going to hand over to Bishop to give the blessing God to be with you. Oh, [00:38:00] and always angels watch you Oh, God. The and spirit and keep you peace. Peace be with you and air Go [00:38:30] rejoicing on. Mm, yeah.
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