As people of the Uniting Church we seek to build each other up in faith and love so that we do not lose the way. With Jesus Christ as our example, we reach out to others in love and in service to bring food and water to those who hunger and thirst, to welcome strangers, to clothe the naked, to care for the sick, to visit those who are in prison and to care for the least within God's family. For this is what we understand Christian ethics to involve, to show love to our neighbours as to ourselves. We do not seek to serve only our own, or those like us, but we reach out to declare ourselves part of an inclusive community of faith and service.

We have varied, rich and often different traditions and a grand vision of being one in Christ. We demonstrate that hope to the world in our name, as The Uniting Church in Australia, and we display it in our logo. We seek unity in One Spirit that is the Spirit of Life, of Reconciliation and of Love.  We seek to do that across the differing contexts of our faith, acknowledging that diversity is one of the great gifts of God to us and to the Cosmos.

I have sought to understand what it means to live in faith before God in every aspect of my life, including my sexuality. It has been a long and often painful journey to this point. I did not choose to be gay and I only discovered the realities of my sexuality by a process of maturation. That process was very much linked to becoming one with Christ as I matured in person, in faith, in my spirituality and in knowledge of my sexuality. What I do choose to seek is full participation in the life of the church. I choose to grasp hold of the promise of the Gospel, that there is no condemnation in Christ.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)

On reflection, my situation is very much like those early Gentile Christians who were regarded by some Jewish Christians as unclean in the eyes of God. The assumption was that Gentiles, as Gentiles, could only be part of the People of God by first becoming Jews. This meant of course, circumcision, eating Kosher food, living by the Jewish law and renouncing or repenting of their former life as a Gentile. Those early Jewish Christians were scandalised and shocked to see that God had poured out the Spirit upon the Gentiles, as Gentiles. Peter had nightmares over the issue and Paul was lead to teach that in faith there is neither Jew nor Gentile nor any other mark of distinction in Christ Jesus. The writer of Mark's Gospel went to great lengths to show that those whom some followers of the law regarded as outsiders were in fact insiders. Matthew's Gospel repeats the theme, subverting expected norms, and Luke teaches a wonderful lesson of inclusivity when he tells of Philip being lead by the Spirit to affirm the faith of the Ethiopian eunuch (another despised outsider) by baptising him.

There are some who make "eunuchs" of gay men in declaring them unfit for positions of leadership in the church. They construct marks of distinction to control the definition of who may participate and who cannot. In short, they are like those early, hard-hearted, doctrinaire, circumcised, Jewish Christians and ask that homosexual people cease being homosexual people before they are admitted fully as Christians. Some seek to make us heterosexual people first, crying, "be born again in our image. Be like us!" Others, out of concern for what they describe as "loving the sinner but hating the sin" do not seek to change us. Instead they ask us to deny ourselves the forms of intimacy that are natural to us and to enter into a celibacy of convenience for their consciences. In so doing, they engage in an idolatrous projection of a heterosexist hegemony that serves the creature rather than the Creator. And worse, they exchange the truth about God for a lie and deny our experience of God's Spirit with us.

The truth is that homosexual Christians are already bearers of the Spirit and are graced and made whole as homosexual people of faith. They do not need to be born again or to repent of being homosexual, for they are already Children of God and participate in the rule of God through grace and faith. And when they fall short they do so in the same manner as their heterosexual brothers and sisters, for we are all capable of sin and all people sin. In Christ we all find deliverance and forgiveness. It is the same Spirit of Christ that inspires our ministries, guides our studies of Scripture, theology, history and ethics and informs our Christian praxis. We gay Christians know Jesus as our Friend and Liberator who finds wisdom and faith among the outcasts and gathers us as his own.

I value the use of Scripture, reason and experience in discerning what God is saying to me at this moment. I draw upon my skills as a Biblical and theological scholar and upon the reflective strengths of prayer. The Bible says nothing about homosexuality. Where it does mention homoerotic sexual practice it is from within a social and cultural milieu that is different to our own. The modern concepts of homosexuality and heterosexuality are simply not present in the Bible. Like Peter and Paul, who adjusted their understanding and reasoning in terms of their experience, I involve myself in the same hermeneutic process. What I find sinful is when we fail to recognise one another as persons created by God, redeemed by God's Christ and inspired by God's Spirit. I see the denial of another's humanity as sinful. I see sin in the doing of violence to others, in the exploitation of one another, in the vilification of those who are different, and in the rejection of the gifts of the Spirit in others.  Yet in Christ, all sin is forgiven.

Making a compromise fails just as it did for Paul and James at the first ecumenical council. However, the Bible gives us many illustrations of alternative positions on some issues but it still retains its integrity as canon. The Bible itself offers us a model of unity in Spirit while allowing for the expression of differing opinions and actions. For example, Leviticus 21:20 and Deuteronomy 23:1 prohibit eunuchs from serving in the temple but Isaiah 56:1-9 shows their offerings being acceptable to God. Ezra 9:1 stands against the people of Israel marrying foreigners, especially the Moabites. But the story of Ruth shows Boaz marrying Ruth, a Moabite and a name was established in Bethlehem through David and Jesus as Ruth's descendants. Jesus brought healing and forgiveness while breaking the laws relating to touching the dead or menstruating women and associating with outcasts and foreigners. He showed the alternative way of new grace in faith and love. Jesus' view point is clearly expressed in the parable of the wheat and the tares. In cultivating good relationships in an eschatological framework the teaching is to treat all people as "good wheat". (Matthew 13:24-30)

To do that will mean exercising patience and keeping dialogue open, recognising all the strengths of all of our members and challenging all of our deficiencies. It will mean being truthful and honouring the diversity of Biblical interpretations that our members hold, in a mutual and reciprocal affirmation of diversity. It will mean letting the Spirit guide our lives in the same manner that Paul advised those early Christians struggling with questions of Gentile inclusivity. For it is time to bring in the outcasts again to reclaim the promise of God who finds the outcasts acceptable in worship and service.

. . . for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered. (Isaiah 56:7-8)

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.' (Luke 13:34-35)

In the name of God I call for justice, love and reconciliation so that we can all get on with the other tasks to which God has called us.

I call upon the Uniting Church in Australia to live as the inclusive Church in step with the Gospel of Jesus Christ to which the Apostles Peter and Paul witnessed.

I call for our churches be made safe places so that homosexual people can worship and to serve in ways that are free from homophobia, discrimination, vilification and harassment.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord

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