1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11

Easter 7 – Year A

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11

Being reviled for following one’s call from Christ is one thing when the difficulty comes from an outside culture that denies your call or an internal process of not doing what one desires or the other internal process of doing what one has resolved not to do, compared to being reviled by another person, also called from Christ, who claims you are incompatible with their call and therefore your call is invalid.

Here at General Conference we have been dealing with the last of these scenarios and it feels as though this intra-call reviling is the most difficult to deal with. Again, time after time, we refused to listen to the truth that we are differently called.

The matter of sexual identity is a very easy target and will not be something only suffered for a little while. It is also not an issue that is resolvable in some great by-and-by when some “glory” will swallow up the glory of sexuality in this paradise. This matter is very much oriented to our current relationships.

Until this matter is dealt with, there is no option but to find alternative “church” forms either within or beyond current denominations. This is a discipline that is hard to keep because of the comforts of established ways of thinking and acting and the comforts of power and payment for services rendered. You may want to rethink things in light of what the Church Within a Church Movement is doing.