Beyond the Binary with Rev. Dr. Amy Slaughter Myers

St. Francis Spiritual Sustenance: June 29, 2022

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Live creatively, friends. (Gal 6:1 MSG)

You and I do not have to choose to live divided from our neighbors.
You and I do not have to participate in the divisions that are being stoked in our common life in this country, in our public life.
You and I can choose differently.

St. Paul wrote his impassioned letter to the church in Galatia decrying divisions and those who stoke them. He accused the Galatian church of misusing the freedom they had been granted by Christ to hurt one another, acting explicitly against God's law of love: ...use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows. For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That's an act of true freedom (Gal 5: 14-15 MSG)

Divisions. I believe this - not that.

Either this or that - not both.

Republican or Democrat.

"Pro-Life" or "Pro-Choice."

Catholic or Reformed....wait, what?

St. Francis is an Episcopal Parish and Community Center, that is, a community formed in the Episcopal ethos, the Anglican ethos, the Anglican way of being that is not either/or but rather both/and. The Anglican church - of which the Episcopal Church is a part - understands itself as the via media, a middle way, both catholic and protestant, hierarchical and democratic, rooted in Scripture and Tradition and Reason and Experience.

The community of people connected to St. Francis Episcopal Parish and Community Center is not all of one mind on theology, politics, the role of the church, the role of government, or on anything else that humans disagree about. Yet this is a space where all are welcome and celebrated as bearers of the divine image, where all strive to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.