A message from our rector

Please read the entire letter here... www.stpaulsoakland.org/node/116



In the conversation around human sexuality, we have been talking in the Episcopal Church for over forty years. Innumerable numbers of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons have died waiting for us to make up our minds about what we (the "normal people") think of them. Enough is enough, and it has been enough for a very long time now. As Moses was commanded by God to tell Pharaoh: "Let my people go." Anglican Communion, let's stop talking about being pastoral and true to God‘s word, and let us start acting like pastors and allow God‘s word to live in and through us.



All I can say to my dear brothers and sisters who hear themselves being talked about is: I am sorry. I am truly sorry that so many people who call themselves Christians do not love you the way God does. I am sorry that despite its cries for justice for all people, the Anglican Communion is so blind to its own repressive attitudes and actions.



Finally I say to each of you: GOD LOVES YOU, JUST AS YOU ARE.



Here is my Bible thumping moment:



What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Rom 8:31–39)



Though others will always try to find a label to put on my currently clean-shaven head, I am not a liberal, nor am I a conservative. The one label I will whole-heartedly put on myself is Christian. As such I will continue, and I invite each of you to join me, to strive to be more like Jesus, a champion for those who society, not God, have labeled outcasts.
Pray for peace, God‘s peace; work for justice, true justice.



Faithfully yours in the service of Christ, Mauricio J. Wilson