Why I celebrate United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert’s commitment to Joyful Biblical Obedience and why I stood to support that vision in my robe and stole at the same gender wedding of Joe Openshaw and Bobby Prince on Saturday, October 26, 2013.

Isaiah 56:6-7 and Mark 11:17 teach us that the spiritual house of God, the family of faith, shall be an all-inclusive house of prayer. It is an act of Joyful Biblical Obedience to not put a “but” behind a house of prayer for all people.  There must not be any filters at the door of the spiritual house of prayer to block access to the Spirit of God in Christ, so that every human creature can be transformed to love God and neighbor in all that we do.  We cannot say all are welcome but people of color, the poor, and LGBT persons. God’s Spirit is for all people (Acts 2).

John 3:16-17 is clear.  God loves the world, every human creature and all creation.  To celebrate that love in every human creature, to proclaim that there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:1-2) for LGBT persons is an act of Joyful Obedience. Everyone who believes has eternal life!

Acts 10 says that Cornelius, a hated gentile, was declared an upright God fearing man because he was a man of faith, prayer and compassion (Acts 10:30) and Peter declared that God had shown him that he should not call any person profane or unclean and that all the prophets testify about Jesus, that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. Can anyone withhold water for baptism or rings for marriage from these people who have received the Holy Spirit.  So in Joyful Biblical Obedience Peter ordered them to be baptized (Acts 10:48).  And in Joyful Biblical Obedience I stood in robe and stole with Bishop Melvin Talbert in his commitment to Joyful Biblical Obedience as he officiated at a same gender wedding.

My life of Joyful Biblical Obedience has been deeply formed and shaped in deep love of God and in love of every human creature and love of all creation by the great leaders of the Civil Rights Movement here in Birmingham.  The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, the founder of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights had two foundational commitments that he taught with his words, life and suffering. The first was that there are no second class human beings and the second was that it is our first responsibility to defend the civil and human rights of every human creature.  These two commitments of Rev. Shuttlesworth summarize Joyful Biblical Obedience and make it crystal clear why I stood with Bishop Talbert in robe and stole in his commitment to Joyful Biblical Obedience.

The Reverend C. T. Vivian taught the great principles of the Civil Rights Movement in the basement of St. Paul United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1960’s. Those he taught, taught me that it is wrong to oppose Joyful Biblical Obedience by categorizing, generalizing and discriminating against any group of human beings.  I now see clearly that these principles are true not only for people of color but that they are also are true for LGBT persons.  To categorize a person as less than human and as evil and to generalize that definition to a whole group of people and then to discriminate against that group is a violation of Joyful Biblical Obedient to the commandments to Love God and all neighbors.

I stood with Bishop Melvin Talbert because I am a maladjusted person as defined by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  He said he would never be adjusted to segregation and discrimination based on race, class or gender.  He said he would never be adjusted to religious hatred.  He said he would never be adjusted to economic systems that take from the poor and give to the rich.  He said he would never be adjusted to violence, war and militarism.  To be thus maladjusted is to stand in commitment to Joyful Biblical Obedience.

Finally I stood in support of Joyful Biblical Obedience in my robe and stole with Bishop Melvin Talbert because I am committed to the making of disciples of Jesus Christ and to the transformation of the world with the religion of Jesus Christ, the religion of the heart, the religion of compassion and justice, a religion full of the love of God and the love of every human creature and the love of all creation.  A religion of hate, a religion of external forms, a religion of rules does not have any power to transform the world. A religion of bigotry, external forms, and rules is the religion of the empires of this world.  It is a religion of oppression and terror. Only Love can transform! 

The religion of the heart that I am referring to is articulated with great clarity in John Wesley’s Standard Sermons Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount; sermons number 021-033.

I thank God that I have seen the Light and I am going to let this little light of mine shine, shine, shine in Joyful Biblical Obedience!

R. Lawton Higgs, Sr.