Lisa Larges, director of the Presbyterian USA LGBT advocacy and affinity group, That All May Freely Serve, is appealing a court decision made in 1992 that blocked her from ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA) because she was honest about being a lesbian. Following current Presbyterian Church (USA) procedure, Larges is submitting a statement of conscience in disagreement with the Church’s prohibition against LGBT people serving as ministers. This decision, which will face a vote on Friday, comes in the midst of voting occurring in presbyteries across the country over whether to fully remove barriers to ordination for LGBT clergy. Larges’ case could have a significant impact in building the momentum for ratification of this amendment. Read HRC Religion and Faith Program Director Harry Knox's personal reflections on this upcoming vote and Larges’ clear call to ministry:
Ordained to Serve Harry Knox It is one of my several lifetime self-improvement projects to remove violent language from my conversations. So what should I call my friend Lisa Larges' heroic 20 year long struggle for ordination to ministry in the Presbyterian Church USA? When newspaper and TV stations cover Lisa's story there are usually clear lines of confrontation drawn. There are "sides" to be given equal airtime or column inches. As she goes from one vote of a local presbytery to the next denominational judicial decision she or her opponents are almost always characterized as “winners” or “losers.” So how can I not call her decades-long engagement a fight? Well, I can't call it a fight because I know Lisa Larges and I know something about what it means to be ordained to Christian ministry. Lisa, like most people who feel called of God to do ministry, feels called first and foremost to service. We feel moved by the eternal force for good to serve God, who is defined by love and justice, and to also serve the people God loves. Lisa is not called to win so much as she is called to embody love; she is not called to conquer, but to manifest love and community. I am often asked by people battered and bruised by religion because they are honest about who they are, why it even matters what some denomination says about LGBT people's authority for ministry. I usually stumble through my own grief over having been denied ordination 20 years ago to an explanation close to this: Questions of ordination matter because clergy represent God to the world. In worship and other settings they represent the world's people to God. We are supposed to reflect the nature of God and offer the humble service of humans one to another as an offering of praise to the Creator. Who receives authority to lead the Church in worship and care for the world and for people matters because that choice says something very powerful about Who we believe God is. The Bible teaches that we are created in God's image and that the divine has both male and female aspects. Christian tradition, at its best, shows God balancing the call to justice with constant mercy and complete understanding. Lisa Larges will make another historic step in her struggle for ordination when the San Francisco Presbytery decides on March 20 whether Lisa’s statement of conscience against the current ordination standards that deny openly LGBT people to serve as Presbyterian ministers can go to the next level and be voted on at the highest church court. She will not put herself through another round of self-disclosure and possible rejection because she wants to win. She will do it because she is called to serve the people God loves by embodying the ageless, but oft-forgotten image of a vulnerable God who cares more about being with us and bringing us together than about winning, or even surviving, the battle. Lisa Larges has been called to ministry and has been living out that calling every day as she has put herself on the line to represent us all over the last 20 years, even as she has tried to show us a new way of imagining God. If she is denied ordination one more time she will continue to be a pastor, a preacher and an advocate for justice and for the marginalized. The Church, however, will suffer the loss of one of God’s most gifted servants and LGBT people and allies will only move further away from the Church. So let’s not call what she did a fight, let's call it her mission.
