A Devotional from team member Brandon Ward

Three more days! When Cindy asked me to write the devotion for today I realized that June 28^th is three days before July 1^st. We will all finally meet to begin our fun, exciting, and exhausting work at General Assembly in three more days. This brought me to think of all the important “threes” in the Bible. Most importantly, of course, the Triune God comes to mind right away. Our belief and prayers to God, our faith in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit working with us as we struggle toward an inclusive Church are the most significant “three” we will have guiding us and our work.

Threes exist all over the Bible: Noah’s three sons, Job’s three daughters, three day journeys, three month visits, Jesus’ three temptations by Satan (which appears in three of the four Gospels), Peter’s three denials of Jesus, and Jesus’ resurrection on the third day. Yes, three is a very significant Biblical number; yet with all the three’s I’ve listed, there is one set of “three” that really speaks toward why I am going to General Assembly.

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

We all know this passage well. Being in a string quartet and having performed at many wedding ceremonies, I have this passage nearly memorized word for word. Yet, it means so much to me that I think about it often. Faith and hope drive our work at GA toward an end we pray to achieve – acceptance and inclusion. Yet for me, love, as Paul said, is the greatest motivator. I want to love openly and happily and not be judged or excluded for loving. It seems so contradictory that loving someone, be it of the same sex or opposite, would keep a person from being allowed to do the work of God. How can love be a bad thing? My faith in Jesus led me to the Presbyterian Church which led me to TAMFS and the work we’re doing. I hope not only that LGBTQ people can be ordained, but that those who are ordained in the Presbyterian Church can perform wedding ceremonies of LGBTQ people as well. I hope to one day stand in my Church with the man I love and have my pastor perform the ceremony. This is why I’m going to GA - because I have faith in Jesus and the work we’re doing, I hope to achieve our goal, and we should all be free to love. See you all in three more days!
-Brandon