December 2004

The Work of the Loving Hands of God

by Bruce Garner

On the 15th anniversary of the Atlanta Interfaith Aids Network in November, former NEAC co-chair and board member Bruce Garner was honored for his decades of work. This is part of his acceptance speech.

I was blessed to find a faith community in the Episcopal Church. I found that community at a time in my life when I went searching for God. God found me, and as the hymn says: “On His shoulder gently laid, and home rejoicing brought me.”

I have been further blessed by the nurturing of my faith community at All Saints’ Church. All Saints’ is a place where there is a concerted, prayerful, and spirit-filled quest to personify our baptismal covenant in respecting the dignity of every human being and in seeking and serving Christ in all persons, as we strive to love our neighbors as ourselves. We may not always succeed, but we do try.

Let me offer an admonition here specifically to my own faith community: The signs that identify parishes of the Episcopal Church bear the slogan “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.” Sometimes, probably most of the time, that slogan is true. Too many times, however, that slogan has a qualification or two: The Episcopal Church welcomes you “if” or “perhaps” or “as long as” or maybe even “unless.” The qualifiers might include: Unless you’re just a little too gay, or as long as you don’t look too ill with HIV — or even as long as you have the proper clothes, etc. etc. etc. (In some ways we are not all that different from some of our more conservative sisters among the denominations. We just try to be a bit more subtle, some might mistakenly say a bit more “classy,” with our qualifications and restrictions. Subtle or not, it is not classy. It is still prejudice and bigotry.)

As long as God sees fit to keep breath in this body of mine, I will be a thorn in the side or a pain in the butt — whatever it takes — to insure that the Episcopal Church means what it says when it proclaims that “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.” Furthermore, that welcome will be without any qualifications. It is not our house. It is not our table. Both belong to God. Our role is to gather, not sort. Let God do the sorting.

There is another reality about HIV/AIDS that we must acknowledge: I am no longer the face of HIV/AIDS. The face of HIV/AIDS is a face of color today: African American, Latino/Latina, Asian, though despite rapid increases in the numbers of women being infected, most of the faces of HIV/AIDS are still gay ― whether they acknowledge that fact or not.

As a broad community of faith, we must ask ourselves a question: Do we see the faces of HIV/AIDS in our congregations? Do we look for them? Do we make it clear by word and deed that the faces of HIV/AIDS are welcome among us? If we do welcome those faces, do we welcome without condition or qualification or do we still pass judgment on them? Are we still sorting or have we learned just to gather? Have we learned to love our neighbor — even the one with HIV/AIDS — as we love ourselves? Or are our words and actions still a ringing indictment against us as communities of faith? I will not pose answers to these questions. I will simply leave us to search our own hearts for the truth.