"Let Me Be Who God Has Called Me to Be" by George Tigh

Rev. George Tigh was ordained in 1971 and became an elder in Full Connection in 1974. George served several churches in the Eastern PA conference until he was granted disability leave in 2008. Despite a diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease, he continues to serve in ministry as a Pastor of Congregational Care at Newark UMC located near the University of Delaware. In George’s words, “I feel I have been reborn in this ministry, and plan to stay engaged in service for as long as health permits.” George  was one of the 33 EPAUMC clergy members who co-officiated the service of Christian marriage for Bill Gatewood and Rick Taylor on November 9, 2013 at the Arch Street United Methodist Church in Philadelphia.

Consider the first words of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  Is that not God’s way of saying, “I don’t have to be everything. I can permit to exist something that is not me?”  A God-like spirit of respect and tolerance is diminishing in the world. Sadder still, the spirit of respect and tolerance is also diminishing in the United Methodist Church. 

I began in the ministry in 1968. A year later I departed a doctrinally-inflexible denomination and entered the United Methodist Church. I brought with me a bundle of strong convictions, among them, the belief that a homosexual orientation was simply another way of defying the will of God. In the years since, I have re-examined the Scriptures and I have listened carefully to voices in the fields of genetics, psychiatry and medicine. As a result of doing so, I have come to believe that sexual orientation is determined by nature, not deliberate spiritual rebellion. The change in my beliefs did not evolve easily. It took years to overcome the culture of prejudice that permeated the church and world around me. I assure you that my movement from opposition to acceptance of a homosexual orientation was not the result of abandoning my faith, but exercising it!   

I understand that many colleagues, many Christian brothers and sisters, strongly disagree with me.  Recalling the pain and anguish of my own journey from one point of view to another, I dare not be impatient nor disrespectful toward those who disagree with me. I surely would never compel others to swallow their personal integrity and function as a pastor in a way that replicates my ideals and practices at the expense of their own.  I give you permission to be you. You do not have to be me – a mere extension of my values, discoveries, beliefs and practices.

I but ask the same courtesy in return. If you oppose covenant services for same-gender partners, do not perform them. But offer me the creative, God-like courtesy to be different than you. Please reconsider your support for oppressive rules that obstruct me, and a sizable minority of your earnest and faithful colleagues, from fulfilling a ministry that we strongly feel is necessary to answer God’s call to the ministry of Word and Sacrament for all people.