The Inclusive Community
 
Last weekend I went up to Kuala Lumpur to conduct a Marriage Blessing Ceremony in a Garden Pavilion in a residential resort complex. It evoked a tsunami of memories from my boyhood and teenage days. 

The bride is the grand-daughter of a family friend in Kampar in the early forties and the groom is the son of a dear friend of mine in Ipoh since the fifties. I buried the grandmother of the bride in the sixties in Kuala Lumpur and the father of the groom a few years ago in Kuching. The groom is a Indian Methodist and the bride is a Chinese Catholic. They found no pastor but me to convey God's blessings.

They had earlier given me a number of Scripture passages to base my wedding message for the occasion. But I gave them the choice but they did not inform me. Coincidentally I used Colosians 3:12-17 which was what they had chosen in the first place. It was serendipity. 

The passage was appropriate and conveyed the teaching of "compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience" which are the principles that cement a blissful life of marital relationship of two people. It advises the need of mutual forgiveness and "Above, all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds every thing together in perfect harmony."

I further drew the congregation's attention to the verses previous and following the chosen passage. 
Paul in writing his letter to the followers of Jesus in Colossae spoke of the new life where "there is no longer Greek or Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all and in all! That was the cultural context in his time.

But if Paul was writing to us in the contemporary scene he probably would say to us that there is no longer Indian or Chinese, Christian or Catholic, rich or poor, gay or straight, male or female, young or old for our Creator made us all different from one another.

Then in the verses there was the traditional call for wives to submit to their husbands. But Paul would have updated that for us today with wives and husbands submit to one another and love mutually. 

This is the way in which we ought to read and interpret the traditional holy writings to serve our present time and situation. 


The groom had the customary bachelor's party with his Chinese and Indian friends the night before. While he was doing that I have my "gay party" with a dinner meeting with gay and straight friends way past midnight. In my meeting were a Christian single mother who brought up three children, Methodist woman taking care of her new adopted grandchild, gay doctor working on HIV/Aids, Korean feminist theologian, Sikh woman who was the daughter of the watchman in Methodist Boy's School in KL, young gay social worker, and a Queer theologian. This group meets weekly and support one another in a new inclusive human community. They were all dis-enchanted with established religions. I felt Jesus was very much present as he was among us.

The same feeling came upon me in the following day in the wedding ceremony and the wedding banquet in the Grand Ballroom in Marriot. 

This is what inclusivity meant for me. Are we able to stretch the boundaries and enlarge the tent to cover us who are each different and embrace one another in love and respect?