Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

As I drove to church this morning, the heavens opened in a different way and the rain poured down. It was a mighty rain, enough rain, so that if it had been a normal temperature, we would have had two feet of snow. Yet if it had been a normal temperature, we wouldn’t have had this much water in the atmosphere in the first place. Climate change, how are we as Christians going to respond to what our species has down to the world?

At church, the priest spoke about heaven opening. We often think of it in terms of those images from great American films, the clouds parting and the visage of an elderly white man, presumably heterosexual, appears and speaks with a booming voice. Yet it seems, more often than not God speaks in a quiet voice before dawn. Perhaps heaven opens more like the curtain of the temple being torn and all people, no matter what thirty eight church leaders might think of them, are drawn closer to God, to God’s love, and called to show God’s love to one another. Perhaps heaven opens with the recognition that “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Those of you not following Anglican politics may wonder why I chose the number, thirty eight. I am referring to the leaders of the thirty eight provinces in the Anglican Communion who will be gathering this week in Canterbury.

An article in The Telegraph, puts it this way:

The global Anglican Church faces "dire consequences" unless it enforces a traditionalist line on homosexuality at a crucial summit in Canterbury this week, says a leading cleric taking part.

Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt, convenor of Anglican primates in the "global south" – the bulk of the church’s 80 million members, told The Sunday Telegraph unless the issue is resolved there will be “irreparable” splits not just between countries and dioceses but even individual parishes.

There is a lot of positioning taking place leading up to this meeting. Archbishop of Canterbury calls for prayer ahead of Primates Meeting.

Online, friends are sharing prayers from The Primates 2016 Prayer Page. My prayer is that heaven might open over Canterbury and God’s love might be manifest. Manifest equally to Bishop Mouneer Anis., to Retired Bishop Gene Robinson, and especially for young gay people driven to suicide because people fail to show God’s love to them.

I pray that the call to repentance for not loving our gay neighbors as ourselves may be loudly heard by all the primates, and that they move on to address more important issues, like refugees, genocide, and climate change.

An Op-Ed in The Guardian put it this way:

As 38 leaders from Anglican churches around the world prepare to meet in Canterbury next week to decide whether they can bear to go on talking to one another, or whether to formalise their schism over sexuality, it’s worth asking whether they have any larger message for the world. Apparently they do. It’s that genocide is more biblical than sodomy.

The hardline African churches preparing to walk out of next week’s meeting are disproportionately involved in wars and in immense civilian suffering.

I pray that church leaders might not rush past the person attacked by haters in their haste to condemn and exclude people with different views from their own.