I don't normally put my sermons on this blog, but this is one I feel compelled to share. I was away volunteering at the Churchwide Assembly, then on vacation, and last week we had an assistant to the bishop as our guest, so this past Sunday was my first time back in the pulpit and my first chance to address what happened in Minneapolis. Julia and John's story has been used by permission, though names have been changed and certain identifying details generalized to protect the innocent. May the Spirit give us all eyes to see and ears to hear and the strength to bear one another's burdens in love. . .
In Christ He is My BrotherWell, even though today is Rally Day, and even though we are blessing backpacks and briefcases, students and teachers, and the beginning of a new school year, and the lectionary has even conveniently given me some Scripture really appropriate for teachers, there in both Isaiah and James, this morning I’m going to do something I never do. I’m going to ignore the lectionary and preach a sermon that has nothing to do with anything else happening in today’s worship, but has
everything to do with who we are and how we live together as the body of Christ. This is a sermon I feel the Holy Spirit gave to me while I was volunteering at the Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis 3 weeks ago, and I pray now the Holy Spirit will give all of you the ears to hear it.
I want to start by letting you know that going to the Churchwide Assembly was an incredible experience, and it made me very proud to be a Lutheran, because we are doing some amazing ministry – in our own backyards, across this nation, and throughout the world. The Churchwide Assembly is a chance to learn about and celebrate the ministry we are already doing, and to dedicate ourselves to new ministries that will meet the new needs and challenges arising in our midst. Among the
many actions taken by the Churchwide Assembly were commitments to fund a global HIV/AIDS strategy, to both increase education and prevention efforts, and to provide resources to assist those already living with the disease; we also dedicated ourselves to developing a Lutheran Malaria Initiative, to help prevent and eradicate malaria, especially in Africa, by distributing mosquito nets, basically, bed tents, to be given to those who live and sleep in afflicted countries; we also committed ourselves to calling for long-overdue immigration reform in our own nation, and asked Augsburg Fortress, our publishing house, to develop worship and liturgical resources in Braille, to better include our sight-challenged brothers and sisters; and we voted to enter into full communion with our brothers and sisters in the United Methodist Church, an agreement that will help particularly rural or isolated congregations in both of our denominations to partner together in mission for Christ.
But my guess is that most of you haven’t heard a thing about any of these actions I just mentioned, because
those are the things we are doing for the
healing of the world. “Bo-ring” stuff as far as the media is concerned. What sells is sex and violence, so if you’ve heard anything about what happened in Minneapolis, I bet it’s about the decisions made regarding human sexuality, and the subsequent conflict, and potential schism within the church, as a result of those decisions.
In case you’ve been blissfully ignorant, and just so I know we are all on the same page, let me tell you what the assembly did decide. First, they approved, by the required 2/3 of the assembly, a social statement on human sexuality. This statement outlines what we as a church believe is healthy, helpful, and life-giving in relation to sexuality and sexual behavior, and it also outlines what we as a church believe is unhealthy, harmful, or life-taking in these matters. I would encourage all of you to read this statement for yourselves – you can either find it online, or, if you do not have access to the internet, call the church office and we would be happy to print you a copy.
The assembly also approved to allow congregations and pastors of the ELCA to provide pastoral care for their homosexual members as they best saw fit, acknowledging that such pastoral care may include the blessing of same-sex unions.
And the assembly also approved that congregations and synods be allowed to call whichever qualified candidate for ministry they believe the Holy Spirit is sending them, even if that candidate is a homosexual in a lifelong, monogamous, publicly accountable partnership (or, to put it another way, if they are in a covenanted relationship like unto the marriage of their heterosexual peers).
These are the decisions that I’m guessing you have heard something about, though I imagine they were presented in a much more polarizing fashion than I’ve laid them out for you here.
My guess is that you also
didn’t hear about the “boring” decision made in relationship to and in conjunction with all of these decisions about sexuality. That relatively boring, non-sexy decision that in the implementation of any resolutions on ministry policies, the ELCA commits itself to bear one another’s burdens, to love the neighbor, and to respect the bound conscience of all. I bet you didn’t hear that
that decision
overwhelmingly received the
most support out of all the decisions that were made in regard to human sexuality. I bet you also didn’t hear that the assembly chose to move that decision up on their agenda so it would be considered first – and that 77% of the voting members, without yet knowing how the votes on the other considerations would play out – 77% of the people there said regardless of what happens, we are committed to each other. No matter how this turns out, we are committed to loving and caring for each other in the face of deep and often passionate disagreement; we are committed to respecting the conscience of not only those who share our opinions and scriptural understanding, but also and especially of those who do not share our opinions and scriptural understanding; we are committed to bearing one another’s burdens – that is, to bearing both one another’s relief and one another’s dismay. Because no matter how those votes turned out, my friends, whether those policies were approved or denied, it was certain a great many people in this church were going to rejoice
and a great many people in this church were going to lament.
I don’t know if you realize it, friends, but
this is probably the most earth-shattering decision that was made in Minneapolis – in the midst of a culture that constantly tries to polarize us, whether the camps we are being broken down into are black or white, male or female, gay or straight, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, Protestant or Catholic, mainline or evangelical, city or country, East or West, North or South, Pepsi drinkers or Coke drinkers, Steelers fans or Eagles fans – in a culture that is constantly trying to divvy us up and tells us repeatedly that we should only associate with like-minded people, for this church to stand up and say “No – we are committed to loving and respecting and bearing both the joy and the pain of one another, even in the midst of our disagreement” – that is a
profound witness to what God has done and is doing even now in Christ.
And I have no doubt in my mind that the Holy Spirit is running loose in this church, as I saw this witness to
Christ’s unity emerge over and over again that week in Minneapolis.
One of the speakers who came to the floor during the assembly was a middle-aged pastor who told a story from his internship 20 years earlier, when he was visiting a woman who was dying. Death has a tendency to make people awfully reflective, and in this case, it was not merely the woman but also her husband who was thinking back over his life, both joys and regrets. The husband was wrestling with a lot of guilt – you see, he had been an American bombardier during WWII, and had been involved in the carpet-bombing of Berlin. He was certain his actions had been directly responsible for the murder of innocent civilians, and he couldn’t forgive himself for that, and he wasn’t sure God could forgive him for it either.
Later in that very same week, this young student pastor was visiting another woman in the congregation, and in the course of conversation, discovered that she was a German immigrant, and had been a child in Berlin during the war. She herself had survived, but she had held her sister in her arms as the sister died from injuries sustained during the carpet-bombing.
In youthful ignorance, the student pastor blurted out “Do you know about the history of this man in the congregation? He could very well be the one who dropped the bomb that killed your sister! How can you go to church with this man?! How can you stand at the communion rail with him?!”
And the woman looked the student pastor right in the eye and said, “In Christ, he is my brother. How can I hold anything against him?”
In the midst of the sexuality discussions, another pastor got up to speak –white, male, about my age - he’s a friend of a friend, actually, so I also happen to know he is straight and married. He was speaking at a green microphone, which meant that he spoke in favor of the recommendations before the floor. But the first words out of his mouth were: “Is anybody else scared to death to be speaking at a microphone? I’m shaking here. . .please pray for me while I do this.”
And then we all watched as the man standing next to him at the red microphone reached out and put his hand on this pastor’s shoulder, bowed his head, and prayed for him for the duration of his speech,
even as he was speaking an opposing point of view.
In Christ, he is my brother. How can I hold anything against him?
My friend Julia is a pastor in Minnesota, she was a volunteer coordinator for the Churchwide Assembly, she’s the one who recruited me to come and help out for the week. Her college friend John was not a seminary classmate of ours but he is also a pastor, in the South, he was also there for the week, not as a volunteer but as a voting member for his synod. John and Julia’s families are very close, close enough that Julia and her husband Jay chose John to be godfather to their daughter Judy. But, John and Julia’s families are also diametrically opposed in their scriptural understanding and their opinions on these matters of sexuality.
During the assembly, John became a recognizable face of opposition as he spoke several times at the red microphones. Throughout the assembly, as decisions were made that were pleasing to Julia but disappointing to John, she kept seeking him out to see how he was doing and to be a good friend and support him as he struggled with what was happening.
At one point late in the week, Julia was in the volunteer break room watching the proceedings on a closed-circuit TV, and one of our classmates from seminary, a woman named Jane, came into the room right as John was again speaking from a red microphone. Julia told Jane “That’s Judy’s godfather.” To which Jane replied, “Oh. . .huh. . .well, don’t you think you ought to be
distancing your daughter from
him?”
And Julia was so dumbfounded by the suggestion that she didn’t even know what to say. They had known of this disagreement between them long before Judy was born, and that had not prevented Julia and Jay from choosing John as Judy’s godfather, nor had it prevented John from joyfully accepting this role in Judy’s life. So why on earth, Julia wanted to ask, would the events of this week alter that relationship in any way?
Which is not to say that their relationship is always easy – John and Julia both would be the first to tell you that some days it’s very hard to not let this difference interfere with their friendship. But they both work at it, and they both bear with one another in love.
Maybe in the shock-induced absence of anything else to say, Julia should have simply looked Jane in the eye and said “In Christ, he is my brother. How can I hold anything against him?”
Certainly, there are those within this church – on
both sides of this issue, because I hear it coming from both those who are deeply pleased and from those who are deeply disappointed by the decisions made in Minneapolis – but I hear all kinds of people in this church who think the only way forward from here is to separate and distance ourselves from those with whom we disagree.
And if that is where you are at, if your conscience binds you to distance yourself in any way from this body of Christ, I want you to know I will respect that, and I will respect you, and I will continue to love you and to bear the burden of these decisions with you, because
in Christ YOU ARE my brothers and sisters, and I can hold nothing against you.
But I also must confess to you, my brothers and sisters, that the will to separate is not where
I am at. A church which sorts itself out into only like-minded people is
not the church that I want to belong to, and it’s not the church that I feel called to serve, because I believe we need each other: black
and white, male
and female, gay
and straight, Republican
and Democrat, conservative and liberal, Protestant and Catholic, mainline and evangelical, city and country, East and West, North and South, Pepsi drinkers and Coke drinkers, Steelers fans and Eagles fans. . .in God’s kingdom, I believe
there is room AND there is need FOR ALL.
So the church that is committed to holding together and living together in spite of our disagreements, the church that communes with and prays for even those we may consider our enemies, the church that John and Julia work every day to embody -
that’s the church I want to belong to. . .that’s the church I believe
God is
calling us to be. . .that’s the church I believe Jesus is even now creating in our midst.
THANKS BE TO GOD. Amen.
