Previously I was sharing about the Bible studies we participated in at our recent Synod Assembly held at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas. Dr. Barbara Rossing led our group in study. She emphasized the End Times as described in the Book of Revelation are not about destruction and death, but are rather about the healing of the world. She maintains that the "Rapture" as popularized in the "Left Behind" book series and movie has it backwards. It will not be humans raptured up to God, but rather God raptured down to humans for restoration of the plan for this world and our place in it.
Rossing reminded us that in the face of a world that is riddled with its own forms of illness, scripture is filled with healing stories. In the Gospel of Mark, particularly, Jesus heals many different people. Jesus wants to reach out to heal us, too. God wants to heal all our wounds. As we can easily become overwhelmed by the scope of the climatic disruptions we are fostering, we must always remember that all things are possible with God.
Dr. Rossing's comments recast the stories of scripture in a way that puts us not in conflict with, but rather enhances our relationship to the physical world. Her wish is for us all to reclaim our sense of purpose, to choose life, to rediscover our sense of community, our relationship and sense of purpose in the world as Lutheran Christians.
Hearing Dr. Rossing teach was a highlight of the Assembly experience for me, but then I had heard her speak at Churchwide Assembly in Chicago last summer and I already knew I would enjoy her teaching.On the other hand, hearing ecumenical greetings brought to our Assembly by the Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church's Bishop Joel Neftali Martinez was an unanticipated pleasure.
Bishop Martinez reflected upon UMC's April 30, 2008 decision, voting their approval to move toward full communion with the ELCA. For me personally, this is a good news/bad news scenario. In the largest sense, I am convinced the breaking up of the world's Christian churches into denominations is an unnecessary schism, just one more sign of human brokenness. We have to find a way to differ and yet remain in community. Calling ourselves by different names and setting up different rules and rituals and traditions does nothing to help bring about the healing of the world. In that sense, the UMC going into full communion with the ELCA is a step in a good direction.
On the other hand, the United Methodist Church has their own long history of struggles when it comes to offering even a basic welcome to the lgbt community. Far from being ready to allow even celibate glbt clergy, the Methodist church body voted in years previous to uphold their rule that churches can dismiss a member upon their admission they love somebody of the same gender. The ELCA moving into full communion with another church body that is more discriminatory towards the lgbt community is not the direction I would hope to travel. Especially if it means a compromise that moves our church body further away from offering full participation to all lgbt persons in the life of our denomination, including blessings and ordination.
I was leery, wondering if this UMC official would come to us with words meant to direct our decision making, as the president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod had done at Churchwide last August, when he advised us our work to accept lgbt clergy would be a stumbling block between our two groups. Then Bishop Martinez began to share with us his unusual and long standing family history both with Seguin, and with the Lutheran church in Texas.
The Bishop recalled how his grandparents, Roman Catholics, had moved to the Seguin area decades ago. At the end of a long and until then fruitless search for employment, his grandfather was hired as a caretaker for the Emmanuel's Lutheran church there in Seguin. Part of his reimbursement for services offered was the chance to live in an unused parsonage building.
The work and the shelter were the first real signs of welcome his family had experienced in the Seguin area.Fast forward several decades and then Methodist pastor Martinez was working with a Spanish speaking congregation who needed a place to worship in the San Antonio area. None of the Methodist Churches in the region had space they could offer.
It was another Lutheran to the rescue, the pastor at Hope Lutheran in San Antonio, (who coincidentally formerly served the congregation of Emmanuel's in Seguin, although not the pastor who gave his grandfather a job). The pastor at Hope Lutheran offered the Methodist group a place to gather until they could find a site to call their own.Bishop Martinez reminded us of the passage in Revelation where we are told there will come a day when there are no divisions between us. Revelation 7:9-14 (The Message)
9-12 I looked again. I saw a huge crowd, too huge to count. Everyone was there—all nations and tribes, all races and languages. And they were standing, dressed in white robes and waving palm branches, standing before the Throne and the Lamb and heartily singing:
Salvation to our God on his Throne!
Salvation to the Lamb!
Yes, Bishop Martinez said. There will come a day when we will all be singing the same song, together, Lutherans and Methodists, before the throne of the Lamb of God.
And of course he is right. The internecine divisions that plague our denominations are so small when compared to the gifts we have to share.
When I hear stories like Bishop Joel Martinez of his family finding their place in Seguin, of an encompassing welcome offered them that ignored what would be considered usual, customary or expected, I am filled with hope. When I hear stories and see standing before me a man who has experienced in his own lifetime the gift of unexpected acceptance without qualification, I hear that as our ELCA's good news for the world.
Perhaps one day we will indeed all, rich and poor, Methodist and Lutheran, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning and ally, ALL, find some way enter into the same song, worshipping together, loving each other, and sharing a peace that passes all human understanding. That will indeed be the rapturing down of God to heal us as Dr. Rossing spoke of.
Not the end of the world. The end of us vs. them. The healing of the world. Tikkun Olam. Let it come!
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