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Common Threads...

The 7th Annual Austin Multifaith PRIDE Worship Service took place last night, at 7 PM, in the sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church in downtown Austin. After having to cancel our service last year, holding the service at all was a victory in and of itself. All the same, holding the service at First United Methodist Church was, for me at least, somewhat bittersweet.

FUMC is housed in a lovely historic building, bearing witness in clear sight of the Capital and the Governor's Mansion.Our AMP Worship Service theme this year was Common Ground - Holy Ground.Extremely fitting for me in particular - as a Lutheran - knowing that the service was being held in a Methodist Church. We Lutherans and the Methodists do have much in common.

The national decision making bodies of both the Lutheran and the Methodist churches are are currently considering joining in "full fellowship" with one another. The Methodists already voted in favor of this at their General Conference and we Lutherans will vote our part of that at our own Churchwide Assembly next August in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

In keeping with both their broader denominational practice and particular congregational history, First United Church, on their website, has a video explaining how they live out their motto: Open Hearts-Open Minds-Open Doors. At the end of the video, while Lutheran Marty Haugen's hymn "All Are Welcome" plays in the background, a voice over explains how they do actually welcome everyone, no matter "who you are or where you come from."

Social engagement and advocacy for the powerless has always been considered a hallmark of the Methodist Church. First United, like many Methodist Churches, annually hosts a myriad of large community events such as ours. They house a twice a week breakfast for the homeless. They host an ESL school for refugees and immigrants.

Yet - in the midst of all this hosting - there is no word in their statement about being welcomed no matter "who you love".You see, the Methodists, like the Lutherans, have no policy in place to welcome glbt persons into the full life of their churches. In response to this, some Methodists, like some Lutherans, have developed their own Methodist parachurch welcoming movement, the Reconciling Ministries Network.

That we have these organizations working towards an explicit welcome for all lgbt persons into the fullest participation of life of the church is to the credit of both our denominations. That we both need such an organization in the first place is to our shame.

This made it oddly fitting that I found myself, representing an ELCA parachurch welcoming organization, Lutherans Concerned North America - Austin/Central Texas Chapter, headed in to help set up for a PRIDE service willingly hosted by a Methodist Church on the heels of their General Conference this year in Fort Worth where lgbt rights were once again voted down as "incompatible with Christian teaching".

And for the most part, "willingly hosted" would be the word. Despite some bureaucratic itchiness about what access we might have as a result of renting the sanctuary for the evening, when push came to shove, their sound engineer showed up and worked tirelessly for over three hours to help see that our service had adequate coverage and their system would not be overwhelmed by the demands of widely varying sound levels ranging from a single human voice canting to the combined pounding of a choir of drums. No easy task in a nearly century old building.So there we all gathered, clergy and laity alike. Some of us were "in a pew every Sunday" types and others were engaging in what was clearly an "occasional" practice.

We were a family of faith including folks of every possible description, quite different from the homogenous group I worship with in my home congregation. It was different, very different, but wonderful as well.The diversity, the variety, the energy, it was exhilarating. For every single person who feels a deep need to observe tradition for tradition's sake, to guard the church against novelty or protect against innovation, I can only wish for them to know the freedom I felt last night. The joy that diversity brings. The power and strength.

Those of us who gathered in the sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church in Austin last night did indeed find our common ground and it was most certainly holy. As with the combined strengths of most families, we proved ourselves to be a strong and sturdy bunch. Not fearless, no, but most assuredly brave in the facing of our fears. Our presence there together, our very lives, witnessing courage.

Who were we last night? Highly trained professionals who labored, closeted, for decades, unable to freely express their deepest most central love for another in the face of risking losing their very livelihood. Pastors, recruited, educated, trained and then rejected at the last possible point of their journey by their denominations. Told they were somehow "not enough" to fill that role in the church they'd so joyfully trained to serve. Couples who have lived together and loved each other for over 40 years, all that time in the face of a government and church who will yet not recognize their union with either legal protection or sanction of blessing. Young people, coming out of their closets, some of them having to come out of their families at the same time. Naming their place among us and setting aside the shame placed so heavily and unfairly upon their young shoulders. Mothers proud of all their children, gay and straight. Fathers proud to be out to their sons and daughters at long last. Couples celebrating the opportunity to worship joyfully together, expressing affection with no fear of recrimination. Community leaders, founders of activist groups, allies willing to spend time and energy and money to fight for lgbt rights. Care takers, friends, lovers, young and old, healthy and frail, all together in one place to celebrate community. Commonality. Family.As keynote speaker the Reverend Karen Thompson put it so well - we were all there to declare, in every sort of naming and language, that we are God's beloved children.

As I helped ready the sanctuary last night, covering their altar with our own rainbow cloth, I couldn't help but shed a silent tear recalling the many black cloths placed upon a communion altar at the Methodist's General Conference.That was another amazing and diverse group of clergy and laity, strong, sturdy, protesting and witnessing with their own lives to a community where some of God's beloved children are yet - as in my own ELCA - held to be "less than".

I was again reminded of those mourning strips as we heard Ruthie Foster singing "A Friend Like You" and we were invited to write a prayer on our own colorful strips. We one by one deposited those prayer strips, a brightly hued jumble of pleas for healing, for unity, for acceptance, and placed them at the same altar where an openly lgbt person might not be welcomed under other circumstances, certainly not officially by the UMC on a Sunday to preside.

So there we were. Inside First United Methodist Church. Good enough for a visit on Thursday night but not fully welcome officially on a Sunday. It would be no different in most of the ELCA congregations I know. Our official policies state that openly lgbt clergy are acceptable only if they pledge themselves to a life of celibacy. A difference, but not much of a distinction.
Methodist or Lutheran, these are certainly up and down days for both our churches. Human institutions, while yet hopefully under the best of circumstances, helping us see our connections to God.My prayer for us all, Methodist or Lutheran, whether it be more fittingly attached to a colorful strip of celebration and pride or a black strip of mourning, is that we each and every one accept in our hearts, no matter what human voices might be telling us, that God loves us. As we are. Completely. Graciously. Freely. So that, in the light of God's love, our lives can shine.

Truly welcomed. Fully beloved. Protestant. Universalist. Muslim. Jew. Roman Catholic. Gay. Straight. Lesbian. Transgender. Bisexual. One big family at last.

Tikkun Olam, For the Healing of the World, Part Two

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!

Tikkun Olam, For the Healing of the World, Part One

I attended my ELCA Southwest Texas Synod Assembly this past weekend. One of the regular features of Assembly is a Bible study, typically led by a nationally recognized scholar.

This year we heard from Dr. Barbara Rossing, ordained pastor, professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, author of multiple books and articles. Dr. Rossing has been featured on the National Geographic channel speaking authoritatively on the widely varying interpretations of the Book of Revelation.Dr. Rossing authored a book, "The Rapture Exposed", where she takes a closer look at how the interpretation of the book of Revelation as fictionalized in the wildly popular "Left Behind" series promulgates a horrible misinterpretation of the End Times. Dr. Rossing offers an alternative interpretation, one in which we are able to hear a message of hope rather than of division and destruction.

In one of our three study sessions, Rossing shared with us her experiences meeting with Gbayan Christians (Cameroon, Africa) as they celebrated the translation of scripture into their own language. As is their custom, the Gbaya Christians commissioned a special cloth to be made to memorialize their new relationship with the Word.She held up the special cloth so we could all see the central symbol of women seated in a circle preparing food. The cloth was edged with images of a parade of celebration. And celebrate they did to finally have the Bible in their language - in their own words.

We most definitely hear a lot of our own words at Synod Assembly. Every issue introduced potentially find two groups with words to share. One voicing support and the other voicing dissent. Rather than a seamless course of unity and agreement, the words we hear at Assembly can and all too often will degenerate into a discourse characterized by an "Us Vs. Them" schism.
As Dr. Rossing stood there, teaching us in a university gymnasium decorated with quilts hand made by groups from Lutheran churches all around our Synod, it was quite a visual underscoring how very much more alike we all are than we imagine. Our words and opinions are often deeply divided, but under all that, we are all yet human. Vulnerable. Creative. Afraid. Caring.Groups from all around our Synod, from conservative as well as liberal congregations, made quilts to decorate the hall. The quilts were all auctioned off, with the proceeds going to our companion Synod in Costa Rica to help build a camp. "Manu" will benefit with more beds, a challenge course, new staircases, a regulation soccer field, all to foster Biblical literacy and leadership skills in the young people who will attend and counsel. With the help of time at camp Manu, Costa Rican children will come to know the Word in their own words.

The quilts became our own commissioned cloths, celebrating and speaking to our relationship with the Word, and with our Costa Rican brothers and sisters we may never physically meet.It struck me - all around the world we serve as warp and weft together for one seamless cloth of human endeavor. It was a very personal imagery for me as I thought back and considered my own mother's love for quilting. She thrilled to the challenge of taking pieces that had no obvious connection one to the other and putting them together in ways that created beauty, that brought new function. For my mother there was nothing quite so delightful as taking many seemingly disparate pieces of material and joining them into one work of art functioning as a quilt.

Dr. Rossing's current interest is looking at our latest dilemma, global climate disruption, and likening this crisis to the various illnesses we fall prey to as physical beings. She reminded us of how warming leading to glacial melting was threatening the sources of irrigation for crops and equally importantly, the sole sources for drinking water in many impoverished parts of the world. Dr. Rossing highlighted in our shared studies this weekend an acknowledgment that we as a society, as a culture, are desperately ill.

The good news is our Bible is filled with stories of healing. Bottom line, Dr. Rossing told us, this is what the "end of time" is all about. Not the massive destruction of God's creation, but rather the healing of the world and the restoration of our proper place in that world. The end, yes, but the end of "us vs. them".

Dr. Rossing helped me see our current environmental situation in an entirely different light. She allowed and encouraged all of us to use different framing for reading scripture in our approach to living through this calamitous situation. To find solutions that will call for not for an "us vs. them" mindset but rather the recognition we are all together on this one world.We are all "us". We are all "them".

I truly enjoyed the chance to study with such a prominent theologian. In contrast to some of the more mundane work a church body faces when they meet to do "business", our shared study was a real highlight of the Assembly. I learned something new. I was stretched, enlightened. My enthusiasm for Scripture study has been elevated, as Dr. Rossing demystified one of the more controversial books for us (Revelation). I feel better equipped now to both read the Bible and to make good choices that will work with God's intention for Tikkun Olam - the healing of the world.