This morning
I am reflecting on the question: why
church? It is an honest and valid question. Personally, I have been harmed by the church
many times along my journey of faith. I
love Jesus. What Jesus taught about life
and how we are to move about in this world resonates deep within my soul. A friend once told me she did not believe
that Jesus intended to start an institution.
To be sure the institution has been infiltrated with politics, bureaucracy
that is not necessary, structures that are cumbersome and leadership in many
cases that does not resemble the life of Christ.
One branch of the institution told me that I could not be in pastoral ministry because of my gender. Another made it nearly impossible to become ordained because of my sexuality. I have felt excluded at the communion table, not because I was not allowed to have a seat at the table but because I had to leave part of myself in the pew. Because of the environment and societal norms, I would go to the communion table alone while my partner followed behind me as the heteronormative families would join hands, receive communion together and kneel at the altar rail, huddled as a family in prayer. I would return to my seat, my partner sitting beside me and as I watched this scene of families huddled together, I would weep, longing for the day that my family could also huddle at the altar rail in prayer without fear of being stared at, talked about, ridiculed, shamed, or asked not to do that. It took way too many years for me to go through the ordination process. I heard no and not yet more times than I care to count. Each no would knock me down. I would go through a period of grief. I would go through a period of doubt and face the temptation of giving up. I was sacrificing much. Staying on this path was choosing to lose my family in that my partner of 21 years could not continue this path with me. She did not have it in her to live in a glass house, always on display and talked about. To continue this path would lead to the dissolution of another long-term relationship. Watching me go through the pain of the nos and the not yets was too much for her. So much so that she completely gave up on the institution of the church wanting absolutely nothing to do with it. Yet, every time I got knocked down, I got back up. Why?
First, it is
because I would remember the powerful call on my life. It was a call that first appeared when I was
13 and a call that loudly announced itself in my sleep when I was 37. “Wake up, I am not finished with you.” The call was a call to inclusive
ministry. The first call was born of my
recognition that our churches needed to recognize the sacred worth of individuals
who were differently abled. The second
call was born from a need I saw in the LGBTQ community to know what I had
learned as I sat outside of a Hospice when I was 25 years old, divorced and
trying to reconcile my spirituality and my sexuality before I literally died
from the depression and anxiety of not being able to reconcile the two. It was then that the Holy Spirit
intervened. The Holy Spirit told me God
created me in God’s image. There was no
doubt in my mind at that point that I was biologically a lesbian woman. I was sexually oriented to women. I could not change that. It was part of my DNA. I had tried living a life denying that fact
and I wasted away to 105 pounds showing every rib in my body. I could not eat during that time without getting
sick. I could not sleep. I had taken to sleeping on the living room
floor on an air mattress so at least my husband could get some sleep.
The next
thing the Holy Spirit reminded me was that God is Love. “Beloved, let us love one another for love is
of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. They that love not, know not God for GOD IS
LOVE.” (I John 4:7-8) That verse, taught
to me by my uncle through a song, was used in that moment to bring the greatest
epiphany of my life. If God created me
and I was biologically sexually oriented to my same gender and God is love then
God is not going to condemn me for who God created me to be and God is not
going to condemn me for who I love. In that moment I was set free. The chains that bound me were broken and I
wanted everyone who had ever sat in that life-or-death moment of wondering if
they had to give up one part of themselves or another to experience that
freedom.
In addition to
remembering the moment of that call, I remembered the call from my friend who
desperately needed to hear that same message.
I remember her tear-stained face as she wrestled with the same questions I had wrestled with 12 years earlier.
Today, as I
worshipped with Wellspring Congregation where I serve as associate pastor, I
was reminded again of what Christian Community is designed to be. I agree that Jesus did not set out to give
birth to a large, corporate institution.
What Jesus did do was show us that we are not meant to do this life or
life of faith alone. As he called his
disciples, he showed us that we need community.
Our pastor, Ashley Crowder
Stanley is doing a sermon series entitled:
Resetting Your Life: An Invitation
to New Perspective and Renewed Faith. She
based it off a New York Times Article she read on December 30th
where readers shared the best advice, they had been given this year. She took what she considered the top five
pieces of advice and turned them into a brilliant series that has certainly
renewed my faith.
Our service
began with a happy birthday celebration for 4 year old Andi, who arrived in her
long flowing princess dress, her new ballet slippers and a tierra crowning her
head. We sang happy birthday and clapped
and cheered and ate donuts as we begin to prepare for worship. Well, should I say as we continued to worship
because to me that was part of worship.
It was celebrating one of God’s creations among us, giving thanks for
the light she brings into this world.
After a
musical time of centering, affirming our faith and singing one of my favorite
songs, We Have Come to the Lakeshore, we prayed and launched into a tune
written by Mark Miller, Child of God. While I have
embedded a link to the song it is worth sharing the lyrics here.
No matter
what people say, say or think
about me.
I am a child;
I am a child of God.
No matter
what people say, say or think
about you,
You are a
child,
you are a
child of God.
No matter
what the world says, decisions
or
pronouncements on you,
You are a child;
I am a child of God.
(Chorus)
And there
is nothing, and no one, who can
separate
They can’t
separate you, from the truth
that,
you’re someone
You are
family, you are meant to be,
a child, a
child of God.
You are a
child, a child of God.
Those words breathe life back into my soul and it is
the message I am called to breathe into the souls of others who have been led
to believe they are not enough.
The words to this song were followed by Ashley’s sermon
of the day which was based on this advice.
She retold the calling of some of Jesus’
disciples. They were fishermen and they
answered the call to get out of their boats and become fishers of people on a
grand adventure with Jesus. They adventured
together under the leadership of Jesus.
They were on an adventure to turn the status quo upside down. They were on an adventure to carry the good
news of God’s love not just to the “chosen” Jews but to the Gentiles. They were chosen to be recipients of God’s
divine love to. So are you. But the key is they did not carry this
message alone. They carried It in
community.
Wellspring, born of a vision that Rev. Ashley Crowder Stanley
had of creating a community for all people, where all of who you are is welcome,
has renewed my faith that a spiritual community can exist that does no harm,
does all the good it can, and leads each other to a deeper faith in God. It is this kind of community that Jesus called
us to. It is this kind of community that
I say yes to. I want to introduce people
who once found comfort in the community of church until that community wounded
them, to this kind of community. I want
to welcome them home. This is my Why. And when the Divine asks “Whom shall I send?”
I will continue to sing loudly, “Here I am Lord, is it I Lord, I can hear you
calling in the dark.” I will wake up
tomorrow morning and I will say Lead me to where you will.
