A New Wind is Blowing in East Texas

 

May 20, 2012 was not Pentecost Sunday.  May 27, 2012 was.  May 27 was also Memorial Day weekend and Woodland Christian Church in Longview, Texas likes our high holy days to be well attended.  So we just moved Pentecost up a week.  Because that’s how we roll.  We (basically) follow the lectionary and we sing the doxology but we are far from dyed-in-the-wool liturgical.  So moving Pentecost up works for us.

May 20, 2012 was also the day of a very important vote in the life of our church.  Not realizing it while scheduling everything in the month of May (do you have any idea how much stuff goes on just in May alone?!), Pentecost Sunday and the Sunday that we voted on whether or not to amend our constitution to become officially Open and Affirming fell on the same day. 

Without being dramatic with the suspense, I’ll simply tell you: the vote passed with more than the 2/3rds congregational vote required to amend the constitution.  The vote is historic.  We are the first church in East Texas to officially declare themselves to be Open and Affirming (there may be a very select few other congregations who might fit the bill, but the denominational requirements differ or do not require a congregational vote of this nature, perhaps).  We are the 5^th Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) church in Texas to declare O&A and the 20^th in the South Central Conference (comprised of several states, including Texas) of the United Churches of Christ to do so (we are part of the 25% of that conference who now declare ONA). 

The same day of our vote, historic First Presbyterian Church in downtown Longview voted by almost the same percentage as our vote to leave the Presbyterian Church, USA (PCUSA) in protest over the denomination allowing the ordination of non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy.  But that vote is just more of the same in East Texas.  Why it makes news is confusing since it’s just part of the stale, old wind that’s been blowing around for years (in East Texas and the church).  It’s part of the same tired arguments about taking a stand against the homosexual agenda or bowing to culture or holiness or purity or whatever other excuse we make to marginalize groups of people.  But there is a fresh Wind blowing.  The Holy Spirit is moving…even amid and among the tired, stale winds that threaten to calm the fierce movement of the Holy Spirit.  And the Holy Spirit, well, She’s never been known to back down or settle down.

Here’s what’s most surprising about that historic vote Sunday.  It didn’t feel historic.  Not for me (Maybe others will comment about how it felt for them).  It didn't feel life changing.  I heard no rushing mighty wind.  I saw no flames of fire flickering and dancing unexpectedly in the room.  I felt no breeze.  I heard no strange languages.  I honestly felt relief.  Relief that we can finally put this issue that is contentious in Christendom today exactly where it belongs—in the past.  Relief that we as a church can finally be honest and proud of who we are because individuals in our body had the courage to say “enough of this wrangling over words and statements…let’s be clear and let’s do this because these people we are talking about are our family!”  And we did.  

The Earth did not move.  There was no crowd outside stopping in their tracks asking “what meaneth this?”  Actually, some just clapped and then we went to lunch (or a board meeting)!  Just like every Sunday.  Because what we voted on wasn’t to fundamentally change anything about our church.  It was just to tell people who we are—who God has fit us together to be. 

But that lack of amazing fanfare doesn’t fool me at all…this was a work of God’s Spirit and it was mighty indeed.  The Wind blowing through our church on Sunday morning isn’t finished blowing.  People will take notice of this.  They may talk about it.  And even in churches and groups where people gather to criticize our church’s stance, there may be some gay or lesbian in the closet listening…some young questioning teen or some straight teen who just can’t get their head around why the church won’t fully include their gay friends.  And they’ll hear the message the Spirit of God was saying at Woodland Christian Church on Sunday: “Don’t remember the former things or think about the past.  I’m doing a new thing—it’s springing up now, can’t you see it?  I am making a road in the wilderness and streams in the desert to give drink to my people, the people I formed for myself so that they will declare my praise.   Hey! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters!  And you who are flat broke, come buy and eat the wine and the milk that are free…” (my paraphrase from Isa. 43 and Isa. 55)

Don’t be mistaken, justice isn’t always established by far reaching legislation and legal mandates. Sometimes it is established in meekness. Sometimes it doesn’t come at a great denominational meeting in a big city with lots of delegates speaking for lots of people…Sometimes it is established in a small corner of the world in a little church in East Texas.  Justice doesn’t always fix every problem, sometimes it raises our awareness of other problems and drives us to do something about them too!  Sometimes a few people in an upper room get a breath of Wind and are set on fire to leave those four walls and go change the world—one moment of justice, one act of mercy, one statement of grace at a time. 

Ms. Nancy, the "kitchen queen" at Woodland!  

I could not begin to say it any better than my dear friend, Ms.Nancy, the “kitchen queen” at our church, said it: 

 “We are starting a new chapter in the life of Woodland Church.  There should not be,nor should there ever have been any ‘us’ and ‘them.’  We are all children of God.  Let’s move forward as ‘we’ and ‘our church.’  After much prayer and personal soul searching,I am certain we took the right path.  Let us all work together to build ‘our’ church, and be open to being led by Him in whatever plan he has for our future. Welcome to all my precious friends…!!”

Amen!  And thanks be to God!

"He thinks he's a liberal (bless his heart)"

FYI: I am an Obama supporter.  Not because he's black and I value racial equality (I do).  Not because he's cool (he is) and I'm under 30 so I like the cool guy.  Not because he FINALLY said something in support of gay MARRIAGE (instead of using other euphemisms), not because I'm too stupid to be Republican or Libertarian, and not because I'm too dumb to understand his economic policy or any other policy.  Not because I hate rich people (someone needs to be able to contribute more than $5 to the campaign).  I am a real life, actual liberal like they show on National Geographic in its natural habitat (Portland, OR maybe).  And, yes, I do know what that means even if you think (a) it's a bad word or (b) it just refers to me being okay with the gay or other social hippy free love stuff.

I actually believe in the fiscal policy of the President...because it works!

I actually believe in Health Reform...because it has made American lives better and improved a broken system.

My criticisms of the President are almost ALWAYS because he has not been liberal ENOUGH (i.e. avoiding single payer discussion, war policy, extension of Bush's anti-terrorism policies).  I like it when people call the president a socialist because (1) I know he isn't one and I think it's funny and (2) I sort-of am a socialist in many ways.  I favor an economic policy that redistributes wealth because ALL economic policy does that...even if you are a libertarian and think that government shouldn't even build roads and should only pay for defense, because that's just taking people's money and distributing it to the "defense industry."  Rich people don't get rich on their own...the rest of us pay for the roads that ship material to and from their factory, the police force that protects their assets, the fire department that responds to fires at their factory, the education of the employees that work there, the roads and public transportation that carry those employees safely to and from work, the product safety regulation that ensures they don't use dangerous materials that could harm their business or produce hazardous products that could harm others, etc. etc. etc.  I'm a liberal who actually believes in the President's tax policy...because, if implemented in full force, I believe it would strengthen a weakened middle class and close an income gap that threatens to collapse our free market economy.

Yes, I applaud the advances made for gay rights by this President.  I can't imagine a gay person voting for another candidate, because none of them have the record for advancing equality for LGBT persons the way that Barack Obama does.  That doesn't mean that we've arrived or that the President's record is exhaustive or perfect...equality is hard won, and can't be accomplished by a single politician, no matter how effective.  Politics are still politics and involve nuance (lying) and maneuvering (manipulation).  And that also doesn't mean there aren't LGBT people (or allies) that would vigorously discuss with me my inability to imagine them voting for someone else!  But I would just appreciate it if people would stop talking to me like I only support Obama because I don't know any better (bless my heart).

I'm not a conservative who is gay so I have to support Obama.  I don't applaud Obama's record on certain civil rights because I think that his record is perfect or because I didn't know there were gay republicans or that libertarians would sort-of let me get married too (so long as they could abolish state recognition of marriage altogether and so long as I'm religious since marriage to a libertarian is only a religious affair and not a cultural and social construct, centuries in the making).

I'm not a "fiscal conservative" who just doesn't know I have other options in this election (there's nothing "conservative" about giving tax breaks to big oil or about the top 1% of the country owning a massive percentage of GDP). I'm actually a progressive who believes the more wealth someone has, the more taxes they should pay as a larger percentage of their income, and that the biggest problem with our social welfare system isn't fraud but inaccessibility and lack of effective benefits.

I'm not a closet Libertarian who favors laissez faire economic policy or even social policy for that matter!

I do not care about the size of government as much as I care about its effectiveness.  I am a civil libertarian because that's part of liberalism, not because I didn't realize there was an entire political philosophy called libertarianism that I could subscribe to.  And that speaks to much of the commonality that exists among disparate factions of American political thinking...and why we should have more respect for our common ground in these discussions of politics or religion or any other divisive issue (I know: physician, heal thyself!)

I'm a liberal.  And that means I favor elections where everyone can vote (easily, without hindrance, encouraging the highest turnout of voters...even in red Texas) and where you can be as Republican, conservative, Libertarian, or whatever as you want!  I LOVE that so many of my friends are actually just basic conservatives (about everything except they support equality or women's rights or health care reform or whatever exception they might make that endears them to me LOL) and that so many are ACTUAL liberals who are constantly having to patiently explain that they aren't just a confused conservative who didn't know you could be for the Bush tax cuts and marriage equality at the same time.  It's just that I believe people are conservative and/or to the right of me because they disagree with me about fundamental issues of policy or political philosophy...not because they don't get what being conservative means or they don't understand the issues or they are hateful or anti-God or anti-America.  I just like when people treat me with the same deference. I'd rather be yelled at than dismissed.

And, just in case my positions above didn't make you mad enough...I'm not just a liberal who is a Christian, I'm also a liberal Christian...a theological liberal...but that's a whole other series of blog posts!

Now grab your pitchforks and torches and discuss...  :)

Country Club Heaven

Country Club Heaven

Why heaven might be big enough for people who don't believe the right stuff (you know, the stuff I believe)

All my life I've thought of heaven as a members only club.  You must believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and accept Him into your heart.  What about the guy on a desert island who never hears of Jesus?  Or the poor kid that had the bad luck to be born into a Hindu or Muslim family?  Well, that's why we have missionaries-to share the bad news; unless you convert, you shall all likewise perish.  And God gives light enough so that even those people are without excuse...you accept the light God gives and you'll get more.  So that makes me wonder, in this country club Christianity of ours, how much light do you have to have to warrant TRUE "saving" faith?

We have to believe in Jesus, right?  But in what way?  Can the oneness Pentecostals who deny the distinct Persons within the Trinity yet affirm the deity of Jesus by saying that he is both Father and Holy Spirit as well as Son...Is their unorthodox view of the godhead ok enough to let them in (even though they might not want to let any of the Trinitarians in)?  What about the good Christian at First Anykind Church Anywhere USA who firmly believes in the Trinity and the deity of Christ but couldn't explain the first thing about what the Trinity means?  Do they believe in the right Jesus?  What about the guy who loves Jesus with all his heart but still talks about "God and Jesus" as though Jesus wasn't really God or even the Son of God because that guy isn't far enough along theologically to even care about it...and what if he dies before he has the good sense to care about such an important doctrine?

Can I doubt the literal nature of some of the miracles recorded in the gospel?  Can I believe that maybe Jesus didn't cast out literal demons but instead healed mental illnesses and still make it in?  Or does that doubt exclude me?  Where do we draw the line?  Is it the Nicene Creed or the Athanasian Creed?  Or the Apostle's Creed (the one not available at the time of the Apostles)?

I don't think I'm a universalist yet.  Because I am so convinced of the reality of Christ, I believe that every person who enters into eternal life will do so because of what Jesus did.  But I just can't wrap my head around the creedalism of all of Christianity (including the sects that reject Creeds) that says entrance into heaven is based on what someone believes.  I'm not saying what you believe doesn't matter...or that faith isn't what saves us.  I just think that grace and faith might be bigger concepts that anyone ever imagined.

Isn't that what the writer of Hebrews suggests when he says that Abraham was saved by faith?  Now, in my early days of preaching, I'd say that just like we look back to Jesus and the cross, Abraham looked forward to Jesus and the cross and was saved just like me.  But that's both unrealistic and not exactly scriptural.  Abraham just believed God.  And he was counted righteous because of it.  And I just don't believe Abraham had any concept of a Messiah, of a cross, of a sacrificial death of God.  It didn't coincide with his worldview and God was revealing God's self to Abraham in terms Abraham could understand.  Ultimately, and finally, God reveals God's self in Jesus who we all can understand, even if we don't all the time or until the end of time (?).  So Abraham is saved by God's grace-the grace that gives Abraham the faith to respond to God in the way God is calling at that time.  

So what if God isn't calling everyone to a commitment card to sign on the dotted line concerning Jesus?  What if, instead, God is at work in Jesus reconciling the world to God's self in radical ways for a radically diverse world?  The Methodists call it "prevenient grace."  Grace that precedes and is at work in a person long before they are even able to respond...the grace, indeed, that gives the person the ability to respond at all (hence, the response-ability).  It's why Methodists are quite comfortable baptizing infants while other traditions might hesitate because, after all, God is already at work in that infant's life in God's prevenient grace so why wouldn't we mark that child as a partaker in the covenant community of Christ?  Maybe God's prevenient grace in the world is also a prevalent grace that is at work in places and among peoples who don't yet (or may never) share our faith in Jesus but among whom Jesus is busy at work.  Maybe God's grace is preventative, keeping the human race from stumbling out of God's hand even if they change their doctrine and get it wrong (or never believe the right thing ever?).  Certainly it is a Providential grace that is working a much bigger plan than just the conversion of individuals to a doctrinal stance (even one related to the very person of Jesus himself).  

After all, when the centurion said "Surely this was a son of (the) god(s)" he didn't mean "Son of God" the way we Christians do and yet I fully believe God responded when Jesus asked the Father to forgive him.  And the thief on the cross-did he really understand the deity of Christ (the gospel writers believed he understood at least the kingship) even though Christ had not yet entered his glory?  And was that even an issue when Jesus welcomed him into the kingdom?  Yes, there's the question of the other "thief"...the question of persistent or hostile unbelief...questions after questions.  But they are that for me-questions.  For too many people they are certainties.  Certainties of what God requires a person to believe in order the get into club heaven.  Certainties I don't share because I'm not sure their heaven is big enough for all of my wrong beliefs.  They see Jesus as "THE Way" and I see Jesus as "the WAY."  And I'm just not sure that faith in God and what one believes about God are necessarily codependent.  Sometimes I think we believe God and it is counted to us for righteousness even when we don't get who the God we are believing in really is.  That was certainly true of all the disciples prior to the resurrection, Pentecost, and maybe even later than that.  It's been true of the developing beliefs (now dogmas) of Christianity for two thousand years now.    Sometimes I think maybe we don't even believe in God at all, but we do believe in the work God is doing in the world though we may not see the God doing it.  Maybe the atheists aren't as faithless as we accuse them of being.  I certainly see greater faith among them than in all of Israel many times.

Maybe the country club has a back room we neglect as we rattle on about things like "absolute truth" and "true faith" and "non negotiables."  I'm by no means certain.  I don't know if I believe everyone goes to heaven in the end.  But at least I can say that I hope so-and I hope if heaven is smaller than that it's at least big enough to fit all us Christians with our wrong beliefs in too.