Let the church die.

From a "letter" I wrote as a Facebook status:

Dear Southern Baptist leadership,

Your conviction to ban gay rites does not constitute an argument to deny gay rights. Your conviction against equality, dignity, and worth for gay people is no different than the conviction that birthed your convention: it was in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia that the SBC was formed to defend the practice of slavery as ordained of God. It took over a century then, and it may take over a century now for the SBC to repent and lament its bigotry and it's use of God's name in vain. This Holy Week is an opportunity for the people of God in the SBC and other denominational structures to allow the agendas of power and self righteousness and greed to die so that the church can become a place for life instead of whitewashed tombs.

I would Cc a copy of this to the local denominational leadership of my own church's denominations (Christian Church, Disciples of Christ-Southwest region, Northeast Area, Texas-and the United Church of Christ, South Central Conference) that often communicate a love for the "most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplace" than for advocating for the people for whom the gospel was intended (specifically: everyone). They say that the church in America is dying. Let it die--this week reminds me that sometimes that's what happens on the way to resurrection.

FRONT AND CENTER: Why the Open Table is central to our identity as Church

I grew up in a church that was pulpit centered.  The communion table was only used for communion on special communion Sundays (nothing wrong with that, necessarily) and so the other Sundays it was the Bible table...a table that held a large Bible, the offering plates, and sat in front of the pulpit.  The pulpit was the center of the church.  And not just architecturally.  As a member of a Baptist church, the Bible and the preaching and proclamation of scripture was central to our identity as Christians, Baptists, and as a church.  I treasure the enrichment that centrality of scripture brought to my life.  But my journey has taken me to a different place, to a different understanding of being church.  It isn't that I was wrong (or "they" were wrong), it isn't that the Word of God and scripture is no longer central to my identity as a Christian...it is, rather, that the way that Word is portrayed within community, how it shapes the community, and how that community looks is now centered now on the table.  And it makes perfect sense to me now.  After all, Jesus' pulpit was often a table...sitting at a meal.  And if it wasn't a table, it was a hillside or a plain where Jesus sat the people down to...miraculously feed them.  A table.  It isn't that the pulpit isn't central in my being church anymore.  It's just that the pulpit, the place where Word is preached and the Spirit builds community is best expressed as a table now.

The table of which I speak, by the way, is an OPEN table (something quite different for most of us who come from various religious backgrounds, including my Baptist upbringing).  The idea is that all are welcome because we are all broken.  We have all been the oppressed, but we have also been the oppressors.  Here's how it works: we ALL need something at the table, and the sacrament there transforms the hearts of everyone who meets God at that table...or, more accurately, everyone whom God meets there.  

It is open because we believe that not only are all in NEED of redemption, but that the Lord of the table has invited all people to come, thereby opening the WAY of redemption for everyone.  It means that, as an openly gay man, I do not want to go to a church that would deny communion to James Dobson or to Pat Robertson because they have been hurtful and wrong about the gay community (among other things).  If my church refused to share communion with the gay bashers, what's the point?  After all, when we center our message around the table, it means that the story of redemption we proclaim, our good news, the gospel, is one that calls EVERYONE and says that EVERYONE is worthy of love, grace, and forgiveness.  Even Fred Phelps.  Even me.

It's almost easier to center a church around a pulpit ...you just gather around it everyone who agrees with the pronouncements that come from the pulpit.  But when you center your church around an open table (and, in our church it IS, literally, the center of the worship space up front), what you are saying is that no one is left out, no one is unworthy, no one is too far gone, no one is too good to not need it, or too bad to not be invited.  It means that Hitler gets to take communion at your church.  And Pilate.  And that Judas gets to dip his hand in the bowl with you.  For most of my life, I considered the open table to be the EASY way out--you didn't have to offend anyone by telling them they couldn't take the Lord's Supper.  Now I realize just how hard it is to live out an open table in our life as church.  It isn't easy at all.  It means realizing that God wants to redeem my broken, victimized life and make it whole...but also that God wants to bring wholeness and forgiveness and redemption to all those people who broke me and made me a victim in the first place.  And, ultimately, it means recognizing that it MUST be this way, for I have also broken others and wounded others.  I may not be "as bad" as the guys on death row, or as bad as those who have hurt me...but is it possible that I may be just "as loved" as they are?  That, indeed, they are as loved as me?

That's a tough walk for a disciple.  A table-centered church chooses the hard way of building community and of doing God's will on earth as it is in heaven.  It isn't always smiles and Kumbaya...it is sometimes the really tough work of being the recipient and the conduit of extravagant grace.