Today’s scripture lesson is not taken from the
lectionary. It is a story from the book of Acts we usually don’t hear in
worship. It was assigned to me by one of the New Testament professors at San
Francisco Theological Seminary as a text which should inform the doctoral
dissertation on which I have been working while on leave this past year. It is
not a scripture I particularly resonated with on first reading - in fact it
took a lot of time and study to see how it fit into my dissertation. And then,
as scripture often does if you live with it long enough, it’s relevance became
clear.This particular scripture comes right in the middle of the book of
the Acts of the Apostles. It is a turning point in Acts from looking at the
individual lives of the apostles to looking at their collective lives, as the
church. The story is about a conflict in the church in Antioch where Jews and
Gentiles are worshiping together. It is a conflict about boundaries, about who
is welcomed into the church and who is excluded.
Perhaps this particular story is often over looked because it deals with
the delicate issue of circumcision. Some individuals had come to the church in
Antioch declaring that all - clearly meaning all men - must be circumcised, in
order to be saved. The debate centered on whether non-Jews, the new Gentiles
in the community, must follow the Hebrew laws in order to be part of the
Christian church. The controversy is taken to Jerusalem, to the mother church,
to be settled. A reading from the book of Acts (15:6-12):
The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter. After
there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "My brothers
and sisters, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you,
that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of
the good news and become believers. And God, who knows the human heart,
testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as God did to us; and
in cleansing their hearts by faith God has made no distinction between them
and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the
neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been
able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the
grace of Christ, just as they will."
The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul as
they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among
the Gentiles.
This is the good news.
Discussion continued, the conflict was settled, a letter was written. The
Gentiles did not need to be circumcised, to be welcomed into the Christian
community.
From the earliest times of the church comes the question "who is included
and who is to be excluded?" We humans have a natural tendency to set up
boundaries, to protect our community from those who might do harm, to include
those who are like minded, to exclude those who might cause us to be
uncomfortable, those who are different, those who understand God and God’s
call in another way from our own understanding.
When the Pilgrims came to this country, the first theological controversy
for those early Congregationalists was about baptism - who is included, and
who is excluded. The question was whether children could be baptized if their
parents had been baptized, but were not full members of the church through a
conversion experience. The solution was unfortunately called the "half-way
covenant." But even as a half-way measure, it pressed the welcome of the
church beyond the confines of the day to include those who had been excluded.
In our recent past this church has struggled with questions of inclusion
and exclusion as we studied and discussed and prayed about whether we would be
a congregation open and affirming of all people without regard to sexual
orientation. It is in our process of becoming an Open and Affirming
Congregation where I found the inspiration for my dissertation. I have been
fascinated with people’s response to the issues around welcoming lesbians,
gays, and bisexuals into the church. Some of us embraced the issue, others of
us have indicated a willingness to be open to learn, while others of us would
prefer to avoid the issue entirely.
I began my studies by exploring what opens people and congregations up to
change, and what causes others to avoid change. I read many, many, many books
and conducted dozens of interviews. The majority of these interviews focused
on our own congregation. I also spent a delightful week with members of
Parkway United Church of Christ in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the middle of
the country, where the wind blows cold in the fall. Parkway is a church about
the size of our church, which voted to become Open and Affirming at about the
same time as our church. It was interesting to compare the similarities and
differences between our churches and the process each went through.
I have listened with great reverence as people have shared their faith and
their lives, their challenges and their joys of going through the ONA process,
for these have been holy moments as people speak of the Spirit moving
powerfully in their own lives and in their faith community.
Meanwhile Deana Reed, a Presbyterian pastor in California, who I am working
with on this project, has been reading and interviewing in Presbyterian
churches that we might compare the similarities and differences of the two
denominations in welcoming lesbians, gays, and bisexuals into the church.
As we began, we thought we were looking for a model, a model for change. As
we immersed ourselves in our studies, our focus shifted as we realized that
for many churches becoming Open and Affirming, or More Light as it is called
in the Presbyterian Church, is not so much of a change, but rather a
clarifying of who these communities of faith already are, as they continue to
live out a radical kind of hospitality.
These are churches already involved in social justice who have taken on a
new name with this issue. Whether it is Open and Affirming, or More Light,
they take on a name which describes more precisely who they are as a
community, saying something which is already true about their identity and
their willingness to include those too often excluded from the church. For
some individuals in each church there has been a significant process of change
as people have learned to welcome and affirm those whose very being and
identity has been a taboo subject for so long. For others it is discovering
new layers of something they’ve already known about themselves, that it is
important to welcome all people into the family of Christ, especially those
who have been marginalized or rejected by others.
This radical hospitality has been modeled for us in the life of Jesus and
is central to the gospel. It becomes our response of love and gratitude to
God’s unconditional love and welcome for each one of us. It has more to do
with resources of a generous and grateful heart than space or food. This
hospitality has to do with breaking social boundaries, recognizing the worth
of persons in the larger context of God’s justice and healing.
Radical hospitality means more than just welcoming others, it also means
recognizing strangers as persons of equal worth and dignity. It is bound up
with issues of forgiveness, boundaries and barriers, as well as the ordering
of communities. Hospitality questions who makes the decisions and who names
the community. Because once we welcome those whom we might have considered
different, our community is no longer the same. Radical hospitality means that
leadership and power is shared, recognizing we have much to learn from each
other, and each person has an important role in naming this new community.
To make the spaces of life hospitable also means putting them at risk,
trusting the Holy Spirit to shape and form us. And conversely, through this
risk, hospitality creates a safe and welcoming space for each of us to find
our own sense of humanity and worth, as we welcome strangers out of delight,
in the possibility that by opening our community God will be present in new
ways amongst us.
Achieving this kind of hospitality does not come without cost. "Growth most
often comes when something or someone rubs our edges, questions our
boundaries, and challenges our assumptions." We have found churches who have
entered into an intentional process to become "Welcoming" must be willing to
engage in conflict, as much as we would wish to avoid it; for the heat of
conflict can transform into more illuminating light. Through the conflict,
together we learn to address the theological issues which make us unique as a
church community, as we listen for the Spirit moving in our midst reshaping
and reforming us.
The First Congregational Church of Bellingham has been described as open;
open to "lots of things going on," open to new ideas, open to a great variety
of people, open to the movement of the Spirit. As one of less than 10% of the
congregations in the United Church of Christ which have chosen to be Open and
Affirming we are reaching toward what our UCC President, John Thomas, calls
"an extravagant welcome." "Some have called us ‘the church of last resort.’
This says less than we’d want to say, and perhaps more than we deserve. But it
is true that often we are a place of haven, refuge, and welcome." Open and
Affirming has brought clarity to this for many of us.
As a congregation we are still growing into our name, as we learn how to be
welcoming. Perhaps we experience this best when we gather at this table where
God invites one and all, calling us to break bread and share cup together,
modeling the divine invitation in our lives. Come, for all are welcome here.
Amen.