Building

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw - The work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the sort of work each has done.

-1 Corinthians 3: 12-13

I went to a meeting of my Presbytery last night.  For those of you who read this who are not Presbyterian, the Presbytery is the next level up the chain from the governance of the local church (called the Session).  The Presbytery is made up of both Ruling Elders (the people from the churches who are called and ordained to serve on Session) and Teaching Elders (clergy people like me).  Presbyteries are arranged by geography and in our (sort of) democratic system send people to participate as delegates in the General Assembly when it gathers every other year to do the work of the national denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA).  I am a member of National Capital Presbytery (for some reason they decided not to call it National Capitol Presbytery, even though it is essentially the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area, but hey it's easier to pronounce than my former Presbytery, Kiskiminetas).  NPC is a pretty political and corporate sort of Presbytery, because it's a big city Presbytery.

I'm not quite as connected to this Presbytery as I was to my little country Presbytery, partly because of the "big city" motif and partly because I'm a geographical outlier.  It takes me a solid hour to hour and half to get to National Presbyterian Church up in northwest D.C., so honestly I go about twice a year.  Last night was one of those times, and I picked a night where the "big city" motif paid off, we had J. Herbert Nelson, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly as our preacher.  Again for you non-Presbyterians, that's one of our highest offices; probably about on par with the Speaker of the House of Representatives in civil governance.

Rev. Dr. Nelson gave us a shining example of the best of black preaching in the Presbyterian tradition (yes, there are black Presbyterians).  He employed the intense passion, building emotion and personal illustration that the top Episcopalian Michael Curry showed at the Royal Wedding, but instead of just talking about love, he talked about the "contextual realities" of the people out there in the world and the ongoing process of reformation.  He said, "we're not dying, we're reforming," and man I tell you I want to believe that.

One of the orders of business last night was to approve the dismissal of a congregation to the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (ECO), which was formed a few years ago to receive congregations from the PC (USA) that could not abide by the growing attitude of inclusiveness towards the LGBTQ community.  This is a complicated moral and theological debate for people who are guided by Scripture, and the word "abomination" does get bandied about rather more than is healthy.

In a "big city" (read decidedly liberal) Presbytery like NCP, conservative congregations can rightly feel alienated, as did the Neelsville congregation that we acted to dismiss last night.  Our denomination has been going through the rather painful process of sorting out how to deal with the reality that our decision to fully accept and include LGBTQ persons has made many people in our world feel like they simply must seek some sort of divorce.  I have dealt with this institutionally as the chair of an administrative commission that oversaw the separation of a congregation from my former Presbytery. I have had to deal with it professionally, as people I pastor have left or threatened to leave (the latter is actually rather more painful). I have dealt with this personally, as relationships with colleagues have been strained or dissolved, as I have had to disagree with people that I love and respect.

At one time, when I knew a lot more about everything than I do now, I was fairly comfortable holding to the "conservative" position that we should try to be "inclusive" by just being nicer to LGBTQ people.  When I graduated from Seminary, openly gay people could not officially be ordained as Elders (even though they were), and same sex marriages seemed very far away indeed.  The Presbyterian Church USA has crossed both bridges during my 15 years of ordained ministry, and where 30 year old me might be troubled by that, 43 year old me actually thinks it makes a great deal of sense. I have obviously changed, the Bible does not say anything different, nor has my dedication to sound interpretation and my desire to live according to the Word of God.  What started it, I think, was the experience of profound brokenness that happened in my life when my brother overdosed, my wrestling with grief, and the sense that if love doesn't triumph over something as sinful as drug addiction and tragic as the death of a 24 year old with his whole life yet to live, then what good is it?

Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, it was the blackest emptiness that made me see the light of God's love for us.  I firmly believe that Jonathan is in the hands of a loving God, and like Jonathan Edwards described in his famous sermon, those hands do not let us go even though our raging and sinning are deeply offensive.

I had this ongoing wrestling match with the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, I kept hearing him say, "put down your stone, I'm not here to condemn people."  Eventually, and it wasn't as quick as I would like to think, I came to a place where I had to say, "alright, it's alright, I don't understand, but I'm going to make a choice to love instead of fear."

That started all sorts of trouble, it has strained relationships, led to being ostracized by some people I thought were friends and outright slandered by some. But the pain of that actually convinced me that the path of inclusion and acceptance is the right one, because it gave me some inkling as to the trauma that faces people who come out of the closet. I will never know what it is to wrestle with sexual orientation or gender identity, I have always been comfortable and at home as a heterosexual male, but I can no longer justify sorting out certain sins for special treatment.  I'm a sinner, you're a sinner, everybody we know is a wretched sinner, that's the point of God's love in Christ: that sin does not break God's ability to hold us near. Honestly, I believe that sets us free from the sin of judging others and allows us to just love each other.

I do not know how the work that the church is doing, the pain it is experiencing in order to include people who have been historically cast out by society and called an abomination by religious types, is going to end.  We are certainly experiencing pain, but is it death throws or labor pain?  I want to believe that we are reforming, turning away from hunger for power and even worldly success in favor of the Good news of the Gospel that we are no longer slaves to the Law, but Children of God.  I hope that our decision to stand on the side of love is not bringing down God's wrath, but is rather standing us up for judgment as those who care for the least and the last.  I guess what I hold on to in the end is trying to look at the example of Jesus, as the thing that we are always being reformed to be like.  Did he take the side of those who held to the rigidity of the law and insisted upon the rules?  Or did he have compassion for the broken and those who were cast out?

One of the Latin phrases that we Presbyterian types like to trot out is: reformata semper reformanda, "reformed, always being reformed." The question implied is reformed into what? The answer is always Christ. Not just tolerance, or even forbearance, something more than just being nice, love. Love has to be the thing, it has to be strong enough, it has to have the power that the Right Reverend Curry talked about at the wedding. If we are going to be able to bridge the gap between what the church is now and the "contextual realities," that J. Herbert told us all about last night, if we are going to live as the body of Christ in this world. If we are going to be reformed and not die, the love that Christ shows to us all always needs to be our answer.