All Her Children

Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by all her children.

-Jesus of Nazareth, Luke 7:35

This is, I guess, for my United Methodist colleagues and friends, who may not be so united for very much longer.  I have watched what you folks have been going through over the past few days and I have great sympathy for what it feels like, because Presbyterians have been there fairly recently.  In fact, most of the duration of my 18 years of training and ordained ministry have had some sort of decision about our denominational stance regarding LGBTQI+ folk on the horizon or in the background.  That our denominations came to different conclusions is not surprising.  After all Arminians and Calvinists have a long history of unresolved differences.  Theologically speaking we have always been frenemies, because we're both reformed, but from different branches of the tree.  I will always enjoy referring to you as the "Baptists who could read," and you will always get a little glint in your eye whenever you ask me, "So what is the deal with predestination anyway?" I actually don't mind arguing about that, because I've got a secret: it's called universal salvation through Christ, and I stole it from Karl Barth, C.S. Lewis and George McDonald. I have also become much more comfortable with being labeled a heretic or an apostate than I was 15 years ago.

Once upon a time, I read Chesterton's Orthodoxy, as a sort of creed for conservative types, I liked his self-assured logic and witty slams on relativism and lazy liberalism.  I hearkened to highly rationalist forms of exegesis that tried to explain how the "clear moral instructions" contained in Scripture were supposed to push back our ability to love and accept folks who were different from us.  Then I started doing this thing called pastoral work, which involves actual people and their actual problems, but more importantly puts me in constant contact with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and trying to figure out how to present that "Good News," to hurting people around 50 different ways a year.  In the beginning I was always trying to pass a test, to be orthodox, to be intellectually sound, to be convincing and winsome; sometimes I was, sometimes I wasn't.

Then another thing happened, I started to encounter real suffering and evil.  I watched a drug addiction rip my brother out of our family and eventually off of this mortal coil.  I counseled a couple in an abusive relationship that ended in a triple homicide.  I served churches full of people who have all kinds of flaws.  I have been personally wounded by people who questioned my integrity because they disagree with me on various issues.  I have lost people that I dearly loved. I have been welcomed into sacred places and I have walked a very long way (not just on the Camino).

After only 15 years, I can no longer recognize that young man who wanted to be Chesterton sure of himself. I'm not that sure of much anymore, but I have come to some peace with the notion that homosexuality is not evil. Promiscuity and infidelity are; sexuality that defies the sacred bond of love between two people is, but given what I know about the actual face of evil, two women who have been together for thirty years finally getting married is not evil.  A gay man wearing a rainbow stole and being ordained to this vocation of ministry is not evil. 

Do we need to recognize our sin and repent? Absolutely, and it's important that we all learn to recognize those places where we sin.  But there isn't a whole lot of Jesus talking about how we need to judge others in the Bible, in fact, it's rather the opposite. I have come to believe that we sin more by condemning others instead of loving them.  That the crowd with the stones were the real sinners. I have come to see, in Jesus of Nazareth, a man who consistently took his place with the broken and hurting people of the world rather than with the "authorities," and the arbiters of right and wrong.

That said, I understand why the folks in the Methodist church did what they did recently.  They are a global church and thus were put in a place where they were either going to offend the LGBTQI+ community and those who affirm them, or they were going to offend the millions of folks from the parts of the world where an older and more conservative morality still carries a lot of weight. Honestly, I would not wish such a global communion to impose western standards on so many parts of the world that have already suffered much from our colonial impulses.

I see the pain and the frustration all around on my social media.  To those on the losing side, take heart, love will win this thing eventually, God is patient, even when we aren't.  To those on the "winning" side try not to be smarmy jerks, you're not as right as you think you are. Remember that God often, if not always, sides with the losers, the last and the least, be humble.

I know you didn't ask for this advice, and depending on where you are now, you may not be able to hear it very well.  I'm offering this up because I know how hurtful this particular moment feels, and how traumatic the aftermath of it is likely to be.  You are a part of this Body of Christ, just as I am, and as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12: "For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body..."  Whatever part of the body you happen to be, and whatever part I happen to be, I feel your pain.

Walls

All around your island,

There's a barricade,

It keeps out the danger,

It holds in the pain.

-Tom Petty, Walls

The Lumineers recently did a cover of Tom Petty's song Walls, and it's one of those instances where I think the cover version actually resonated with me even more than the original.  It might be because I think I heard the lyrics a little more clearly, maybe it's because walls are just sort of on everyone's mind for some reason.  To be clear, the song is not about actual walls, border or otherwise, it's about emotional walls and defense mechanisms, but I have been thinking lately that maybe this border wall fiasco is actually an emotional issue rather than a geopolitical one.

It seems to me that support for this wall largely hinges on the perception of an honest emergency: dangerous people flooding across the southern border.  Some people are predisposed to believe that is the situation, facts are not actually welcome.  The facts are that most of the undocumented people in this country arrived here legally and overstayed their visas, another fact is that illegal immigration is down drastically from where it was 15 years ago, another fact is that the border patrol and people who live and represent the actual geographical area of the southern border do not want the wall, nor do landowners in the area.  On the other side the only real fact is that Trump made a promise, and he has perceived in his charlatan's heart that this is one he cannot dance away from or dodge. There is a wise adage that says you should not persist in a bad decision simply because you put a lot of effort into making it, however, wisdom seems to have gone begging recently.

The bigger question, the spiritual question for us as humans is whether or not we are going to ever be able to tear down the walls for good.  I remember Ronald Reagan's famous "tear down that wall Mr. Gorbachev!" as a pivotal moment in history.  It seems to me that breaking down walls always does more for our collective commonweal than building them.  Walls do protect things, but on some level they also destroy something.  I have seen walls that are objectively useful and beautiful things, and I have seen some that are down right ugly.  Some boundaries are good and necessary, others are just a way to try and soothe uncalled for fear.

In my mind there is not much doubt which sort of wall the Orange Ayatollah wants to build, he wants to build a symbol not a boundary, he wants to keep out all others not just our enemies.  If we, a nation of immigrants, have any inkling of the vision upon which our nation was founded, we would not want this wall, and we would not allow it to be built.  Right now, the wall is still a maybe, right now the "emergency" is being challenged.  Right now, I'm hoping it ends up being another broken campaign promise rather than yet another gut punch to our moral character.

When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.

The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you;

you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

I am the Lord your God.

-Leviticus 19: 33-34

Reaction

Last night was the Super Bowl, though honestly there wasn't much super about it.  The Patriots beat the Rams 13-3 in a game that mostly gave punters their moment in the sun. The one thing most people could find even a little compelling was drinking the hater-ade in honor of Tom Brady, Bill Bellichick and the Patriot dynasty.  Los Angeles doesn't even seem to have noticed much that they actually have two teams now and one of them was contending for a championship.  The halftime show was described as "self-erasing" by one reviewer and indeed Maroon 5 is pretty forgettable.  There was a Sponge Bob Squarepants sighting in the commercials that have become many a non-football fan's survival kit for the big game, but mostly, even the mad men ad men came out pretty flat for this one.
Once again the Patriots won, I think, at least as much as anyone won that lousy excuse for a football game.  And yet, we still watched.  I see all the tweets and facebook posts this morning that narrate a whole bunch of people sitting around feeling collectively disappointed, and I say to them, as much as to myself: "you have a choice, you don't have to watch this."  We don't really, honestly, I feel like most of us watch the Super Bowl because we want to have something to complain about.
Last year I experienced the agony and eventual delight of actually caring about the game.  My long-suffering Philadelphia Iggles finally made it to and won the big game, for the first time.  They beat Tom Terrific and Bill Bellicheat with a back up quarterback who is now known as St. Nick in the Philly area.  It was glorious and reminded me of why sports are great.  This year reminded me of why sports can be such a grand waste of time, money and devotion.
If you're like me you slogged through watching that game out of sheer habit.  Hoping that maybe there would be a play or at least a commercial that was worth talking about. And it felt pretty forgettable in the end, and it was for everyone except Patriots fans, they now have 6 championships and they will remember that, obnoxiously.
As you may have come to expect, I have a slant on this that relates to a rather more vital aspect of our lives.  Sports, for better or worse, have become a sort of de-facto secular religion.  Many of the same dynamics apply, people feel loyal to their particular sport and will despise others, even though there is no really essential conflict. At times people get fed up with the league, the officials, the commissioner and the players, just like they get frustrated with the pastor, the denomination or the idea of organized religion in general.  This Super Bowl was definitely a confluence of many of those frustrations, just as people's malaise with the church  has so many different facets.
It would be easy to say I told you so, to point out that perhaps being so devoted to a game, a form of entertainment was probably going to lead to a predictable emptiness, I'm actually challenged to say something more constructive, because I'm wrestling with how the Church can try to reverse the damage that has been done to our collective body by consistently flopping down clunkers when we have a chance to present the best of who we are.
It occurs to me that while, at our best we could provide people with the kind of connection they need, to provide a source of strength and solidarity and purpose, we so often find ourselves engaged in a defensive struggle, where we mostly end up just punting... a lot.  We have become too busy trying not to lose and we end up looking a lot like the Rams did last night... helpless and hapless.
I'm not suggesting that there isn't a place for solid, even boring, defensive play, if that's the thing that you're really good at (it worked for the Patriots last night and has worked for the Ravens and the Steelers in the not too distant past).  Nor am I suggesting that entertainment is the most important thing, but tentative and timid are not the ingredients of success at anything.  Last night showed me that even a pseudo-religion like sports can suffer the same soul-killing disconnection if it's all about the show.
Have we made it all about the show?  If so why did we do that? Our goal is not to make money, or even to get big ratings, our goal is to make disciples of Jesus Christ, and I am fairly certain that approaching that the way we approach sports is going to be counter-productive, maybe bordering on toxic. Eventually all those fans are going to lose interest and there will be a heck of a let down, like Super Bowl LIII.