"Shelter for the Spiritually Homeless: Who is Welcome in Church?"
April 30, 2006: 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B
The Rev. John MacIver Gage, pastor
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.newlights.org
Scripture:
Romans 8:31-35, 37-39
What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Sermon: For this second installment in our four-part sermon series introducing some of the core Christian practices that help shape our faith at United Church on the Green, our theme is "Shelter for the spiritually homeless: Who belongs in church?" This is obviously a topic near and dear to the hearts of this congregation. We strive to be an inclusive community, not just open to but actively working for the full inclusion of all persons in the life of the church and in the broader society, particularly those persons on the margins who by virtue of their race, gender, class, sexuality, age, ability, or political views continue to excluded from the circle of God's grace and society's good will.
As an Open and Affirming church, of course, we have taken a public stand for the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons, whose very value as persons is—amazingly—still up for debate these days. And now we're beginning to see a new horizon in the struggle to build an inclusive church: a ministry to families of all shapes and sizes—single parents, interracial couples, divorced parents, adoptive families, couples from mixed religious backgrounds, same-sex couples with or without children, grandparents raising kids—you name it, there are an awful lot of people out there who are made to feel unwelcome, even in church, or simply less-than, because they do not fit the fictional cookie cutter caricature of the model American family. We are working to make this a place where "family values" means we value all families.
We believe this is not a matter of political correctness but of Gospel imperative. United Church has been committed to embodying the wideness of God's mercy since at least '96... 1796, that is. That's when we took a big step outside the mainstream of Christian practice and stopped requiring the sacrament of baptism for church membership. And why? Because we wanted to be able to build a community that included Quakers, and, well, you see, Quakers don't baptize. So even way back then, the members of this congregation affirmed that whereas God's love may be mediated by the sacraments of the church, God's love is in no way conditioned by or dependent on them. God's grace is free for all, with no ifs, ands, or buts, or it's just not grace. So we remember each time we approach the table and also the font that we come "not because we must, but because we may; not because we are fulfilled, but because we stand in need of God's mercy and assurance; not to express and opinion, but to pray for a spirit and to participate in a mystery."
At this point, I could slip off into extended Biblical exegesis, marking passage after passage in the scriptures where God "colors outside the lines," and demonstrates God's unconditional loving relationship with the "least among us," the kind of people who, because of just who they are or what they do, are deemed by religious and civil society to be outside the circle of God's care. I could talk about Cain, the first murderer; about Hagar, the dark-skinned slave woman of the patriarch Abraham; about Jacob, the schemer; about a whole bunch of uppity Hebrew slaves in Egypt; about Rahab, the harlot of Jericho; about Hannah, barren and useless in her society; about Saul, struggling with mental illness, or David, adulterer, or Solomon, his bastard son; about Ruth and Naomi, women living together on the verge; about Mary, a pregnant teen, or Joseph, an aging cuckold; about the traitorous tax collectors or the loose women or the demon-possessed; about Peter, a hot-head... and a coward... or his fellow apostle, Paul, self-righteous religious zealot and persecutor of the church.
To further make my point that God's love shows no partiality, I could read you the parables of Jesus—the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son; or tales drawn from the lives of the saints, like Francis, who lived as a brother to all creation, or Elizabeth Ann Seton, servant of the sick, or Damian, who lived for the lepers of Molokai; or of more modern-day saints of the margin, like Dorothy Day or Oscar Romero or Henri Nouwen. I could quote from the works of noted theologians like Gustavo Gutierrez, who in his theology of liberation claims that God loves the poor of this world not only just as much as the rich, the broken as much as the whole, but more.
I could go on and on, trying to convince you by argument and example. I could, but I won't. What I will do is this: I will tell you: You are welcome here.
Now, sadly, that may not be enough to convince you. It seems nearly every church in the world has a sign outside declaring "all are welcome" inside, but, c'mon, you and I both know that's often just not true. All too often, all are not welcome, or at least not all the way. Maybe you know that from experience. Maybe you saw the sign and walked in and sat down, only to learn that somehow, when they posted that sign outside, they didn't mean you, they meant the other all. Or maybe you grew up in a church, feeling perfectly at home in the youth group or the women's circle or the men's breakfast, only to discover that over time you somehow became objectionable, rejectable, ejectable. And maybe it wasn't even over something big, some capital-I Issue, like being a woman with a call to ministry, or being gay, or being-pro choice. Maybe your marriage broke up and you got divorced. Maybe you were diagnosed with mental illness or struggle with addiction. Maybe your spouse lost their job, or your child got involved with drugs and dropped out of school. Or maybe you just asked too many questions.
If that's the case, then you have every right to be suspicious of our invitation at United Church. Despite all I've told you about our being a welcoming church, we still look like a lot of other churches. We've got the steeple, the pipe organ, the pews—with those fiendish little locks, no less; we still read the Bible and sing hymns and pray together; and we've got a pedigree as a religious institution longer than your arm. In a world where you've heard it all before and had it come back to bite you, why in the world should you trust me when I tell you: You are welcome here?
I don't know. I don't know why you should believe me. But I know why I believe you're welcome: because I am. I know you're welcome here because they let me in—or rather, God let me in. And to me, that's a miracle. You see, for a lot of years I didn't need to be told I wasn't welcome. I received that message loud and clear early on and internalized it, made it my own. I felt deeply unworthy of love, even—or especially—God's love. Sure, I'd smile and nod, but deep inside I felt like a fraud, and my every success only proved me right. I remember thinking to myself, "Man, if God only knew the real me, I'd be in trouble. If God only knew half of what I've done..."
But of course, God does know the real me, and God knows more than half of what I've done and left undone in my life, and God loves me still. I remember just where I was, and when, when that thought first occurred to me. Of course I didn't just believe it all at once. I don't go around believing every little thought that pops into my head, especially something as radical as that. It took the persistent, if not perfect love of parents and friends and mentors and colleagues and several boyfriends and several more congregations and a great therapist and more grace than I will ever really know, but now, more often than not, I am able to trust that I am welcome in God's house, in God's heart, just as I am.
So that's how I know that you're welcome, too. And I can't help thinking that if more people in more churches were more comfortable with themselves and more willing to trust in God's grace for themselves, they'd be more ready to admit others seemingly dissimilar from themselves—and yet oh-so-similar—into the family circle of the church. That's what we're trying to become here at United Church: a community of faith gathered around Jesus, whom we believe to be the face of God turned toward the world in extravagant love. We are trying to build a church based on grace, not fear; on loving relationship, not law; on God's infinite patience, not our faulty performance; and on God's burning desire for the transformation of the everyday world in accordance with God's purposes of justice, peace, and compassion.
Not that we're there already, God knows—gotta keep the truth in advertising. This body of Christ is as imperfect as the next, perhaps just in different ways. We sometimes let our spiritual freedom become an excuse for spiritual laziness. We sometimes believe—erroneously—that only educated, professional people like us are capable of getting this gospel of grace. We sometimes confuse what our faith has to say about a particular political situation with our own political leanings, forgetting that God's grace does not necessarily come with a party affiliation. As a community of tolerance, we sometimes shrink from conflict and end up tolerating intolerance. And then, of course, we're as human as the next congregation, heirs to the self-limitations of taste and style and preference—we prefer this hymnal over that one; this style of preaching over that one, these pew cushions over those.
But in the face of such petty internal divisions, and even the much larger conflicts in the church and society today, I keep coming back to this font. The sacrament of baptism speaks of God's grace far more eloquently—and more briefly—than I ever could. I mean, think about it: We bring our children to these waters and we make promises to love them, and we don't even know who they are...! They come with no references, no recommendations. No one can vouch for them. Sure, one of these kids may grow up to cure cancer on day, but for all we know, they're just as likely grow up to spit in public, talk during the movie, and invent new, sneakier forms of internet spam... or worse. We have no guarantee. We just don't know. But we come and we make our promises anyway.
Now think about God. God does know. God knows everything. The God who makes the whole world and us and everyone in it, knows just who we will become, everything we will do ever do, everything we are capable of and just how short we'll fall of God's hopes for us. And think about Jesus. He knew the power of this Gospel to heal hearts and transform the world into God's reign of justice, peace, and compassion. And he also knew just how far some folks driven by fear and greed and jealousy and plain old stubbornness will go to preserve the status quo. He knew they'd go to the cross. But he trusted that God was willing to go further, to Easter, and resurrection, to extend God's grace-full welcome to all people. God knows us better—and loves us better—than we do ourselves.
Come, let's go down to the river to pray on that for a while. Come, friends, and rest your weary selves in the shadow of God's grace a while. Rest and remember that there is nothing we can do to make God loves us less and nothing we can do to make God love us more. Remember that simply because you are a beloved child of God's own making, this saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance: No matter who you are, no matter where you are on life's journey, you are invited and welcome. And not only in the heart of God, as we know, but here, as we pray, in this particular and peculiar congregation.
For who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You are welcome here. Trust me, please, trust us, and we'll try to be worthy of that trust, and together we'll trust in the God who made us, who has redeemed us, and who dreams us into the church and the world we can be together—all together—in God's grace. And let all the church say, Amen.