THE TWELVTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
August 23, 2009
“COMING OR GOING?” - John 6:56-69
David Hamilton, Pastor
I want to start and end with the Gospel reading this morning, but I’ll warn you in advance that the stuff in the middle is going to be its own thing – a report, really, and reflections on this past week’s ELCA Churchwide Assembly – which was, in its own right and regardless of what you might think about it – a historic event, and well-worth talking about.
But first and last, the Gospel. You remember that we’ve been reading from just one chapter of the Gospel according to John for more than a month now. Chapter Six starts out with a miracle story – Jesus feeds thousands who have come to hear him teach. They are naturally impressed, and they continue to follow him the next day, but he’s not satisfied with that. He tells them that what they’re after is food for their bodies; he wants to give them food for their souls. He calls himself the bread they need, and the more he talks, the more confused and upset they become. And the more confused and upset they become, the more he presses the point with them, finally telling them that if they don’t eat his flesh and drink his blood, they are as good as dead already. But if they eat and drink of him, and take his very life deep into their own, then, and only then, they will be satisfied.
It’s a brilliant little sermon, and in the end, most of the congregation walks out on him, vowing to never come back. “Who can understand this guy?” they ask each other. “Who can accept what he’s saying?” Most of the congregation (and we’re told there were about five thousand of them) vote with their feet and walk away. Which leads Jesus to turn to the twelve who are closest to him, the ones who have followed him the longest – Peter, and James, and John, and all the rest – and ask them point-blank, “Do you also wish to go away?”
What a moment that must have been – poignant, emotional, full of meaning; a time for the disciples either to seek Jesus and his gracious life even more deeply, with all its challenges, or a time to give up the hope of finding, of understanding, of growing into, the life he held out to them. What would they say? What would they do?
Well, let’s leave them standing there for the moment. (They won’t go far before we get back to them.) And let’s go off to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where another crowd of disciples has gathered. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – our ELCA – is governed by an elected leadership that includes a Presiding Bishop, a Vice-president, a secretary and a treasurer, and a church council; and, once every two years, a Churchwide Assembly of Lutherans elected by their home synods to serve as voting members to conduct the business that is brought before them. That’s what’s been going on in Minneapolis this past week. It’s a familiar structure – it’s the same basic form of governance that we have in our own local congregation here in the Napa Valley. It’s an interesting form of governing, for a church body. It’s not the only form we could have adopted. We could get ourselves a Pope to tell us what to do (I think we had that once and decided we didn’t like it that well…) Or some small Council of Elders who would issue proclamations from on high. Or we could leave all decisions to local congregations, to do as they see fit. Some denominations do it that way. But not us Lutherans. We have chosen the messiest possible system one might imagine – I think it’s called a “Representative Democracy.” It’s roughly the same system we have in the U.S. Government, which also tends to drive us all a little bit crazy sometimes. It has been called by one historian the worst form of government possible, except for all the others. Democracy. That’s our ELCA.
This is a rather lengthy preamble to say that the decisions that come from Churchwide Assemblies don’t always please everyone – not any more than the decisions made by George W. Bush’s duly-elected government or Barack Obama’s duly-elected government always please(d) the citizenry. So it was this past week in Minneapolis.
Which isn’t to say that there wasn’t much agreement and consensus in a lot of the work that was done. By great majorities, the Assembly agreed to bring the ELCA and the United Methodist Church into “full communion,” a state which means that we recognize each other’s churches as partners in the gospel, even to the extent that we might share clergy, or worship and take communion together, and certainly seek out new ways to serve the world’s needs together. It’s not a church merger, but a partnership that says we share something deep with one another, and we want to live that out as fully as we are able.
The Assembly also adopted a program to combat malaria in Africa, together with our distant cousins, the Missouri Synod Lutherans – to work together to address poverty and the conditions that cause malaria to run rampant. And the ELCA’s current AIDS/HIV ministry was strongly affirmed as a valued work of the church.
And the Assembly committed the church to studying and reflecting on the topic of justice for women in church and society, to continue to seek the full inclusion of the God-given gifts that women bring into our faith community and world. Lots of consensus and agreement in many different matters.
And then there was sex. I have to say, for decent, church-going people with a well-deserved reputation for shyness, we sure do take an interest in other people’s sex-lives. And I don’t fault us for it; we are, after all, physical beings, embodied, and we reproduce by and take pleasure in our sexuality. That’s the way that God created us. It’s not an incidental thing; it’s not an accidental thing. It is a part of who we are. The culture we live in doesn’t have a particularly healthy grasp of human sexuality. It seems to either exalt it as the most important thing in the world, or degrade it as something dirty, or deny its normal place in a normal, human life – and I use the word “normal” there very cautiously, not meaning to imply that there is some one, common experience or understanding of sexuality that is shared by all. This is a complicated subject, made more complicated by the great dysfunction in our culture around issues of sex, and our own proper desires for privacy in matters that are deeply personal. And yet we believe that there is God-given meaning and purpose in our sexuality, and the possibility in it for health and well-being, or for harm and abuse, depending on what we do with this mysterious and powerful gift that God has built into our bodies. This leads the Church to want to say something about it – to point to the basic God-given-ness and goodness of our sexuality, and to try to teach and encourage healthy understandings and behaviors that will lead to well-being and not to harm.
I really don’t want to argue a particular sexual ethic this morning; and the statement the Churchwide Assembly passed this week on the matter runs to about twenty pages – seventeen pages longer than my average sermon. You can read it for yourself on line – www.elca.org. - and I think it would be good if you did. My point is a more modest one – human sexuality is a complicated topic, which even scientists themselves do not completely understand or agree on; yet it is also a central part of who we are. So don’t be surprised that the Church feels the need to speak about it, and with many more shades of gray than in simple strokes of black and white.
It’s the twin issues of marriage and homosexuality that have captured the most attention, and the latter of the two that several of the Churchwide Assembly actions focused on. There is great division in the ELCA over these matters, as you probably already know; and my desire this morning is not to take up one side of the argument against the other. I suspect that most of you are well-acquainted with the arguments on both sides (although let me just say in passing, that if you can’t accurately make the argument of the side with which you disagree, that means you haven’t been listening well enough to those who have an opinion different than yours. That’s true of our current national debate over health care as well as this church debate – if you can’t honestly and accurately summarize the other point of view without falling into stereotypes, distortions, or lies, you really don’t have the credibility to make your own case. But I digress…) The actions of the Assembly both recognized that division and tried to arrive at a place where both sides could feel that their concerns had been heard. There was a desire to make room in the church for people on both sides of the issue to live out their faith with integrity. So this is what the Assembly did:
The 1,045 voting members committed the ELCA to provide ways “to allow congregations that choose to do so to recognize, support and hold publicly accountable life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships.” There are a lot of words in that sentence, and they’re all in there on purpose. “Congregations that choose to do so” – not every congregation in the ELCA, and not by a mandate from Chicago; “recognize, support, and hold publicly accountable” - like we do, I suppose, in a marriage ceremony, where prayers, hopes, and expectations are expressed by the couple and the community to provide a foundation for the couples’ relationship together; “life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships” – not casual encounters or a promiscuous lifestyle are being affirmed here. It is a way for congregations that feel called to do so, to surround and bless a same-gendered couple making a commitment to build a life together. Congregations which don’t feel called to do so, will continue to do as they believe is right.
The second action is to provide gay or lesbian persons who are in a committed relationship like that described above, and are otherwise trained and qualified to serve as pastors or leaders in the ELCA, to be ordained or called to service by congregations or institutions that choose to call them. Clergy candidates will continue to be rigorously educated and screened, as they are now, with this change – that being in a life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationship will no longer disqualify them for service in the church. And again, congregations that might want to call such a person or couple will be free to do so; and congregations which do not want to call such a person or couple will be free to not consider them for call.
Now, I don’t want to minimize the importance of these two actions. There are people who have worked and struggled and prayed and waited for twenty years or more for a change like this to be accepted; and there are people who have worked and struggled and prayed to try to prevent a change like this from ever happening. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this morning, throughout the congregations of the ELCA, there is in some places a joy and an excitement that has not been there for years, and prayers of great thanksgiving are being raised; and in other congregations of the ELCA there is a deep sadness and fear, and prayers of great lament are being prayed. I have to admit that as I watched the vote on my computer on Friday afternoon, I got tears in my eyes – not really tears of joy or sadness, but just feeling the weight of the moment throughout the whole ELCA, and knowing the conflicting feelings that would be set loose throughout the church. There are congregations and pastors who will begin to make plans to be reinstated into the ELCA, after what they felt has been a time of exile; and there are congregations and members and pastors who will begin to make plans for their own leaving, or if they choose to stay, to begin to live with their own sense of alienation from their family of faith.
Personally, I’m happy for the actions taken, even as I can empathize with those who are saddened and upset. I count good friends and mentors on both sides of this issue, and expect to hear from a few of them in the weeks to come. Both Bishop Hanson and Bishop Holmerud have already written to us pastors, expressing their hopes and prayers that clergy and congregations will continue to stay together, to talk together, and to pray together – that there will be no hasty decisions or quick departures. These are Bishop Hanson’s words to us:
“I am grateful for the manner in which this church has engaged in this conversation. The way this assembly has discussed these questions is a continuation of the way this church has deliberated: with deep and heartfelt respect for each other, engaging with Scripture, listening to the faith stories and experiences of one another, and through worship and prayer seeking the discernment of the Spirit. In my response to the voting members on Friday, August 21, I made this request: we need one another. We need time. We need the voices of those who lament and those who rejoice over these actions, for together we have been called to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ and engage in God’s mission for the life of the world.”
I share that sentiment. And I want to add my words of gratitude to all of you, who have been part of this conversation in the church for many, many years now. I am grateful for the sense of respect and love that you have, for the most part, embodied in the life of this congregation; and I trust that that will continue in the months and years to come as these decisions that have been made begin to take shape in the life of the church.
Bishop Hanson chose the words of Colossians 3 to close his remarks to the Assembly after the votes were taken: “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.”
Coming or going? That was the question Jesus asked those twelve disciples that day, after so many others had decided that living with Jesus was just too much of a challenge. I suspect that Peter took a deep breath before he answered. And in his answer, I don’t hear a triumphant claim that Peter and the eleven have understood Jesus where all the others have failed; I don’t hear a bold affirmation that they alone “get it.” What I hear is words of surrender: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life…You are the Holy One…”
And this is ultimately where our life, and the life of our church, must rest – in surrendering ourselves to the Holy One. In those times of great joy or great sadness, we surrender ourselves to the Holy One. In those times of crystal clear clarity or muddy confusion, we surrender ourselves to the Holy One. In those times when we know we’re right or we fear we’re wrong, we surrender ourselves to the Holy One. In those times when Jesus challenges us to believe beyond our faith, to act beyond our strength, to wait beyond our patience, to set aside our own wisdom and pride, it is not triumph that is called for then, but rather surrender: “Lord, to whom can we go, but you?”
This is ultimately where our life, and the life of our church, must rest. We surrender ourselves, and with empty hands and open hearts, we come to Jesus and are fed. The doors of the church have been pushed open a little wider this week. May all who come here find the words and the Bread of life.
Amen.
