January 28th, 2007

Today was the day for two comfortable morning services and a powerful, troubling, evening worship.

The setting was the familiar Call Us Home for the Creator services. The music was also familiar. The Second Lesson was 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13. Pr. Fred's sermon was full of stories about the Second Lesson and the Gospel Luke 4:21-30.

The gospel describes the initial pleasure that people in Jesus' hometown felt when he spoke to them and how it turned to rage when he reminded them that prophets often bring God's blessings to those who are regarded as outsiders.

In the Gospel readings, not being Jewish, I often feel like the outsider and that the blessings coming to the outsider are good news to me. That was the meaning I took from the Gospel reading in our morning services.

This is the fourth Sunday in January, designated as an ecumenical welcoming Sunday. The Gospel reading is likely chosen for that because it explicitly references outsiders. To celebrate this fourth Sunday, Central Lutheran celebrated with a Reconciling In Christ service.

A little over a week ago I was not aware of Reconciling in Christ or Lutherans Concerned / North America. Reconciling in Christ is a program and the LCNA is an organization that work towards the acceptance and full participation of all sexual orientations and gender identities. I attended the Reconciling in Christ evening service tonight at Central Lutheran and my morning understanding of the Gospel reading dramatically changed context. An empathetic, spiritual epiphany occurred.

Pr. Dayle preached powerfully in her sermon last Sunday about Pr. Brad Schmeling and his trial. The verdict is not released yet. Tonight, Pastor Katherine Hellier gave the RIC Sunday sermon for the Central service. She dedicated her sermon to an unnamed colleague who was the first choice to give the sermon. He declined to give the sermon due to the attention it would draw. He was fearful because he is still searching for a call.

Pr. Katherine preached about her own fears, her talks with leadership who did not share her views on this issue. She lamented how many pastors are currently removed from the ELCA roster for ordained ministers, or wait and do not have a call because of this issue.

I confronted my own initial hesitation to attend this service. I felt I did not have any stake in the issue. I had not thought or prayed much about this concern since Creator was part of a dialogue in 2005 through the Living Faithfully sessions. These sessions preceded the 2005 national churchwide assembly which crafted the current compromise policy. I participated in the sessions. I understood the arguments intellectually at that time but I did not know anyone affected by the policy.

Tonight my attendance made sense and the holy spirit connected within me. Suddenly taking a position on this, irregardless of personal stakes, was needed. The stories of struggle and spiritual brokenness in the RIC service needed to be a part of our overall Christian story. They gave me a deeper understanding of a path the church is following, together with the pain and the faith involved.

The witnessing in this sermon recalled words from a sermon Martin Luther gave in 1515. He said:

He who would read the Bible must simply take heed that he does not err, for the Scripture may permit itself to be stretched and led, but let no one lead it according to his own inclinations but let him lead it to the source, that is the cross of Christ. Then he will surely strike the center.

The cross of Christ was present in the sermon this evening. The helplessness, pain and passion of people fighting against injustice were present in most of those attending the service. Many were feeling like outsiders in the church, both gay and straight. My heart and prayers were and are with them.

In a talk afterwards, a couple told me a story about their daughter. She a straight seminary student. She was afraid of being removed from the seminary for answering a question from her heart. Did she believe ordained ministers who are homosexual in their self-understanding should be expected to abstain from homosexual relationships? From what I had heard her fears were not unfounded. People's lives and identities are on the line over what is happening in the church today.

The Gospel about prophets bringing God's blessings to those who are regarded as outsiders and the anger of the people when they heard this message did not sit in my heart the same as it had been in the morning. There was focus, purpose and an immediacy to the Gospel I heard this evening.

I didn't seek out this focus or purpose. Once again, Creator community worship challenged me into living through my knowledge of Christ and not from individual concerns and biases. I do not want to strain friendships and family relationships over this, yet a change is clearly needed. I appreciate the faith and fervor of people who feel the current path of the ELCA policy is correct or even that the church must follow more strictly what they believe is God's law, yet the cost became real to me tonight. There is a path through Christ that must be followed.

We sang All Are Welcome at both the Creator morning services and at the evening Central service. The context changed the impact of the song. I hope to sing it at Creator some day with the same context as at Central. .