Brief note of explanation: If you're not a member of my church.... obviously the "you"s in this sermon are addressed to the people of my congregation... this is written pretty much exactly as I wanted to speak it to them as I was standing in front of them.
1 Corinthians 12:12-27 (click here to read the passage (NRSV version))
Luke 4:14-21 (click here to read the passage (NRSV version))
Last Sunday during the announcements and in the weekly email that went out to the parish on Friday, I gave you a little "homework" in preparation for this Sunday's sermon. In our New Testament reading for this morning, Paul uses the metaphor of the members of the church being "one body in Christ." I asked you to think about your answers to three questions about that metaphor:
1. When you hear someone say, "we are one body in Christ," what does that mean to you? What are your first associations/connotations with that phrase?
2. Who is included in that body?
3. How does who you consider to be included in the body of Christ change how you relate to or are in relationship with them?
I hope you found this to be an interesting and thought-provoking exercise. I used these questions to guide my reflections about this passage, and will share with you my own thoughts in response to them.
First, "When you hear someone say, "we are one body in Christ," what does that mean to you? What are your first associations/connotations with that phrase?
For me, the phrase "we are one body in Christ" connotes first and foremost a sense of community, a community that is bound together by something larger than ourselves. As I reflected on this, I also realized that the phrase connotes to me a sense of being similar in some sense, of having something in common.
The second question was, "Who is included in that body?"
When you hear someone talk about the "body of Christ," who do you think of as being included in that body? Members of Holy Spirit? Fellow Episcopalians? Christians of other denominations?
I found that when I think about who is included in the "body of Christ," my first thought is of my particular worshipping community -- that is, all of you. Upon further reflection, I think about the other churches with which I have formed meaningful connections, in Boston and South Carolina. I also think about the wider "body" of Christians throughout the world who I may have never met or have any connection with and yet to whom I am still connected, through the "mystical body of Christ," as our Eucharistic liturgy says.
And finally, begrudgingly and with great confusion at times, I think of those who call themselves Christians with whom I disagree on various aspects of theology, politics, or ethics, or who see the world entirely differently than I do. It is sometimes hard for me to make sense of the idea that they and I are "one body in Christ" -- especially if, as I mentioned earlier, the notion of being "one in Christ" connotes to me some sense of oneness, of similarity.
I think this is probably a common line of thinking -- that as Christians, we should be similar in some way. And, on some level, this is true -- but the problem comes when we look for this commonality in our opinions, or our worship preferences, or our tastes in music, or even our interpretations of scripture, rather than in our common love of God and desire to follow Christ.
I am currently reading a book with my spiritual director called The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality. In the most recent chapter we read, the author, Ronald Rolheiser, writes about the misperceptions people hold about what "church" is supposed to be. One of those misperceptions, he says, is the idea that church is made up of "like-minded individuals, gathering on the basis of mutual compatibility." He says it better than I could, so I quote from him:
"To be in apostolic community, church, is not necessarily to be with others with whom we are emotionally, ideologically, and otherwise compatible. Rather it is to stand, shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand, precisely with people who are very different from ourselves and, with them, hear a common word, say a common creed, share a common bread, and offer a mutual forgiveness so as, in that way, to bridge our differences and become a common heart. Church is not about a few like-minded persons getting together for mutual support; it is about millions and millions of different kinds of persons transcending their differences so as to become a community beyond temperament, race, ideology, gender, language, and background" (Rolheiser 115).
After explaining a number of other things that church is NOT, Rolheiser finally gets to his main point, his definition of what church IS -- people "gathering around the person of Christ and sharing his Spirit" (Rolheiser 118). And the Gospel passage for today gives us a nice summary of who exactly we are gathering around in the person of Christ - the one who brings good news to the poor, gives sight to the blind, and frees the oppressed.
So, the phrase "one body in Christ" DOES connote similarity -- but our similarity as Christians lies in our turning to Christ as our Savior, not in sharing similar political opinions, similar cultures, similar backgrounds or even similar interpretations of scripture. If we struggle to think about those who are different from us as included in the body of Christ, perhaps it is because we have focused so much on the "oneness" part of the metaphor that it overshadows the centrality of the "Christ" part of the metaphor.
Paul gives us some powerful imagery to illustrate this concept in this morning's New Testament reading: "Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- Jews or Greeks, slave or free -- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Corin. 12:12-13). Christ is what unites us; the Spirit is what binds us together. Through our baptism, we are inextricably linked to one another, even when we may not FEEL like we are a part of the body.
One of the most powerful aspects of Paul's metaphor of the "body of Christ" is his affirmation that we are still included in the body even when we feel excluded because we are different from the other members of the body. He writes, "If the foot would say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less a part of the body" (1 Corin. 12:15).
Over what things have we found ourselves feeling excluded from the body of Christ? What would you fill in to that statement -- "Because I am not _______, I do not belong to the body"? Because I am not "spiritual" enough? Because I am not good at talking with others about my faith? Because I don't live up to my ideals? Because I don't agree with this or that action of the national church? Despite any of our differences that might make us feel that we do not belong, Paul says that our feeling this way does not make us any less a part of the body! If we have been baptized into the body, we ARE a part of the body, in spite of any attempts by ourselves or others to exclude us.
Next, Paul goes on to affirm that the differences within the body of Christ are a part of God's plan: "God arranged the members in the body, each one as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?" (1 Corin. 12:18-19).
In fact, Paul argues that this diversity is ESSENTIAL to the Christian community. By its very DEFINITION, the "body" consists of different "parts." Instead of saying that we are one body in Christ DESPITE our differences (a way of thinking I know I often hold), in this passage Paul argues beautifully that we NEED our differences to truly live out what it means to be the body of Christ.
He writes, "the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you" (1 Corin. 12:21). I cannot say to those Christians who are different from me, "I have no need of you." Their presence is critical to maintaining the integrity of the body of Christ. Otherwise, we are just a community of ears, with no eyes. Or of feet, with no hands. When I am able to have considerate and respectful conversations with people who are different from me, it is often those people who can help me to see and understand things I could never have seen through talking only with people who look, talk, and think like me. As Paul writes, "If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?" (1 Corin. 12:17) Without engaging with differences, we miss out on experiencing the fullness of God in Christ.
I am a strong advocate of building intentionally diverse Christian communities for precisely this reason. We need all the different parts in order to be a HEALTHY body. Just as a body without an eye is not completely whole and healthy, so too is a Christian community not healthy if it is too homogenous -- in terms of race, class, culture, or ideology. Over the years I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the way churches in our country are segregated along racial, socioeconomic, and ideological lines. While I understand many of the historical and sociological reasons behind this phenomenon, I do not see how there can be any scripturally justifiable reasons for this. We have "white churches" and "black churches" and "conservative churches" and "liberal churches" and "rich churches" and "poor churches," and in all these churches, we read the same scriptures that tell us we are "one body in Christ." To modernize the metaphor, "In the Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- black or white, conservative or liberal" -- so why do we so often live as if this were not so? I feel that we as Christians are not really living the Gospel unless we are living it together, in community.
As you may know, this week is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, sponsored by the World Council of Churches. Praying for "Christian unity" does not necessarily mean that we are praying for all Christians to become part of ONE denomination or ONE church, or that certain groups should give up their particular styles of worship and methods of scriptural interpretation and adopt those of another group. "Christian unity," as informed by Paul's metaphor of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians, does not mean erasing differences or assuming consensus among all Christians. Rather, it means caring enough to ENGAGE WITH the differences and to learn from one another. Ecumenical dialogue continually reminds us that God is not contained within our particular church, and as we engage with our sisters and brothers of other denominations, we are also strengthened in knowing that we are connected to a wider community of support in the larger body of Christ as we strive to live out the Gospel in our daily lives.
And finally -- I bet you thought I was never going to get to the third question -- how does who you consider to be included in the body of Christ change how you relate to them?
For me, I know there are people with whom I would never be friends or really have much to do with if it weren't for our shared Christian commitment. If I think of someone as being a part of the body of Christ, it makes me think twice before simply dismissing them or not listening carefully to what they have to say, even if we don't always agree. A common identity as Christians in the body of Christ may at times bind people together when nothing else will.
This metaphor also gives us a powerful theological basis for reaching across differences and building community, in some of the ways that I discussed earlier. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it in terms of "building the beloved community" -- that is precisely the type of community we should be about building as the body of Christ.
Above all, considering someone as included in the body of Christ gives us a powerful sense of solidarity with them. Paul puts it beautifully in 1 Corinthians: "If one members suffers, all suffer together with it, if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it" (1 Corin. 12:26). We are one body in Christ with our brothers and sisters who are fleeing genocide in the Sudan. We are one body in Christ with our brothers and sisters who are entangled in the war in Iraq (on either side of the conflict). We are one body in Christ with our brothers and sisters who are rebuilding after the devastating effects of Katrina in on the Gulf Coast. When any member of the body of Christ suffers anywhere in the world, it affects us all.
But our solidarity does not end with the Christian community. In our baptismal covenant, we promise to "seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves." We are called to be in solidarity with ALL people, not just Christians. Though we may feel a special connection and solidarity with our fellow Christians throughout the world, may we also be open to finding the presence of Christ even outside of our fold, in places where we least expect it.
In the name of the One who comes to bring good news to the poor, to give sight to the blind, to free the oppressed, and to bind us all together in the One Body, Amen.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
A recap of my spiritual journey to this point...
I wrote this spiritual autobiography for the discernment commitee at my church in Nebraska... they are trying to help me discern whether I have a calling to any form of ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church.
My spiritual journey began in earnest when I was a senior in high school, back in South Carolina. I had been raised in the Lutheran Church, but faith was not something real and personal to me until an experience I had at a retreat at a friend's church my senior year of high school. Some may call such an experience a "conversion" experience or a "born-again" experience. Although I tend to shy away from those words, I essentially had an encounter with God where I realized that God could be a very real presence in my life, and after that retreat I began to read the Bible in earnest, which I had never done before. I was enthralled with what I found -- the beauty in the Scriptures, particularly in the parables of the Gospels and the songs of praise in the psalms.
For about a year and a half, I became wrapped up in an Evangelical community, during my late high school years and early college years. I was certain that I had "found Jesus," that I now knew "the Truth," and that my mission was to convert everyone in the world to Christianity. I often felt a huge burden over the fact that I did not "evangelize" others like I should, and I and a friend who was my "accountability partner" in faith would sometimes sob at our meetings over the fact that people were dying and going to hell because we personally hadn't told them about Jesus. I felt an intense burden, like the salvation of the world rested on my shoulders. I would talk about being "on fire for God" and go to praise and worship meetings where we would raise our hands in a darkened room and deeply and passionately sing praises to God, tears running down our faces, eternally grateful for God's salvation of us, such unworthy sinners. Since early childhood, I had struggled with low self-esteem and often felt I was a horrible person or unworthy of love, so this message of God's unconditional love, which I had never heard proclaimed so strongly or emotionally in the Lutheran church I grew up in, pierced through to my very insecure heart and touched me deeply. I was hooked.
Somewhere along the line, though, my neat little black-and-white world began to fall apart. My sister's best friend's father died unexpectedly when I was a sophomore in college, and my faith simply did not provide a sense of comfort to me during this time. When challenged, my all-too-happy façade broke. At the same time, we were studying about the Holocaust in a European history course I was taking, and the horrors of the world began to bear down on me. Where was God in all this? I struggled with the age-old question of theodicy: how could an all-loving, good God allow such horrific suffering? I simply couldn’t get past this for many years. I became a religion major in an attempt to learn more about my faith and to strengthen it, but courses in systematic theology and analytical approaches to the scriptures only shook my foundation in what I thought was absolute fact. Somehow it all stopped making sense.
Wanting clear-cut answers, I became desperate to PROVE that Jesus was the only way, that my faith was the "right" one, and I went on a rampage, reading all that I could, searching for answers, for proof, for reassurance that Christianity was indeed FACT, and not faith. Eventually, I could find no objective proof that satisfied me, so I felt I had no other choice but to reject exclusivist theology - the idea that only Christians can connect with God or will be saved by God.
My spiritual journey began in earnest when I was a senior in high school, back in South Carolina. I had been raised in the Lutheran Church, but faith was not something real and personal to me until an experience I had at a retreat at a friend's church my senior year of high school. Some may call such an experience a "conversion" experience or a "born-again" experience. Although I tend to shy away from those words, I essentially had an encounter with God where I realized that God could be a very real presence in my life, and after that retreat I began to read the Bible in earnest, which I had never done before. I was enthralled with what I found -- the beauty in the Scriptures, particularly in the parables of the Gospels and the songs of praise in the psalms.
For about a year and a half, I became wrapped up in an Evangelical community, during my late high school years and early college years. I was certain that I had "found Jesus," that I now knew "the Truth," and that my mission was to convert everyone in the world to Christianity. I often felt a huge burden over the fact that I did not "evangelize" others like I should, and I and a friend who was my "accountability partner" in faith would sometimes sob at our meetings over the fact that people were dying and going to hell because we personally hadn't told them about Jesus. I felt an intense burden, like the salvation of the world rested on my shoulders. I would talk about being "on fire for God" and go to praise and worship meetings where we would raise our hands in a darkened room and deeply and passionately sing praises to God, tears running down our faces, eternally grateful for God's salvation of us, such unworthy sinners. Since early childhood, I had struggled with low self-esteem and often felt I was a horrible person or unworthy of love, so this message of God's unconditional love, which I had never heard proclaimed so strongly or emotionally in the Lutheran church I grew up in, pierced through to my very insecure heart and touched me deeply. I was hooked.
Somewhere along the line, though, my neat little black-and-white world began to fall apart. My sister's best friend's father died unexpectedly when I was a sophomore in college, and my faith simply did not provide a sense of comfort to me during this time. When challenged, my all-too-happy façade broke. At the same time, we were studying about the Holocaust in a European history course I was taking, and the horrors of the world began to bear down on me. Where was God in all this? I struggled with the age-old question of theodicy: how could an all-loving, good God allow such horrific suffering? I simply couldn’t get past this for many years. I became a religion major in an attempt to learn more about my faith and to strengthen it, but courses in systematic theology and analytical approaches to the scriptures only shook my foundation in what I thought was absolute fact. Somehow it all stopped making sense.
Wanting clear-cut answers, I became desperate to PROVE that Jesus was the only way, that my faith was the "right" one, and I went on a rampage, reading all that I could, searching for answers, for proof, for reassurance that Christianity was indeed FACT, and not faith. Eventually, I could find no objective proof that satisfied me, so I felt I had no other choice but to reject exclusivist theology - the idea that only Christians can connect with God or will be saved by God.
This rejection was extremely painful and traumatizing to me. I constantly wondered if maybe I really WAS being led astray by the devil -- how could I tell what was from God and what was from the devil??? -- and involved painful readjustments of my views of God and Scripture. But, my rejection of exclusivism was only confirmed when I had my first real interfaith encounter a year later, with a Muslim student in an introduction to Islam course I was taking. Outside of class, we talked and shared our faith journeys, and discussed how we related to God and how our faith had sustained us (or in my case, failed me) during times of crisis. I simply could not deny that this young man was also in touch with God, with the divine presence, and no amount of "official, orthodox Christian doctrine" about non-Christians going to hell could convince me otherwise.
Also, I began to develop a sense of calling to reach out to the outcast of society. As I began to come into my own understanding of faith rather than a parroted version of someone else's, I began to feel more and more convinced that standing in a darkened room singing praise songs accompanied by guitar and drums was probably not as pleasing to God as reaching out to love and serve those most in need would be. As I read the Gospel texts, I saw a Jesus who lived among the outcast in society, who did not cavort with the powerful and the wealthy, but with those most despised in the society of his time - the tax collectors, the prostitutes, and - heaven-forbid - even Samaritans. I saw a Jesus who said things like, "It will be easier for a camel to go through the needle of an eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:23). Who asked his followers to sell all that they owned - not 10 percent of their annual income, not five dollars in the collection plate each Sunday - but all that they owned, give to the poor, and come follow him. This, to me, seemed to be the heart of Jesus's message about the kingdom of God - the kingdom of God is at hand, and it will be realized as people come to follow him, serve the poor, love their enemies, and reach out to the stranger, the disenfranchised, the abandoned, the socially stigmatized, and the deserted.
The incongruence between Jesus's calling as I understood it from Scripture and the experience of seeing students wearing ridiculously-priced clothing from Abercrombie & Fitch driving to Sunday worship in their $40,000 SUVs that Daddy bought for them, never encountering or speaking with someone who didn't have tons of money and privilege, began to drive me nuts. (And I should be clear that this incongruence wasn't limited exclusively to the Evangelical communities of which I was a part; it was something I found in pretty much any Christian community I had encountered. Maybe the displays of wealth were more excessive in some churches than others, but nowhere did I see a truly radically inclusive community being lived out, a community like what I envisioned the followers of Jesus and the early Christian community to have been.)
My Evangelical friends surely sensed these changes in me, even if I didn't talk about them openly very much for fear of rejection and criticism from them. I began to feel increasingly out of place in the Evangelical community and eventually left it and found a home in a more liberal Baptist church (which was part of a movement in the South called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, an alliance of more moderate Baptists who reject the conservative views of the Southern Baptist Convention). By the time I graduated from college, I had become fairly involved in that Baptist church, but I was still a bit unsettled in my faith. The summer after I graduated from college, I lived at home in Columbia, S.C., and didn't really attend church much for that summer.
Part of the reason that I didn't get to attend church much was that I was doing some research for the Pluralism Project at Harvard (www.pluralism.org) about religious diversity in Columbia, and this research entailed visiting ceremonies of the various religious groups in the area. Since many of them had adapted their religious schedules to fit the American workweek, they often had meetings on Sundays (since that's when all the Christians were doing their religious thing). Thus, I often had a Sikh service or a Hindu ceremony to go to on Sunday morning instead of church. This was perhaps also a good experience for me personally, to sort of "take a break" from involvement in church and immerse myself in other faiths and cultures.
I was very open to seeing the presence of the Divine in these faiths, and I did find it there. I sensed God's presence when I was sitting and listening to hymns from the Guru Granth Sahib (the Sikh holy scriptures) recited in the local gurdwara, or when I watched Muslims bow in reverent prayer, in unison, to the call to prayer in Arabic proclaiming "God is great!" I delighted in the many forms and representations of God in the Hindu tradition, especially enjoying a late-night vigil on the eve of Vishnu (one of the deities)'s birth as the baby Krishna, watching the crowd break into jubilant applause, singing and dancing at the hour of Krishna's birth.
From Muslims, I learned to think about disciplined prayer. From Baha'is, I learned to think about racial reconciliation and unity as a part of the divine mandate. From Buddhists, I learned to think about stillness and centeredness in meditation. From Hindus, I learned to think about what it meant to worship God not just as creator and preserver, but also as destroyer, to own the suffering and dark side of life as part of God's very presence in the world. My questions of theodicy that had tripped me up for so long in struggling with Western Christian theology were simply irrelevant for a worldview that did not posit as its starting point that only good things come from God -- and on some level I found this extremely liberating.
I was particularly drawn to one middle-aged Hindu woman, who I thought simply oozed the presence of the Divine. She spoke of the presence of the Divine Mother in all of us and told stories about visiting prisoners at the local prison, of reaching out to the outcast of society, of living out a sense of calling very similar to what I had discovered in the Christian scriptures but which I still at this point was not living out myself.
Also, I began to develop a sense of calling to reach out to the outcast of society. As I began to come into my own understanding of faith rather than a parroted version of someone else's, I began to feel more and more convinced that standing in a darkened room singing praise songs accompanied by guitar and drums was probably not as pleasing to God as reaching out to love and serve those most in need would be. As I read the Gospel texts, I saw a Jesus who lived among the outcast in society, who did not cavort with the powerful and the wealthy, but with those most despised in the society of his time - the tax collectors, the prostitutes, and - heaven-forbid - even Samaritans. I saw a Jesus who said things like, "It will be easier for a camel to go through the needle of an eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:23). Who asked his followers to sell all that they owned - not 10 percent of their annual income, not five dollars in the collection plate each Sunday - but all that they owned, give to the poor, and come follow him. This, to me, seemed to be the heart of Jesus's message about the kingdom of God - the kingdom of God is at hand, and it will be realized as people come to follow him, serve the poor, love their enemies, and reach out to the stranger, the disenfranchised, the abandoned, the socially stigmatized, and the deserted.
The incongruence between Jesus's calling as I understood it from Scripture and the experience of seeing students wearing ridiculously-priced clothing from Abercrombie & Fitch driving to Sunday worship in their $40,000 SUVs that Daddy bought for them, never encountering or speaking with someone who didn't have tons of money and privilege, began to drive me nuts. (And I should be clear that this incongruence wasn't limited exclusively to the Evangelical communities of which I was a part; it was something I found in pretty much any Christian community I had encountered. Maybe the displays of wealth were more excessive in some churches than others, but nowhere did I see a truly radically inclusive community being lived out, a community like what I envisioned the followers of Jesus and the early Christian community to have been.)
My Evangelical friends surely sensed these changes in me, even if I didn't talk about them openly very much for fear of rejection and criticism from them. I began to feel increasingly out of place in the Evangelical community and eventually left it and found a home in a more liberal Baptist church (which was part of a movement in the South called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, an alliance of more moderate Baptists who reject the conservative views of the Southern Baptist Convention). By the time I graduated from college, I had become fairly involved in that Baptist church, but I was still a bit unsettled in my faith. The summer after I graduated from college, I lived at home in Columbia, S.C., and didn't really attend church much for that summer.
Part of the reason that I didn't get to attend church much was that I was doing some research for the Pluralism Project at Harvard (www.pluralism.org) about religious diversity in Columbia, and this research entailed visiting ceremonies of the various religious groups in the area. Since many of them had adapted their religious schedules to fit the American workweek, they often had meetings on Sundays (since that's when all the Christians were doing their religious thing). Thus, I often had a Sikh service or a Hindu ceremony to go to on Sunday morning instead of church. This was perhaps also a good experience for me personally, to sort of "take a break" from involvement in church and immerse myself in other faiths and cultures.
I was very open to seeing the presence of the Divine in these faiths, and I did find it there. I sensed God's presence when I was sitting and listening to hymns from the Guru Granth Sahib (the Sikh holy scriptures) recited in the local gurdwara, or when I watched Muslims bow in reverent prayer, in unison, to the call to prayer in Arabic proclaiming "God is great!" I delighted in the many forms and representations of God in the Hindu tradition, especially enjoying a late-night vigil on the eve of Vishnu (one of the deities)'s birth as the baby Krishna, watching the crowd break into jubilant applause, singing and dancing at the hour of Krishna's birth.
From Muslims, I learned to think about disciplined prayer. From Baha'is, I learned to think about racial reconciliation and unity as a part of the divine mandate. From Buddhists, I learned to think about stillness and centeredness in meditation. From Hindus, I learned to think about what it meant to worship God not just as creator and preserver, but also as destroyer, to own the suffering and dark side of life as part of God's very presence in the world. My questions of theodicy that had tripped me up for so long in struggling with Western Christian theology were simply irrelevant for a worldview that did not posit as its starting point that only good things come from God -- and on some level I found this extremely liberating.
I was particularly drawn to one middle-aged Hindu woman, who I thought simply oozed the presence of the Divine. She spoke of the presence of the Divine Mother in all of us and told stories about visiting prisoners at the local prison, of reaching out to the outcast of society, of living out a sense of calling very similar to what I had discovered in the Christian scriptures but which I still at this point was not living out myself.
She was my contact at the Hindu temple and always welcomed me warmly to their various festivals and events throughout the summer. By the end of August, when I showed up for yet another religious festival (this time for Ganesh, the elephant-headed god of new beginnings and remover of obstacles), she welcomed me with a hug, smiled, and said with a laugh, "Is this your church now?" She was half-joking, but it really made me stop and think. Was the Hindu temple my "church" now? Was the gurdwara? The mosque? The Buddhist meditation hall? I didn't even have a church anymore. What was my church? Sensing my hesitancy to respond, she nodded knowingly and revised her statement: "ONE of the churches," she said. I nodded vigorously. One of the churches. Yes. That was more like it.
By the end of the summer, despite everything I learned about God from these various faiths, I knew that I wanted to actively seek out a church and try to find my place within Christianity when I moved to Boston to start graduate school. Despite all my "interfaith" sensibilities and my ability to see the presence of God in other faiths, there was something there that kept me hanging on to my Christian faith.
I struggled a lot in college with traditional doctrines about Jesus -- was he really "God" in the flesh? Was he really born of a virgin? What if I don't think Jesus was God, but an inspired human teacher? At times my roommate (a fellow religion major) and I would joke that if we were honest with ourselves, we probably should just be Jewish, since we were fine with most everything in Christianity except the claims it made about Jesus... and, well, if you take Jesus out of the equation, it's not really Christianity anymore, now is it?
But ultimately, I came to realize that yes, Jesus was important to me. Despite my inability to "prove" the "factual" nature of any of the truths that the church holds about Jesus, I knew that the story of Jesus, the very simple basic story of his life, death and resurrection, had deeply touched me and moved me in a way that nothing else had in my life, and in a way that no other religion had (from my limited knowledge of them). Although I had rejected just about everything that I used to believe or hold dear during my Evangelical days, I realized that I couldn't reject Jesus.
That realization was a very deep and profound one for me. I realized that I had let my frustrations with and anger towards the Evangelical community I had once been a part of obscure the fact that in those communities I had actually found a very powerful and meaningful encounter with God. I loved those communities for their passion for Christ and for the Gospel, for their contagious sense that they really knew the power of the love of God expressed through Christ Jesus, and yet I disagreed with many of their social and political opinions. My problem was that although I agreed more with the theology of the more moderate "mainline" churches, in many of those types of churches I had visited, people seemed to be simply lackluster in their approach to worship, reciting words and turning pages, but not truly WORSHIPPING God. I felt like slapping everyone upside the head and screaming, "PEOPLE!! Do you know what you're singing about?? Christ is RISEN!!! My GOD, act like you understand what you're saying!!" I was not optimistic about my options as I moved to Boston for graduate school and began my church-hunting process.
But, thanks be to God, within three weeks of arriving in Boston, I found the church that I wound up attending for the three years that I lived in Boston -- St. James's Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
St. James became my first true church home, in a way that no other community had ever been. It was everything I was looking for in a church -- racially diverse (I had become increasingly impatient with racially homogenous churches after seeing the racial diversity of the Muslim and Baha'i communities in Columbia during my Pluralism Project research and was determined to find a church that was also racially diverse -- I could write you a book about that particular issue but I'll spare you, for now), social justice-minded (doing a number of outreach ministries to the poor and marginalized), and joyful in worship without being "rock band evangelical."
By the end of the summer, despite everything I learned about God from these various faiths, I knew that I wanted to actively seek out a church and try to find my place within Christianity when I moved to Boston to start graduate school. Despite all my "interfaith" sensibilities and my ability to see the presence of God in other faiths, there was something there that kept me hanging on to my Christian faith.
I struggled a lot in college with traditional doctrines about Jesus -- was he really "God" in the flesh? Was he really born of a virgin? What if I don't think Jesus was God, but an inspired human teacher? At times my roommate (a fellow religion major) and I would joke that if we were honest with ourselves, we probably should just be Jewish, since we were fine with most everything in Christianity except the claims it made about Jesus... and, well, if you take Jesus out of the equation, it's not really Christianity anymore, now is it?
But ultimately, I came to realize that yes, Jesus was important to me. Despite my inability to "prove" the "factual" nature of any of the truths that the church holds about Jesus, I knew that the story of Jesus, the very simple basic story of his life, death and resurrection, had deeply touched me and moved me in a way that nothing else had in my life, and in a way that no other religion had (from my limited knowledge of them). Although I had rejected just about everything that I used to believe or hold dear during my Evangelical days, I realized that I couldn't reject Jesus.
That realization was a very deep and profound one for me. I realized that I had let my frustrations with and anger towards the Evangelical community I had once been a part of obscure the fact that in those communities I had actually found a very powerful and meaningful encounter with God. I loved those communities for their passion for Christ and for the Gospel, for their contagious sense that they really knew the power of the love of God expressed through Christ Jesus, and yet I disagreed with many of their social and political opinions. My problem was that although I agreed more with the theology of the more moderate "mainline" churches, in many of those types of churches I had visited, people seemed to be simply lackluster in their approach to worship, reciting words and turning pages, but not truly WORSHIPPING God. I felt like slapping everyone upside the head and screaming, "PEOPLE!! Do you know what you're singing about?? Christ is RISEN!!! My GOD, act like you understand what you're saying!!" I was not optimistic about my options as I moved to Boston for graduate school and began my church-hunting process.
But, thanks be to God, within three weeks of arriving in Boston, I found the church that I wound up attending for the three years that I lived in Boston -- St. James's Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
St. James became my first true church home, in a way that no other community had ever been. It was everything I was looking for in a church -- racially diverse (I had become increasingly impatient with racially homogenous churches after seeing the racial diversity of the Muslim and Baha'i communities in Columbia during my Pluralism Project research and was determined to find a church that was also racially diverse -- I could write you a book about that particular issue but I'll spare you, for now), social justice-minded (doing a number of outreach ministries to the poor and marginalized), and joyful in worship without being "rock band evangelical."
In contrast to the churches in the South, where church was largely a social outing to see and be seen, to keep up with the Joneses (and all their relatives), in "godless," liberal New England, people didn't go to church unless it really MEANT something to them. In the South, people in the churches were mainstream, whereas in the Northeast, people in the churches were a bit countercultural – they were those people on the margins where I felt Jesus himself would have been. I felt that finally, after so many years of drifting and being unsure in my faith, unsure of where I "fit" within Christianity or if there was even a place for me in the faith, I had finally found a community that was the perfect balance between tradition and innovation, between ritual and feeling, and between definitive Christian identity and open-minded and accepting love.
The community at St. James, particularly a young women's small group of which I was a part, challenged me and supported me as I began to finally step out and act on my faith in ways I'd felt called to do for some time but never had the courage to act on. In this stage of my faith, I began to evaluate what really mattered to me and to what kinds of things I wanted to devote my life. I began to take steps to practice what I preached, inspired largely by many people who served as examples to me of living lives of conviction and integrity. I finally acted on my sense of calling to reach out to the poor and marginalized and began to volunteer with an outdoor church ministry to the homeless in Cambridge, an ecumenical ministry of which St. James was a part. My time in Boston was also when I became a vegetarian -- acting on my belief in non-violence and non-cruelty to animals. Interestingly, I found that in beginning to live out the values I held most dear, I found myself less critical and judgmental of others for not living out those same values.
Despite the real ways in which I was challenged and grew spiritually at St. James, by the time I left St. James, I still had a somewhat naïve and limited view both of church and of God. I saw the community of St. James through rose-colored glasses. Everything at St. James was wonderful, everything at St. James was inspiring, everything at St. James was perfect. If at any time I had a problem or issue with something that happened at St. James (which did happen a few times), I felt very comfortable approaching the rector to talk about it and he was always very willing to sit down and talk with me about whatever my concern was. Somehow I managed to stay away from all the arenas of church politics -- the vestry, etc -- and generally avoided hearing any of the unpleasant things that I'm sure did go on there from time to time. Whenever I got some glimmer of the fact that St. James wasn't perfect, like hearing one of my friends at church complain about not liking another church member, I was just entirely horrified ("but EVERYONE at St. James LOVES each other, right?!?!?!?!").
I was thrilled to be a part of that congregation, which I felt exemplified in every way possible what living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ should look like in this human life. I loved that congregation so much that I practically elevated it to a position of idolatry, and a certain arrogance began to creep into my outlook, without my even realizing it -- a self-inflated assurance that only churches like ours were authentically living out the Gospel -- only liberal, gay-rights supporting, pacifist, progressive political activists were truly showing Christ's radically inclusive love for all. In my mind, I began to confuse Jesus with a New England liberal.
I guess that's why God didn't let me stay in Boston to do my discernment internship, as was my original plan. Instead, God brought me to Bellevue, Nebraska, to serve in a church made up almost entirely of military folks!
Church of the Holy Spirit couldn't be more opposite to St. James in a number of ways -- it's much less racially diverse (I had convinced myself that I could never worship in an entirely or mostly white congregation again!), more traditional music and worship than I was used to, ... and this military thing!! During my time in Boston, I had subconsciously received the message that "military" was a bad word. According to the prevailing attitude there, the Iraq war was horrible, the military was horrible, and pretty much everything the American government did was horrible (obviously I'm exaggerating for effect, but this truly was the subconscious message I received). I never heard anyone talking about personally knowing people who were serving in the war. One of the first things I noticed upon arriving at Holy Spirit was the sobering list of "the deployed" that we pray for every week... and at the same time, little to no explicit attention in the prayers for people or countries outside of the United States. This is just one example of how different Holy Spirit seemed to be from St. James. I could almost hear God laughing at me. "You were so sure about the only kinds of places you could find My presence, weren't you?" God seemed to say. "Well, honey, you've got a lot to learn."
And indeed, I did. The first thing I learned is that a warm, inclusive, welcoming spirit is not the exclusive property of New England liberals. I found the same kind of warm and welcoming community at Holy Spirit as I did at St. James. I learned that "military" is not a bad word, and was humbled to realize how much service military people have given our country, with a sense of quiet duty, dignity and honor that I had not seen amongst the pacifist, protester crowd in Boston. I learned that, as always, God is in the business of breaking down my prejudices and stereotypes and showing up in places where I least expect it. I learned that yes, church is not always pretty and nice and happy all the time, but that living with an unrealistic view of church as always happy and wonderful is less spiritually edifying and spiritually healthy than confronting the realities of our brokenness as human beings and continuing to worship together in spite of that fact.
It is hard for me to add a section about my four months in the Resurrection House program to this "autobiography," I guess because it's all still in process; I don't have the benefit of time, distance and perspective on my current state to be able to describe it like I have the other periods in my life. I'm still working through a number of things. I was excited and joyful to feel that I had finally discerned how to listen for God's call, which I believe I did in coming to Nebraska, but I am learning that answering that call will not always bring entirely pleasant experiences, and that some of the most beneficial and important lessons we can learn in life are often the hardest ones. I think I already knew that before I came, but even so, I still have the tendency to want to avoid dealing with more difficult things in life.
The community at St. James, particularly a young women's small group of which I was a part, challenged me and supported me as I began to finally step out and act on my faith in ways I'd felt called to do for some time but never had the courage to act on. In this stage of my faith, I began to evaluate what really mattered to me and to what kinds of things I wanted to devote my life. I began to take steps to practice what I preached, inspired largely by many people who served as examples to me of living lives of conviction and integrity. I finally acted on my sense of calling to reach out to the poor and marginalized and began to volunteer with an outdoor church ministry to the homeless in Cambridge, an ecumenical ministry of which St. James was a part. My time in Boston was also when I became a vegetarian -- acting on my belief in non-violence and non-cruelty to animals. Interestingly, I found that in beginning to live out the values I held most dear, I found myself less critical and judgmental of others for not living out those same values.
Despite the real ways in which I was challenged and grew spiritually at St. James, by the time I left St. James, I still had a somewhat naïve and limited view both of church and of God. I saw the community of St. James through rose-colored glasses. Everything at St. James was wonderful, everything at St. James was inspiring, everything at St. James was perfect. If at any time I had a problem or issue with something that happened at St. James (which did happen a few times), I felt very comfortable approaching the rector to talk about it and he was always very willing to sit down and talk with me about whatever my concern was. Somehow I managed to stay away from all the arenas of church politics -- the vestry, etc -- and generally avoided hearing any of the unpleasant things that I'm sure did go on there from time to time. Whenever I got some glimmer of the fact that St. James wasn't perfect, like hearing one of my friends at church complain about not liking another church member, I was just entirely horrified ("but EVERYONE at St. James LOVES each other, right?!?!?!?!").
I was thrilled to be a part of that congregation, which I felt exemplified in every way possible what living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ should look like in this human life. I loved that congregation so much that I practically elevated it to a position of idolatry, and a certain arrogance began to creep into my outlook, without my even realizing it -- a self-inflated assurance that only churches like ours were authentically living out the Gospel -- only liberal, gay-rights supporting, pacifist, progressive political activists were truly showing Christ's radically inclusive love for all. In my mind, I began to confuse Jesus with a New England liberal.
I guess that's why God didn't let me stay in Boston to do my discernment internship, as was my original plan. Instead, God brought me to Bellevue, Nebraska, to serve in a church made up almost entirely of military folks!
Church of the Holy Spirit couldn't be more opposite to St. James in a number of ways -- it's much less racially diverse (I had convinced myself that I could never worship in an entirely or mostly white congregation again!), more traditional music and worship than I was used to, ... and this military thing!! During my time in Boston, I had subconsciously received the message that "military" was a bad word. According to the prevailing attitude there, the Iraq war was horrible, the military was horrible, and pretty much everything the American government did was horrible (obviously I'm exaggerating for effect, but this truly was the subconscious message I received). I never heard anyone talking about personally knowing people who were serving in the war. One of the first things I noticed upon arriving at Holy Spirit was the sobering list of "the deployed" that we pray for every week... and at the same time, little to no explicit attention in the prayers for people or countries outside of the United States. This is just one example of how different Holy Spirit seemed to be from St. James. I could almost hear God laughing at me. "You were so sure about the only kinds of places you could find My presence, weren't you?" God seemed to say. "Well, honey, you've got a lot to learn."
And indeed, I did. The first thing I learned is that a warm, inclusive, welcoming spirit is not the exclusive property of New England liberals. I found the same kind of warm and welcoming community at Holy Spirit as I did at St. James. I learned that "military" is not a bad word, and was humbled to realize how much service military people have given our country, with a sense of quiet duty, dignity and honor that I had not seen amongst the pacifist, protester crowd in Boston. I learned that, as always, God is in the business of breaking down my prejudices and stereotypes and showing up in places where I least expect it. I learned that yes, church is not always pretty and nice and happy all the time, but that living with an unrealistic view of church as always happy and wonderful is less spiritually edifying and spiritually healthy than confronting the realities of our brokenness as human beings and continuing to worship together in spite of that fact.
It is hard for me to add a section about my four months in the Resurrection House program to this "autobiography," I guess because it's all still in process; I don't have the benefit of time, distance and perspective on my current state to be able to describe it like I have the other periods in my life. I'm still working through a number of things. I was excited and joyful to feel that I had finally discerned how to listen for God's call, which I believe I did in coming to Nebraska, but I am learning that answering that call will not always bring entirely pleasant experiences, and that some of the most beneficial and important lessons we can learn in life are often the hardest ones. I think I already knew that before I came, but even so, I still have the tendency to want to avoid dealing with more difficult things in life.
Sometimes I have felt that life would be a whole lot easier if I just forgot all about this "church" thing and stopped trying to hold myself to such high standards; I could just go sit around and veg out and watch television with the rest of the majority of the American population. "I don't have to do this," I've thought a number of times. "I don't even want to do this! Why am I even here?" But I am thankful for the structure and discipline of being a part of a program to which I have committed -- that commitment keeps me here on those days when I feel most like running away from all the difficult things that I am being forced to deal with in really spending a year in intentional discernment and coming to know myself perhaps better than I would have ever chosen to, if it were entirely up to me! But I keep all this in perspective by knowing that I will be a better person for having struggled with these issues, and by continually being reminded that God's grace is with me through it all.
Since starting this program, I have been wrestling with confronting some of my own attitudes and behaviors -- namely, my propensity to only interact with people I like or to show favoritism in relating more positively to some people than others and to implicitly or explicitly judge those who don't meet my criteria for approval, whatever that means. I am struggling with wondering how much I could really express my most true, most authentic thoughts and beliefs if I pursued ordination, or if I would have to "tow the party line" to be acceptable to the church. On some level I have always felt like a bit of an outsider, a bit of a "fringe" person to the church... someone standing on the edges, still loving the institution but always critical of it, and I wonder if I would lose the ability to do that or be that in being ordained, or if that attitude/role/position would prevent me from being considered seriously as a candidate for ordination in the first place.
I am learning about the gravity of ministry -- that being a minister means not just celebrating in worship on Sunday mornings, but about being present for people at some of life's most difficult and serious moments. I also am learning a great deal about prayer, silence, and listening -- and about the importance of humility and recognizing with thanksgiving that whatever ability we have to minister to others comes through God's grace -- and continually remembering to turn to God in prayer to ask for that grace to enable us to do the work we have been called to do.
Since starting this program, I have been wrestling with confronting some of my own attitudes and behaviors -- namely, my propensity to only interact with people I like or to show favoritism in relating more positively to some people than others and to implicitly or explicitly judge those who don't meet my criteria for approval, whatever that means. I am struggling with wondering how much I could really express my most true, most authentic thoughts and beliefs if I pursued ordination, or if I would have to "tow the party line" to be acceptable to the church. On some level I have always felt like a bit of an outsider, a bit of a "fringe" person to the church... someone standing on the edges, still loving the institution but always critical of it, and I wonder if I would lose the ability to do that or be that in being ordained, or if that attitude/role/position would prevent me from being considered seriously as a candidate for ordination in the first place.
I am learning about the gravity of ministry -- that being a minister means not just celebrating in worship on Sunday mornings, but about being present for people at some of life's most difficult and serious moments. I also am learning a great deal about prayer, silence, and listening -- and about the importance of humility and recognizing with thanksgiving that whatever ability we have to minister to others comes through God's grace -- and continually remembering to turn to God in prayer to ask for that grace to enable us to do the work we have been called to do.
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