Naming the Unnamed Faithful
Chapel of the Unnamed Faithful, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, IL
Names have been changed throughout this Ordination Paper.
Spring 2019
Introduction: The Unnamed Faithful
While I have not done a comprehensive study on the matter, every seminary that I have spent time at or visited has had at least one person who has referred to it as their own personal “Hogwarts”: a place of living, learning, and growing with a community of people with similar interests; and one terrifying professor who will make students cry.
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary was my Hogwarts. I spent a lot of time in the seminary’s chapel attending, participating in, and leading worship. It is a grand space of high ceilings and stained glass, and chairs and an altar that move so that allows for creativity to come forth from the old traditions. The Chapel of the Unnamed Faithful was witness to some of my best moments and some fear-filled moments as I prepared to graduate and leave the safety of its walls. Though I haven't returned to the chapel in many years, it continues to hold a special place in my heart.
The windows of the Chapel of the Unnamed Faithful are filled with images and names of those who have shaped the Christian faith. They are characters from the stories who fill the Sacred Texts: Abraham and Sarah, Jeremiah and Isaiah, Paul and Lydia. And there are those who fill our histories: John and Charles Wesley, Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, Eliza Garrett and Georgia Harkness. It seemed to me that when we were worshipping in that chapel, I was surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses whose faces were found in the windows, upon whose legacy I was standing, and hoping to do them proud. As students, we were told that we are the Unnamed Faithful. I’ve often thought that there is more to this idea.
There were mothers and fathers, pastors and teachers, prophets and kings who supported those windowed faces, whose names are cemented in our tradition. I thought often of the names and faces that would be in the windows of my chapel, my great cloud of witnesses who have strengthened, encouraged, taught, sometimes forced me kicking and screaming on the path so that I might run my race with perseverance. I live with gratitude upon the legacy that they have left for me.
Part of that legacy is that much of my witnessing cloud is filled with denominational diversity, mostly of The United Methodist Church (UMC), the church of my childhood and of my Divinity degree. This rooted me in the belief of abundant grace that is available to all and imprinted hymns of hope and good news.
In the years following seminary, my heart was broken again and again by the General Conference Church of the UMC and the decisions and votes that continue to exclude people from the full life of the church. The General Conference functions much like the United States Government legislative branch, voting and deciding on the rules and procedures of the churches within the denomination. It is designed to be democratic, but as such, it often leaves behind the people on the margins. This tendency toward exclusion is what ultimately lead me out of the UMC.
In searching out a community of love and welcome, I found the United Church of Christ (UCC), a denomination that has a long history of choosing radical love as how their mission is lived out into the world and trusting their individual worshipping communities to decide what that love needs to look like their own neighborhoods, cities, towns, and churches. When I returned to Milwaukee, I decided that I would not be part of a church that would not welcome the whole of me. I found that welcome and love at Plymouth UCC. My continuing studies, understanding, and experiencing life in a local UCC congregation has revealed this denomination is more of a faith home for me and my call to ordained ministry. A call I have been preparing myself for most of my life. In my local UCC, in holding covenant with other churches, and in the denomination, I have found the love in action that has been the theme and focus of my life, learned in the UMC. I have found the UCC’s 3 Great Loves campaign as a way of focusing that love. I have used the 3 Great Loves as the organizing structure of my paper: Love of children, Love of Creation, Love of Neighbor.
The stories that follow are the stories of some of the people, my cloud of witnesses, who have changed my life, prepared me for ministry, and taught me what it means to live a life of faith. The lessons I learned as a child continue to influence my ministry with persons of all ages (Love of Children). While in seminary, I learned clearly that there truly is a connection between loving oneself and caring for oneself, and loving and caring for all that God created (Love of Creation). By watching and being in ministry with others, I have continued to learn and expand my ideas of what it is to be church and in ministry with my community (Love of Neighbor). What follows are the lessons that have formed my theology, the person I am now, and am continually becoming.
Love of Children
Grandma Jean
The unconditional love I learned as a child is rooted firmly in the teachings of my Grandmother. My grandma Jean is the best person I know. She always has treats and cookies and a kind, yet sometimes sassy, word. I am reminded of her when I read Paul’s letter to Timothy:
I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason, I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:5-7
I was baptized at my grandmother’s church. It is her faith that ripples through the lives of her children and grandchildren. When I think about where my journey starts, it is with her and her small church in Quinnessec, MI where she and my grandfather invested time and energy making it a safe and welcoming space for those who would gather within their walls.
There is an important quality that helps define Jean; she’s a grandma to everyone. She worked in the cafeteria in the local school, and through that service became grandma to generations of young people around her community. She treats them with kindness; she remembers their names and their children’s names, what they like and what they have been up to. She has welcomed them into her life and made a family of them not because she needed to, but because that is who she is. She taught me how to love and care and change the world around me just a little bit. My grandma is a lifelong Methodist but her practice of hospitality, acceptance, and accepting love exemplified the core theology of the UCC.
One of the first things that led me to the UCC was this sense of extravagant and expansive welcome of all. I have seen this welcoming in my local church, and many others-covenanting to participate in studies offered to us by Associations and the General Church on white privilege, immigration, and Native American issues. I have watched as these studies and conversations have opened up the hearts and minds in the congregation. Stories often left unheard are lifted and brought to light then we decide what action we might take next including teaching, training, advocating, and protesting.
These current offerings, studies, work toward radical hospitality, and expansive welcome give me hope for the future both within the church and outside of it. Mary Susan Gast writes “At the same time, we have a genius-a natural talent-for hospitality. Hospitality is a genetic gift passed along to us by our spiritual forebears.” Mary Susan Gast. That We May All Finally Be One. (The Pilgrim Press. 2016.). Our American forebears fought for freedom, their own and others, by their participation in the organization and enactment of the Boston Tea Party (1773); taking that fight for freedom to the Supreme Court in 1839 to free the Africans on the Amistad; the establishment of black colleges, demanding that education ought to be open to all and if the system wouldn’t work, changing the system. Since the forming of the UCC there have been movements from the General Synod: Multiracial Multicultural (1993), Open and Affirming (2005), and Accessibility to All (2005), asking for the local congregations and Associations to be in covenant together and to continue to find ways to increase their welcome. This attitude showcases our UCC legacy: fighting for the betterment of our community.
I contrast that with some of my experiences in the UMC. While I know there are as many opinions as people in the room when any group is gathered, many of my last years as part of the Methodist Church seemed like fighting for a place at the table. The UMC continues to claim: Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors, while still barring many from full inclusion into the church. Being part of the UCC, which doesn’t just claim an open table, but practices those things is vital to me. It is also vital to the future of the church and world. Not all UCC churches live out their call to welcome in the same way, as each congregation holds autonomy as well as covenant. This is the blessing of being a covenant community and denomination; we bring our Evangelical roots to life “in essential, unity; in non-essential, liberty; on all things charity” and love. Ralph C Quellhorst. “Evangelical Synod Theology.” in Theology and Identity. Edited Daniel L. Johnson & Charles Hambrick-Stowe. (Cleveland: United Church Press. 2007). 25.
Our essential unity is found in Jesus Christ and in his teachings. Being drawn together by autonomy and choice was vital at the formation of the UCC in 1957, with each congregation voting to be part of the new denomination, many continuing to hold that vote even now, while others chose to continue on their own. We hold each other in covenant, drawn together by these essentials, to be in ministry together in greater and more diverse ways than we could ever be capable of on our own. We covenant that we will not always agree on what welcome, hospitality, and abundance look like but that we respect each other within the UCC and beyond as God’s creation and beloved. Diana Butler Bass in her work Grounded wrote, “The world can no longer afford tribes intent on purity who believe God blesses them only; the world is longing for tribes that place hospitality front and center of spiritual practice and work to bless others on their way.” Diana Butler Bass. Grounded. (New York. HaperCollins. 2015). 220. The Spirit breathes new life into the world, creates a radical and diverse world, and we are called to be aware and to welcome it. In UCC communities of worship and ministry, we will look as diverse as the world around us, while still holding each other in covenantal ministry.
My ministry has been and continues to be welcoming those who need a space. It has included inviting in those who have no place to go for holidays, giving space to live on my sofa when one has no place else to go, and genuinely inviting everyone to the table. In my churches this has meant assuring that those with accessibility needs have what they need to be part of the life of the church, being present and generous in the community, and lifting up diverse stories. Pohl writes in Making Room:
When we offer hospitality to the stranger, we welcome them into a place to which we are somehow connected--a space that has meaning and value to us. This is often our home, but it also includes church, community, nation, and various other institutions. In hospitality, the stranger is welcomed into a safe, personal, and comfortable place, a place of respect and acceptance and friendship. Even if only briefly, the stranger is included in the life-giving and life-sustaining network of relations. Christine D Pohl. Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition. (UK. Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1999) Pg 13.
Making space for the stranger is a primary ministry of the UCC. In Carol Ochs’ Our Lives as Torah, she writes of the growing and loving of a community by sharing of stories. By welcoming and sharing with one another, we leave no one unchanged. Henri Nouwen put it this way, “Your own growth cannot take place without growth in others. You are part of a body. When we change, the whole body changes.” Henri J. M Nouwen. The Inner Voice of Love. (New York: Image Books Doubleday. 1996.) Pg 57. The brilliance and the challenge of the UCC is that it is open to struggling with diversity, and being changed by welcoming the stranger. By welcoming diversity, the movement of the Spirit allows us to flex and change. We will never be the same. We can carry each other within us as we travel with the support and memories of others. What joy! What blessing that we carry a world within us when we welcome the stranger! We are never alone!
Brad
My church growing up was my safe place. I was there all day on Sundays and various nights throughout the week. I was involved in choir, worship team, Bible study, and youth group. I was at every fundraiser that supported every mission trip. On New Years Eve, I was at the church lock-in. My youth director, Brad, said to me one day, “I can see you in an office like this someday.” It was the first time I really felt like someone was seeing me, was speaking to my future, and was naming gifts and possibilities. It became my desire to create a safe place for all people, particularly young people, like I had found in my church for myself.
Brad started working at my church when I was in sixth grade and he moved on to another church the same time I graduated high school. Through his work the program had grown, kids were active, involved, and excited. Even years later, several of us are still active in whatever churches we landed in. Despite his positive influence on the young people, Brad was not infallible. Brad exposed himself to one of the kids in the youth group. While there was only one young person directly involved, there were ripples. This awful abuse of the trust placed in him by the church, parents, and youth, affected many people’s relationship to the church and church leadership. It turns out, my childhood church was not a safe place for all.
This was the early 2000’s, a time in church history when clergy abuse was brought to the forefront. But it became personal for me because of Brad’s behavior within the church community that I loved. I have grown to understand clearly the importance of power in all kinds of relationships but particularly within the church; boundaries and the sacred role of leadership, especially in my ministry with youth and children were critical. Training in boundary issues and transparency of ministry relationships became important and vital for me and for those with whom I work.
When Jesus told the disciples and crowd that if any causes a child to stumble that they ought to drown themselves (Matthew 18:6-7), it might have been metaphorical. It might have been written to us about new Christians, though dramatic. But when damage is done to young people’s ability to have faith, trust, and love, sometimes it does not seem so dramatic. I learned a lot from Brad over the years, the lasting impact has been that I live and work with intention, care, and trust. That work with young people is a sacred trust which ought never be minimized or taken for granted.
Not all of my lessons on power have been so spotlighted and traumatic, though they all have had consequences on the life of the church and my ministry. I followed a pastor who had a difficult time leaving the congregation after she had been appointed to a new church. The Bishop in the UMC has the ability and responsibility to move clergy to another church if there is a perceived need that could be met by the change. The benefit to this model is that clergy are generally guaranteed a position, however, it takes all the power from the hands of the congregation and the clergy to make an informed decision about what they need.
My first appointment out of seminary was to a very small town; a difficult transition on my own after spending most of my life in cities. The pastor who had been there previously was disappointed that she had been moved. Through circumstances, I was forced to, regularly, inform the congregation that, no, she was not supposed to come back and be involved in structure and programming. I was disappointed that she could not honor the systems and boundaries that had been put in place and frustrated that I, then, became the stickler for the rules. There are multiple ways this situation might have been handled better, the least of which would have been more clear conversation with the outgoing pastor on how she expected her relationship with the community would continue, and how we could honor the years of ministry she had invested, as well as, the ministry of those who followed her. As it was, there were church members who were put in conflict with me before I even had a chance to get started. Power dynamics are inevitable in the life of the church, it is present in the world around us. It is how this power is used, distributed, shared, and contained that decides if it works positively or not. Power and boundaries must be discussed and established to create and maintain a functional covenant community within local church, the Associations, and the General Church.
Joy
When I was in high school, I became part of The United Methodist policy and governing structure in my state. It became a part of a network of people who gave me opportunities to develop and nurture my ministry and who have continued to support both it and me. One of those people is Joy. As a young adult, she was in a leadership position at the conference, giving young people, like me, a chance to find and use our voices in a system that is comfortable doing things as they have always been done. She gave me the opportunity to be the first youth to lead a conference where 1,500 high schoolers and their chaperones gathered for a weekend in Madison. I was given the opportunity to share my story and struggles, and I learned to lead by giving others the chance to lead as well.
I have understood my role as pastor to be “leading from the middle” in the midst of the faith community. I focus on relationship building and learning about the community from within. There was a professor in seminary who shared this advice, “when you enter a new church, don’t remove the dead cat from the back steps for six months” or, don’t make any significant changes until you’ve understood the community, how they are, why they do what they do, what their local theology is rooted in. This seems like particularly important advice in UCC churches where each has its own traditions and practices unique to that local church. In contrast to the UMC where clergy’s membership is held in the conference, clergy in the UCC’s membership is held in the local church where they serve. The pastor is accountable to the church community and to maintaining the covenant to the greater church. This distinction on where accountability is held has a very visible difference when we understand that in the UCC our primary functioning and governing documents are found in the local church’s bylaws and for the UMC the primary document is the denomination’s quadranial publication of the Book of Discipline. Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church. (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House). 2016. (The Book of Discipline includes explicit governing structure for local UM churches including committees that “must” be present and those that “may” be present as well as what those committees must do. The Disciple explains the parameters for ordination: who, how, and under what conditions; the process for a judicial trial; and excommunication for the church. It also sets the expectations for the clergy covenant of not interfering with the ministry of the pastor who follows you.)
As a new pastor, I have and will continue to take time to learn the congregation’s unique identity and theology. Leading from the middle is encouraging, supporting, nudging. It is the work of discipleship, learning, and growing, then putting it all into action. The church is at its best when its members are empowered into leadership and active roles in mission. In this way it is able to adapt, change, and meet the needs of the community.
As part of the Reformed and Reforming tradition, the UCC affirms the priesthood of all believers. Just as the worship of God became de-centralized from the Temple, the access to God became decentralized from the ordained priests of the church. Through baptism, each person becomes part of the royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9) and given the freedom to discern God’s will and call upon their life. I understand ministry of the baptized to be this: to live the mission of Jesus, to love, to do justice and mercy, and to live their call in the world. This needs to include young people being given more opportunities for leadership in the church and the denomination like I was. When I was young, folks would say that the young people are the future of the church instead of finding the pivotal place that young people should hold in the church every day.
The position that I take when teaching or leading young people is very similar to the position that I have with adults as well: invite them to think, question, and be creative. This invitation works across different situations like in Bible studies, understanding histories, and when considering the future direction of the church. The possibilities of how the church can live its mission are endless. The church ought to be, and I strive to make it, the safe place I thought it was when I was young. We have to have space for exploration and considering new ideas. We need to ask questions about texts and the ways things have always been done to understand what the possibilities of living our faith might be for today and the future. Joy held space for me to explore the future of the church, as well as my own future. As a leader in the church, I strive to make that space for others.
Love of Creation
Alison
My seminary experience at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary was life-changing. I was given language and theology around much of what I already believed to be true about the world around me. I was also shown an expansive view of God for which my growing up did not have room This was the God of the radical welcome and abundant love.
In addition to my youth group and church experiences, I also was a regular church camper. Camp was filled with conservative theologies. It was made very clear to me at those events that while all people might be, at the same time saint and sinner, the only thing I needed to focus on was how much of a sinner I was. I learned in middle school that I was not enough, there were always ways in which I could be better: better daughter, better Christian, better person. Yet, despite my best intentions, I couldn’t live up to those lists (then I was reminded that good intentions lined the road to hell and I was feeling terrible again). As I got older, I let go of doctrines, theologies, and others expectations. Yet I still feared that I would have to always pretend in the presence of church folks that I am not a hot mess, filled with flaws and struggles. I was afraid I would always have to be two different people. Then I met Alison.
Alison is a pastor’s kid twice over (both her parents are ordained). Having experienced the struggles her parents went through, when she was in her internships she already had more experience than most other students. Alison was not afraid of conflict within any social interaction but particularly not within congregations. She spoke truth to power, truth when it was uncomfortable, and she did so with love, honesty, and integrity. Alison was generally honest with her struggles, about the things she liked and didn’t like, and what she was willing to do or give up, or not. It was her honest integrity that made me realize that that was not just something I could have in the UMC and still be the pastor that I am called to be; I have found a space to bring my whole self, with that kind of integrity and honesty, in the UCC.
Howard Thurman wrote, “There is something in you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself--and if you cannot hear it, you will never find what it is for which you are searching and if you hear it and then do not follow it, it was better that you had never been born.” I truly believe that each person, all of creation, has a purpose, a place, and is worthy of love. The question becomes, how can we know what any of that is if we don’t start by living into and loving the Divine Spark ourselves? This is a place I’m still growing, always becoming, and it roots everything, every interaction, every relationship, and all of ministry.
Austin
Austin became one of my favorite people during seminary. He is the living embodiment of discovery and evolution. Austin and I went on a date before we realized that this type of relationship was not what either of us wanted. What we really wanted was to have someone to go to Broadway shows with. We leaned on each other, probably more than we should have. We had a dramatic falling out for months and finally reconciled on Ash Wednesday. Our time was one of growing apart and growing together but always, always, growing.
Austin started coming out in seminary; it was not a roadmap meant for me to follow. But it was one of overcoming fears and expectations. Coming out was a process of becoming more fully himself; it was the work of reconciliation between us, with his family, and with himself. It was a flawed and imperfect process, as they all are, and perhaps ought to be. Over the years, I have seen him become more himself and move into a time of honoring who he is and living with intention and joy. This was important and impactful for me as I grew more honest with who I am as well and how I want to live in the world around me.
Toward the end of seminary, I entered into my first same-sex relationship. This relationship challenged both my understanding of myself and my relationship to the church. The United Methodist Church Book of Discipline states that all persons are of “sacred worth.” The lie of that is told in how not all can be married within its walls, not all can be ordained, and not all can live their calls fully. I had a clear path all laid out and justified that if I could just make it through all the expectations of ordination while keeping this relationship under the radar, I would be ok. I was not. Patrick Cheng in From Sin to Amazing Grace proposes that there are seven deadly sins of the queer community: exploitation, the closet, apathy, conformity, shame, isolation, and singularity. Patrick Cheng. From Sin and Amazing Grace. (New York. Seabury Books. 2012.) Location 1674. The path I was on almost seemed to demand these sins from me. I think of these sins as what divides us from our whole selves, from others and genuine community, and from God. I understood that the world I was in expected me to live, look, act, and be a particular kind of person: pure, straight, doubtless. While there are many people who can live in the full integrity of who they are within the expectations of the UMC, for me, needing to live a lie of who I am, that I was in a same sex relationship, that I am queer, was a sin. It affected all of my relationships. Through Alison and Austin's own examples of integrity, I realized the moral danger of the closet and the damage it would cause to my relationships with myself, God, and all creation. Perhaps the greatest sin is systems that explicitly or implicitly ask or demand the damaging of those same relationships.
When I returned to Milwaukee, I decided I was unwilling to pretend anymore. I was going to seek a community that would welcome the whole me and not demand that I be less than or other than I am. I desired a faith community that believed the whole of who I am, the queer part, the struggling part, the artist and the perfectionist, the one who needed forgiveness and sometimes doubts it, the one who was heartbroken over losing her home church but unwilling to let that be the final story. I desired a community that believed the whole of who I am is important, vital, worthy, and loved. I desired and needed a place that would allow me to bring all my pieces and, with the Spirit, breathe new life and restoration over them. I found that place in the United Church of Christ.
I walked into my local UCC church, Plymouth, on November 13, 2016 trusting I would find a welcome there. I had been church visiting for many months but hadn’t yet found the community where I could settle in. That November I finally found my church family. It was a moment when it felt like the world was shifting in ways that could so easily allow me to settle into fear. Instead, I found a family and hope. This is not surprising given the UCC being a place of radical welcome.
This community and family, however, wasn’t just welcoming, they believed that even someone like me could be vital to the ministry of the UCC. I might be able to live into the legacy of the UCC stepping up and calling into ministry those whose gifts have been ignored and rejected by others. It’s the ordination of the first African American, Lemuel Haynes (1785) person in the earliest days of the United States and Antoinette Brown, the first woman ordained in the United States (1853). Balaam’s Courier Staff. Balaam’s Unofficial Handbook of the United Church of Christ. (Cleveland. United Church Press. 2008). 20-21. It’s the ordination of William R Johnson, a gay man at the same time that other denominations were making rules in opposition to the ordination gays and lesbians for the first time. I found a home in the UCC as well because of its being founded on the forefront of not just acts of mercy, but advocating justice for all as well. The UCC in its history and its hope for the future, open it doors to even me, not regardless of my pieces but because of them. Who I am and the history I carry have something to offer the mission of the UCC to proclaim and embody God’s love and Good News. The United Church of Christ Statement of Mission http://www.ucc.org/beliefs_statement-of-mission.
Redemption ought to be the work of the Church Universal. The work of redemption is restoring relationships: the relationship with ourselves, with God, and all that has been created. This is what I find in the community, worship, discipleship, and acts of mercy and justice in the UCC. It is the work of the Spirit in the lives of those who are open to work to bring humanity into right relationship with each other, all of creation, and our Creator God.
The Holy Spirit shows herself as the central and healing power of absolute newness and healing in our relationship with everything else. Early-twentieth-century Anglican mystic Evelyn Underhill defined mysticism as “the art of union with Reality”; the Holy Spirit is the artist of painting this union through us! Richard Rohr. The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. (New York. Whitaker House. Kensington. 2016). Pg 186.
It is the Spirit that teaches and reminds me every day to love myself, for I am already loved. It is the work of the Spirit that moves through relationships to bring grace and forgiveness. It is the Spirit that breathes life into the stardust that makes up all of creation, that connects me to all of humanity around the world, the creatures of the desert, and the plants of the seas. If I cannot love the fullness of who God created me to be, how can I recognize the hand of God in the rest of creation? How can I see that my survival requires a care and stewardship of relationship with all of Creation.
Creation has been living this connection, just waiting for us to notice, waiting to teach us. I learned as a child that forests are filled with interconnected root systems. That underneath the seeming independent tall giants lies a connected world under the dirt. But I was also taught that there was a survival of the fittest in tree life. The giant trees with the long roots would stifle the growth of the new little trees. How wrong we were. Beneath the surface, among the network of roots is a network fungus, sharing information and resources. A tree under attack by insects sends out a warning to the rest of the forest or a tree low on nutrients asks for assistance. They receive help of trees attracting an insects’ predators or sending much needed resources. Even an old fallen tree might be fed by this network of sharing that none would be left behind. (Phillip Pery. “Plants and Trees Communication Through an Unseen Web.” Think Big. Aug 25. 2016. bigthink.com/philip-perry/plants-and-trees-communicate-help-each-other-and-even-poison-enemies-through-an-unsen-web and Richard Grant. “Do Trees Talk to Each Other?” Smithsonian. March 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering-trees-180968084/ ). Under the surface, there is a deep interconnection that supports and needs each other for survival, a deep connection supports the survival of the creatures who live in the forest. Marcus Aurelius wrote, “All things are interwoven with one another; a sacred bond unites them.” Marcus Aurelius. Meditations 7.9. Pg 106.
From Richard Rohr I am reminded that is the work of the Spirit, to bring life and to bring it into community. “As I said, this Spirit has two jobs. First, she creates diversity, as exemplified in the metaphor of wind--just breathing out ever-new life in endlessly diverse forms. But then the Spirit has another job: that of the Great Connector--of all those very diverse things!” Richard Rohr. The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. (New York. Whitaker House. Kensington. 2016). Pg 188. Every few weeks I hear stories of another person who learned from their DNA that they have an ancestor they never knew about, a lineage that surprised them- “But genealogy is not just about individuals or personal stories, for tracking our roots leads to a conclusion that we do not often consider: every family tree intersects with other family trees. Our roots are intertwined. We are all related to each other. We belong to each other.” Diana Butler Bass. Grounded. (New York. HaperCollins. 2015). 151.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, having experienced the horrors of when people live disconnected, wrote, “The first law of our being is that we are set in a delicate network of interdependence with our fellow human beings and with the rest of God’s creation.” Desmond Tutu. God Has a Dream. (New York. Image. 2004.). We know that what we do here in Milwaukee with our industry, resources, and finances may seem small, but it affects our neighborhoods. Food deserts, lack of quality education, and a biased criminal justice system have left communities ravaged. We forget that when you raise the quality of life for “the least of these,” you raise the quality of life for the whole. As it is with neighborhoods, so it is with nations. But when we misuse our resources, each other, deny our impact on earth, it is the poor who are suffering.
The work of redemption is to bring all of creation into right relationship with one another and therefore with God. We participate in this work of redemption by recognizing the Divine spark of the Creating God in all that is created, participating in the radical love taught to us in the life of Jesus, and living in such a way that we honor the Spirit that connects each creature, and that we need each other to survive. It is the work of the church to “re-member” this body, to live in a way that honors the sacredness of all of creation, and to bring them into community.
Love of Community (Neighbor)
Erica
I met Erica when I was in high school and involved in denomination events. She was a chaperone and passionate about young people’s place in the church. Over the years, our lives have overlapped including one semester in seminary and her recent appointment to the Milwaukee area. Erica is the most genuinely kind person I know. She exudes joy in a way I didn’t know existed in real life. It extends through her personal life into her ministry with the church and the community around her. In my times of need, Erica offered to share her retreat space and her home. She joins community events of protest, advocacy, and support and she does this out of her deeply set belief that who we are and what we do as Christians is love. What I see in her and learned from her is a deep belief that God is love, that Christ is liberator, comforter, and agitator, but always love.
In Patrick Cheng’s work on queer theology, the focus is always on who God is. God is ultimately love, an abundant and radical love.
Christian theology is ultimately about radical love. It affirms the impossibly queer truth that God is love, that God’s very self is an internal community of love, that God’s love spilled forth in the act of creation, that God became human out of God’s love for humanity, and that God continues to guide us back toward the love from whence we came. Christian theology promises us that nothing- not hardship, not distress, not persecution, not famine, not nakedness, not peril, not sword, not death, not life, not angels, not rulers, not things present, not things to come, not powers, not height, not depth, nor anything else in creation-can ever separates us from the love of God. There is no love that is more radical than that, and that is why Christian theology is, at its core, a queer enterprise. Patrick Cheng. Radical Love. (New York. Seabury Books. 2011). pg 140.
This abundant and radical love is what I learned about in Sunday Schools and Bible studies, but seems so rare in the world around us. It ought to focus how we live, move and breathe in the world. It ought to affect how we treat the stranger, the outcast, those on the margins. I long to live in the world this way, with joy instead of being jaded by all the things the church has failed to be over the years and all the ways that people have let me down. It is an act of courage to get up every day and love the world anew. Elizabeth Johnson reminds me that even in, or maybe because of, the struggles and pain we experience, that we can understand each other and love each other well. It is how God connects with us in love.
What we can say is this: Sophia-God is irreversibly connected with the joy and anguish of human history, in the flesh; in the power of Spirit-Sophia Jesus now takes on a new communal identity as the risen Christ, the body of all those women and men who share in the transformation of the world through compassionate, delighting, and suffering love. In solidarity with his memory and empowered by the same Spirit, the little flock is configured into a sacrament of the world’s salvation, empowered to share communities of freedom and solidarity. Elizabeth Johnson. She Who Is. (The Crossroad Publishing Company. 1992). pg 215.
It is in love, that agape love of God, which breaks into our imperfect world that can give even me the hope and courage to love again and to put that love into action in the world around me. “Love is just like prayer; it is not so much an action that we do but a reality that we already are.” Richard Rohr. The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. (New York. Whitaker House. Kensington. 2016). pg 193. It is with this understanding of love within our actual being, and its courage and unrelenting forgiveness that I embark each day and strive to live out the most Christ-like love that I am able - often using Erica as a shining example of just that.
Catie
In the earliest days of my seminary experience, I found myself at a lunch table with students who clearly knew so much more than I. One of those students was Catie, who was in an aggressive theological debate with another, more theologically conservative student and I didn’t understand half of what they were saying, but I understood that these students were going to challenge me. I was looking forward to it. Catie and I were roommates my first full year of seminary and her first year out of seminary. It was a blessing to have someone so close who had already been through it to remind me that I could make it as well, help me think through papers, vent about professors, and explain the things I didn’t understand.
Catie went into seminary planning to exit Pastor Catie. As she finished her education, it became clear that might not be her future. Instead, she joined the staff of Reconciling Ministry Network, working toward the full inclusion of LGBT+ people in the life of The United Methodist Church. Catie’s advocacy in this organization, and the ones she has been a part of since, has been and still is unrelenting. That first debate I saw her in was not unusual. When Catie sees an injustice, she will not remain quiet nor will she will back down. This love in action comes from her experience of Christ as liberator. Jesus who said and was:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,”
Luke 4:18
This is a love beyond kindness to a stranger. It is love that speaks truth to power, a love that looks in the face and demands that they see everyone as the image of God and that we are intimately connected one to another. Elizabeth Johnson writes of this social responsibility:
Given our knowledge of how systems affect the individual, love today must be expressed also in Christian responsibility for the social sphere. Acting in this way is more than a humanitarian undertaking, noble as that would be. In a time of growing solidarity on a global scale, work for justice is stimulated by the Spirit of Jesus, for whom the neighbors’ good has been incomprehensible value, commensurate with the love of God poured out upon them. Elizabeth Johnson. Quest for the Living God. (London. Bloombury. 2007). pg 46.
Lori
My first day attending Plymouth United Church of Christ in Milwaukee was an attempt to find “my people,” my home, a beloved community who cares for one another and seeks to do God’s good work in a world that sometimes seems in chaos. Inside those walls I found a worshiping community, like so many others, and church members, like Lori, that strive to make the world more into the “kin-dom” of God. In many ways, it renewed my hope in all that church is and can be, and what I hope to bring to my ministry.
(Familia de Dios" is the translation of the English language "kin-dom of God" used by the theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz in her book In La Lucha / In the struggle: elaboration of a Mujerista theology. This is most likely not the first usage of kin-dom of God as a theological phrase reinterpreting the kingdom of God. Kin-dom seeks to remove the patriarchal and heireractical connotations of Kingdom and combine it with the idea of kinship, holding all things, and each other, in community and oneship. While kingdom still brings about ideas and understanding of privilege and power, kin-dom is about advocating and making room for those who would be marginalized by the powerful.)
Lori is a long-time member of Plymouth. She has raised her own children in the church and spends many Sunday mornings teaching the youngest of our congregation Bible stories and faith lived in action. That faith in action is both inside the walls of the church, but primarily outside the walls. For Lori, the life and ministry of the church does not stop at the doors, but it is there that it begins.
James Cone wrote how there is sacredness even in that which we might consider secular. Diana Butler Bass wrote in Grounded of the sacred nature of all of creation and its creatures. Barbara Brown Taylor wrote in An Altar in the World: “My life depends on ignoring all touted distinctions between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul. What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.” Barbara Brown Taylor. An Altar In The World. (Norwich. Canterbury Press. 2009). Pg XV. What I have found in the United Church of Christ is a commitment to find sacredness in all places in the world, to be deeply integrated into surrounding communities, and working toward justice and liberation everywhere.
There are so many noises going on its secular dimension, the world questions and challenges the church. The church, in turn listens to the world. In doing so, the church learns from scientific discoveries and the sharing of information, from the aspirations to universal peace that are expressed in literature and in the arts, from the emergence and development of systems of law, from progress towards equity and justice in the organization of society. Diane C Kessler. Receive One Another: Hospitality in Ecumenical Perspective. (Geneva. WCC Publications. 2005). Pg 31.
I have found in Lori, other UCC churchgoers, and communities, people striving to educate themselves and willing to challenge their own ideas, as uncomfortable as that can be. They are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, advocating for prison reform and marching for immigration. They are unwavering in their belief that this is not all the world has to be, that we can do better, and they are persistent in working toward “kin-dom” building. Diana Butler Bass told a story of being so disappointed in a church service that she was attending that she went for a walk, only to find a community existed around her. She wrote: “All the while, the Spirit was out here on the streets.” Diana Butler Bass. Grounded. (New York. HaperCollins. 2015). 236. The work of the church’s ‘kin-dom’ building starts by recognizing the Spirit is already at work in the world and we get to participate in that work.
I believe that the church needs to live with integrity in all its beauty and brokenness, in abundance, and radical love. I believe this is how the church members is called to live in the world locally and globally. We must be honest with ourselves and be a safe place for the vulnerable woundedness that comes with living in this world. This always takes a generous welcome, always love and compassion, acts of advocacy, justice, and mercy. It is who I believe we are called to be as church and what I hope to support in my ministry of helping, “kin-dom” building.
Concluding Thoughts
It might seem unusual to spend so much time writing about other people. The truth is, I would not be who I am, or where I am today, without these people. Many of these folks have seen me at my best and worst, and I’ve seen them at some of their best and worst. I have seen their struggle and seen their joys. I have learned so much, taken the opportunity to ask questions, and to grow. My call to ordained ministry is deeply rooted in who I am--who God has made me and called me to be, but it has also always been supported by those who have named gifts in my life and encouraged me. When I have been uncertain, I have them. Henri Nouwen wrote of spiritual guides:
It is far from easy to keep living where God is. Therefore, God gives you people who help to hold you in that place and call you back to it every time you wander off. Your spiritual guides keep reminding you of where your deepest desire is being fulfilled. You know where that is, but you distrust your own knowledge. Henri J. M Nouwen. The Inner Voice of Love. (New York: Image Books Doubleday. 1996.) Pg 25.
I am eternally grateful to my guides who brought me here, who help me carry on. It has always been my hope and wish that I can offer to others what has been so generously given to me.
My call began in the walls of my childhood church and was nurtured by my teachers and pastors. My call to work with young people and their families was developed by opportunities to lead. My call to ordained ministry was encouraged by others and gifted by God where it grew in me. My fifteen years of working in churches has continued to affirm my passion and love for the mission and ministry of the church both local and universal. During some of those years, I served six local congregations as a student and licensed pastor where my call to Word and Sacrament became rooted and intertwined into who I am. God grants new life and determined growth. This call is who I am and my God-given call cannot be removed by theology that says I’m incompatible. It has found root, and it will grow. I have found a home in the United Church of Christ, I have found my faith family, and I have found a place to grow. My call has been of relationships, connection, welcome, and justice and I have found those in the UCC, and I look forward to how we can continue to grow together as we choose covenant together.
When I look back at all the struggles I have had to get to this place in my life, all the seemingly wrong turns, dead ends, and disappointments that come alongside the joyful moments, I have to remember how my friend Joellen would say, “Nothing is wasted.” It has been a long journey. When it seems like it has been spent too long in the wrong direction, I remember Joseph was taken far from his intended path and the disciples sat in sorrow for days thinking about their three “wasted” years. Nothing is wasted. It has prepared me for this time in my life.
As I look to the future of my ministry and the church, I do so with the hope of new life and resurrection. I have learned that growth and change often come through pain and struggle and time. But the Spirit breathes new life into me, into the church, into the world. I think again of Paul’s words,
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Hebrews 12:1-2a
I look to the future in the United Church of Christ with faith that the legacy that I have lived into has set me on this path, this calling, and prepared me for what is to come.
Addendum
On Covenant of Obedience or Conversation
My very first semester at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in the Spring of 2008 was a General Conference year and I decided to take the United Methodist General Conference class, traveling with other students to observe the international gathering of this Church we were choosing to be involved, ordained, or leadership in. It was ten days of celebration, worship, meetings, and voting. It was eye-opening, not all of it in a good way. I observed manipulation of communities and votes, and self-serving votes. When the voting members were finding the funds to increase the number of bishops for the African churches, one member stood up to say that if each regional area decreased their bishops by one, except her area, because they were “entitled to one more bishop,” they would sacrifice by not adding a bishop while everyone else functioned at a loss. The vote passed, episcopal areas became larger and when the vote came up to add an episcopacy in Africa, the vote failed. The entitlement and then not looking out for each other was one of the first time I thought that maybe this way of doing church wasn’t the way it ought to be done. In 2012, after the votes failed to remove language opposing the full inclusion of LGBT+ persons in to the life of the Church, the question was asked and a vote was taken asking if the UMC believes that grace is available to all people. It passed, barely. It had become increasingly clear to me that The United Methodist Church was a long way from being a place that would affirm and support my call to Word and Sacrament.
The United Methodist Church’s polity is very similar to the structure of the United States’ governing. There is an executive branch (Council of Bishops), legislative (General Conference), and judicial (Judicial Council); and these are reflected similarly at the Conference or state level. The representatives at various levels vote on the polity, mission, and even theology of the church and pass the information to the local congregations. While there is a diversity in congregations, there is an expectation that the churches will abide by the decisions of the General Conference as found in the most current edition of the Book of Discipline. In March of 2019, the General Conference voted to reaffirm their stance that LGBT+ persons are incompatible with Christian teaching that was added in 1972. Not every church, conference, or pastor agrees and are willing to oppose the decision of the General Conference. There might be consequences. A church, conference, or pastor can be brought up on charges and face an ecclesiastical trial that could leave them stripped of their denominational affiliation, church building and finances, or ordination. For many, these are good enough reasons to fall in line.
The same year that the UMC was adding the language of incompatibility into their Book of Discipline, the United Church of Christ ordained Rev. William Johnson. His Association, like others before, decided that this is the direction they understood the Church was going and who God was calling them to be. Thirteen years later, thanks in great part to the ministry of Rev. Johnson, the UCC became Open and Affirming. The General Synod said to the local churches, “This is where we’re headed, would you come with us?” Many, though not all, UCC congregations have decided to answer yes to that invitation. In response to this invitation, some UCC laity and clergy met and developed the Lexington Confession to oppose the ONA vote and yet “affirm that God is still speaking to the church and the world in our time. [They] dissent with all who imply that God is asking us to abandon the teachings of Holy Scripture as affirmed by the historic and ecumenical church.” Lexington Confession, http://faithfulandwelcoming.org . This is covenant in action, choosing to stay and live in conversation and sometimes discomfort.
Both denominations use the language of “Covenant” to describe the relationship clergy, congregations, and larger church all have between and among each other, but they do not have the same understanding of what holds covenant together. When I have stood before couples getting married, I reminded them that every day they have a choice to continue in this relationship. They each will grow and change and will imperfectly navigate this life together as long as they choose to do so. I encourage them to choose love and grace, forgiveness and courage even when it’s hard because these are the choices that remind you why you choose to stay. In 1957, the Evangelical and Reformed Churches and the Congregational Christian Church merged to form the United Church of Christ and that first General Synod said to the churches contained in those denominations, “This is where we’re headed, would you come with us?” and every church voted to join or not. Many, though not all, joined the UCC at that time, more joined later. Covenant in the United Church of Christ is a coming together and a staying together of communities and people who are united in the faith and mission of Jesus Christ, to be God’s hands and feet in the world, and choosing to do it together, because we are better together.
While serving as a licensed pastor in the UMC, church members were shocked to learn that even though they raised the money, paid the mortgage, held the title to their church, that the property was still held in trust by the UMC. In this time of uncertain futures, many feel as though their spaces are being held ransom so that they might maintain the covenant. It keeps congregations from making rash decisions, but it doesn’t always feel good. In many ways, this covenant has fear and consequences binding them together, instead of the UCC model of being drawn together and bound by choice.
UCC’s polity gives breathing room and space for each community and congregation to understand its own needs and hopes, and to interpret the call of God in their own way. This covenant of conversation does not have the rules and regulations to fall back on when ministry and life gets complicated and uncomfortable. We must engage each other, sit together, and make space for each other. It does not mean that we who hold this covenant will always come to an agreement but rather that we continue to hold each other as children of God and thus hold each other as siblings. We may agree to disagree, but we agree to listen and to do so with love and grace.
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