CLGS

A pastor shares his thoughts about inclusivity and arrogance in a sermon to his Reconciling Congregation. Perhaps your welcoming church is struggling with the same issue.
—Editor (Open Hands)

Most of us live with a continuing contradiction in our lives. On the one hand, we need people to share our lives, to enter into close personal relationships, to share insights and information, and to interact in ways that shape our lives and theirs. We are, indeed, social animals, gregarious by nature. On the other hand, we have no desire to be with some other people. We avoid even minimal contacts, much less extended interactions or continuing relationships, with them. We sometimes exclude them from our circle without knowing anything about them, and without the slightest curiosity or interest to get to know them before excluding them.

Sometimes, the distinctions we make are personal. We just don't like, or just don't want, to have anything to do with some people. Sometimes, the distinctions we make are social. We are born into an affinity group that excludes people in another affinity group. Jews had no dealings with Gentiles. Greeks considered themselves superior to barbarians. Serbians and Croats hate and kill each other. Palestinians and Jews live in the same land but in a relationship marked with fierce violence. African Americans live in the same society with European Americans but experience a completely different reality than European Americans.

Think of all the people who are excluded from our circle about whom we have not even the slightest curiosity. We don't know them and we have no desire to know them. Without knowing anything about how they live, we assume that they are inferior to us. We assume their culture is inferior. We assume their political and economic systems are inferior. We assume their theologies are inferior. What is more, we have no interest or desire to have any communication or commerce with them.

In 1 Corinthians 9:16–23, Paul says: "I have become all things to all people...to the Jew, I became as a Jew...to those under the law...as one under the law...to those outside the law, I became as one outside the law...to the weak, I became weak..."

Reconciling Within

Many of us in welcoming churches feel very good about where we are. We in University Church feel very good about where we are. We feel good about being a part of this community. We value the openness and inclusiveness. We value the intellectual and spiritual freedom. We value the relationships and the contacts we have. We value the emphases of our ministry. However, just when we reach the place of loving where we are, we begin to approach the point of being exclusive. We value so highly our relationship to this community that we begin to close in on ourselves and risk becoming exclusive.

As a Reconciling Congregation, we here at University Church value the atmosphere of our congregation where there are no longer distinctions between straight and gay. It has taken some of us a while to get past the difficulty of identifying persons by sexual orientation and focusing upon that quality as if it were paramount. "He is gay" or "she is lesbian" is no longer the most significant quality about any individual.

Some of us still need to explore and unlearn our biases, including homophobia; some of us are in process. In former congregations I have served, just mentioning the word "gay" in a sermon could be the beginning of serious reaction and fallout from the congregation. The openness of University Church enables us to talk about sexual identity without scandalizing anyone. I am grateful to University Church for helping me to deal with the heterosexism with which I had been imprinted prior to my becoming a part of University Church.

Reconciling Beyond

Yet, as soon as I begin to celebrate our inclusiveness, I begin to feel somewhat exclusive and arrogant of those who are not part of a Reconciling Congregation. I betray the community by becoming exclusive–unless I remember that being a part of a reconciling community means that we are all still learning, that we are all still becoming, and that the difference between ourselves and another is a matter of degree rather than of kind.

Being a part of a welcoming community like University Church places upon us a responsibility to share the experiences we have come to value. Our response to congregations and communities who are in an earlier stage of struggle with homophobia and heterosexism should not be one of smugness. Rather, it should be one of helping to bring others to the experience we have come to know. D.T. Niles, the Indian theologian, says that evangelism is "one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread." By the grace of God, we have found bread here. That places upon us an obligation to share the good news with others. "I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some."

The special character of our community as an open, inclusive, and reconciling community puts us in a crucial place to witness to a wider community and society that is being destroyed by bigotry and hate. To be a welcoming, reconciling congregation must mean for us that we reach out beyond our walls, reach out beyond ourselves, and reach out beyond our self interests to effect reconciliation and healing for all.

University Church has been discovering the power of being a reconciling community. In the fall of 1993, as we sought to deal with hate mail by drawing together others in our city who might benefit from mutual support, we found an eagerness and excitement about this ministry. The Coming Out/Coming Together service we helped lead (see Open Hands, Spring 1994, p. 21) and the continuing work of the coalition as they meet regularly for fellowship, support, and for planning other ministries have been exciting and gratifying experiences. Yet we need to continue to work to find other ways of exercising our ministry as a reconciling community.

Reconciling Theologically

I believe that the ministry of a reconciling community must go beyond being inclusive of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals in our ministry. Being the open and inclusive community we are puts us in a special position of being able to create the climate for dialogue and reconciliation in an increasingly diverse religious/theological mix in our community. The diverse nature of our community in Madison places on us a responsibility to work for inclusiveness by drawing together Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, Christians of many traditions, and earth–based religions into conversations and community.

"Becoming all things to all people" might mean for us beginning to find new ways in which all people who are in spiritual pilgrimage can begin to respect each other, learn from each other, and find ways to work together to advance our common goals. We need to clarify our own theological thinking and become open to the theologies of other traditions. We need to begin to move toward a post–Christian theology which will get beyond the narrow exclusiveness of a Euro–centric Christian theological tradition to a conversation in which we develop a respect and a new openness to older theological traditions that can inform and enrich our own experiences.

Reconciling Racially

Finally, as a reconciling community we need to begin to move ourselves and others beyond racism. We need to confess that we are racist and to find ways in which we can deal with the white western European traditions which have enslaved and excluded other traditions.

Someone pointed out to me recently that if we wanted to be attractive to non–whites, we could begin by looking at the art on the walls of our building. Would art that celebrates other cultures and traditions, that depicts the Native American experience, that celebrates Hispanic culture, that depicts African American and African struggles, that celebrates the great wealth of the East, that comes from whole spectrum of the human enterprise, not be more expressive of a reconciling community? It would be a good place to begin to eliminate racism in our own experience.

Some of us long for our church community to reflect the ethnic diversity of the larger secular community we serve. However, as long as we remain essentially middle–class–white in the character of our community, there is little that would attract and hold people who are of other races and cultures. We need to find ways to be a reconciling community which heals the brokenness and pain that racism inflicts on us all.

All things to all people.... It is a challenge, indeed! But, for us at University Church, it is a wonderful opportunity. May God strengthen and encourage us in our ministry.

Source

This article is adapted from a sermon delivered on February 6, 1994, to University United Methodist Church, Madison, Wisconsin. Used with permission.

Cornelius Kanhai, pastor of University United Methodist Church from 1992 to 1995, now serves Waterloo United Methodist Church in a suburb of Madison. He has also served as a board member of the Reconciling Congregation Program.