Where would YOU stand ???

It's funny ... the issue of hospitality and welcoming in the stranger has been one that has been front and centre in much of my reflections on life, ministry and the Church lately ... it may because I am vainly trying to stress not only the importance of living those concepts in the Church, but also trying to show and remind ALL of us that we have much room for improvement when it comes to embodying those ideals ...

I consciously chose to use the words "in vain" because my words are simply falling on deaf ears who have already determined the source of "the Problem" and aren't willing to entertain other options nor engage in a constructive conversation or dialogue about the crises gripping a variety of persons, places and things ...

It is also interesting to me, that when I reflect on such issues by using the source materials I am most familiar with - Scripture, Church Tradition, and Theology and cite the life examples of the GREAT Saints like Luther, King, Gandhi, Jim Wallis and others, I am accused of grandiosity and narcissistic actions that envision me and my life on a par with those greats ...

It all just leaves me shaking my head ... especially when I read the works of folks like Jim Wallis, Bishop Spong, Diana Butler Bass and others who see the urgent need for the Church to step beyond this moment and embrace some of the change that is swirling around us ... these writers offer a glimpse of WHAT IS POSSIBLE IF WE OPEN OURSELVES TO THE SPIRIT.

Instead though, too often the church confronts the changes around us by defending the status quo, insisting on conformity and seeing its way as THE ONLY WAY. Thanks be to God however - the Spirit has never been thwarted by such intransigence, and has continued to work through people who are NOT standing outside of The Body, but rather are taking note of the human limits and boundaries that too often constitute the definition of "The Body and that are NOT reflective of God's purpose or goal for the human faith community.

In short, those voices that are often dubbed "a problem" and asked to conform are not outside the body, but are pushing the envelope and challenging all of us to revision ourselves and our faith journey accordingly ...

Today as I stepped out of the shower, a thought occurred to me ... I have been recalling with some friends and colleagues a conversation I had many years ago in Prince Rupert BC over breakfast one morning ... the table companions that day included the First Nations gentleman who took the United Church to task for the physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual and mental abuse he had experienced at Residential School.

This day, he was reflecting on how much he had yearned to hear the simple words - "I'm sorry" as he journeyed through the Court Proceedings that ultimately found the perpetrator guilty of the abuse ... They were words that hadn't come because the lawyers had said they would render the church responsible financially, legally, morally and so on for the abuse ...

But what stood out for me even more than this failure of The Church to DO THE RIGHT THING, was the story this man told of how hard it was to get ANYONE to listen when he finally found the courage to speak out about the abuse he suffered ... He spoke quietly of minister after minister who dismissed what he courageously shared by saying - "That couldn't have happened..." or something similar. He talked about the conversations in Church Courts that never addressed the very things he was saying ... and most condemning of all, he talked about the number of times he and other First Nations people finally had the courage to say - "This happened to me ..." only to have their words fall on deaf ears ...

Thankfully, he NEVER gave up ... eventually people began to listen ... and we began to move through the process of confronting the history of Residential Schools and cultural assimilation that The Church, The Government and others were very much a part of ...

What occurred to me today was that this man's experience is really no different than the experience of countless others within The Church who speak up and stand up for something they believe in. From the earliest days of the Church, we have had voices that challenge us to move beyond the status quo and allow the Spirit to do her work ... in recent years it has been issues of inclusion by gender, race, sexuality ... and more recently it has been the issues of ecology, economics and political involvement that have moved to the fore. The Church is in a state of constant change ... the challenge is for the Institution to stop being a hindrances to that transformation ...

Looking back in our collective history we can see shining moments where the Church has ADAMANTLY stood in judgement, only to be proven WRONG later ... it is a lesson we in the Modern Church must heed and learn from ...

In the beginning days of the Church were the Gnostics who wanted to expand the way in which we spoke of our experience of God present and real in our world and lives ... much of what they said 19 Centuries ago has now become standard fare in the modern Christian Church (Augustine and the Early Church Fathers would be aghast!)

Later there was Luther and his 95 Theses that challenged the Status Quo and helped fuel a Reformation that created Protestantism. But Luther, condemned as a heretic would later help to radically altered the Holy Catholic Church as well.

Still later came The Witch Hunt of the Puritan American Colonies that saw countless women and some men perish in the zealousness to preserve something that was already in radical decline ... Like the Spanish Inquisition, this time in our collective history has been found wanting - yet, in the day the Institution that was The Church KNEW it was RIGHT ... do we dare consider the implications of THAT ??????

Over and over throughout Church History we find stoney faced people of faith passing judgement on those who don't fit the mould ... The image of the Witch Hunt craze of New England came to mind today as the question - "Where would you stand?" rolled through my brain ...

The bottom line of the witch trials was simply that ordinary women (and some men) died by a variety of means because they didn't conform to the perceived "norms" of the society, and were thus deemed "a witch". They were condemned, tortured and killed accordingly.

Is this really any different that what we witness again and again in the modern Church when we judge people to be OUTSIDE the Body because they're ways and approaches don't appeal to those of us within??? And we subsequently insist that our way prevails because "we're right"??

To pause - let's consider that the Church is a minority institution in our communities - yet, in any community urban or rural, there are countless people who still feel attached to a particular Church. They are the "spiritual not religious" folks who are showing up en masse on census forms and in surveys by folks like Reginald Bibby. They want to be part of the Church but for a variety of reasons have chosen to step away ... The question I ask repeatedly is - "Are these people part of the Body????"

Are they really welcome to come like the signs we proudly post proclaiming "All Welcome" would purport???

In theory, I fear they are welcome ... but practically, they are welcome ONLY if they are willing to conform to the narrow standards of the community. We don't want them coming back with the expectation of change.

These seekers are like the witches of 17th Century New England ... they are NOT interested in conforming to the narrow ideals of "The Church" as envisioned by the proverbial powers that be. Instead these modern seekers want to come home spiritually to a place where they are not only welcomed, but they are encouraged to be themselves ...

But instead of opening our arms fully and be the INCLUSIVE community we claim to be, these seekers encounter a modern witch hunt that demands conformity, and will not abide something that challenges the status quo...

The questions all of us in the Church must constantly ask needs to move beyond the passe "what would Jesus do?" and become more acute in their questioning ... Maybe asking ourselves where we would stand in the Salem Witch Trials would be a good start??

We would like to think that we would NOT be on the side of the stoney faced judges who condemned innocents to death for Non-Conformity ... but if we step back and really look at the HOW of being The Church in the modern era, we may find ourselves sitting at the table with these short sighted Church leaders who believed earnestly in what they were doing ...

Since that morning in Prince Rupert I have ALWAYS taken time to reflect on where I would stand if someone like that gentleman came to me and told me a story like he experienced ... would I listen and hear him, or would I like those he first encountered, condemn him for "spinning a fanciful tale that serves only to bring disharmony to The Body" (these are the EXACT words of a Minister responding to him)????

In a time and place of change, it is hard to let go of what we hold dear ... we want stability and security, so we fight to maintain what we know ... but if Church history has taught us NOTHING else, it has taught us that the only constant in our lives is GOD ... The Church is in constant flux and change ... some of us get a little too far ahead ...

I remember Herbert O'Driscoll once addressing a Conference in BC by saying - "if you moved someone 50 years forwards or backwards in The Church what they would find would be almost totally unrecognizable to them ..." I've always wondered why we are SO DAMNED adamant that we are RIGHT all the time instead of opening ourselves up to the will of the Spirit ???

The other piece that is forgotten in the Modern Church is that our founder was arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced AND KILLED for challenging the religious and political order of the day ... and yet in the Church we DEMAND conformity rather than living our faith as TRUE followers of Christ ...

Kind of spins "what would Jesus do?" in a radical direction doesn't it ???