UMC 101: An Inclusive Church

Text:  Luke 5:17-26,  Book of Discipline – Constitution Preamble and ¶1-5, ¶140, and the new 6

Over this last month as we have worshipped with one another, there has been a recurring theme at the core of our tradition:   God’s grace and love is for all. 

The prevenient grace of God stretches out to all people, inviting them in. 

When we become disciples, we are called to reach out in love to do no harm and do good to all we meet.

Grounded in the core of our faith, we create space for difference and open our arms to encounter people with varying languages and cultures and traditions.   

We believe that God reigns over all of human existence, and we trust in the Holy Spirit to guide us as we seek responses that share the healing and redeeming love of God with all people. 

And we go out, each uniquely gifted and equipped, to make disciples of all peoples and transform the world. 

In our statement on inclusiveness in our Book of Discipline (¶140) we say:

“We recognize that God made all creation and saw that it was good.  As a diverse people of God who bring special gifts and evidences of God’s grace to the unity of the Church and to society, we are called to be faithful to the example of Jesus’ ministry to all persons. 

Inclusiveness means openness, acceptance, and support that enables all persons to participate in the life of the Church, the community and the world.”

In our Constitution, we proclaim that “all persons are of sacred worth” and “all persons without regard to race, color, national origin, status, or economic condition, shall be eligible“ to worship, participate, receive the sacraments, and become members of the church.  (¶4)

The church… the Body of Christ… is for all… and needs all. 

But the truth is we need these kinds of statements, because we have not always lived out this truth. 

As we talked about last week, sometimes we have been more of a fortress protecting those inside, rather than a force out in the world seeking all people. 

We have placed barriers on who was welcome and how they could participate.

We have created separations between races, genders, and classes. 

Over the last few weeks in our Confirmation class, we have been exploring our United Methodist history.  Each student presented on a different topic or person from our past and together we learned about people who did not experience the church as inclusive and open to all.

We learned about Richard Allen, a freed black man and ordained pastor who was sidelined in the Methodist Episcopal Church.  He left our denomination due to the discrimination and formed the African Methodist Episcopal – or AME Church.

We learned about Anna Howard Shaw, who felt a call to ministry but was denied ordination in the MEC.  In her journal she wrote, “I am no better and no stronger than a man, and it is all a man can do to fight the world, the flesh, and the devil, without fighting his Church as well.” (Story of a Pioneer, p. 123-124).  She left the denomination and was ordained by the Methodist Protestant Church in 1880. 

The Methodist Protestants themselves had left the denomination after growing concerns about the power of clergy and the exclusion of lay people from decisions. 

The Free Methodists broke away from the denomination over their concerns for the poor after New England churches began the practice of charging for your spot in the pew! 

Or what about the story of Bishop Andrews who gained slaves through each of his marriages and refused to set them free… his story became part of the rationale for why the Methodist Episcopal Church, South broke away from the rest of the denomination.

When the MEC, MEC South, and Methodist Protestants eventually merged back together in 1939, we learned about the segregation of the African American clergy and churches in the Central Jurisdiction. 

We can find throughout our history these stories of exclusion. 

But along the way, there were also folks who exemplified the spirit of our scripture reading for today… friends and colleagues who have torn down walls, built new structures, shattered glass ceilings, and burst through roofs in order to bring people to Christ.

Mark and Luke tell us the story of the crowds who gathered to hear Jesus preach in Capernaum.  Five friends came together, four of them carrying their friend who was paralyzed. 

But as anyone who might be vertically challenged like myself can attest, it is difficult to see over a crowd.

And it must have been even more so for this man on his mat.

The group tried to shoulder their way in closer, but to no avail.

And then they got creative. 

They climbed to the top of the roof and began taking a part the tiles to make an opening above Jesus so they could lower him down. 

They refused to let their friend sit out on the curb. 

He, as much as any other, was a child of God who belonged at the feet of Jesus. 

Do you know what I noticed in this pericope reading it this week…

It doesn’t say that they brought their friend in order to be healed. 

There are many stories where people specifically brought people to Jesus to be healed, but that phrase is not used here. 

The crowds gathered wanted to hear Jesus preach and to hear the good news. 

Why would we assume anything different about this paralytic man?

In fact, Mark Arnold reminded me this week of how Jesus responds to this act of home vandalism.  “Jesus sees the faith of the man and his friends first and includes him in his ministry of grace and forgiveness… only referring to the man’s disability when challenged about his authority.”  (https://theadditionalneedsblogfather.com/2019/09/11/disability-sin-god-heaven/)

He goes on to write, “everyone, including disabled people, are made in God’s image.”

When we talk about inclusiveness in the church, we speak of our call to share the ministry of Jesus with all people and make sure that every person is able to participate fully in the life of not just the church, but the community, and the world. (¶140, p. 101)

It means “the freedom for the total involvement of all persons who meet the requirements… in the membership and leadership of the Church at any level and in every place.” 

Our call to inclusiveness does not ask someone to adapt or change who they are in order to have a place at the table.  It is a recognition of their faith and gifts and belovedness in God’s eyes…  just as they are. 

And it entails our commitment to “work towards societies in which each person’s value is recognized, maintained, and strengthened” through basic human rights and “equal access to housing, education, communication, employment, medical care, legal redress of grievances, and physical protection.” 

It means speaking out against acts of hate or violence against people based on who they are.

And within the church, the call to inclusiveness means that sometimes we have to tear the roof off the house to make sure that everyone has access… or add a ramp or an elevator to the church. 

It means utilizing assistive hearing devices and closed captioning on our facebook live stream. 

One of the things that I think we have gained during Covid-tide is broadening how we make our worship accessible for our members who were homebound and we continue to mail the entire worship service to more than fifty homes every week.  Where we can’t bring folks to church, we bring the church to them. 

It means including youth and young people on our leadership teams and making commitments to protect children through our Safe Sanctuaries policies. 

Here at Immanuel, it meant changing our maternity leave policy to a parental leave policy. 

And it also means, as we say in our Constitution, that the church “shall confront and seek to eliminate racism, whether in organizations or in individuals, in every facet of its life and in society at large.”     

I mentioned before the how we institutionalized racism through the Central Jurisdiction here in the United States.  Just as those four friends literally changed the structure of that home, Confronting racism sometimes means changing our denominational structures and I give thanks that the Methodist Church eliminated the Central Jurisdiction with the insistence of the EUB church as part of the merger that formed the United Methodist Church in 1968. 

But this also includes learning about and repenting of our history, as well as actively seeking to not just make room at our table for neighbors who are black, indigenous, or people of color… but building new tables – together. 

As a predominately white congregation, this might entail intentionally building relationships with people and church neighbors that look differently than us. 

And, it means that we bust open the glass ceiling and do the same for women and girls who have faced discrimination in the church.  In fact… this new paragraph on gender equality was only added through a constitutional amendment approved in 2016 and then ratified by annual conferences in 2019. 

 Still, there are more walls to tear down. 

Another constitutional amendment failed by just 5% to meet the 2/3 threshold for implementation by annual conference votes. 

Currently, our constitution proclaims that “no conference or other organizational unity of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member… because of race, color, national origin, status or economic condition.” 

That amendment would have expanded our protected classes in the constitution to add gender, ability, age, and marital status. 

We continue to go on to perfection. 

As I think about what it means to be United Methodist today, I think about those five friends from our scripture.

I think about how each one of them was beloved by God and a person of sacred worth… just as they were. 

And I think about how they worked together to make sure that all were able to be in the presence of Jesus.

Our call to inclusiveness in the church is a call to relationship and faithfulness. 

It is about invitation and welcome.

It is about breaking down walls and tearing apart ceilings and fighting so that our friends and neighbors can all gather at the feet of Christ.

But it is also about owning up to the reality that along the way we have not always lived into this ideal and acknowledging the people who either chose to leave or were forced out of the church simply because of who they were. 

I am reminded that my access and privilege to even stand here in this pulpit is not something to be taken for granted.

I remember the people who fought to make this a reality and look for ways to use my voice to speak up on behalf of others who are excluded. 

May we, as United Methodists, continue to work to ensure that the doors of the church are open to all people, may we embrace one another with love and acceptance, and may we provide the kind of support that is needed so that all of our siblings can fully participate in the life of this church. 

emergingumc2

Perhaps a few too many days have passed since the event for me to recall everything clearly.  I would have gotten to the blogging right away but a few things got in my way.  I watched with much excitation the Iowa/Ohio State football game while I was waiting for my flight.  Then I got up and did church Sunday morning.  And then I helped move a friend.  And then I was sick, sick, sick the rest of the day.  Monday I was a zombie.  And since then I have been playing catch up.
But there are some key things I want to get down before they slip away completely. 

–ONE–
The church and the congregation are not the same thing.  The congregation is part of the church, but the church… the Kingdom of God… the bride of Christ… is SO much bigger than the congregation – or the denomination.  I knew that, but the way that we talked about the specific role of the congregation last week (public worship, teach core doctrine, care for congregation, institutional player) I realized both how limited that role is and also how important.  
To be honest, as I look at my gifts for ministry – I am gifted to be a leader and a pastor within the congregation.  I love worship and I want that worship to be available to all.  I strive to be an institutional player in my community and build connections between my institutions and our schools and our city government and our state agencies.  I’m a good ambassador in that sense.  I’m a good representative.  I have the gifts to care for people in my congregation – I did it this afternoon as I sat with a family around their dying father.  I love to teach and I have the gifts and abilities to take complex ideas and help people understand them. 
I also deeply feel called to be a part of small communities of people who are trying to live the gospel with each other.  And I think in part what I realized this weekend is that I may not be called to be a leader of a group like that, but I am called to join one.  I’m called to help create space for them to happen.  I’m called to equip others to lead them. 
As an institution, our congregation can be a hub for missional activity.  I love that imagery.  and I want to make THAT happen.
–TWO–
As a part of the conference experience, we were at Lockerbie Central UMC/Earth House.  This is a church that has converted its basement into a vegan restaurant, its middle floor into office space and a coffee shop, and it’s top floor/sanctuary into a blank worship space and flexible auditorium/stage/performance space.  I am in LOVE with the whole thing.  I love the beautiful old stained glass windows and the homemade chai lattes and the organic fair trade coffee and the gorgeous hardwood floors and the fact that so many different types of people are trying to figure out their lives and their faith in that space.  I love the fact that yoga classes and cooking classes and films about social justice issues and conversations about salvation are happening in the same space.  I love that people enter that community (enter THE CHURCH) through all sorts of different venues.
I stayed with a young woman who come to the community in part because of a yoga class.  And she worships there sometimes.  She helps non-profits across the state find the resources they need personnel wise to be effective.  And she’s finding community and hope and inspiration there at the Earth House Collective AND the Lockerbie Central congregation. 
–THREE–
Our hosts coordinated homestays for many of us, and that in itself was a blessing.  I got to know December, even if just for one evening of really deep and vulnerable conversation over a cup of tea. It was amazing to experience that and to know that there was someone, a stranger, who had a similiar story to me.  It was a reminder of how small the world is and also a reminder of how powerful the gift of hospitality can be.
–FOUR–
I’m really struck by the difference between the inclusiveness of what the public congregation should be and the exclusiveness of a committed group of disciples who are trying to live the gospels.  I’m not sure if this quite came into focus for me completely until this morning as a sat around a table with pastors from other traditions.  I had said something about our open communion table and realized how sharply that contrasted with my LCMS colleagues.  Ironically, I was at the same time arguing for committed exclusive discipleship groups.  We were having a discussion about the limits of God’s kingdom, and I realized the beauty of the Methodist/Congregational structure.  We can HAVE the absolute openness of the Kingdom in the congregation, in the sacraments, in worship, in teaching… everyone is welcome.  And then we can invite those who want to take deeper steps into discipleship groups.  The problem with a lot of churches with rigorous discipline is that it creates and us vs. them mentality, you are in or you are out.  If we instead have a partnership that lets us know all who believe are in, and then invite everyone to go deeper, we get around some of that exclusivity. 
What I am trying to figure out is how to translate that back into my institutional congregation.  I believe we have the structure within our language already.  We have baptized members and professing members – and TECHNICALLY professing members should be people committed to living out their baptismal vows through specific practices.  And if someone decides they aren’t ready to commit to those practices, they can still be baptized members of our church!   Really, what that takes is for us to take our vows seriously and to seriously hold one another accountable AND to value baptized membership in a new way.  To realize there is a difference between those who follow Jesus and those who are disciples.  Ideally, everyone would be a disciple.  But not everyones ready.  Not everyone’s ready to take that risk – but they still believe.