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.