Inclusion
is a word often used in mainline churches these days. We use it largely in reference to new membership
and an openness to those we once viewed as ‘other’, not us. Often it is used with a certain pride that we
are an inclusive congregation. Yet when I
hear it I often wonder are we aware that in all of us there is the possible
lurking backlash of old exclusion?
For
instance, once I moved on decades ago to inclusion of women in ordained
leadership, there was an impatience in me with those who excluded this
possibility. I had to watch that and
still do. I had to learn to maintain
patience with those who differed with me.
I can, as long as the energy in the “conservative” person is also
patient and open to speak and listen.
Two things grew clear for me.
This works as long as I am not expected to lose my insight and women are
not expected to lose their new found place and authority. This then is more than inclusion. It undoes exclusion and our history of using “otherness”
as a weapon.
That
I believe is what is happening in our reading of Acts. For generations there were gentiles who saw
the depth of God in Judaism. They could
however not become full members of the worshipping Jewish community for they
were by definition gentile, non-Jew by race, other. This same view was held by many Jews who saw
in Jesus the Messiah, the Christ. As
gentiles began to not only see the same but receive the empowerment of the Holy
Spirit to arrive at deepening faith, confession of Jesus as Lord, Son of the
living God, this old tension remained. In
Acts 15 it is resolved by the council in Jerusalem. It seems to be resolved largely by the
authority invested in Peter and James, their leaders. Peter has earlier had a
dream of full inclusion of all God made in an earlier chapter. Full inclusion can be found in prophetic
writings as well. There remains however the tension from the conserving camp that
these gentile men be circumcised and adhere to the Old Testament Law.
In
yesterday’s reading this was resolved.
No such requirement will be made.
Rather only three things are asked. They are: to abstain from food
offered to idols (this disturbs the conscience of Jews who see it as proof of
idol worship); from fornication, unchastity (also a gentile practice associated
with pagan worship and offensive to Jewish law and sensibility); and to refrain
from eating meat strangled with the life blood still in it (once again
offensive to Jewish sensibility and law).
It is worth noting that the concern was that this inclusion should be
viewed by Jews as not violating their own sensibilities and conscience in only
a few ways. Beyond this it was the task
of the Jewish Christian to see God’s grace in gentile lives who prior to this
were outside and other.
Whenever
we who are already at home in the church approach a new understanding of inclusion,
be that new understandings of racial inclusion, class inclusion, gender
inclusion, or today, sexual orientation, we do well to remember that these
conditions were placed on gentiles only in part for their own clarity of what
it meant to worship the One True God through the revelation of Jesus Christ,
Son and Lord. It was placed on them in
large measure for the sake of the conserving but opening Jewish Christian.
All
these generations later we, the Church, do not much care how meat is killed and
prepared. We do not keep kosher. We do
care about the ethics of sexual fidelity but do not worry that pagan worship is
involved in sexuality. We have grown
past a preoccupation with this concern.
You might say the gentiles have won the day.
Yet
we do well to notice that we still have an energy within us to ask those newly
included not to offend our sensitivities. When I served a congregation in Newark, NJ,
with a formal tradition, what proved most difficult was how to balance the
needs of the African immigrant population for spontaneous praise with the Anglo
and Caribbean preference for formality. Yet we found a compromise, in time.
That,
it seems to me, is what we struggle with in the arena of Gay and Lesbian
inclusion. Truth is all people come to the Church with a desire
for spirituality, for the signs of God’s care, to be helped to sort out life
ethics that reflect this care inward and back into the world. Yet for so many generations this group dare
not speak its name, so our ways of care are foreign to many, touch can be
troubling, the image of family likewise.
When we ask anyone not to offend our sensibilities, we need to be aware
this is for our adjustment not their moral and spiritual good. In time we need to realize this is not God’s
requirement. It is the road to majority
adjustment and must pass away.
Ponder
what your sensibilities are and how they reflect the core of God’s care for
yourself and others. What might be necessary for your own transformation as a deeper
practitioner of faith? What might need
to pass away and what might need to be maintained?
No comments:
Post a Comment