The
word home, found in both New
Testament readings for today, is a
welcome word for us on this Sunday as we celebrate the home we’ve found in the
United Church of Christ. In the mystical language of John’s Gospel, Jesus tells
his disciples that he and “the Father” will make a home with those who love
him. In the earthier book of Acts,
Lydia, the first European convert, invites Paul to stay in her home. Making our home with others is sacred
work. Making a home with God is a
spiritual disposition of trust and union.
Making a home with other people and with other parts of creation is our
human calling of relatedness. Today, as Open Table formalizes our covenant
relationship with the United Church of Christ, we are saying to one another, in
the words from John’s Gospel, “We will make our home with them.” Making our
home with another takes our relationship to a new level. It requires trust and
presents risk but offers deeper connection. Today Open Table and the UCC
officially move in together. Which will
require us to exchange some vows in a bit.
In
starting a church together, you and I have occupied several physical homes over
the last four years. Initially we met in the Sims living room, then in a couple
of store front buildings, and after that at two different host churches. At whatever point in our brief history you
joined us, it took courage. Some of you
risked disorientation by progressive theology that challenged old certitudes
and invited you to ask questions. Some
of you risked rejection if the radical welcome we touted proved insincere. Some of you risked your reputation as a proud
skeptic by darkening a church door. All
of you risked giving up valuable time and complicating your lives in
relationships with folks who were different from you. None of us knew if this
faith community would be worth any of the work and risks. But you were intrepid
souls, and for those who returned a second time, and a third, you proved you
are able to journey without a map, able to build a ship while sailing it, able
to make a home with diverse family members, able to love others in the Jesus
way. Regardless of where we’ve gathered,
what has mattered is that we were growing in our love for God and others.
Besides
determining from time to time where we would pitch our tent next, our founding
group also had to discern with whom we’d make our home, denominationally
speaking. Open Table’s story began when
a then American Baptist minister invited a handful of folks into a relationship
with one another, not into a relationship with a denomination. Our early members decided to start a church
together before deciding if we would affiliate with a denomination. In our
exploration of possible denominational homes, we soon came knocking on the door
of the UCC, and Conference Minister Tim Downs answered.
(Knock knock) “May we come in?” we asked
the UCC, in the person of Rev. Downs. “You’ve never met any of us before. None
of us has ever been a part of the UCC.
No one other than our pastor had even heard of the UCC until we started our
research a few months ago. Our pastor is actually ordained by another
denomination and that denomination has the word ‘Baptist’ in it. But we think we might like to make our home
with you.”
God
bless him. Tim didn’t blanch and didn’t
blink. He didn’t twitch and he didn’t
flinch. Not even when I had the effrontery to say, not quite this crassly, that
another denomination offered us __ dollars for start-up costs if we wanted to
birth a church under their banner. Tim and I had many conversations, and then
he drove down from Atlanta to meet with us.
The
more we learned about the UCC, the more we loved its proud history of social
activism with courageous stands for justice and peace; its progressive outlook,
radical inclusion, and diversity; it’s well-educated clergy and well-equipped
laity; its congregational autonomy tempered by covenant relationships; its edgy yet warm and often humorous
personality—if a denomination can be said to have a personality; its call to be
a united and uniting church with a heart for ecumenism and interfaith understanding.
Although the UCC is grounded in Christian tradition, we judged it to be the
most forward thinking of Christian denominations and so the best prepared to
understand and support a congregation aiming to push the frontiers of the
emerging Christianity and pioneer progressive Christianity in, of all places,
Mobile, AL.
Soon
after Rev. Downs’ first visit, we threw in our lot with the United Church of
Christ. We began the process to become, first, a ministry of the UCC as a new
church start, and I began the process to convert my credentials and become a
minister within the UCC.
Susan
and Todd shared earlier what they appreciate about this denomination of the
Still Speaking God. The UCC has already challenged us to live into these
values. For instance, early on we were
invited—not required—to begin the process of becoming an Open and Affirming
congregation to make very explicit our welcome of folks regardless of sexual
orientation. Through prayerful group
discernment, we developed our ONA statement which is printed in every worship
bulletin and on our website and elsewhere.
While in other denominations a liberal fringe of congregations and
members are urging their denominations to include LGBT folks fully, the General
Synod of the UCC leads out to encourage its congregations and members to take
difficult stands on, for instance, marriage equality. The UCC has already
prodded us, Open Table, to make good choices for our congregational health and
for those on society’s margins. I am
thankful to serve in a denomination moving out there ahead of us or at least
standing alongside us and not holding us back as we move into God’s hopeful
future. I want a denomination that’s not lagging behind the people in the pews
who see inequities they long to address. As the UCC has welcomed us into this
denominational home, so we want to welcome others to Open Table with equal
warmth and inclusion. Like Lydia, who
immediately after her baptism invited Paul to enjoy the hospitality of her
home, we, who’ve experienced the welcome of the UCC, want to invite others to
make their home with us.
But
if I may be so bold, I would also like to say that our small congregation has
something to offer the United Church of Christ in this covenant relationship.
We—and
other new churches like us—offer a spirit of experimentation that may be needed
if Christianity is to remain vital. The
UCC is ahead of the curve in terms of social justice and progressive
theology. But how do our progressive
values and theology get translated into the life of individual
congregations? New churches like ours
are experimenting with liturgy and polity in our new settings. New faith communities like Open Table are not
mired in years of traditions, so we can consider new ways of organizing our
“home” together: new ways of praying and singing and leading and serving, new
ways of making decisions and learning and teaching, new implications for
progressive theology. We actually LIKE
change (most of the time) because the life of faith is a spiritual adventure
for us. And since we’re still small and
young, we are agile. We can change how
we do things more quickly than other congregations. We believe our denomination “gets” that about
us and wants to hear reports on our experiments out here in the
hinterlands. Churches like ours are
already flavoring the UCC. But to make sure that we are really living in the
same household, we’ll be careful to communicate well and fellowship often so
that our geographical distance from Atlanta and Cleveland does not turn us into
the crazy cousin who lives in the basement.
I’ve
been speaking mainly about concrete ways we have been making a home within the
United Church of Christ and within Open Table.
Let me also speak of the mystical meaning of making our home with God.
After all, our mission as a church is not to further the kingdom of the UCC,
which is a spiritual means, not an end.
Our aim is not to add mere numbers to Open Table but to grow by
deepening our own spirits and strengthening our communion here as we serve
others.
There’s so much to unpack in
John’s notion that God makes a home in us. I have time to make this point only:
the idea of God as our home is a mystical way of breaking down the barrier
between God who is out there and God who is in me. Meister Eckhart, a14th century
Christian mystic, said, “God’s being is my being and is the being of all
beings. My me is God”[i] Locating God within is an experience of
spiritual oneness. Jesus told his first disciples that he had transcended the
notion of God being “out there”—in the temple, on a high mountain, separated
from certain people. Instead, Jesus’s
mystical experience of the divine taught him his own divinity. Which he wanted
his followers to experience, also. God
can make God’s home within you, too.
We’ve used John’s lofty
Christology to deify Jesus, but John emphasizes that within each of us dwells
the divine love, which is the realest power and ultimate goal. The Jesus revealed in John’s Gospel shows us
that learning to love makes in us a home for God, which is a home that contains
the whole world. In his “farewell
address” from John 14, Jesus tells the disciples, “Those who love me will keep
my word, and my father will love them, and we will come to them and make our
home with them.” Then he says that, though he must leave them, God’s spirit of
peace remains for them. So don’t be
afraid, he says. Love creates in us a place where God dwells. Peace walks forth with us as we invite others
into our home. Thanks be to God.
Prayer: You who welcome all,
dwell among us as a community, that we may love more deeply. You who are our
truest home, dwell in each of our hearts, that we may live out of our own
sacredness and our union with all.
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