Preached at West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship
I’m the pastor at Germantown Mennonite church. I’ve been attending GMC since 1996, but I’ve been the pastor for a little over a year now. I began attending Germantown when our congregation was at the height of its conflict with Franconia Conference over issues of sexuality. Specifically, we had welcomed into membership several gay and lesbian folks. It was a strange time for a new person to begin attending the congregation. Who wants to attend a congregation in turmoil—a congregation that was in the process of being removed from the conference and denomination. Yet, when I went to visit—just to see what it was like—I never ended up visiting anywhere else.
There was something about the turmoil that was a strange comfort to me. My mother had just passed at the age of 45, after a long and difficult battle with cancer. I couldn’t talk to God, let alone walk into church. But, I took a chance to walk into GMC, and I felt safe there—like I was in a spiritual home for the first time in a long time. The sadness, grief and questions of the congregation mirrored my own to God about my mother’s death.
It was also the first place that I felt I could truly ask questions of faith—there was no question that was off limits. I felt free to express anger at God, to question absolutely everything. I could destroy the foundation of my beliefs system, so that I could create a new structure with my Germantown brothers and sisters.
I had not settled on the theological issues of homosexuality when I arrived at GMC in 1996. I honestly didn’t care that much about the issue when I arrived. I just needed a safe place to be angry. It was the gay men at Germantown that modeled a new spirituality for me. It was the gay men that held my questions and anger—gave them credence. It was with these men who hung on to the very edge of the church, and faith itself, that I found a new understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus.
The texts I’ve chosen for this morning may seem like ones that shouldn’t go together. Exekial 37—the valley of dry bones text—is usually reserved for lent. And the Galatians one—a very familiar Pauline text, is the heart of Paul’s ministry as he works with Jews and Gentiles alike.
These two texts are key to GMC’s journey together over the last several decades. These are the texts we have come back to so many times over the years. So often we have asked the question—“can these bones live?” So many times we have exclaimed, with joy and celebration, “We are all one in Christ!”
The first year or two after being removed from conference affiliation with Franconia were difficult ones for us. As it is with a lot of Mennonite congregations, there are familial connections. The vote to remove us from the conferences then was a personal, family thing. It was brother against sister, mother against daughter. So, we wondered during those raw and painful times, “can these bones live?” Are we going to make it? Will we survive this? Not just would this congregation make it, but would our faith survive the blow?
God said to Ezekial: “Mortals these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘our bones are all dried up, and our hope is lost. We are cut off completely.’” Germantown Mennonite stayed in this portion of the Ezekial text for a long time. People would visit the church, and note that we sang a lot of sad songs—songs in minor keys. Visitors would not have to know our story to know that something happened to us, and we were afflicted.
Some folks were interested in attending the church, but ulimtately didn’t want to commit. Being a member of this congregation for a while meant being part of a suffering body. And some just couldn’t commit to being on that painful journey with us.
But then—slowly, over time—we came to see ourselves differently, and experience church community differently. I attribute part of that to the fact that we had a baby boom in the congregation. We went from having 10 kids (most of whom were teenagers) to having 40 children in a decade. A few of us started having babies, and then when people realized that there are children in the congregation, they started coming with their kids.
The church began to grow, despite the blow of being removed from the conference. Despite feeling isolated from the denomination. We had to focus on our youth, and we had to focus on our growing population of baby boomers, and their aging needs. We went from having two generations of people in our historically young congregation—to having 3 or 4 generations under one roof. The events of 1997—of being removed from the denomination—had made their mark on us, but couldn’t we just sit around and lick our wounds. We had to move on. Life goes on. And we could move on now. We could be a church, and care for each other.
In the Ezekiel text, God tells the prophet: “Mortal these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely. Therefore prophecy and say to them, ‘Thus saith the lord God, I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I the Lord have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”
We have felt the spirit moving within us these last several years. We have come to life again. We feel alive, and able to stand on our feet, despite the war wound of our experience with the conference. I’ve joked in recent years—especially when I was looking for a pastor job within the denomination—that members of the congregation wear our own scarlet letters—we bear the “scarlet GMC” on our chests. We are branded within the denomination by our experience. Yet we live. We are being placed again on our own soil. We see the mighty work of God in restoring this congregation. We trust that God will act and is acting.
And we see a prophetic place that we can live in the denomination. I often attend conference and denominational events. I am part of a group of younger Mennonite women pastors that get together every month. I write in Mennonite publications. I attend convention. I keep showing up at Mennonite things because I believe that Germantown Mennonite—the first Mennonite church in the hemisphere—has a prophetic word to say to the denomination. These dry bones live—these dry bones have a home, these dry bones can speak and act, with the help of the Holy Spirit.
We have come to believe that we have a prophetic witness in the church. We have a role to play in the denominational structures, even though we aren’t part of the denomination at this time. I believe that our prophetic witness is to keep showing up, to keep being a voice for inclusion of all God’s people. And in showing up, we do not compromise any of our beliefs or any part of our spiritual journey. We can be fabulous and welcoming, and hospitable, without fear of being kicked out of the denomination. That already happened, and we are ok. We are a growing, thriving congregation, that stepped up and did what God called us to do—to live into that challenge from Paul to be “one in Christ.”
Of course, just because we made the move to be a welcoming congregation doesn’t mean we have arrived, or that we are above it all. In fact, we have come to realize that being a welcoming congregation means more than just welcoming queer folks. It also means welcoming folks of difference classes and races. This is our new frontier—this is the place that we realize we are not “one in Christ.” We are being challenged again to be one in Christ—with all barriers down.
At Germantown Mennonite we have celebrated this Galatians text—we have held on to it as a reminder that our response 25 years ago to a gay man asking for membership—our response was one of thoughtful, prayerful welcoming. We did what we know God called us to do. And we paid a price for it. Our “one in Christ” position on this matter of sexuality left our congregation united, but left us alienated from our families and our denomination. In fact, that’s what’ happened to the Apostle Paul too. He declared, by the power of the holy spirit, that we are all one in Christ, and he paid for it with Peter and the other apostles in Jerusalem. His vision of the gospel was just a little different than the rest.
We know that God is not done working on Germantown Mennonite—we cannot rest on the fact that we made a decision many years ago to be welcoming. In fact—I think that what we did in welcoming the GLBT community may be easier to do than what we’re called to do next. I contend—though perhaps the folks at Germantown Mennonite may disagree—that welcoming our white, mostly Mennonite queer friends into fellowship was not much of a leap. The gay and lesbian folks we welcomed shared our worship style and our music tastes. What may be harder for Germantown is to welcome all races, cultures, and classes into mutual, equal fellowship. We’ve been challenged over the last year—as we’ve attended Damascus Road Anti-Racism Trainings, as we’ve contemplated our vision and our future, and as we’ve listened to the spirit—that we need to be one in Christ in more ways than one.
Every church struggles with this “one in Christ” challenge from Paul. For Germantown Mennonite, it began in the 1680’s when we welcomed Mennonites to this country who understood their Anabaptist tradition differently, and has moved today to welcoming the GLBT community. But it doesn’t end there—it should never end. The movement of the spirit invites—and sometimes pushes—us to be one in Christ, breaking down barriers to race, sex, culture, class and creed. And, it can often mean that we go against institutions, in a struggle to be the hands of feet of Christ in our context.
But in the movement of the spirit, taking us to places unknown, God is faithful. May God bless us—or afflict us—with the courage to be “one in Christ”.