When Dialogue is Difficult
Published Sunday, April 15, 2012
Randy Spaulding's Comments from the presentation at Princeton Seminary on April 12th:
The theme for BGLASS week, from 1 Corinthians 12 contains beautiful imagery of the unity of people who make up the body of Christ, working together, each part needing the next,each sister and brother needing the other, rejoicing with each other, suffering with each other. Why suffer and rejoice with each other? Because you’re connected. But what do you do when those parts unequivocally say, “No we really DON’T need you. Sorry, but we’re not even going to talk about it anymore; we’re not going to think theologically whether we need you or not, we’re through praying about it. You are a bad part of this body, and we’re going to dis-member you.”
That, in a nutshell, is what happens to many people who happen to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered and who choose to walk in the light and publicly come out when it is dangerous to do so. The risk you take is that people in the church –who are parts of the body of Christ—may not
honor your decision to walk in the light. And some may wish you had just continued to stumble around in the shadows.
When I made the decision to walk in the light and publicly come out as a gay Mennonite pastor in 2009 I knew it wouldn’t be an easy journey. As a denomination, Mennonite Church USA has passed a number of resolutions condemning minority affectional or sexual orientation as sin and against the will
of God. But at the same time, there has been a consistent call for continued loving dialogue and a call to practice grace in our conversations.
But it has been more than some sisters and brothers have been able to do. As humans, we don’t always get it right. At the first meeting with my conference leadership board after I came out, I had assumed and had been promised that the meeting was the first of several dialogue sessions.
However, once I sat down, I was handed an official letter stating that the leadership board had stripped me of my credentials and demanded that I resign as the pastor of my congregation.
Personally I wasn’t surprised by their actions. I recognized and respected the conservative nature of the conference’s theology and membership, and it had never been my desire to covert of convince anyone to give assent to my personal theology.
But I was deeply disappointed and saddened at the lack of process and the lack of any healthy dialogue. It made being a part of the conference a very unsafe place for me and my congregation. In the months that followed I was disinvited from giving leadership to several Mennonite hymn sings that
were planned around the country, and I was expelled from the bi-national US/Canadian worship council.
What do you do when dialogue is difficult? What do you do when dialogue is refused? What do you do when the body of Christ decides to dis-member you from themselves? I can testify that it is very painful, and it is wounding. But it’s not just a one-sided wound. Whenever LGBT sisters and brothers are dis-membered from the body, there is a wound left not just on us, but on the rest of the body that “remains”. It is something we need to name. It is something we need to lament.
And yet, there is healing for our wounds. For me it came in the hundreds of emails and letters and prayers of support, encouragement, and advocacy—from Mennonite friends and allies all over the world, and even from my inclusive UCC, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Unitarian, Jewish, and Catholic clergy
friends who also spoke up and advocated on my behalf. I took just a small bit of comfort when the conference minister told me with some frustration that his mailbox was overwhelmed with responses.
Healing came in the support from the Mennonite community in exile. Pastor Amy Yoder McGloughlin and her congregation have been at this a looong time, and they’ve been a wonderful source of strength for me and for many others.
And healing continues to come in recognizing and affirming that no one, no conference, no denomination, can separate me from the love of God. I have been wounded, but I refuse to live as a wounded Christian. I choose to live into the healing love of God—with a few scars here and there that make for good stories (!)—but I choose wholeness.
I'm excited that so much progress has been made in denominations like the UCC, PCUSA, UUs, Episcopal Church, and others. And I offer a lament for those who continue to reject the full inclusion of persons who are LGBT.
What can we do?
The reality is that sometime people will refuse to dialogue with you
They will reject you as beloved of God.
They may even dis-member you.
But we are not alone! So let us keep our hearts healthy by claiming the blessing and love of God, despite what others say. It’s not easy, but it’s getting better….
Continue to walk in the way of peace. Being rejected is a form of violence; but we must meet that violence with nonviolence love
Keep loving—the way of Jesus calls us to the hard work of loving people who don’t love us back, and who may even wish us harm.
Don’t stop speaking out, do not stay silent, and don’t walk in the shadows. Walk in the light.
I close with the words of Martin Luther King Jr. “When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” (King’s summary of the words of Theodore Parker, 1853)
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