This Sunday my church, Bear Creek UMC, is beginning a 4-week worship theme celebrating a Jesus who “gets us” and calls us to “get others”. My hope is that in these next 4 weeks we can find some common ground on how Bear Creek UMC can be a “lighthouse” of hope for this world by becoming what I am calling holy ground…ground in which people who misunderstand each other can come and listen to each other in a way that they leave not necessarily agreeing (all though that would be cool), but maybe even more so… agreeing to stay in conversation and connection…agreeing to love, or as our bishop, Elaine Stanovsky, would say it: “stubbornly clinging to each other” even through major disagreements. Can the church become what Shirley Arena Murray hopes it can “a shelter, a space, a safe place for growing”?
Man, sometimes I wonder. I mean I have always hoped that to be the case for the church, but it seems as of late that the church has become increasingly specialized in certain ideals or political ideologies. You don’t go to church to hear a challenging word. You go to church to hear what you already believe. You don’t go to church to meet people different than you. You go to church to be with your tribe and race. People who believe and look and act like you.
One of my favorite places to minister was a little church in Geddes, South Dakota. It was the first church I served as a full-time pastor and Holy Hannah it was such an interesting church to serve. You know why? Because there were only two churches in that town: the Catholic church and the Protestant church…Geddes United Methodist Church! But what was unique about that church was that it wasn’t full of United Methodists. It was a community church in that it had Presbyterians and Baptists and even a family who had been a part of the extremely conservative Wisconsin Synod Lutheran denomination!
Thank God I was young and naïve enough to not really know what I was doing and what I was getting into, because if I had understood all the different ideological landmines I was preaching into…I think I would have been frozen with fear! But, in so many ways, my theological and social naivete was just the instrument God needed! Much of my work at the Geddes United Methodist church wasn’t done in the office or in the pulpit, but on the tractor and combine! My work was often having coffee down at the elevator, and in folks’ homes. I don’t know if this is true anymore, but back in 1990 in rural South Dakota there was a trust given to a pastor that allowed me to enter people’s lives at crucial times. I wasn’t just allowed in and welcomed…I was invited and sometimes even expected! Breaking bread wasn’t just a Sunday occurrence, it was an everyday experience that happened in the “dirt” of these folks’ lives. I wasn’t just their pastor; I had been there with them as they wept at losing their son to cancer. And when there was a funeral, it wasn’t just family and friends…it was the entire community!!! And largely because of that, I was given the privilege to preach to Democrats, and Republicans, and Liberals, and Conservatives. And the best part about that was that I didn’t see them as just that! Why? Because I had wept with them in deep sorrow and leapt with them in great joys! And because of those experiences, because of that “sinew” in our relationship, something precious came into being. And that something was “holy ground.” A place where we could at least try to work out our conflicts and accept our differences.
Look. It wasn’t perfect by any means. I still had people yelling at me in the parking lot occasionally. Or I’d witness one family moving to a different pew on Sunday morning because a property dispute with their neighbor. But here’s what was so important…we were still sitting in the same building! We were all bowing our heads together in prayer. Even if we weren’t talking to each other, we were still listening to the same message, reading the same scripture, and singing the same songs!
I’m not sure that is where this world is right now…and to be honest with you…it disturbs and frightens me. We’ve somehow cancelled each other out. We’ve somehow left the building or watched our adversary leave! We are content shouting at each other over social media, instead of eating together in the town café or over a beer. Our inclusiveness is incredibly powerful inside each of our theological tribe, but outside of that tribe we are clenched, afraid, and unwilling to dialogue.
I, for one, am hoping and praying and working for a different world than that. I, for one, am hoping and praying and working for a holy ground that, just like this labyrinth, can remain holy even in the "coldest" of times. And my question to you is simply this: will join me? Can you help our church be different? Is there a third way we can be that might just break through those divides? Can we as God’s people, God’s peacemakers, model a more excellent way?
I have a neighbor in my area who flies a particular flag that I just don’t understand. To me it is a symbol or racial hatred. Everything in me wants to fly my flag of opposition just a bit higher, and even put a spotlight on it so it shines a little brighter. But today I’m wondering…is there another way?
Your pastor and friend, hoping, praying, and working with you for something better, Brook