Five Sunday after Pentecost
Open & Affirming! — Rev. Brent Gundlah
Later this morning, after worship, we will be voting, as a congregation, to adopt a new Open and Affirming Covenant. This is a big occasion in the life of our church — one that both marks the culmination of a year and a half of work by our ONA Team and honors all of the work that’s been done here over the past three decades — but it is by no means the end of the road. For the process of truly being open and affirming is exactly that — a process; it is a ongoing journey, not a final destination.
The world is much different from what it was in April of 1999 when we first covenanted with God and one another to be an Open and Affirming congregation. And whether we realize it or not, we are a different church too. And this is exactly the way it’s supposed to be — living, breathing things (including churches) must evolve if they are to remain vital, if they are to stay alive.
Who was here in 1999 when our first ONA covenant was adopted? And who wasn’t here back then? When you see these two shows of hands, it’s pretty clear that we’re not the church we used to be, but it’s understandable that we might tend to think otherwise — after all, evolution is, by definition, gradual and so can be a very difficult thing to see when you’re living right in the middle of it.
But sometimes new perspectives can not only help us to see things differently, but also move us along a little. And that’s kind of how we’ve arrived at this point on our ongoing ONA journey.
During our new member classes we discuss the importance of covenant at every level of life in the United Church of Christ, and among the materials we distribute to participants in those classes are the various covenants we’ve adopted here in our local church.
On the heels of one such class — immediately following the Sunday service during which we welcomed new members who’d completed that class, in fact — one of those new members approached me out in the narthex, and asked me a question that’s resonate around here ever since: “Why aren’t transgender people mentioned in our ONA covenant?”
My answer, which I realize wasn’t really much of answer, was essentially this: “Well, it was written and adopted almost a quarter-century ago, and the world has changed a lot since then, and the issues facing the LGBTQIA+ communities have changed a lot since then, and our understanding of those communities has changed a lot since then, and this church has changed a lot since then.” And then, sensing that this answer, while true, was also kind of inadequate, I felt the need to say something else, which was this question: “So maybe it’s time for us to revisit our covenant?”
With that wondering — which, to be clear, wasn’t really mine because it was implicit in the question this new member asked — began the segment of our ONA journey that we commemorate and celebrate today. And I, for one, can’t think of a better way for it to have happened.
In today’s brief reading from Matthew’s Gospel, which are the last three lines of Jesus’s “Missionary Discourse,” Jesus tells his new apostles: “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
On the surface it simply sounds like a restatement of the transitive property we learned about in elementary school: you know, if a=b and b=c then a=c, but Jesus is actually saying something incredibly more profound here (color me surprised — I mean, he is Jesus).
You see, what he’s describing is the inherent interconnectedness that true welcome — real hospitality — creates and sustains. When we welcome someone — be it an apostle, or a prophet, or a “little one” (by which Jesus likely means those living at society’s margins) — we welcome Jesus, and when we welcome Jesus, we welcome God; and since God is always welcoming us, this becomes a circle — one that hopefully grows ever-wider. And while this is a good thing, it can also be a complicated thing.
You see, real welcome isn’t simply about having someone over for dinner or inviting them to a party, it’s about embracing the possibility of being fundamentally changed by our relationship with someone else — whether we are the inviter or the invitee — and this kind of mutual vulnerability makes us feel, well, vulnerable. And while this can be uncomfortable (no one ever said that the work of discipleship was going to be comfortable), it can also be wonderful — as the past eighteen months have shown us, as the past twenty-seven plus years have shown us. Just stop and think about some of what’s happened here during that time…
A congregation that in 1999 declared —loudly and publicly — that all are truly welcome here, because it’s part of our DNA, when most other churches weren’t doing that.
A new member welcomed into our community and reciprocating that welcome by questioning the very ways in which we live in community so that we may grow and thrive as a community.
An ONA team comprised of both newer members and friends, and people who have been here for years, who have been willing to share their wisdom and perspectives, to disagree with one another, to change their minds, to step in it from time to time, to apologize and move forward because that’s how we live into our call to welcome everyone, whoever or wherever on life’s journey they may be.
A new relationship with our friends at the Open and Affirming Coalition and at the UCC’s National Setting — friends we invited here to share conversation and food; friends who challenged us and showed us different ways of seeing; friends we embraced and allowed to change us; friends who, because of the work we opened ourselves up to doing here, now also have friends throughout our Conference (like I said earlier, the hope is always that the circle of welcome will grow wider).
A common understanding among us that there is always more to learn; that there are always things we can and should do better; that there is always more work to be done; that there are always people who need to know that a church where they are always welcome exists; and that we truly embrace the possibility of being changed by their presence here.
Because that’s what being open and affirming is all about.