Congregations: Christian Community 101 (Acts 8 Moment BLOGFORCE)

                This week Acts 8 asked us to answer “what is the mission of a congregation”. This question left me scratching my head wondering how I could have missed the answer in the two sets of confirmation classes I’ve sat through.  I found it easy to picture the congregations I know, to name what had drawn me toward them and even imagine something of what we do as a group. Yet even in the midst of those experiences trying to name THE mission of a congregation felt like an impossible task. After all how could I synthesize the service work of gleaning the fields and gathering canned goods for those who are hungry with the elation of belonging at worship or the intimacy of shared meals and conversation? Beneath all of those missions was there a MISSION that was directing them?

                Then I remembered what it was like when I first crossed the threshold of the red doors. I’d heard about the Episcopal Church from friends, had looked though the website, but had no idea what to expect. What I found was the oddest group of people I’d ever met*. They spanned the ages from elementary school to those described in the most recent annual meeting as EXTREMELY retired. Clothing spanned from proper formal wear to my (slightly tattered) jeans. As I looked around at this group of strangers there was something, well off, about them. There was a flow in how they interacted, in what they said and did that defied explanation. When they noticed me, they didn’t open with a series of questions, but with a quiet direction to a prayer book, and gentle orientation to worship. It was in that first Sunday that I learned that Christianity meant something more than scoring top points at Bible Bowl or defending a five point salvation plan. 

                As time unfolded my appreciation of that introduction began to grow. The community of the congregations I saw worked, squabbles and disagreements notwithstanding, because every action was rooted in an understanding of belonging that centered in unity of Holy Eucharist. From worship on Sunday flowed the worship of picking up trash during the Hunger Walk, the freedom to ask hard questions, and the certainty that no matter what I brought I would still belong. 

Through my years in the Episcopal Service Corps I was given language to describe what I’d been fascinated by, and kept returning to see. What had entranced the anti-Christian grad student who’d gone to church to appease a New Year’s resolution wasn’t a diverse selection of service programs, absence of conflict, or even the PERFECTLY DESIGNED WORSHIP SERVICE ™. What fascinated me, leading me to question everything I’d assumed about faith and church was the community, the Christian community of flawed people loving each other to the best of their ability (and often beyond). I was hooked by the depth of hope, the brilliance of ideas that reflected through different prisms of experience and the expectation, the invitation, that I could be a part of them. 

 What is the mission of a congregation? As far as I can tell the congregation is the training ground for Christian community. The place where vastly different people center themselves in Christ’s love to such an extent that love must by its nature spill into their interactions with each other and the world around them.  Our congregations are the places where individual faith, questions and doubt are molded into the crucible of common prayer in such a way that space is formed to witness God’s transforming power. From this center, at the heart of who we are as congregations, our missions (lowercase m), such as hospitality, service, and outreach, flow unrestricted as the Gospel flies from our doors to bring healing to a troubled world.

*Now that I’ve traveled a bit more I realize that most congregations probably feel they have a monopoly on the “oddest” group of people. In my experience each place I’ve been could claim the “oddest” title in different ways. I think one of gift of the church is that we’re all a bunch of odd-balls, but we’re dearly beloved, odd as we are, so that’s ok.

The Blazing Butterfly Saga Part 1: Origin Story (Acts8 BLOGFORCE)

 This is a fitting time to open the caverns of memory and begin the tale of how I became the person of faith I am today. You see, this Wednesday, November 19^th is golden anniversary of my baptism.

Me, November 19, 1995

I was raised in a conservative evangelical church and heard the message that baptism equaled salvation for my entire conscious life. Even as a precocious six year old I knew I needed to be baptized. So I asked, and asked and kept asking until the youth pastor agreed to baptize me. A tiny girl in a dress came forward, and upon being asked “Amanda, do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God”; I answered with a loud “YES”, eliciting chuckles from the congregation. A reading from Acts followed, with another short homily, providing time for me to change. Then we headed out again, my head barely visible above the foliage that decorated the baptistery. A quick splash, and bang, instant Christian.

Or so I thought. In fact I kept believing this was it throughout most of my childhood. I spent my summers at VBS and church camp, amazed the AWANA’s leaders, was a card carrying member of the 66 club and competed in Bible Bowl.

By high school I was about as “Christian” as you could get, fully indoctrinated into the fundamentalist ideal. For example I once got in trouble in zoology for arguing against evolution. Not only was I a Christian, but I was THAT Christian, the one you didn’t want to sit next to for any length of time.

Summer 2012

For all I appeared to belong with that church, as I hit my teen years I began to have questions, and began to realize the answers I was being given where  on the cheesy side (another example: 1 cross + 3 nails =4given was considered adequate for theological reflection). At the same time my youth group gradually became the source of the most painful peer-pressure, feminization & the purity culture. Warned repeatedly about the evils of sex & sexuality I didn’t learn what “gay” meant until college. Worse my withdrawn tomboyish tendencies were seen as my fault, a failure to be the good Christian girl I was supposed to be. 

Christ in Youth, 2012

All these influences culminated at the 2012 Christ in Youth Conference. In order to help me “fit in” better the youth group girls decided to give me a makeover. My hair was straightened, my face painted and I was told to wear the one dress I had brought with me. As we walked to the evening worship service I was aware of an intense discomfort, like everyone was staring at me.

Then the first song started to play, and I found myself seeing a woman dressed in armor standing in a field. I heard, well it would be more accurate to say felt, the following words within my bones. “You have a battle to fight, but I have chosen you and I love you.” The intensity of the contact, the fullness of love and belonging were foreign to me, and I was scared.

I asked one of the youth pastors for help that night and was told that I was demon possessed. If I just prayed harder the demons would go away and I’d be able to be normal. 

Actual Sign in KS

That was the day I left Christianity, turned my back on the church and accepted that I was going to go to hell if such a place existed. The years flew by, I dropped out of high school, got my GED and started college all before turning seventeen. At college the counseling center directed me to the campus Gay Straight Alliance. There my world was finally opened to the possibility that I could exist. This group also taught me a new form of hatred, an unquestionable belief that Christians were the reason we could be fired, denied health care and being kept away from our families. In all fairness, this assessment of Christianity in Kansas wasn’t entirely flawed. Christian signs and symbols are everywhere, proclaiming a message of hate. 

Eventually I realized that I was transgender, and began to transition in earnest. As I grew into the young man I needed to be at that time I found myself embracing a new confidence. I began to smile more, to enjoy getting up in the morning. As I settled into this new identity, as Andrew manifested his realness, I found myself freed to reexamine some of my abandoned questions. Around Christmas 2011 I realized this included faith. I went to church on Christmas that year because I missed the carols. As I was going back to the church I had grown up in I planned for two contingencies. A)I would be accepted as a stranger as no one would realize that I was the same person as Amanda or B) They would be furious at me for showing up and I need to have my arguments on why I could be transgender & Christian ready to go.

What actually happened was option C. No one said anything to me. I felt disjointed and out of place, sitting in the back, watching people I had grown up with move past me as though I were a ghost. Then the music started, and I found it reaching me in a way that the people couldn’t. Keep looking something inside me whispered. As we closed with Silent Night I felt a longing that I couldn't explain, yet still couldn't avoid.

So “see if I can tolerate Christians” made its way into my New Year’s resolutions. By this point I was active as a transgender educator on my campus, routinely taught workshops that explained exactly why tolerance was insufficient to offer another human being. Still, tolerance was the best I could muster for this unspecified “enemy”.

In early January I set out to make good on this resolution. I’d chosen the one church in town that had sexual orientation included on it's website, a family sized Episcopal parish I’d heard mentioned as friendly several times at work. Reluctantly I pushed my way past the bright red doors and found a seat in the back row and tried to look invisible as I wasn't sure I even belonged here.

Thelo! Mission Trip May 2012

Invisibility failed, I was quickly approached by someone who realized I was unfamiliar with the service. She welcomed me fully, showed me how to use the prayer book, and whispered instructions about communion. The sermon could have been written for me specifically, it’s exploration of the life-long nature of baptism fed the little girl I’d spent years running away from. In the midst of that Eucharist I found myself being held by something that I had thought was behind me.

 Over time tolerance evaporated, edged out by respect and love for these people who dared to show me that I could fully exist. For the first times I heard that the eager childlike faith I’d tried to abandon was completely compatible with my queerness. I found this was a church I could be, grow and find myself transformed.

Thus began my journey, the first steps towards coming home.

Tune in next week for EPISODE TWO: CATECHISM, CONFIRMATION & THE FORMATION OF A SUPERHERO (or something like that!)

TL;DR, Superhero Synopsis:

Strange forces surrounded Andrew Amanda from their earliest spark of existence. This young hero has undergone a gut-wrenching transformation in the depths of hate and despair. Brainwashed as a child, exiled as a teen, they have recently broken forth into new life. Meet the eager faith of childhood, watch as it is cruelly twisted into a mockery of religion before being dissolved in the acid of ignorance. Watch as the brave hero-to-be battles the forces of hatred and fanaticism within two communities. Will they make it to the shelter of the fortress guarded by the bright red doors? Can they survive the pressures of this world pushing them to conform? Welcome to the first installment of the BLAZING BUTTERFLY SAGA!

 

Asking Why: Doubt & The Episcopal Church (Acts 8 BLOGFORCE)

                When I was little I hated being asked “why” as much as I loved asking it. I delighted in exploring a new world every day, constantly trying to figure out why things came together as they did. I was certain there was a reason for everything…despite the fact I was singularly incapable of answering that question.

                As I’ve played with this question, this why, for the past few weeks I’m realizing I haven’t changed as much as I thought. I first came to an Episcopal Church to test out my New Year’s resolution to see if I could “tolerate” Christians.  After nearly seven years as an anti-Christian pagan the question I brought to the red doors was “what are you going to do with me, a misfit, a mistake, who doesn’t belong anywhere.” 

                The immediate answer was one of welcome and invitation. Yet these simple actions went beyond answering my initial question, they pulled me into the deepest question I’d discarded. A child I’d wondered “why the universe”. This was a question that I’d lost during my hasty flight from a religion that repeatedly torn me to shreds.  “Why” was the question that the Episcopal Church both asked…and answered. 

                In the Episcopal Church I was confronted for the first time with a faith that is as complex as my journey. I found a church that both accepted me as I was and then challenged me to grow in ways I’m still trying to figure out. The Episcopal Church introduced me to mysteries that defy all reason, yet when shared call forth an answer from within my soul.

                So I stayed. Beyond staying I joined the Episcopal Service Corps for a year, then the Lawrence House Service Corps. For two years in a row I moved across the country to join other young adults in a service oriented faith community. I didn’t stop to ask why. I simply had a sense of this being what needed to happen, and I went. 

                Arriving in South Hadley a few weeks ago I realized how uprooted I’d become. With all of my family and friends well beyond a reasonable journey away, a vague sense of what I’m supposed to doing for work and overwhelmed with the day to day discussions that building a community with five strangers entails I finally stopped to ask “why”. 

                The answer, a vague mix of God, faith, and it seemed like the right thing, triggered a massive internal argument. On the one had giving oneself over to a life of faith, an active ongoing discernment of where one’s gifts are most useful is considered a virtue, something to strive for. There was a part of me that longed to internally celebrate my new-found ability to hold onto God in the total uncertainty that my life has become. The other part, equally loud, reminded me I had no concrete reason to believe God is real. After all I’ve heard repeatedly that mental illness is just as likely explanation for the mystical experiences I’ve undergone. 

                So I was torn. On the one hand I find it impossible to believe that the fullness I experience at the Eucharist, the quiet voice that whispers I am loved, and the healing found in forgiveness is rooted in a delusion. On the other it seems completely fool-hardy to base my entire life on a God that is so irrational when compared with the reason I grew up with. 

                In the midst of this confusion, this internal struggle, I’ve clung to a ritual I grew into through St. Hilda’s House last year, the daily office. Days passed without connecting to the prayers, yet I made myself continue reciting them. Until one morning, prayerbook open, I found myself I drifting into thought, “why” bouncing around and around unanswered in my mind. 

                During that prayer I didn’t reach a resolution about the existence of God, or whether wandering from placement to placement based on faith is a good idea. What I heard was a gentle reminder that I wasn’t the only one praying the office that morning. A subtle nudge that even if I didn’t, couldn’t, believe the words I was praying, someone in this world at that exact moment had enough faith to share.  I had a sense that it’s ok to be where I am, because even if I can only pray with my hands and mouth at this moment, someone else’s heart and soul is full of the belief that currently eludes me. 

                This is why we need the Episcopal Church. We need to be shown, time and time again, to the Why of the universe. We all need to be reminded that while much of Christianity feels foolish to our modern consumeristic world there is a deeper wisdom. We need to be surrounded by people who fully live into the complexities of faith and reality. 

                Why the Episcopal Church? I’m here because this community dared me to live into the question of Why in ways that I will spend a lifetime trying to comprehend. Our dedication to both tradition and creativity, integrity and growth, lives the Gospel in a way that reaches out in a form that no other tradition can. The Episcopal Church is a unique space where both ancient and modern voices join the conversation, each valued for what they are. This is certainly worth preserving.

Why the Church?: Proclaiming the Gospel in Stories (Acts 8 BLOGFORCE)

The Church

To Spread the Good News

A future hope realized now

All made one in Christ

Sitting down to write this I was tempted to stop with the haiku. I felt it was obvious that the church’s purpose is to spread the Good News of Christ. As the Psalmist writes “Sing the Lord and bless his name; proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day” (96:2). It appeared to be a simple answer to simple question. 

A simple answer, yes, but with complex application. For the Gospel, the Good News, isn’t something that fits neatly into a tweet, a picture or even a story. It is the totality of human history, the ageless chronicles of a people reaching for God and a God who dared to reach back. The Gospel is the serenity of the Solemn High Mass and the exhilaration of campers singing one more round of “Rise & Shine” to greet the morning. It is the bustle of an inner-city soup kitchen, and the shouts at the protest. It is our laughter at ourselves and bitter tears as we share a pain that is beyond speaking. It is songs of joy and loving silence. It is a story of mistakes and forgiveness, revelation and mystery. It reaches across all times and all places, and speaks to all people in all languages.

All of those experiences are the briefest summary of my own experiences with the Gospel as expressed in the Church. Just one person’s limited understanding, out of how many millions throughout the centuries!

Yet perhaps things aren’t as complicated as they appear. As a librarian and bard, I see the church’s purpose to proclaim the Gospel, the Eternal Story, as being linked with the preservation and dissemination of all stories.  

This understanding of diversity led me to the collect for Proper 16 which speaks to the intersection of unity and power. There are two main ways of looking at unity. The first is an eradication of individuality. We are united because we all look, act, and think alike. It is this understanding that repeatedly leads us to destroy knowledge, to slaughter peoples and obliterate cultures. 

The second is the total opposite, a belief that unity is the coming together and sharing of our fullest selves. It is in the second definition that we understand that unity is impossible if any one person, story or culture is lost for they were already a part of us. In this view of unity, we as a whole suffer the pain of any part, even if the part denounces our very existence.

Far too often we as the church take the first approach to unity. We limit ourselves the language of the culture we know, speaking a jargon of salvation and evil. In so doing we miss the fact that our words now have a double meaning, to such an extent that even the name of Jesus can bring forth trauma in the very people we seek the help. We often ignore this, shouting our story, again and again. Determined that if we speak the same thing a little louder, our secular power will be secure.

Yet if we consider the church as the curator of stories which carry the Gospel; we are drawn toward the second approach, a unity that embraces the fullness of creation. It is from this place that we understand that we are absolutely called to tell our story. Yet if that is the end, the Gospel dies with us. 

The thing about stories is that the good ones bring forth more stories. When we speak of the places the Gospel touches our lives, those around us will inevitably find themselves drawn to the Holy moments in their own story. If we are living into our purpose, they should feel safe enough to bring this part of the Gospel to the table. It is only then, as we listen, that the Gospel truly begins to be heard. For none of us is capable of grasping or sharing the Good News on our own. The Gospel we’ve been given is that which brings about the fulfillment of all things and by its nature summons all things to fullness. To miss anything, to ignore any story is to deny the Gospel we've been given.

Our purpose as Christians, as the Church and as the body of Christ is to proclaim the Gospel. We begin by speaking, just as the Word was once spoken to us. Then we need to listen, and let the chorus of voices of all those around us speak their stories. We must listen to the loving wisdom of the founders of our traditions, as we also listen to those in our own day who associate the traditional Christian terminology with fear and pain. We are to listen without judgment, just as we would seek to be heard.  We listen because in Christ we have all been made one.

Their stories, from all times and places, are our story. Are we ready to hear it? To speak it?