What in the world is going on here?

Week 39, Day 2

Genesis 3                     What in the world is going on here?

  “…now the Serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal the Lord God had made…”

In his commentary on Genesis, the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says this story (Genesis 2 & 3 together) is not really concerned with questions of sin and death and evil and fall.  That is not to say these topics are unimportant or uninteresting.  They are both.  It is to say the storyteller’s concerns lie elsewhere.  What we have here, Brueggemann says, is a summons—a calling, from the Creating God to consider what it means for us to live as God’s creatures in God’s world on God’s terms.  “The text requires us to ask about the reality of God and (God’s desire for our lives) in a world on its way to death”.

In other words, in the world as we find it (and not, for the time being, wondering how we got to be this way) how should we live?  Given the opportunity to trust God or not, to obey God or not (which is exactly what the Tree of Knowledge gave the man and woman then and gives us now), which course should we choose and why?  Life presents us with hard choices from time to time.  And sometimes our decisions, in retrospect at least, seem less wise than we had hoped they would be; they lead more to pain than to pleasure.  Can we recover? 

This story is told from the perspective of someone who is outside the garden—someone just like you and me.  We already know what the man and woman learn the hard way—we know what shame and fear feel like; what it feels like to be less than we want to be; to be the betrayer of someone who trusted us.  How will this Creating God respond to our mis-steps and mistakes?

Will there be grace for the likes of us?  Will we be left naked and exposed, because that is the best we can do?  Or will our shame be covered?  Will this God who loved walking with us in the cool of the evening in better days walk with us now, though our path will be rockier and less scenic?  “In a world on its way to death”, a world where growing corn is always hard and having babies is always harder, is there still a “way to life”?

Read the story again and listen for anything it wants to tell you now.

Prayer: To you, Creator God, who is ever with us, who summons us to stand upright, to shed our shame and fear and to commit ourselves to this long walk over rocky ground, we are grateful.  Amen.

No Silence for the Orlando Victims

Published in the Mt Horeb Mail, June 2016

So now we have yet another incidence of lethal violence against innocent
people committed by yet another sick man with a big gun. And we even have a
new record: 49 people (and counting) are dead. Dozens more are wounded and
hundreds, or thousands, traumatized and in mourning. The Orlando shooter’s
motives, to say the least, are murky. He professed allegiance to competing
Islamic groups but did all his shooting at a gay night club, so it would seem clear
his hatred of LGBT folks trumped his political ideology. This is looking like a
hate crime; one where the hate was made more virulent—and given a perverse
cover, by the shooter’s misunderstood religion, his misapplied politics and his
own confused sexuality.

We will never know for sure why Omar Mateen walked into the Pulse night
club and opened fire. But will we ever know why this man who spent time on the
FBI’s terror watch list was able to legally buy the guns he used? Will we ever
know why politicians who are sworn to protect the vulnerable in our society can’t
claw their way out of the National Rifle Association’s purse; why they can’t find
the character and the courage to require reasonable background checks—or
better yet, ban assault weapons that simply have no place in civilized society?

And will our community recognize this tragedy for what it is: a crime of
hate against lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender persons, both in Orlando and
here in Mt Horeb; a crime against our own brothers and sisters and children and
friends? Instead of moments of silence we should loudly proclaim our anger and
grief and pain and say, again, enough of this hate and violence. We should, gay
and straight together, affirm the rightness and loveliness of each person;
declaring each to be the product of God’s beautiful Creation; each the object of
God’s deepest affection.

This is not a time for retaliation and fear. It is a time for us to reach deep into
ourselves and high into the heavens for the best of what we can display—
compassion, courage, solidarity; and even forgiveness. It is a time for us to hold
our hurting neighbors close and our legislators accountable.

This is not a time for silence.

Rev. Brad Brookins
Mt Vernon United Church of Christ

To the Editor...

Here is a letter I submited to the Mt Horeb mail this week and which they may (or may not) publish next week.  I wanted you to see it here first.

Let me know what you think.

In a March 24 article in Christianity Today, World Vision U.S. (an evangelical Christian charity serving poor children worldwide) announced a policy change that would allow them to hire legally married gay and lesbian Christians. 

The evangelical response was as quick as it was predictable.  Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Seminary called the decision “a grave and tragic act that confirms sinners in their sin -- an act that violates the gospel of Christ."    (http://baptistpress.com/BPnews/).  In short order, thousands of Christians who had committed to sponsoring a child through World Vision began withdrawing, or threatening to withdraw, their support if the policy change was not reversed.

This comment to World Vision was typical:  “I think you have walked away from the Gospel in your decision to allow practicing homosexuals into your corporation.  Based on your heinous deviation from Biblical truth, I have determined to immediately rescind my sponsorship of Oscar, a sweet, little guy from Columbia.  It’s a shame he must suffer for your overt political move” (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/).

On March 26, in a regrettable act of public apology and contrition, after coming so close to doing the right thing, World Vision U.S. reversed course and re-instituted their ban on hiring legally married gay and lesbian persons.

Now, I understand that many evangelicals don’t like gay people—all the “love the sinner, hate the sin” nonsense to the contrary notwithstanding.  I’ve heard the persistent countermanding of Jesus’ command, “Judge not, lest you be judged”.  I’ve seen the willingness to “cast the first stone” at people no more mired in sin than they are themselves.  I get all that.

I don’t get this: religious ideologues so committed to their notion of spiritual purity that they would withhold food and water from a child on the other side of the world in order to strong arm a Christian charity that is attempting to embody Christian charity.  “Shame on you” is too weak a response.

Evangelicals comfortable with this most recent turn of events need to ask themselves two questions.  Is this really who we want to be?  Is this really the best representation we can give of the one who forgave his worst enemies—before they asked and at the moment they were taking his life?

We know better.  One day, soon perhaps, we will be better.

Rev. Brad Brookins

Mt Vernon United Church of Christ

What we are doing and why it matters--Part I

At our October Church Council meeting one of the council members entered the motion that we open a conversation to discern whether the Mt Vernon United Church of Christ should seek to be designated as an "Open and Affirming" congregation within the larger UCC denomination.  Mark Landmark was appointed as the Council liaison with the committee that would be formed to do this and he was charged with calling for volunteers to serve on that committee.

In this series of letters I want to explain to you what this means; that is to say, to tell you what this committee is doing and why it matters--both to us as a congregation and to our community.

In 1985, at the 15th General Synod of the United Church of Christ meeting in Ames, Iowa, a resolution encouraging UCC congregations to declare themselves "Open and Affirming" was entered and passed with 98 % of delegates voting in favor.  According to information on the UCC web site, "to say that a setting of the UCC (a local church, campus ministry etc.) is “Open and Affirming” means that it has publicly and specifically declared that those of all sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions (or “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender” people) are welcome in its full life and ministry (e.g. membership, leadership, employment, etc.) It bespeaks a spirit of hospitality and a willingness to live out this hospitality and welcome in meaningful ways."

In other words, an Open and Affirming (ONA) congregation welcomes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in worship and (and this is a sometimes difficult "and") affirms these folks as brothers and sisters to us, as members of the Body of Christ with us and, like us, as beloved children of God redeemed by God's grace, endowed with God's Spirit and called with us to serve the world God loves.

This 28 year old call from the General Synod has now been heard in our congregation and your Church Council has decided to seek an answer. 

This raises a series of important and complicated questions for your ONA committee to consider:

Is the United Church of Christ in Mt Vernon "open and affirming" in the sense of the above statement?  That is to say, are we, in our practice and in our culture and in our heart, both welcoming and affirming of LGBT people?

If we are not, could we become so through conversation and study and prayer?  Should we?

If we are, is this the right time to stand publicly in support of our LGBT brothers and sisters and to welcome them into our family and fellowship?

And finally, how do we conduct this conversation in a way that guarantees everyone a chance to speak and grants a hearing to every opinion?

Different churches go about this discernment process in different ways.  Your ONA committee has chosen to take its time, to ask a lot of questions, to seek out the variety of opinions that are no doubt held by our members, to educate ourselves and the congregation through Bible study prayer and conversation and, in humility and openness to the direction of God's Spirit, to seek to discern and to follow God's will.

So that's what we are doing. 

These are the members of the ONA committee:  Pat Leavenworth, chair, Claire Jenkins, Mary Dowling and Mark Landmark.  I am on the committee as an ex-officio member--(which means I get to say whatever I want and no one has to listen and I don't get to vote anyway).  There is room for others to join in our work and the committee has expressed a desire for this to happen.  The current committee is, quite frankly, in favor of leading the congregation to declare itself "Open and Affirming" and so we are in need of participants who might have and want to express a contrary opinion. 

The date, time and place for all of our meetings will be announced in advance and are, of course, open to anyone who wants to come and contribute constructively to the conversation.  We will be hosting a variety of events--most of which have not been determined as of yet, but will likely include discussions, Q & A sessions, movies, "expert" panels from outside our congregation and maybe even a sermon or two.

The process will take a while; we honestly don't know how long.  A lot will depend on the response we get from all of you and on our own sense of how our efforts are received and understood.  The point is, we are not in a hurry; no one is driving a bulldozer through the congregation.  We have time to do this right.  We recognize that you can't legislate the heart of a church.  You can't make something so just by declaring it to be so.

That said, however, we should also say we are not expecting or waiting for a unanimous decision in favor of positioning our church as an Open and Affirming congregation.  As much as we would like that to be the case, this is not the way this congregation has ever made its important decisions.  Eventually, we believe, a proposal will be brought to a duly called congregational meeting and together, by a majority vote, we will decide together the course we will take.

There is one other thing I need to say, and then I'll be done with Part I of this letter.  This is important to me and I think important as well to the congregation and to the process we have undertaken.

I need you to know this was not my idea.  While it has never been a secret that I am completely supportive of our LGBT brothers and sisters, I have been careful (I hope) not to push for this action to be taken.  It is essential, I believe, that a movement as important as this one be birthed by the Holy Spirit within the congregation itself, and not arise from the pastor's personal agenda. 

It is possible that this process will bring us into some difficult, if not contentious, conversations.  I will, in fact, be surprised (but not disappointed) if it doesn't.  But we have done difficult things in the past; we have handled divisive issues in the past, and with God's help we will do so again.   Please be assured that I will do my best in all this to be the pastor to the whole church.

That's enough for Part I.  Now you know what we are doing.  Stay tuned.  Part II will follow shortly in which I will tell you (with fewer words, I hope) why what we are doing is so very important.

Yours in hope,

Brad Brookins