Love Has Yet to Win

A reflection by Sarah

I don’t like to write depressing entries for our blog. I’d much rather get back to writing meaningful reflections on living celibacy as a layperson in the world. But that’s not where my mind is right now, and I can’t force it to be there. I suppose one benefit to blogging is knowing that I never have to be isolated. No matter how often Lindsey is away at work, no matter how infrequently I can get out of the apartment to meet up with friends and get my freakishly high extrovert needs met, the blog is here and I’m not alone. Thank you all for reading and bearing with me today.

I’m feeling pretty weary this weekend. Maybe it’s because of my upcoming surgery. Maybe it’s because spending a lot of time at home in bed means more opportunity to see the ugliness of the internet in the aftermath of nationwide marriage equality. But I think mostly, it’s anger at Christianity. Anger is exhausting. Last week, Lindsey and I were sitting in our living room and discussing the processes by which each of us learned that it’s normal to experience anger at God. That got me thinking about how I’ve never come to terms with experiencing anger at the Church.

It feels safer to be angry at God than it does to be angry at the Church. If I pull out my prayer rope and begin praying each knot while feeling absolutely fed up with a particular lesson God seems to be teaching me, the result is not going to be an offended deity making my life more difficult just for spite. If I curl up in a ball on my bed and cry for hours from rage about a difficult life circumstance and yell in anger, “Why, God? Why?!” I’m not going to be shamed for my emotions. But with the Church, it’s a different matter. In the opinions of many people I know, being angry at the Church (whether you mean “Body of Christ” or “official teachings”), is not okay. Expressing anger at the Church often results in assertions that I don’t actually desire faithfulness, that I’m being a whiner and need to toughen up because “following Christ isn’t supposed to be easy,” or that my pain is caused by my own sin and my own lack of willingness to let the tradition teach and transform me. Christ will not dismiss or berate me regardless of where I am spiritually in a given season of life, but plenty of his followers will.

Over the past week, Lindsey and I have written our respective reflections on how we are feeling after Obergefell vs Hodges. We had little energy to comment on much more than our fears about losing access to domestic partner benefits, but there is so much more to be said, and not just about gay marriage. I’m going to state the obvious: the internet is a dark, cruel place where people created in the image of God treat other people created in the image of God as though they haven’t even the dignity of bacteria on the bottom of my shoe. No reasonable person ever expects to find utopia on the internet. Nevertheless, I always hope that the people who make up the Church will surprise me during intense news cycles; yes, I’m more than a little idealistic.

This weekend, I’m angry because the Body of Christ needs to be engaging in repentance and reconciliation after the ways we have treated people who are different from us. I’m angry because we have allowed issues of difference, whether ideological or otherwise, to divide us. Within the same week, I see one friend stating publicly, “Any church that lets queers in needs to have its whole congregation stoned to death,” and another friend proclaiming, “If you think for any reason that gay sex is a sin, you’re a hateful bigot!” Both are members of my Christian tradition. Both claim to love Christ and do their best to follow him in their daily lives. What have we come to when one member of the Church would have another stoned to death? When theological disagreement even after prayerful reflection and discernment means that the person who disagrees is hateful?

I’m angry because white Christian America has been sitting back, content to wave either a rainbow flag or a Confederate flag as black churches have burned to the ground and black Christians have been murdered while worshipping. White LGBTQ Christians previously engaged in meaningful discussions about racial reconciliation abandoned those conversations in favor or gloating over marriage equality. Some will not pick up that discussion topic again until there’s a lull in the LGBTQ news cycle. Folks who do not consider themselves allies to the black community but were still engaged in conversations about Ferguson, Baltimore, and Charleston have ceased participation in order to mourn because “the gays are destroying America.” How quickly we’ve forgotten about the nine human beings who lost their lives while attending church not even three weeks ago, or at least pushed their deaths to the back of our minds in favor of spouting off bad theology about sex. What happened in the United States on June 26, 2015? Why will future generations remember that date? Certainly not because of the Reverend Clementa Pinckney’s funeral. And I’m ashamed of myself as a white person for forgetting his first name and needing to Google it before adding it to this post.

I’m angry because able-bodied Christian America is clueless about how to be loving to people with disabilities. After the Supreme Court ruling, more than one article about disability and marriage was published. People with disabilities in America who receive SSI benefits risk losing resources if they marry. Some people with disabilities were married or living with a partner before becoming disabled and cannot qualify for help because of the spouse/partner’s income. These are real problems that the Church could be addressing, yet most of what I’ve seen from Christians on these issues is, “Just go with other programs that aren’t income-based” (never mind that you have to be out of work and likely broke anyway before qualifying) or, “Stop whining. It’s not the government’s job to take care of you. You could work if you really wanted and had more motivation.” How many members of the Body of Christ actually care about how broken our social programs for people with disabilities are?

Speaking of ableism, I’m angry about an entirely different issue I’ve been dealing with for several weeks. I’m angry about the nonsense that passes as d/Deaf and hard of hearing ministry or “deaf inclusive ministry” in Christian churches. I’m angry that hearing people at Christian publishing houses profit by selling ministry resources that co-opt American Sign Language and Deaf culture, throwing random ASL signs into spoken songs and calling that inclusion. I’m angry that when I try to educate on how wrong this is and why it is not actually welcoming to the Deaf community, hearing people engaged in ministry become defensive and argue with me about how hearing children in Sunday School need something to do with their hands and doing a few signs seems like a good idea. And I’m angry that on the few occasions when hearing people do listen to me about this, they’re almost always more willing to accept my perspective as a person with hearing loss who grew up hearing than they are to acknowledge arguments from my friends who have grown up in Deaf culture.

Perhaps more than anything else, I’m angry that there are Christians who are more concerned with policing identity than with building relationships. If you’re a straight, white, hearing person, it’s easy to judge a gay person, a black person, or a deaf person, “Your cultural identity isn’t important. It’s not who you are. Who you are is in your relationship with Christ.” We need to stop saying that all people are equal and should be treated with respect if we are going to pretend that some aspects of identity do not exist. If I tell one of my black friends, “Skin color doesn’t matter. Everyone is the same to me,” I have just erased a huge part of that person’s life experience. The same thing happens when Christians tell me, “You’re not really a lesbian. You just struggle with liking women, and we all struggle with sin,” or “Just accept your deafness as a limitation. There’s nothing positive about it. You’re going to be healed in the eschaton anyway.”

When we erase people’s experiences, we drive them away. It doesn’t matter if you think race isn’t important. It is in American society, and white people are the ones who have made it so. It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand why a person would want to identify as gay. For many people, it’s an important term, and straight Christians ought to be willing to engage in conversation and consider why. It doesn’t matter if you believe that deafness and other disabilities will be eliminated in the hereafter. No one person knows more about the eschaton than any other person does, and it would behoove members of the Church to reflect more deeply on how social stigma has created what we consider to be “disability.” And let’s not forget that progressive, social justice-y Christians are also good at erasing the experiences of conservatives and traditionalists.

Cultural identities may or may not matter at all in the next life. As Christians, we are not called to ignore the here and now or excuse ourselves from treating others well and working for justice on the grounds that someday none of our differences will have meaning. When I look at the Church this week, I have seen it seething, oozing, and pulsing  with the emotional illnesses that make it hard for us to do life together. And it’s challenging because part of me wants to shove everything and everyone aside, screaming, “Eeeeeewww! Ick!” But then I’m left looking at the same festering assumptions and judgments within my own heart. There’s relief that comes when we look in the mirror at our human failings and own them. That’s what I’m experiencing now. I’m much less angry. But where do we go now as we journey towards reconciliation?

EDIT: Thanks to a reader for pointing out a typo where I had misgendered Reverend Clementa Pinckney. I assure you that it was an honest typing error and not my thinking that this person was a woman. I blame this one on vertigo. Apologies to all who read the first version!

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Some Thoughts on Sympathy, Suffering, and the Paschal Mystery

A reflection by Sarah

In many of our past blog posts, Lindsey and I have discussed some of the different kinds of reactions other people have when they find out we are a celibate couple. Some folks are skeptical of us, others supportive, others cautiously optimistic about our claim that we really don’t care to discuss our sexual ethic in terms of, “Is gay sex a sin?” Lately, one of the most common reactions we’ve been receiving is sympathy. We have readers, friends, and family members who feel sorry for us because we are celibate. Occasionally people outside our Christian tradition tell us that we’re missing out on one of life’s greatest pleasures because of blind obedience to authoritarian religion. During our series on sexual abuse last week, one person told me that she is sorry for what happened to me and will be praying I’ll heal completely from my history of sexual trauma so that Lindsey and I will finally be able to have sex. At the same time, plenty of people inside our Christian tradition believe that the kindest words they can possibly say to us are, “I’m sorry you’ve been given such a heavy cross to bear in life.”

I can’t help but make a connection to another circumstance in which I’ve received a great deal of sympathy lately. As I’ve become increasingly open in discussing my Ménière’s disease and the resulting hearing and vestibular loss, more and more people in my life have been telling me, “I’m sorry you’re stuck in such a bad situation. But good on you for making the best of it!” In truth, I do see my vestibular loss as a bad situation. Because I can no longer balance my body in the way most people can without even trying, my mobility is limited. I used to swim every day, and now I can’t do that anymore. I love socializing and getting out of our apartment to go on adventures by myself or with other people, and most of the time I can’t do that anymore either. I’ve gained lots of weight and have no endurance at all because most days, I can’t move very much. I can’t work right now either. But I’m not “making the best” of anything regarding this issue. I’m irritable all the time, I snap at Lindsey when I become frustrated with myself, and I try to do more than I’m able and end up hurting myself in the process. Nothing in that is making the best of a bad situation.

That said, I don’t see my hearing loss as negative in even the slightest way. Sure, I’ve gone through (and am still probably going through) a grieving process because it’s unsettling to lose one manner of interacting with the world that I’ve had access to for my whole life. Working on accepting myself as I am rather than trying to “fix” it has been painful in some ways, but pain is not always a bad thing. In the process, I’ve gained so many new ways of understanding the world around me — things I never would have experienced as a hearing person. When I’m participating in Liturgy by feeling the choir’s vibrations and noticing how those induce images of synthetic color, I’m not making the best of a bad situation; I am communing with God in a way I couldn’t have before my hearing loss. It’s common for members of my tradition to speak of monasteries as places that offer people a unique opportunity to encounter God in silence. Monasteries are indeed wonderful places, but my question is: how many monks, nuns, and monastery lovers truly know the experience of total silence? I’m talking about silence that is free from every possible distraction — no leaves rustling, no birds chirping and flapping their wings, no water running…not even the sound of one’s own breath. Assuming that there are no rock bands, gunshots, or jets around, when I take off my hearing aids I can experience the gift of total silence on some days. Even the best custom-designed earplugs will not give a hearing person that gift. I think that’s amazing.

I’m taking some online coursework this summer to help me keep my mind occupied until July when I’ll have my next ear surgery. Last week, the professor in one of those classes suggested that my Ménière’s is part of how I experience the paschal mystery. I’ve lost and I’ve grieved, but I’ve also seen the birth of many new and wonderful things. There are some days when, where my vestibular loss is concerned, I still find myself feeling much more connected to the crucifixion than to the resurrection. But is there anything wrong with that? There are also times when I feel deeply connected with the resurrection and other people tell me this isn’t theologically or emotionally right because I’m “romanticizing” my suffering. It has never made sense to me how someone else can claim to know better than I do when I am suffering and when I am not.

I’ve been thinking about how celibacy is also part of my paschal mystery. It hasn’t been easy for my to accept that I will never give birth to children. It’s definitely not easy to accept that I live in a society where marriage has become the default vocation for all people, and those who choose celibacy tend to be viewed as odd and repressed. It’s challenging to be so committed to a Christian tradition where there is little guidance for living celibacy outside a monastery. Nonetheless, I am joyous about continuing to cultivate a celibate vocation in the world alongside Lindsey. Celibacy is one of my callings. I didn’t ask for it any more than I asked God to make me deaf, but I’ve found both of these realities to be life-giving rather than limiting. There are days when I feel more connection with the binding of Isaac than I do with the Annunciation, but that’s how it is with any calling and any long-term state of being.

Sometimes, we don’t know what to say to another person except, “I’m sorry.” I include myself in that “we.” There are occasions when sympathy is a helpful response, and I don’t always know for sure how to differentiate between those occasions and others. But I do think that at times, sympathetic responses can miss the mark when it comes to understanding how callings and life experiences work differently for different people. What would it be like to spend more time discussing our callings and life experiences in terms of the paschal mystery? Several questions run through my mind. To name a few: what if we offered fewer condolences and made more effort to understand what we perceive to be another person’s cross? How might offering support look different if we could accept that what looks like a cross to one person can appear as a crown to another? Do we have to see crosses as negative in the first place?

What callings and experiences from your own life are part of your paschal mystery? If you feel led to share, the comments are open.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Meeting People in Sickness

A reflection by Lindsey

Lent is a time of year when people frequently ask me how God has been challenging me to grow spiritually. As far as the Church year goes, it’s the season where I feel most in touch with my humanity. Lent is a time where it seems absolutely normal to reflect on my sin, my frailty, my limitations, and Christ’s power in the midst of everything. This Lent has proven to be typical in these regards.

I’ve been watching a lot of suffering this season. An older friend of mine died recently because of congestive heart failure. Many of my friends have been experiencing profound grief after their friend was killed in a car accident, leaving behind his wife and six children. I’ve also seen firsthand what it means for Sarah to have an extremely aggressive form of Meniere’s disease. Sarah’s balance continues to decline, where Sarah is chronically exhausted from all of the different ways the body tries to compensate for vestibular system losses. And because it’s Lent, I find myself more inclined to say, “Okay God, what’s going on here? What are you trying to show me?”

The first thing I’ve realized is that it’s hard to make space for people who are sick. Many people have asked me if I’m praying for God to heal Sarah. In my lived experience, expecting God to heal Sarah miraculously creates much more pain and anger. I have a naive view of healing where God makes everything “all better” and it was like the sickness was little more than a bad dream. Praying for God to restore every aspect of Sarah’s health before the Meniere’s diagnosis feels futile as much, even as I do pray every day that God is ever-present, active, and bringing peace that surpasses all understanding. My sense of the miraculous has been recalibrated where I see how God might be active in the small bits of the day. When Sarah is laid out with a vertigo attack, I find myself praying that God would bring this spell to an end as quickly as possible and that the various medical treatments Sarah has tried would have some positive effect. I have also discovered that I spend a lot of time praying for myself that I would be patient, provide comfort, and remain present.

I have been convicted about how meeting people in sickness involves practicing radical hospitality. I can’t think of anyone I know who likes sickness. I have been around healthcare professionals my whole life. People work in healthcare because they want to see others get well, they want to alleviate suffering, and they want to provide a degree of care that others cannot provide; people do not work in healthcare because they think sickness is a good thing. Keeping vigil with a sick person can be exhausting work. Bearing witness to another’s pain, doing the limited things you can do to bring comfort, and voluntarily entering spaces that no one wants to be in require surrendering your own will. Meeting people in sickness takes commitment. If you’re healthy, you frequently have the option to seek respite. It’s hard to find balance between making good self-care choices and acknowledging how chronic illness affects the every-minute reality of your loved one.

Being present has tremendous power. I’ve been amazed at how simply being myself has provided so much comfort to Sarah. As I have prayed about remaining present through various iterations of our “new normal,” God has been a constant source of reassurance. I have noticed features of what I do as a caregiver. Sarah and I have seen glimpses of what God might be asking us to do as a community of two, and we pray about this together regularly. Our community has expanded to include Gemma, a two-year-old chocolate Labrador that we plan to train as a service dog. I’m learning to differentiate between sickness, disability, and realities that are simply different ways of experiencing the world. I have learned a lot about how hearing people and deaf people experience noise, silence, and motion differently. Helping Sarah move between where we parked our car and our target destination has given me new appreciation for people with mobility disabilities. I have learned to ask questions when people tell me that they’re not feeling well. I find myself more attentive to other people’s needs and more forthcoming when it comes to sharing my needs with others.

I can’t help but feel like I’m becoming just that much more human.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Difference, Disability, and the Mystery of the Age to Come

A reflection by Sarah

Difference. It’s a word that’s being used more and more these days. It is a loaded term. I’m not sure I can count the number of times when I’ve witnessed someone using the word “difference” and someone else reacting with suspicion or outright hostility. Cut the politically correct bullshit. Ten years ago, no one felt shamed when dyslexia was called a “learning disability” rather than a “learning difference.” There is no difference between gay people and everyone else — gay people just want special rights. Celibacy is not a “different” calling — clearly, it shows that a person is uncomfortable with thinking about sex. As we’ve been blogging for the past year, I have noticed that a large number of people find the language of “difference” problematic. Some see it as a sign that the person using this word believes in coddling or extending unneeded additional privileges to someone who is “different.” Others see it as a denial of obvious realities — for example, glossing over hard topics like disability or sexual orientation in attempt to cater to a person or group’s oversensitivity. These folks often see themselves as acknowledging objective reality for what it is while the rest of the world is too concerned with sparing people’s feelings.

Important as I think it is to call a duck a duck, I’m skeptical of these claims more often than not. Decrying use of the word “difference” because of its supposed political correctness usually involves appealing to some objective reality that may or may not actually be objective. It seems to me that the problem becomes even more complicated when folks insist upon language that implies value judgment — gayness means that something is “wrong” regardless of the person’s level of sexual activity because it is contrary to God’s plan for marriage. Physical disability means that something is “wrong” with a person’s body part because body parts have obvious natural functions intended by God. Celibacy means that something is mentally or emotionally “wrong” with the celibate person because this way of life contradicts God’s commandment that we should be fruitful and multiply.

I remember a conversation I had with my paternal grandfather when I was about to enter the 10th grade — what Americans refer to as the “sophomore” year of high school. He asked me if I knew what that word — sophomore — meant. Based on its roots, I had a sense that its meaning was related to both wisdom and foolishness. Grandpa, a brilliant man who had spent his younger years in the U.S. Navy and then worked as a professor of electricity, informed me that the word does indeed mean “wise fool.” I remember the conversation as though it was yesterday. “Sarah,” he told me, “A foolish man will spend his life gathering knowledge and priding himself on how much he thinks he knows. A wise man will spend his life learning how very little he knows, and the world will see his wisdom as foolish.” I always loved and respected Grandpa, but as the average high school sophomore likely would, I dismissed his words as the ramblings of a very old man with severe dementia. Now, what I wouldn’t give to sit down with him and have this discussion all over again…

So much of my life as an adult has been influenced by that conversation. Not that I consider myself particularly wise, but it has helped me to keep in mind that the human ability to know things is extremely limited. No matter how strong my opinion may be on a particular issue, it’s unreasonable to insist that I can know certain things about myself, other people, the world, and God if I actually can’t. When it comes to what God did or did not intend regarding human diversity, I don’t buy the western theological notion that almost everything can be categorized into natural or unnatural, ordered or disorderedgood or bad, and right or wrong. To be totally clear, I’m not promoting a moral relativist position. I do believe that objective good and badright and wrong exist, and that from a Christian perspective actions and behaviors almost always fit one or more of these descriptors. However, it does not make sense to me that we can know without a doubt how (or if) every aspect of the incarnate human experience can be placed into one of these categories. Yes, I know, our readers who are fans of Aristotle and Aquinas are about to explode upon reading that. In case I haven’t already made it clear in other posts, I don’t always find detailed systematic explanations of theological or practical matters very convincing. Some experiences of life strike me as amoral. They cannot be rightly categorized because categorization drains these human experiences of their mysteriousness. It makes sense to me that discussing many aspects of life in terms of “difference” is a helpful way of appreciating that our minds are finite and we cannot put the mystery of God into a box.

Recently, the most common conversations I’ve engaged in regarding issues of difference have involved disability. These conversations have taken place over several weeks with many different people, and amongst all of them I’ve heard it stated that: 1) Disability is a result of the fall of humanity; 2) Disability means that something is wrong with a person on an ontological level; 3) Disability means that something is wrong, not on an ontological level, but on the level of “x body part isn’t working correctly”; 4) Because Jesus healed people of disabilities in the Gospels, it is obvious that people will be healed of all their disabilities in the Eschaton; 5) The claim that a certain disability is simply a “difference” carries with it the implication that disability is bad, difference is good, and people who don’t use difference language for describing their own disabilities ought to be shamed. Clearly, there is not enough space within one blog post to unpack all of these, but I think it’s important to address the general attitudes behind them. As I see it, many of these bear similarities to the continuous language policing that politically far-right straight Christians engage in with regard to LGBTQ issues.

The term “disability” is not scriptural. It is a human construction based upon what the able-bodied majority sees as normal or deviating from normal. People who have disabilities understand those disabilities in a wide variety of ways. Some view their disabilities primarily as distressing realities that interfere with their pursuits of fulfillment in life. Others view disabilities as nothing more than different ways of being — ways of life that need not be thought of as limited, but can be discussed in terms of advantages or even increase in other kids of ability (e.g. some hearing people who are blind have keener auditory abilities than hearing people who are sighted). There are also people with disabilities who see those disabilities as more of a mixed bag. Some prefer the language of disability while others prefer to use the phrase different ability.

I’m not suggesting that there is a right or wrong way for people to understand their own disabilities, but I do find it problematic when Christians suggest that due to theological, biological, or other truths, the most correct way of understanding disability (or difference in general) is through a lens of “Humanity is fallen and broken, and this brokenness will be redeemed.” For the record, I agree that humanity lives with the consequences of sin’s entry into the world, though I (in accordance with the teachings of my tradition) do not believe that we inherit original sin. I also agree that all of us are broken in one way or another, and that the Eschaton will bring about a restoration of all things to Christ. But the problem is, none of us know exactly what that means, and it isn’t possible for us to know. How do we know that disabilities will be “healed” in the Eschaton? Or that gay people will no longer be gay? How do we know that a disabled/differently-abled person who actually finds joy in that disability/different ability will not be permitted to maintain that aspect of incarnate identity for all eternity?

The purpose of the miracle stories in the Christian scriptures is to show us something about the kingdom of God, where the first shall be last and those who have been exiled will be welcomed to a place at the table. It seems to me that welcoming those who have been exiled and restoring a person’s place in community would require different interventions for different people. It makes sense to me that Christ healed blind Bartimaeus of his blindness because the society of the time made it nearly impossible for blind people to experience any form of human connection. However, it does not make sense to me that one must interpret this scriptural story as evidence that blindness is necessarily a form of brokenness that must be cured in the Eschaton. What if in the Eschaton, some blind people are given a physical sense of sight and others are not? What if at that time, there is no such thing as a “physical” sense of sight at all? Why must a restoration of all things necessarily mean that every glorified body will be “able-bodied” in the sense that we define this term in our earthly lives? There are blind people who would not want to be sighted and deaf people who would not want to be hearing even if there was a magic pill that could make it so. Are we seriously anticipating that on the resurrection day, God will sit down with these folks and say, “You did the best you could with the abilities you had in earthly life. But seeing and hearing are better than not seeing or not hearing, so here you go!”

I probably need to stop writing before I give myself nightmares. The image of God at the end of my previous paragraph strikes me as frightening and cruel. My own reasons for taking a disability-positive approach to my hearing loss are deeply connected to acceptance of myself as a lesbian and as a celibate. If given the opportunity, I wouldn’t want to be straight. I would not want to live a non-celibate way of life. And to my great surprise as I’ve come to accept the change in my hearing status, I’m discovering that I don’t want to be a hearing person again. Other people feel differently about their own experiences of the same circumstances, and I’m not about to deny them their feelings. But when we try to tell other people that something about their ability level, sexual orientation, cultural identity, etc. is necessarily broken or indicates wrongness, we are making value judgments about human experiences that are deeply mysterious. We are being wise fools, claiming to know the full extent of how God intends to redeem humanity at the resurrection. In a sense, we are acting as though we are God. That’s a tendency I struggle with myself in some conversations, so I’m not claiming innocence here. But it is also a tendency that I pray we will see less and less of in churches, and the only method I know for combatting it is reminding myself that no matter how knowledgeable I think I am, I worship an infinitely mysterious God who alone knows the complex needs of each individual creation.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

The Problem of Wanting a Truly Inclusive Church

A reflection by Lindsey

Being and doing church together is hard. I can’t think of many things that are as demanding as trying to be the Body of Christ, built together for the purpose of reflecting God’s heart for the world. Some days I find myself wanting to give up all together.

I have certain scriptures that haunt my consciousness. They have for years. When I think about the Church, I hear John’s observation from Revelation ricocheting between my ears: “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.” I’ve wondered what exactly that verse indicates about the life in the hereafter, and I long to be a part of a church community where everyone is welcome with their diversities.

But there’s a problem with wanting a truly inclusive church. I find myself always leaving certain people out.

Over the last several months, I’ve been made painfully aware that I’m an ableist jerk. Attending church and coping with Sarah’s rapidly changing ability levels has been hard. I’ve realized that no matter what parish we attend, Sarah is frequently the only person with substantive hearing loss who needs support in accessing the service. But I’ve realized that there are more people who are absent. I’ve attended church in so many different communities. Across all of those communities, I recall only ever seeing one blind individual, one hard-of-hearing person, and maybe four wheelchair users. That’s really pathetic.

But what strikes me as even more pathetic is my own response. I have it in my head that these people pass through church. They come to church, they get prayer, and God heals them. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? There are countless stories of Jesus healing in the Gospels, and there are all sorts of exhortations to pray for the sick in our efforts to manifest God’s Kingdom on earth. How many times have I laid hands on a person to say “Holy Spirit come and bring healing”? How many times have I decided that if a particular person isn’t interested in healing, then that person lacks faith?

It’s tough stuff, so I find myself wondering, “What does God’s vision for an inclusive church actually look like?”

I don’t have the foggiest clue. Lately, I’m wondering if God’s Church is full of people who make me really uncomfortable. I am a judgmental, arrogant jerk who asks the question, “What is that person doing here?” But every time I ask the question, I realize that I could very easily be on the wrong side of the line I’ve drawn around who is welcome. When it comes to drawing lines to divide us and them, there’s something in me crying out, “You know Lindsey, by that set of metrics, you’re among the them.” The more I try to wiggle and redefine the boundary so I’m on the “right” side, the louder that voice cries out. Drawing lines to divide people is hard.

The problem is especially pronounced in Christian communities because, as Christians, we have a sacred obligation to present Christ to the world. Over two thousand years, God has chosen to entrust this task to people with the promise that the Holy Spirit will guide us along the way. I can’t help but read the history of the Church without thinking about the Old Testament stories of the Israelites. Does anyone else read 1 and 2 Kings and start screaming at the Israelites to get it to together already? If the scriptures bear witness to anything, I think they tell us that we truly suck at being a people of God.

I live in this odd hope that the Kingdom of God is made manifest now. Here, on Earth, in real time. I wonder a lot about what the here and now is supposed to teach me about the Eschaton. I reflect on everything I think I know and how so many of those beliefs have changed as I’ve really given myself to the task of following Jesus.

I do my best to find my way through the fog. Thinking about how I approach these really hard questions, I keep coming back to, “What are we saying about Jesus if we say xy, or z?” I try really hard to listen for the Holy Spirit. Occasionally, I reach conclusions that x is likely incredibly dangerous and has amazing potential to do harm. I’ve dug into that those questions and have concluded that certain theological tenets are essential. I didn’t have a sense of belonging in a particular Christian tradition when I started asking these questions, but along the way I encountered my current Christian tradition where all of a sudden I had a way of saying, “This is what it means to be the Church.” Fast forward six years, and I find my spirit troubled that I’ve never been in any local church community in any tradition that invites everyone to encounter Christ.

So much of the problem of being a truly inclusive church is that gap between what I believe the church should be and my tendencies to squirm when I see someone who makes me feel uncomfortable. Lord, have mercy.

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