Ponderings

When I started seminary in 1985, I was as homophobic as the average American. Although uncertain of my own views on sexuality, I was not uncertain about the expectations of the Christian church. I had pilgrimmaged through an array of American Christian expressions, and none of them was gay friendly. Like most ministers of my generation, I assumed that a call to ministry and a same gender relationship were mutually exclusive.

Very quickly, however, the leadership of the seminary (United Theological Seminary, New Brighton MN) assured our class that if we had a problem with homosexuality it was our problem and we needed to deal with it, quickly. After all, they explained, in the United Church of Christ we have been ordaining openly gay and lesbian clergy since 1972 and in the wake of the AIDS crisis, we cannot afford to spend time revisiting bad (exclusive) theology. In a time when silence equaled death, these leaders were not willing to be muzzled.

I admit that I was a bit perplexed but hugely relieved. Already I knew that this new denominational home was manna from heaven. Having slogged my way as a woman through “no women need apply”, I had no need to hang onto my homophobia.
Still, we were not naive about search committees. The ideal minister, I was keenly aware, is a (heterosexually) married man. Women are a distant second. Same-gender couples need not apply. In the two decades since leaving Minnesota, I have been repeatedly surprised by how unlearned these lessons still are. My first churches were in Michigan, an Open and Affirming Conference that worked very openly on behalf of equality. Even so, when an Open and Affirming church nearby was searching for a new pastor, my friends assured me that, as a woman married to a man, it was traitorous for me to apply. There were so very few truly open churches.

Coming to Missouri was even more eye opening in the dissonance that is ours in the United Church of Christ. Not only was this Conference not Open and Affirming, they had actually passed a resolution agreeing to not talk about it! When our congregation moved through the process, acting our way into being before finding the words, the Conference actually discouraged us and provided no overt support for our process. Epiphany UCC was the one oasis in St. Louis that held the light as we journeyed. In the years following our movement, there have been many more. Having acted our way into being as a Conference, new churches on the journey are now receiving support and encouragement. Increasingly our diverse St. Louis families have nurturing choices for worship. Truly much has changed.

Having come so far in the past couple of years, I was totally blindsided by the action of a nearby congregation. On May 30th the congregation gathered and voted to terminate their contract with their beloved pastor. Beloved or no, he had shared with him that his orientation was not, as they assumed, heterosexual. And they felt deceived.

This leaves me with a couple of important observations about our cocoon. Foremost is gratitude for the nurture and safety of our local church community. It is a choice that we make daily, a choice to believe Jesus about welcome, a choice to be vulnerable with one another, a choice to believe that we are worthy. Our choices, woven with together with the Spirit, have created an environment that enables growth and fosters compassion. Truly, ours is a blessed community for which I daily give thanks.

My other awareness, however, is that it is time for the butterfly to emerge. Enough is enough. The safety that has become second nature to many of us is sorely lacking in our world, even within our local UCC congregations. Our Governing Body and staff are spending Saturday afternoon in a visioning retreat, considering what it means to be a ‘leader’ for our still speaking God. The timing could not be more perfect.