“Warning: Heresy Ahead”

I Corinthians 10:1-13

A Sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

March 14, 2004

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

            During lent, we have been looking at the temptations of Christianity.  The first temptation, as we saw two weeks ago, is the temptation to control belief.  The church does this when it promotes orthodoxy.  The second temptation is to forget major parts of our own story.  Last week we remembered the story of the woman with the alabaster jar whom some believe to be Mary Magdalene and still others believe to be the bride of Jesus.  Whoever she was, we are called to do our ministry in memory of her and we have succumbed to the temptation, most of us, to forget her. 

            This week the temptation is to expel a part of the Christian family, the mystical body of Christ after we have judged their position as heretical.  That’s why I entitled this sermon, “Warning: Heresy Ahead.”

            Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth dealt a great deal with this.  People at the Corinthian church had all sorts of differences of belief and opinion.  Paul tried to straighten them out (so to speak) from afar.  He used the examples of the waywardness of the people of Israel in the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land.  Whenever they stepped out of line, An angry and vengeful God punished the people.  For instance, a number of people had sexual relations with Moabites, which included following after their gods.  God was not satisfied until all those idolaters were not only punished but actually killed.  A few centuries later, Boaz married a Moabite by the name of Ruth and no one got killed or even threatened because of it.  This is the ancestral line that brought us Jesus.

            The 13^th verse in particular has spoken to me this week: “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone.  God is faithful, and God will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with your testing God will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

            I have felt tested this week.  

            Our American Baptist Region did a grave injustice to Lynn Welton, Ross Aalgaard, two openly gay/lesbian people who are in the ordination process.  Their two situations are different, but the principle is the same.  They both bravely told their story and have told of their faith journeys and their call to the ministry.  To go through ordination in the closet would have been an affront to their integrity and their calling as ministers.  Ironically, it is their honesty that has caused so much trouble.  Both have been examined by our Area I Ministry Committee and have been sent on to the next level in preparation for ordination.

            Ross is a rather conservative evangelical with a pastor’s spirit.  He is ordained Baptist General Conference and has many years of pastoral experience, including serving a dually aligned church in Iowa that is American Baptist and Baptist General Conference.  When he came out of the closet, he resigned his church and began the long difficult road of finding a new place for him to serve.  He ended up at Judson Memorial Baptist Church and began the process of having his Baptist General Conference ordination recognized by American Baptists.  He had to take a Baptist polity course at United Seminary.  Like all people entering ordained ministry, he had to go through the rigorous psychological and emotional testing at the Center for the Ministry.  He needed to write an ordination paper.  The process took him years.  Throughout the process, he was shepherded by our Area I Ministry Committee.  On January 22^nd, they examined him and deemed him worthy of ordination recognition.  Lynn Welton and I were waiting in the hall for her interview with the committee and we were invited into the sanctuary to celebrate with Ross and the people from Judson who had come to support him.  They told us then to keep the date of March 21^st in our minds to celebrate the official recognition of his ordination by the American Baptist Churches.

            A few hours later, Lynn Welton also passed the examination of this committee.  Her powerful ordination paper told of her story, her call, her faith journey and her sense of God calling her to the ministry.  Of course, she was out of the closet in her paper.  To do otherwise is to lie.  We joyfully made plans for her ordination council which is still scheduled for March 28^th at 5pm.

            Then the unthinkable happened.  The Region did something unprecedented.  They told us that the recognition of Ross (and by implication Lynn) would be put on hold until the Regional Ministry Committee could meet.  They met on March 8^th, this past Monday, and decided to wait on the recognition of all homosexual ordination candidates until the region has adopted a policy on homosexual ordination.  In effect, they contradicted the words of our local Ministry Committee and told them that they were wrong in letting Ross and Lynn go through the process.  Our Ministry Committee has long affirmed that in Baptist polity we do not make distinctions between people on the basis of their sexual orientation, their theological background, their race, their gender, or their age.  What is most important is that they have been called to the ministry and that they are prepared.  The region is in breach of contract with these people and maybe even with us.

            I got wind of this on Wednesday and in my role as Area I Moderator, I knew we had some work cut out for us.  Jean Lubke and I both serve on the Regional Policy Board who yesterday had to act on the recommendation from the Ministry Committee.  Not only was the new exclusionary policy unjust, it was unbaptist.  We don’t have a theological litmus test as Baptists.  At least we didn’t until yesterday. 

            The Ministry Committee presented its motion to implement a 1993 American Baptist General Board Resolution calling for dialogue on human sexuality with the goal of establishing Region policy regarding the recognition of the ordination of homosexuals.  They also proposed that the ordination of homosexuals is pending the adoption of Regional policy concerning this issue.  Prior to the meeting, I sent out the wording of their proposals to all of our Area I churches and of course to our UBC list.  I received dozens of e-mails all saying this is unjust, unfair and unbaptist.  Jean Lubke, Diane Ehr and I worked late into the night on Friday crafting a response.  We finally decided to encourage The Regional Policy Board to affirm it Baptist polity and not make a decision regarding the ordination of homosexuals.  Instead, we wanted them to trust the local Ministry Committees and not delay the recognition of any candidate.  We told them that we welcomed dialogue, but that the goal ought to be understanding and not a decision about an entire group of people. 

            As I stood up to speak, it felt like I was in the lonesome valley.  There were stony stares and threats that if we allowed homosexual persons to be ordained then we would lose thirty to fifty churches from our region.  In my mind’s eye I could see people counting the numbers of mission dollars that would mean.  I told them that our African American sisters and brothers have dual alignment with other Baptist bodies and that they have encouraged people to go through the ordination process in American Baptist life because it is so much more rigorous.  But yet they are leery of doing so because people in the majority tend to change their own rules to keep people out.  People made impassioned pleas on both sides.  Jean and I pleaded with them to retain present policy and welcome everyone.  In the end, they voted to study, make a decision in a year and delay the recognition of Ross and Lynn.  And then no one volunteered to be on the study team.  It makes me wonder if they really want to study this.

            I felt and feel betrayed, angry, ashamed, hurt and profoundly sad. 

            It reminded me of a dream I had one month ago today.  I don’t often remember dreams let alone write them down, but for some reason I felt a need to write this one down. The following is from my own journal written a month ago:

“2/14/04

I had a dream the other night.  It was summer and I was out camping with a bunch of people.  I think they were church people, although I don’t remember any of them in particular.  We got to the camp ground on a weekday night, set up our tents and went to sleep.  The next day we went out sightseeing or hiking and when we came back the place was crawling with people.  It had become the weekend and we realized we were right next to the main stage of the weekend’s festivities.  When we got to our camp ground, my tent was gone.  My sleeping bag and my backpack were there, but someone had stolen my tent.  There were hundreds of people around me and I remember looking around frantically for the park rangers to report the robbery.  They weren’t around.  I finally found some security guards but they told me that they were for the band and that I could talk to the people at the information booth, but I couldn’t make it through the crowds.

Now, this sounds like an out of control dream, I know.  It was.  It’s so seldom that I remember dreams, but the symbolism of this one resonated with me.  A place that we thought was home no longer resembles home.  I’m talking about our region.  We can sleep there quite well and then someone else can take over very quickly.  Before long, our tent has been taken away.  The tent could represent the church, it could represent our building.  It could represent our place in the denomination.  I don’t know.  We know it is against the law, so we go in search of the people who make the decisions and who we entrust to do the right thing.  And even they forsake us.  That can’t be the end of the story.”

 

Indeed it is not the end of the story.  You know, when I saw the hymns that Betty chose for today’s service I thought they were maybe a little too Holy Week focused.  But now I see the divinely inspired wisdom you have, Betty.  We feel under the cross from time to time.  I know I felt I was about to suffocate under the weight of that cross on Saturday.  Making a call to my colleague Diane Hooge at Judson and Lynn Welton last night were very difficult, indeed.  But then Lynn said, “I’m disappointed for sure, but this doesn’t change a thing.  I am still called to the ministry and no one can take that away.  I am still looking forward to my ordination council.  I know that I will get ordained eventually and I also know that it will be recognized eventually.  Our time is not always God’s time.”

All of a sudden I didn’t feel so alone after all. 

There is never an Easter without a Good Friday. 

There is never a resurrection without a cross. 

There is something in store for us that we don’t see yet. 

Maybe we need to wait a few days until sunup on Easter morning and see if that stone is rolled away.

            Paul said “God is faithful, and will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing, God will provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

            So a part of the church family has said that we are heretical.  They have tried to expel us, but we have chosen not to expel them.  Coretta Scott King said that the worst kind of violence you can have is to give up on your enemies, even when it seems they have given up on you. 

            I don’t plan to give up.  Maybe when I have a bit of distance I can see this as part of a larger plan which includes persecutions and resurrections.  I don’t know.  But I know that here, I don’t bear this alone.  I felt buoyed by all of your prayers.  I am so grateful to be here among all of you as we seek to do the right thing, because ultimately we will all have to answer to God not only for how we dealt with our friends, but how we dealt with our enemies.

            We’ll need each other as we take this next step. 

We need each other because we are home. 

We are family, we know what it means to disagree and still be in the same family.  We know what it means to hold on to someone who is grieving. 

We know what it means to be convicted by Truth and live our lives by it. 

We also know that the long arc of history bends toward justice and we can’t let this pull us off course. 

Together, we can go (with today’s music as our guide) from the lonesome valley, through the cross and even to the Promised Land. 

All along the way we will be with God.  Praise God.  Amen.