Where Did Jesus Stand at the ELCA Assembly?

by Nadia Bolz-Weber 08-28-2009

In John 6:56-69, Jesus is teaching in the synagogue, and when he’s done a bunch of his followers say, “This teaching is haaaard.” And Jesus is like, “Oh, I’m sorry, does this offend you?” and several of them left right there on the spot. He then asks, “Do you also want to leave?” and Peter replies “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

As many of you know, my denomination — the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — met in church-wide assembly last week, the highest governing body of the church, with several historic decisions to be made around this church’s stance on issues of human sexuality. In the end, we approved a social statement as well as policy changes that now allow congregations to bless and hold publicly accountable those in same-sex, lifelong, monogamous relationships, as well as to call GLBTQ pastors in such relationships to serve as their clergy.

The debate on the floor between those at the green microphones who support these steps and those at the red microphones who reject these steps was sometimes inspired and sometimes insipid. Those in support urged the church to be open and loving as Jesus had been. Those opposed urged the church to heed the Bible. Both sides were passionate and faithful, and I’m proud to say that throughout the debate the assembly paused every 20 minutes to pray together. I watched people say prayerful things, hurtful things, thoughtful things, and idiotic things on both sides of the aisle.

And then a young pastor got up to speak at the green microphone and the first thing he said, in a quivering voice, was “Anyone else frightened to speak? I’m shaking. Please pray for me.” And the man standing right next to him at the red microphone reached over and laid his hand on him and prayed while his brother of the opposing viewpoint spoke.

Then I knew Jesus was really in between the red and green microphones. Not in some sort of neutral Jesus-as-Switzerland sort of way, but in the you-must-lose-your-life-to-gain-it sort of way. Jesus is between the red and the green microphones, between the red and the blue states offering us life and salvation in the words of eternal life and in the sacrament of his own body and blood. Jesus right there between the liberals and conservatives speaking the word that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Jesus standing there saying forgive as you have been forgiven.

Part of me is with the disciples who say, “These teaching are difficult, who can accept them?” So when Jesus says, “Do you too want to leave?” I think the only reasonable answer is, well, yeah. I do. ‘Cause these teachings are haaaard and I’m very aware of how much these policy changes mean to this community I love, but I’m also aware of how painful these policy changes are to a minority in this denomination I love.

To be sure, there are places to go in the ELCA for triumphalism. But while celebrating a victory is understandable, these are not the words of eternal life.

To be sure, there are some places in the ELCA where you can hear the words of angry indignation and revolt. But while disappointment is understandable, these are not the words of eternal life.

There are words of eternal life, but they are not our words. So let us not go to ourselves because as deeply as we hold our beliefs about inclusion, or social justice, or as deeply as we hold our beliefs about social conservatism or personal morality, we do not have the words of eternal life. We have our beliefs, our convictions, our understandings of scripture, and, hear me clearly — these are not to be taken lightly or walked away from. But they are not the words of eternal life.

Jesus, the true Word of God standing between red and green, points us to life and life abundant. Not the empty satisfaction of being right because we are the majority or because we are the righteous minority, but counter-intuitively the words of eternal life tell us that we must die. We must die to self and live to Christ.

At the beginning and the end of these debates, Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson reminded us that

WE MEET ONE ANOTHER FINALLY, NOT IN OUR AGREEMENTS OR OUR DISAGREEMENTS, BUT AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS. WHERE GOD IS FAITHFUL, WHERE CHRIST IS PRESENT WITH US, AND WHERE, BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, WE ARE ONE IN CHRIST.

So let’s again look to Christ and not ourselves, because in the end there are no winners and losers, there is just what there has always been, the good news of Jesus Christ, The Holy One of God. To whom else shall we go? He has the words of eternal life and offers all the inexplicable gift if his own self, body, blood, and word. And bids all come and eat.

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor living in Denver, Colorado, where she serves the emerging church, House for all Sinners and Saints. She blogs at www.sarcasticlutheran.com and is the author of Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television. This article is an edited adaptation of a recent sermon.

Categories: Ministry, Theology

letjusticerolldown

Amen and Amen.

Thank you so much for manifesting the Jesus Way and good writing!!

Any comment on the tornado? www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1965_the_tornado_the_l...

BuckeyeDon

Here's an excellent reply to John Piper's assertion regarding the tornado, from another Twin Cities area pastor (who isn't a Lutheran, BTW):

http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/did-god-send-a-tor...

letjusticerolldown

I was aware of the back-and-forth (ongoing) between Boyd and Piper. They both have their points. Personally, I think their able minds/hearts might be put to better use by attempting to embrace/synthesize the legitimate questions/views of each other rather than deconstruct each other's arguments.

lumens

Boyd embraced the legitimate view (homosexuality is not God's ideal), and discredited the illegitimate view (the anti-gay tornadoes thing).

Piper's blog was reactionary and theologically unsound. It needed to be deconstructed, and after the crap Piper has put Boyd through, I don't blame him for taking the axe to it.

cubfan19

Boyd maybe address some issues that Piper was wrong, but in the points he makes he does nor really help his side either. I do not necessarily agree with Piper, but here are some things to consider.
His point 1: Yes the minneapolis convention center was also hit, but that was the building that the actual assembly was being held in. I was there and the exact session that the tornado hit was the session when debate and voting was being done on the issue. So if Piper is right then there it would follow that the convention center would be hit (also it is right across the street from the church.)

Point 2: Very simply, Can God control the weather? If he can then it does not matter how natural it is.

Point 3: I think Boyd missed the point that the debate was actually over the view of scripture and not just sexuality, so if one side is truly breaking away from scripture that would be a serious offense. How to read scripture not particular views of sexuality. He also asks why other churches that neglect the poor are not hit by tornadoes, the problem is that this might be the case and Piper is talking about a specific incident, not every tornado.

Point 4: If God wanted to make things plain and clear then why didn't Jesus take the Devil's temptation on the mountain and set up his kingdom on earth by openly showing all his glory and power. This is just bad theology. Even though the Bible is based upon historical evidence and facts, it is ultimately a matter of faith. Also, if you want to know what happened to people who made incredible claims about what God was saying check the prophets of the OT. Again, this is not an endorsement of Piper, but Boyd's point is weak.

Point 6: Again, bad reading of the passage. The passage does not let off the hook the guilt of the 18, but says that the rest are just as guilty. Guilt is still maintained. Was it random? Probably. Important to note, though, is that no one was hurt at the convention. At least that was the announcement to those present.

So, though Piper might be wrong, Boyd didn't do much better.

Nadia's article was better than both Piper and Boyd.

canucklehead

Thx Buckeye for the link. When I first heard of Piper's pipe-dream I was instantly reminded of Pat Robertson's claim from some years back that God had intervened and spared Virginia Beach from being pummelled by Hurricane Fairy or whatever its name was. To my knowledge, Bro Pat never did satisfactorily answer why God loved Virginians more than New Jerseyans or wherever it was that that hurricane ended up wreaking havoc.

FaithfulandTrue

Well, New Jersey is where all those gambling casinos are located (owned by that rich man who has been divorced several times - I can't think of his name). Virginia is where the settlers landed in 1607 and planted a cross.

Reverend Robertson has only been married one time and the casino man had had several wives (Trump - I just remembered his name). And God hates divorce. So maybe we should consider placing all of the divorced couples in one state on the East Coast. Kind of like when farmers put a lightning rod on top of their barns.

canucklehead

Your sense of Christian compassion is revealing more than you know.

selahvie

Thank you for your thoughtful reflections. I had the privilege to be a voting member there. and recall especially the moments after we voted on the Ministry Recommendations when Bishop Hanson invited us to pray together in small groups. Some of our synod members immediately went to our companion synod prayer partners and, despite our known opposing convictions, gathered to hug/cry/pray as we were washed in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Amen and amen!

ando

Didn't God say in Genesis 2 that it was not good for man to be alone. So he created woman to be a helpmate and the two shall be united and become one flesh. I'm wondering if Genesis is just too passe. But then there is also Matthew and Jesus talking about marriage between a man and a woman.

The rhetoric here sounds a lot like the Episcopal church. You can couch it in any language you want, but at the end of the day God created man and woman to be fruitful, multiply and tend the Earth.

revmel

Hmmm...
So, what if my husband and I cannot be fruitful and mulitply?
Are going against God's mandate?
What if we don't tend the earth, but rob it of resources?
I just think we need to be careful when we say we want to take Genesis more seriously... That book has some huge problems: fratricide, rape, prostitution, and incest among others... all as God's will?

ando

Are you trying to say that it's not God's mandate that marriage is between a
man and a woman? I have a hard time trying to equate marriage with
"fratricide, rape, prostitution, and incest among others." I don't see the
logic.

revmel

First of all, it must be clarified that the ELCA did not approve gay marriage. Our understanding of that has not changed.

What I am saying is that the mandate to be fruitful and multiply was given to Adam and Eve. God made many mandates to his people in Genesis, a book you implied we don't give enough import, and we lift up that mandate as the one we should follow.
What about God telling Abraham to kill his son? What about the Nephilim? The flood that killed most of the world?

There are countless texts in Genesis that tell us what we should do to follow God's will- the list above included in them.

Why do we take the Genesis 2 account and not the rest of Genesis? Why do we lift up Matthew 19 on marriage, and not the later verses on divorce? If we decide not all of it is a literal application for our lives... how can we navigate through scripture with a new perspective.

ando

Okay, I guess you're the one to define marriage. How about two man and one
woman? Or two women and one man? How about leaving your wife to marry
another man? The ELCA did not approve gay marriage? What did they do?
What are they doing to support and uphold marriage between a man and a
woman? You make it sound that marriage between male and female is no big
deal. As if God just decided to make two sexes, not three or one, on a
whim.

The decision by the ELCA -- which I used to be part of -- is not surprising.

revmel

I'm sorry- I didn't mean to provoke, and I'm saddened, truly, that you needed to leave the ELCA.
However, I don't define marriage, (although I am one woman married to one man)
But the Bible does have lots of examples of marriage. Kings David and Solomon had hundred of wives and hundreds of mistresses. Levrite marriage was common, if your brother died, you married his wife, and added to the family. Paul thought you shouldn't even get married at all.
One form of "Biblical Marriage" simply doesn't exist. Check the texts.
That is all I am lifting up here- scripture.

JamesM

Very well written. Thank you.

Ngchen

I think here we have an example of the classic tension, if you will, between law and love. Liberals tend to think of God's love, and place their emphasis there. The danger in placing the emphasis there, is that this "love" can readily degenerate into a "anything goes" sort of mentality - antinomianism.

Conservatives, not surprisingly, place their emphasis on God's law. With it, there are rules of conduct and thinking. Pushed too hard, and the emphasis on law cheapens and demeans grace, and degenerates into legalism.

In reality, since reality is what really matters, God is both a God of love, and a God of law. God's love cannot condone or encourage what God's law forbids. So, unless the classically cited "anti-homosexuality" passages are incorrect or taken out-of-context or something like that, we would have to argue that God cannot bless such relations. But of course that does not mean that we shouldn't care about homosexuals, or that they can't enter into communion with the church (voluntarily choosing celibacy is sometimes the recommended way for them), or such.

lumens

"Conservatives, not surprisingly, place their emphasis on God's law."

No. Conservatives do not see God's law to stand in opposition to his law, but rather see his law as a manifestation of his love. We have the eternal words of life at our disposal, and the conservative position is that we ought to obey them.

So your position, that God's love cannot encourage what his law forbids, is the conservative position.

Replace "allowing those in monogamous homosexual relationships to remain as clergy" with "allowing those who believe it is acceptable to show contempt for the poor" and Nadia is not going to be so excited about the dichotomy between words of eternal life and words of personal belief. Her dichotomy is thus false.

Hannity2

"Those in support urged the church to be open and loving as Jesus had been. Those opposed urged the church to heed the Bible"

How exactly is it loving like Jesus to allow members in homosexual lifetstyles to remain in their sin? The cross is not about compromise or meeting halfway. The cross is about complete surrender. The cross is dying to ourselves and living free in Christ. Hating the things that God hates and loving the things that God loves. It's supernatural change of who we are and all our desires.

You should be calling those in homosexual and heterosexual sin to repent. Not to try and spritualize their behavior. But instead the Lutheran church is leaving these people in their bondage and trying to make them feel better about it.

letjusticerolldown

Apart from ethical conclusions about certain conduct---how do we work out our salvation? If God's Truth, if the Word Incarnate, if the Love of God is beyond our obedience and beyond the full grasp of our minds--how do we become more like him?

What is the role of our brothers and sisters, whom are imperfect, mistaken and incomplete most of the time (like me) in this journey? If it is fundamentally "faith, hope and love" that remain, with the greatest of these being love--how do we incarnate that??

Is it possible the apprehension of greater wisdom (the product of persevering obedience in submission to what we understand) lies within walking in loving care for each other before a holy and merciful God?

I think the post was about the journey--not about whether any particular party has arrived at the correct ethical conclusions along the way.