For almost fifty years I have lived comfortably within the church. And for almost fifty years I have loved the church. I still remember sitting in the pew, a small child of three or four - dwarfed by big shoulders embracing me on every side. I loved the music - the grand soaring chords of the organ. I loved the windows and the colors, the flowers and soft cushions. I loved the warm, full voice of the preacher and I loved the hushed silence - a silence that made me feel like I was part of something special - something that I didn't understand with my mind but which I already savored in my heart. Most of all, I loved the offering plates - those shiny brass bowls, lined with deep blue velvet, and filled with holy money. As ushers carried those plates forward, with my dime tucked into all those big bills, I sometimes imagined that I was curled up in that offering plate, that I was being offered to God. Perhaps, then, it is not strange that this church which I have loved for over fifty years is also the church that I have served as a Minister of Word and Sacrament for almost thirty. During all this time my love for the church has not diminished. But the quality of that love has had to change. Like most of us, I have had to learn that to love the church does not always mean to like the church - and that moments of soaring will always be matched with messy moments of slogging through the mud.
After all, the church is made up of people - people like you and people like me - with our peculiarities, with our stubborn opinions, with our self-inflated egos, with our anguished anxieties. And so, if we are to love the church, we need to start by loving each other and by loving the church as it really is. In her book, Holy the Firm, Annie Dillard writes: "There is one church here, so I go to it ... We had a wretched singer once, a hulking blonde girl with chopped hair. Nothing could have been more apparent than that God loved this girl, nothing could more surely convince me of God's unending mercy than the continued existence of the church."1 Yes, my friends, it is only by God's mercy that all of us, or any of us, exist. But exist we do with great variety and texture. When I served as Moderator of National Capital Presbytery, it was a pleasure to wander through the churches across the metro area - big churches and little churches, churches with fancy choirs and churches with slightly out-of-tune organs, churches with velvet cushions and stained glass, and churches with clean, clear windows and with worn wooden pews. Every congregation was wonderful. And no congregation was perfect.
The energy and joy was palpable at a merger service of two congregations - a sanctuary filled with hope and possibility. But afterward, when folks were munching their cookies and being real, their anticipation was clearly mixed with anxiety, and feelings of sadness and resentment easily crept into the language of hope and joy. The ordination of a new pastor at a Korean church took place in a packed sanctuary where the number of teenagers and children almost outnumbered the adults; a bursting, growing congregation, where the feast afterward could have fed the whole Presbytery. And yet, nothing is perfect. When the laying on of hands took place, the only female hands were mine as our Korean brothers and sisters continue to struggle with a gospel of inclusivity.
In congregation after congregation, earnest, hopeful, joyful faces watched as promises were made and covenants were sealed with new and eager pastors - and yet, in almost every instance, the average age of the congregation was way over the median age of the communities in which we live and serve. I have learned that there are a lot of Presbyterians in our metropolitan area who love the church - just as it is - warts and all. And I am encouraged. But, my friends, we are called not just to love the church as it is. We are also called to love the church as it might be, as it is called to be, as with the power of God it still can be.
Believe it or not, our Presbyterian Book of Order actually contains some inspirational language. Nowhere is that more apparent than in chapter 3, where the purpose of the church is described. In stark, strong language our constitution tells it like it is. "The Church of Jesus Christ is the provisional demonstration of what God intends for humanity." Note it does not say "can be" or "should be." It says "is." The church is the provisional demonstration of what God intends. Unlike some famous people we know, you and I don't have the privilege of quibbling over what the meaning of the word "is" is. Through baptism we are called to demonstrate the divine, and discipleship demands that we respond. The big question is, "How?" How are we to "demonstrate the divine"? How are we to embody Christ? John, with elegant electricity, gives us an answer. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. God's holy flesh pitched a tent in our midst - and in contrast to human flesh, full of self-promotion and deceit - this holy flesh was full of grace and truth. As always, biblical language about God is paradoxical: truth and grace; confrontation and caring; judgment and mercy; honesty and compassion; gracious generosity and harsh, demanding trustworthiness. John 1:14 defines the incarnation, the human/divine reality of Jesus. But it also defines us - the church - the resurrected Body of Christ on earth. Yes, John tells us how we are to "demonstrate the divine." We are called to embody a paradox - the paradox of grace and truth.
The fact that the Christian faith is paradoxical is a challenge. If opposite things are true, then the trick is to hold that opposition in balance - the truth of God with the grace of God. I think it is our inability - or perhaps our unwillingness - to struggle with this balancing act that has gotten our beloved Presbyterian church into so much trouble; that has prevented us from being that "provisional demonstration of what God intends for all of humanity."
Some of us weigh far too heavily in the direction of truth. In reaction to a world growing more diverse and more complex and more pluralistic, we have pulled in our horns and cracked down, drawing narrow boundaries, putting a straight jacket on the Spirit of the law in order to preserve the letter of the law. Forgetting that Jesus defied the law in order to fulfill the law, we all too often deify the law. Think about it. Jesus healed on the Sabbath, he touched menstruating women, he put the needs of children before the needs of adults, he preferred the companionship of sinners over saints. Jesus fulfilled the law by redefining the law - by turning rules into relationships. Jesus flexibly figured out in each situation how holy virtues and values could best be embodied - values of compassion and covenant and faithfulness and wholeness and justice and kindness and joy. But we, in a changing, chaotic world, are often too scared to follow him. More than anything else, I believe that the struggle about ordination of gays and lesbians is about this balance, or lack thereof, between grace and truth. Legislation to forbid ordination focuses on rules instead of values and virtues - defining sin as an act rather than condition. And as such we have begun to worship truth at the expense of grace. Let me give you another example. If two healthy, humble, faithful people want to make a covenant before God to be faithful to one another until death do them part - how can we prevent them just because they are homosexual? Is this focusing on law or "truth" at the expense of the Spirit or "grace"? Is this failing to honor the paradox of the Word who becomes flesh?
Yes, some of us weigh too heavily in the direction of truth. But, my friends, others of us weigh far too heavily in the direction of grace. In an effort to be open-minded and open-hearted, in our passion to be inclusive and welcoming, we have made God's grace gooey. The truth embodied in the Living Word has become emaciated. Rather than becoming an alternative community embodying an alternative vision, we have become a rubber stamp for the confused and chaotic world around us.
Now, we can - and must - authentically argue about whether homosexuality is a sin or a healthy sexual expression. But we must never argue about the absolute necessity of fidelity and monogamy and covenant faithfulness before God. We can authentically argue about how much of scripture is fact and how much is poetic metaphor. But we must never argue about the ultimate authority of scripture in our lives. We can authentically argue about the relative wisdom of Democratic or Republican public policy. But we must never argue about the centrality of honesty and integrity, accountability and trust as the rock bottom foundation of an ethical political system.
My friends, to "demonstrate the divine" means to embody the paradox of grace and truth. Truth without grace is cold and empty. But grace without truth is shapeless warmth that just dribbles away. Rita Snowden tells a story from World War II. In France, some soldiers brought the body of a dead comrade to a cemetery to have him buried. The priest gently asked whether their friend had been a baptized Catholic. The soldiers did not know. The priest sadly informed them that, in that case, he could not permit burial in the church yard. So the soldiers dug a grave just outside the cemetery fence. And they laid their comrade to rest. The next day the soldiers came back to add some flowers, only to discover that the grave was nowhere to be found. Bewildered, they were about to leave when the priest came up to speak to them. It seems that he could not sleep the night before, so troubled was he about his refusal to bury the soldier in the parish cemetery. So early in the morning he left his bed, and with his own hands he moved the fence in order to include the body of the soldier who had died for France. My friends, truth demands that we build fences. But grace demands that the shape of those fences be flexible.
As faithful Christians, we will continue to disagree about what defines truth and what defines grace. But we must not disagree that balancing the two is what we are called to do. In order to be "the provisional demonstration of what God intends for all humanity," we, as the church of Jesus Christ, are called to continue to enflesh God's Word with powerful truth and generous grace. This is our challenge within our individual lives, within the congregations we call home, and within this wonderful, imperfect body called the church of Jesus Christ.
May it be so - for you and for me. Amen.
1. From Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard in Cries Of The Spirit, ed. by Marilyn Sewell (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), p. 199.