The Lutheran Church is a corporate body of believers with multiple expressions of one faith. There is the congregational expression, the conference expression, the synodical expression, the regional and churchwide expressions. What I mean is that as a church with a mission and a message (Jesus' way, truth, and life) we visibly express ourselves in communities. My congregation is one way. Another way is when synod's assemble annually---usually in the spring. We gather the 260 plus congregation's together by sending clergy and lay voting members to Gettysbuirg,PA to be the church for a few days. About 800 people gather. Our tasks: Worship, edification, and business. Here's what actually happens.
Pick a topic of global import today, something you'd like to think maybe God is attending to or dealing with in a hopeful and good way, through the work of the spirit in the church. What did you choose? Hunger? Poverty? Homelessness? War and peace? Care for creation/global warming? Deforestation? AIDS? Malaria? Sexual exploitation of women and children? Education in developing nations? Technology/media/business ethics? (Think isolation, privatization, outsourcing/slavery). Medical/health insurance ethics? (Think major profits vs. uninsured and underinsured Americans). Not too difficult to think of a few major issues facing our world today. Wonder if God cares? Wonder if God is doing something about the mess we're in?
Now for the major disconnect! In assembly we addressed none of these things. Not one. We did take a couple of offerings to continue supporting a school in Tanzania. But we said nothing about global warming and our culpability as carbon emmitters, wasters, and contributors to greenhouse gases. We said nothing in protest to the war we are fighting; not to mention anything remotely interesting about interreligious relations/dialogue. We did not take a stand on health insurance, technology, or sexual exploitation of anyone.
Now, I am guilty too. I did nothing, said nothing, enacted nothing. I regret that very much and intend to respond. I intend to call the synod to account. And I intend to take action to say something about these things which matter to most people.
What did we do? We argued about homosexual clergy and whether or not they should be allowed to serve, be ordained, and be in a mutul and faithful relationship. We argued about gay marriage. We argued about whether the church should discipline gay people who are practicing ordained ministry and are not celibate.
The closest we came to dealing with God's justice rolling down was when we decided to make "Fair Trade" a missional priority. (Mennonites have been hip to it for years.) basically you pay a fair price for goods sold through a non-profit coop in oder to assure that farmers receive a fair wage. It increases local economies and unfetters farmers from corporate fat cats who squeeze them to death. But other than fair trade, a non brainer issue, we said and did nothing.
So why didn't we take action? Our vision is too narrow. Pharisaism is rampant among leaders. Our grace is not grace. It is conditioned by a puritanical legalism that is not Lutheran. I am no antinomian. I believe the law is good.But not when it injures the neighbor. Mostly, we don't really care about what most people care about---thus reinforcing the dual claims of irrelevancy and hypocrisy.
Yes, our opinions would be diverse about many issues. How might we come to consensus? Discernment--a spiritual practice that requires prayerful listening to God's Word and the word on the streets wuold have to be practiced. We would have to view ourselves as a missional body with a message pertaining to the world's concerns. We would have to want to engage the world, actual people. We would not be allowed to create straw men to distract us from the real issues.
We would have to listen to Jesus. Perish the thought!
