Liberal and Affirming

A couple of months ago I was asked by a respected colleague if I would like to speak at one of their weeknight worship services.  These services are supposed to be more casual, open to the public, and for the broader community more than for the congregation itself.  In fairness, he sent an email to all of the local faith leaders with whom he has a relationship in our community, asking if any of us would be interested in speaking.  I am a raging extrovert and I love public speaking opportunities.  I said "YES".  It would be in May.  I had time.  But I immediately began to think about what I might share there.  I thought I would talk about the Wittel Farm Growing Project, which I started and direct.  We farm a 40 acre piece of land in Elizabethtown, Lancaster County.  We plant, grow, and harvest with volunteers.  Last year about 500 volunteers served on the farm.  Everything we harvest is donated to Lancaster County food relief organizations.  We work with about a dozen food banks and pantries.  So I thought maybe I would tell the story of the farm and my leadership there.  (I left the family farm to follow a call to ordained ministry.  20 years later, I'm farming to fight hunger. Never thought I would put my farming experience to use in the church and community.  God has a sense of humor).  I love to tell this story and invite people to imagine how God might call them to use their gifts and experiences in life to serve neighbors.  Maybe I would mention what its like to be called to grow food, care for the land, and serve the earth during a time of climate and ecological crisis. Knowing that some evangelicals don't believe in climate change or a Christian call to Earthkeeping, I wondered if that would be acceptable or even heard. I believe that we learn when our perceptions and understandings are challenged.
A couple of weeks ago, my colleague emailed me.  He was embarrassed and apologetic.  It seems that I was the only faith leader who said "yes", but his worship team said "No thank you".  They did not accept my acceptance of his invitation because I am a liberal and I have taken an "affirming" position on social media regarding LGBTQ neighbors.  They did not want to affiliate with me.  Even when my colleagues assured them that I wouldn't seek to offend them, that was not enough.  They were worried that my presence in their building would be perceived to align them with a liberal supporter of LGBTQ rights, participation, and full inclusion in the Christian community.
My first response was, "Hey, a free evening!".  My second one was lament at how deeply divided the church has become in this culture.  We cannot be in the same room with one another when our biblical morality causes conflict.  We prefer the comfort of like-minded or "right-minded" friends.  The enemy is anyone who doesn't think like me or believe what I believe.  We focus on the things that separate us instead of the things that unite us, that we hold in common.  This is part of what is killing the church in the west.
I notice in the gospels that Jesus holds company with synagogue leaders and Pharisees, Samaritans and sinners.  He brings people together who supported Roman policies and hated Roman policies.  He was rejected and ejected from the synagogue.  He protested in the temple.  He debated religion with scholars.  He healed and included people kicked to the margins of society.  He challenged economic and ethnic norms that created inequality, poverty, and wealth.  He told people to give without expecting anything in return.  He fed hungry people without demanding employment.  He favored the underclass, the disadvantaged, and the overlooked.  He touched families that experienced grief.  He made people's broken lives whole.  He sought to give them a chance to live.  He longed for God's heavenly kingdom to be manifest on earth in the human community.  He enacted justice, liberation from suffering, and merciful inclusion of every marginal person.  From children to mentally ill ethnic non-Jews.  Jesus was a liberal in his social policy of love--of neighbor, enemy, God and one another. 
I am labeled in the community as a "liberal pastor."  And apparently that is bad, unchristian, unfaithful, evil.  If "love your neighbor as yourself" is a liberal policy, then what does it mean to be a conservative Christian? I am tired of the "evangelical conservative Christians" having the public microphone and telling the world that a Christian thinks and acts and sounds like them.  And that their values and concerns are exclusively Christian.  And that their moral judgments represent the whole Christian church. And that real Christians vote Republican and love Trump. I am tired of one-issue evangelicalism whose lithmus test for authenticity is the size of your church, the wealth and fame of your preacher, and your stance on sex and abortion.  (Related issues).  What of the Christians who led the abolition of slavery or civil rights or opposed the death penalty or oppose war or serve the poor or welcome the refugee or offer healing or serve the earth?  What about the Christians who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned, and  house the homeless?  Liberal Christians or progressives or the Christian left must build and announce a counter narrative, an alternative to the gospel of prosperity and exclusion that is poisoning the air we breathe and the waters in which we baptize.  I am a white, educated, cis-gendered heterosexual Christian man and I experience the privilege that offers me all the time.  I have voice and vote and leadership experiences and get- out- of- jail- free cards and access to people and places and things.   I'm usually the host of the meal and the head of the table, not the unwelcomed guest.  I can't even imagine what it is like to be excluded because of my race or gender or sexual orientation or religious faith.  But I am willing to become an ally, a friend, and a companion to those who do experience exclusion and oppression and hate because of who they are.  I am willing, because I'm a liberal or progressive Christian.  I'm willing to fight with and for people who are treated like crap by the church and the policymakers. 
I don't like labels, but I would rather be excluded for who I include than included for who I exclude.  I do believe in full inclusion, welcome, and the beloved status of every person.  I do believe the church is supposed to be a sanctuary for marginalized and oppressed peoples, minority groups, and those without the power to secure their own rights and protections under the law.  Black and brown bodies, women's bodies, LGBTQ bodies, addicted bodies, mentally and physically ill bodies, asylum seeking refugee bodies, poor and hungry and homeless bodies---these matter to God and to Jesus and to the church he builds.  I see how the church has harmed people by excluding them, rejecting them for who they are, and denying them a relationship with God.  I would bet that the church makes as many atheists as the world makes. People don't believe in a church whose god is abusive and hateful and inaccessible.  People long for a God who frees people from their captivity to prejudice and hatred.  A God who frees people to serve others, to experience the fullness of life in community, in which they are accepted, loved, respected, and cherished.  I intend to serve that God--the God of the prophets, the God of Jesus, the God of the apostles.  If love and grace and inclusion make me too liberal, then I will wear that!  Yes, I am a liberal pastor.  I stand in the long biblical tradition of the prophets and in the life of Jesus Christ; I long for the full and complete freedom and inclusion and vitality and health of every living person, every living thing in God's good creation. Until all are free, none are free.  To be free is to be accepted as God made you.  To be free is to be you.  To be free is to have agency and safety and access to sufficient provision.  To be free is to live without fear, without discrimination, without the threat of violence.  To be free is to have choice and to choose life, to choose mercy, to choose service, to choose to embrace others as beloved siblings.  Call me what you want, God has called me beloved child and servant.  Nothing matters more.