HELLO!

I recall a conversation I had in a previous church, where I was supporting an older couple, whose son had died. The son was a trucker, always on the road. His community were fellow truckers, they were tight. His best friend, also a trucker, was designed to offer the Words of Remembrance. This friend was not a church goer. He had grown up in the church and thought he knew our church culture. He wanted to talk with me about his eulogy. “Pastor, I want to talk about my friend, and I want to use the words we shared. Some of them are “blue words”. Do you have a problem with that?” I explained that for the purpose of this funeral and the awareness we all had of their bond, we would be fine with that. He responded, “Oh, so in the United Church everything is OK?” “No it isn’t”, I replied. “To clarify, do you plan to say words that are homophobic, racist, sexist?” “I don’t”, he replied. “Then we are fine”, I added. I explained the United Church IS NOT OK with everything, we are very tough minded on language, thought and action where vulnerable people are targeted. Jesus stood with the oppressed, so should we. The United Church has the track record to back this up, the first church to ordain women, gays and lesbians. Diversity and inclusion are our mission words.

Some other denominations portray the United Church as “too influenced by the world”. But I push back, to churches that connect worldly success (wealth) with piety and belief, as having very little to do with the stories we find about Jesus and the early church in the Bible. Displaying wealth and privilege as signs of God’s favour strikes me as “worldly”. And it seems odd to me that the one issue, of all the possible issues to think about, that makes conservative churches cry “worldly” is sexuality, who loves who. How odd, to choose that one, not greed, not poverty, not injustice, only sexuality seems to be “worldly”. And then people reference churches as “judgemental” or “Non-judgemental” I am quick to add that Jesus was very judgemental (Matthew 25) but not on the issues of race, gender, wealth, ethnicity, instead, on greed and selfishness. I am not sure I am keen to listen to a sermon explaining God does not care what we do, how we treat others. Surely this is what pure non-judgementalism means. God has a bias for the poor, the marginalized, and when Jesus speaks about how people mistreat those whom God is biased toward, Jesus will throw money changers out of the temple, call the pious “hypocrites”, John the Baptist will say “You brood of Vipers”.

I once represented the Presbytery on a Search Committee looking for their new minister. When I asked the committee, “What do you understand is the minister’s primary job,” one member answered, “To make us happy.” “To serve our needs,” somebody else chimed in. I replied, “The minister’s job is not to make you happy. The minister’s job is to serve the mission of the church.” It’s not all about me. It’s not all about my needs. It should go without saying that the chronically self-involved have no interest in serving the needs of others. My approach to church servant/leadership is help cultivate the Spirit that puts its faith in something larger than ourselves. The deeper the faith, the more I see others as kin. The temptation to be “worldly” is less about the pious words I share and more about the relationships I build in Jesus’ name.

Peace, Kevin