Twenty-six years ago April 30, 1987, my husband Burton
and I drove from Dubuque to Columbus Ohio, where we, together with 2000 other
Lutherans from 3 church bodies attended the Constituting Convention of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America which would officially begin the
following January 1, 1988. I was teaching at Wartburg Seminary;
Burton was pastor of Grace Lutheran in East Dubuque. Burton and I wanted to be
at the beginning of the ELCA because we had been part of all three church
bodies over the years. We were part of the American
Lutheran Church. The ALC was strong in the upper Midwest. While living in New
England, where the Lutheran Church in America was strong, I had served an LCA
congregation. And each of us had entered Lutheran Churches as teenagers,
hearing the Gospel, through Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregations in
Iowa and California. A schism
in that church body in the 1970’s produced the AELC, the third predecessor
church body of the ELCA.
Preparation for the ELCA began in 1982. Many, many people would
work together for years towards this new beginning. Over 11 years I would be
part of four different tasks forces and commissions working on the New Lutheran
Church.
Today, 25 years later, we celebrate the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America, a church body with 4 million members and 10,000
congregations. It may be hard to imagine for some, or to remember, 25 years ago, most church conventions (what we called them then) were attended overwhelming by men. And the voices you heard most at the microphones were clergy. And rarely did one see a person of color. But the new ELCA adopted representational principles. At assemblies and on boards, commissions, task forces, we would have equal numbers of women and men. Lay and clergy voices would all be heard, and we would have people of color and whose first language was not English more represented. We needed to see and hear and learn from one another in new ways. And things changed overnight. Huge. But you know what? People didn’t become fearful. The opposite happened. We moved beyond the “token” stage, which in terms of race and gender and class is often more fear-producing. All of a sudden when we gathered, things now seemed “normal,” as though this is the way we were created to be, together in our differences, one body. That inclusion has grown. The challenge is to keep asking, “Who is not at the table? Who is not in our community?”
In the Gospel text this anniversary Sunday, September 8, 2013, Luke 14:25-33, large crowds were traveling with
Jesus and he turned and spoke to them. Five challenging phrases.
1. Whoever
comes to me, must hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and
sisters and life itself to be my disciple. Wait a minute. Isn’t Christianity
all about loving people? Especially one’s family? Well yes. Christ is
talking about the radical commitment of the call to discipleship. That fits
with what we just said. We came together and come together not just as a family
(In fact that term “family church” can sound exclusive) but from different
histories and heritages with those who are different from “my family.” The
verse preceding our anniversary verse from 2 Corinthians reads, “From now
on we regard no one from a human point of view.” We are connected to one
another in Christ. Not just Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Germans;
as our new presiding bishop, Elizabeth Eaton, said in a press interview recently,
not just all flavors of Jello, but now with
Latinos, Asians, national Africans, as a church body there are now different
foods at our potlucks. And during these 25 years we have established new
ecumenical partnerships and inter-faith dialogs. In a world of ethnic and
national strife, often violent, the problem is hating the other’s father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters and
loving mine. My family, My
school My neighborhood, my nation. As disciples of Christ, we are called to
care about land, water, good education and medical care, for all the world’s
neighbors, in Martin Luther King’s words, the Beloved global Community.
2. Whoever does not carry the
cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Being a Christian is not about
taking up the cross to lead a parade, or holding it higher than other
religions. It is about bearing the crosses as they come. In the past 25
years we have seen joys, but also more suffering than we could have imagined.
Picture some in your local congregation. Remember. And also in the systemic
injustices of society. In Christ, together,we carry one another in the midst
of a suffering world.
Being
part of the ELCA means being able to help out in disaster relief way beyond
what one congregation could do. Think over 25 years: Katrina, Haiti, the Malaria
campaign. From the Suffering Christ comes the church of the resurrection.
We are rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, his life, death, and
resurrection,” said David Swartling, ELCA secretary, at our recent churchwide
assembly in Pittsburgh. “We are a church
of the reformation. And the reformation is not only an historical event;
it is an ongoing process…We are a church of reconciliation. “Always being
made new.” Our anniversary verse follows
with: “All this is from God who reconciled us to Godself through Christ, and
has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ God was
reconciling the world to Godself…entrusting the message of reconciliation to
us. This is a new calling every single day.
3.Whoever does not estimate the cost. Otherwise when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him. This, of course, can have a very concrete meaning a congregations who may be in a building or remodeling process. But the challenge is deeper still. With the foundation on Christ,
disciples dare, wisely, courageously, collaboratively to be the building ones.
Since the ELCA began 25 years ago, 435 new congregations have officially
organized. Today there are 330 new starts currently under development,
including 56 new starts in 2012. ELCA
members kept their commitment that at least half of these new starts are in a
“situation of deep poverty” or part of “one of our ethnic strategies.”
Other group new starts
are “Jesus and Justice Ministries.” Can we finish? Can we begin?
The foundation is ready, Christ himself.
4. Or what
king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and
consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against
him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then while the other is still far
away he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. This is way too realistic
an image. We live in the world, these very days, where our President and the
Congress, and all citizens across the land must think about the cost of war and
the cost of the use of chemical weapons. What is our call to discipleship? How
do we as individuals, as faith communities, as a church body, study Scripture,
and carefully learn about and discuss world events together. It was not easy to
be disciples in the world 25 years ago or now. We, you and I, each
congregation, this church body are called into the world of church and state
issues, and as disciples in any situation, to be very wise, praying, and
thinking Christians.
5. So none of you
can become my disciples if you do not give up all your possessions. OK. This
text calls us to have a Giving-up Day? Not a Celebration? No--again, there’s
more to it. Jesus description of discipleship, on his way to the cross, is
about who and what possesses us. Therefore, to be in Christ, where everything is new, we are freed
to no longer be in bondage to our possessions. Alone we might say, “Just how much is enough,
Lord?” Together in Christ we have been able to do more than any of us alone could
have comprehended, imagined with our communal resources put to work in service
and mission. Celebrating means accepting challenges.
Celebrating means challenges. ELCA adopted the Social Statement, “The Church
and Criminal Justice: Hearing the Cries” by an overwhelming 882-25 vote.
The vote comes in the
midst of recent national debate on racial inequities in the criminal justice
system, racial profiling in stop and frisk policies, and mandatory maximum
sentencing.
The ELCA has ordained 7,500 pastors since 1988,
almost half of the active pastors on the clergy roster, and after the study of
ministry, we now have hundreds of associates in ministry, deaconesses and
diaconal ministers, many of whom studied at Wartburg Theological Seminary.
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